My date with Julie Andrews

So I was at a party last night in a swanky highrise in Lincoln Park. I didn’t really know the hosts, and when I got there I realized I barely knew any of the guests. The Old Jake would panic in a situation like this, but the New Jake embraced it, forcing himself to make small talk with a whole bunch of new people.

I eventually found myself sitting with some of my newfound friends on an overstuffed morel-colored chenille sofa in a comfy library-like room—when suddenly a woman sat down next to me and said hello with a very familiar-sounding British accent. I turned to say hello back and found myself sitting face-to-face with Julie Andrews. As in Julie Freakin’ Andrews. As in Oh My God I’m Sitting On An Overstuffed Morel-Colored Chenille Sofa With Julie Freakin’ Andrews!

Not wanting to come off as one of the drooling, fawning fans she no doubt finds so ubiquitous and so annoying, I made casual small talk with her, slyly managing to work into the conversation the fact that I’d been a professional singer/dancer/actor as well. (I really wanted to talk about how hot Christpher Plummer was in "The Sound of Music" and maybe see if I could get her to confess to having a nose job after seeing how lumpy her nose looked when they sang "Something Good" in silhouetted profile out by that charming little gazebo. But I was a model of restraint.) She seemed suitably impressed by everything I had to say, and she kept making small talk back. And it became increasingly obvious that she liked me. Julie. Andrews. Liked. Me. And the whole time we sat there getting to know each other, my brain kept racing to one thing: I can’t wait to get home and write about this in my blog!

You read that right, dear readers: I was more excited about telling you that I was New Best Friends With Julie Andrews than I was about telling my family or my physically present friends that she and I had spent an evening having a lovely conversation on an overstuffed morel-colored chenille sofa.

Our friendly reverie was suddenly interrupted by a piercing alarm—and my first thought was that not only were we New Best Friends, but I was about to become The Hero Who Saved Julie Andrews From A Chicago Highrise Fire.

But nobody seemed to hear the alarm but me. And actually, instead of freaking out and running around screaming, everyone at the party started fading to a misty gray.

And suddenly, wave after wave of reality started washing over me:

1) I had not, in fact, been chatting with Julie Andrews on an overstuffed morel-colored chenille sofa at a party in a swanky highrise in Lincoln Park.

2) I don’t, in fact, have any friends who live in swanky Lincoln Park highrises who invite me to parties and who run in the same social circles as Julie Andrews. (This wave of reality hurt the most.)

3) I am 47 kinds of gay for dreaming that I’d become New Best Friends with Julie Andrews—and another 23 kinds of gay for being so freakin’ excited about it.

4) I had just had my first dream about blogging.

5) I really hate the sound of my alarm.