'Hamilton' won a Tony Award and its creator gave so much love to Orlando.
'Love is Love is Love is Love is Love'
On the morning of June 12, 2016, America woke up to heartbreak: the largest mass shooting in the country's history at an LGBTQ dance club in Orlando.
What happened is a hate crime, a terrorist attack, and a national tragedy. But on Broadway, as in life, the show must go on. And the Tony Awards, Broadway's annual celebration, filled the stage at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.
Both places, dance clubs and Broadway, have long been safe havens where LGBTQ people have been free to express themselves without judgement. And so while these two events could not be more different, tonight's show holds a special significance. It gives the artists of Broadway a chance to further honor the community that has been a part of them for so long, which was so cruelly targeted in Orlando.
At this year's Tony Awards, Lin-Manuel Miranda's phenomenon "Hamilton" is winning nearly every other award.
He's likely to give many speeches tonight, but his first speech, for best musical score, has already hit the right notes.
When Miranda won big at the Tony Awards in 2008 for "In the Heights," he freestyled his thank-you speech. But tonight demanded something different. So instead, he wrote a sonnet and somehow managed, in just 16 lines, to say everything we needed to hear.
He started by thanking his wife, Vanessa Nadal, but quickly turned his moment of thanks into a poetic tribute on the searing events of the past 24 hours, incorporating the #loveislove rallying cry that's been ricocheting around Twitter all evening in support of the LGBTQ community.
Read his words below:
"My wife’s the reason anything gets done.
She nudges me towards promise by degrees.
She is a perfect symphony of one,
our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us,
until they’re finished songs and start to play,
when senseless acts of tragedy remind us
that nothing here is promised — not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers
we live through times where hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall, and light from dying embers:
remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love
is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa’s symphony, Eliza tells her story.
Now fill the world with music, love, and pride."



A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
An office kitchen.via
An angry man eating spaghetti.via 
Gif of baby being baptized
Woman gives toddler a bath Canva


An Irish woman went to the doctor for a routine eye exam. She left with bright neon green eyes.
It's not easy seeing green.
Did she get superpowers?
Going to the eye doctor can be a hassle and a pain. It's not just the routine issues and inconveniences that come along when making a doctor appointment, but sometimes the various devices being used to check your eyes' health feel invasive and uncomfortable. But at least at the end of the appointment, most of us don't look like we're turning into The Incredible Hulk. That wasn't the case for one Irish woman.
Photographer Margerita B. Wargola was just going in for a routine eye exam at the hospital but ended up leaving with her eyes a shocking, bright neon green.
At the doctor's office, the nurse practitioner was prepping Wargola for a test with a machine that Wargola had experienced before. Before the test started, Wargola presumed the nurse had dropped some saline into her eyes, as they were feeling dry. After she blinked, everything went yellow.
Wargola and the nurse initially panicked. Neither knew what was going on as Wargola suddenly had yellow vision and radioactive-looking green eyes. After the initial shock, both realized the issue: the nurse forgot to ask Wargola to remove her contact lenses before putting contrast drops in her eyes for the exam. Wargola and the nurse quickly removed the lenses from her eyes and washed them thoroughly with saline. Fortunately, Wargola's eyes were unharmed. Unfortunately, her contacts were permanently stained and she didn't bring a spare pair.
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Since she has poor vision, Wargola was forced to drive herself home after the eye exam wearing the neon-green contact lenses that make her look like a member of the Green Lantern Corps. She couldn't help but laugh at her predicament and recorded a video explaining it all on social media. Since then, her video has sparked a couple Reddit threads and collected a bunch of comments on Instagram:
“But the REAL question is: do you now have X-Ray vision?”
“You can just say you're a superhero.”
“I would make a few stops on the way home just to freak some people out!”
“I would have lived it up! Grab a coffee, do grocery shopping, walk around a shopping center.”
“This one would pair well with that girl who ate something with turmeric with her invisalign on and walked around Paris smiling at people with seemingly BRIGHT YELLOW TEETH.”
“I would save those for fancy special occasions! WOW!”
“Every time I'd stop I'd turn slowly and stare at the person in the car next to me.”
“Keep them. Tell people what to do. They’ll do your bidding.”
In a follow-up Instagram video, Wargola showed her followers that she was safe at home with normal eyes, showing that the damaged contact lenses were so stained that they turned the saline solution in her contacts case into a bright Gatorade yellow. She wasn't mad at the nurse and, in fact, plans on keeping the lenses to wear on St. Patrick's Day or some other special occasion.
While no harm was done and a good laugh was had, it's still best for doctors, nurses, and patients alike to double-check and ask or tell if contact lenses are being worn before each eye test. If not, there might be more than ultra-green eyes to worry about.