Bursting with Surprise.

I don't think my love for Sondheim has a depth.

I've listened to Evening Primrose probably a hundred times. I know basically every word by heart, and, during my obsession-with-Neil-Patrick-Harris phase, there wasn't a second when at least his songs weren't blaring from my speakers.

But today, while driving around Palmdale, the air conditioner on full blast and the volume turned up louder than the air coursing through the vents, I was brought to tears by the beauty of this piece, by the simple, incredible, gorgeous poetry that Sondheim has constructed, and the way that poetry sits on the music and on the voices of Neil and Theresa McCarthy or, in today's case, Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. I honestly cannot think of anything at this precise moment that is more beautiful or breathtaking than the four songs that comprise the score.

Things in life are so uncertain, and there are so many highs and lows, but the one constant in my life for the past seven years, since I sat in a little theatre in West Virginia and saw a production of Into the Woods and bawled my way through "No One Is Alone," has been my love of the music of Stephen Sondheim. He was there when I was lonely, when I was confused, when I came out, when I didn't get along with my parents and almost completely lost track of my life, when I regained it, when I grew up.

This is the nerdiest post anyone has ever seen, but, honestly, the boundaries of my connection to his music do not exist.