January adventures

1) I cooked dinner for The Cuddler last night. And I didn’t burn it. (The funny thing is he actually watched me cook—with great intensity—as though I knew what I was doing and he might learn something. The joke’s on him, though; I can make exactly three things—all of which usually turn out dry and tasteless—and he’ll get nothing but disappointment if he’s looking to me for a culinary education.) After dinner, he indulged me in my newest obsession: an hour on the couch wrapped—BONUS!—in each other’s arms watching CSI. So you can tell right there he’s good people.

2) I’ve seen some amazing stuff on stage in the last few days. Last week Eric and I got comp tickets to see Dance Chicago, a festival of the best work by the best companies in the city. I am now madly in love with Melissa Thodos & Dancers, especially their works choreographed by Paul Christiano, who uses bodies both as props and as instruments of expression—all with a bold, breathtaking synergy of kinetic energy and poetry. The show also featured some kick-ass, bone-rattling, pound-the-floorboards tap by M.A.D.D. Rhythms. Tap rocks. Especially the way this group does it.

Then this week Matt and I saw All Shook Up, a cheesy musical working its way to Broadway next month. A blatant ripoff of the Mama Mia! format—a silly story written to string together a canon of unrelated songs by one artist (in this case, Elvis instead of ABBA)—the show is eminently predictable, sillier than most but a whole lot of fun. And it features some fabulous sets and powerhouse singing, especially from this handsome fella, whose golden voice is eclipsed only by the piercing beauty of his eyes.

3) I take off Wednesday morning for five days in Iowa with my family. On the docket for this visit: spending a day with my nephew’s kindergarten class, watching my niece’s hit-buckets-with-spoons music class, hours and hours of canasta with any available adult, quality lap time with either of two very friendly kittens, Mom’s home cooking (which, unlike mine, has actual flavor), and a stop at my favorite grocery store (what kind of freak has a favorite grocery store?) on the way home to stock up on milk that costs less than $4 a gallon.

4) The lipo is healing better than I’d expected. I’m happy with the results as they are now, and my doctor says there’s still two more months for the “considerable” swelling to go down. So my waist is only going to get smaller. (But I’m not breaking out the International Male catalogs until I know just what my new measurements will be.) I consider myself fully healed, save for a tiny bit of tightness and some residual numbness around my midsection, and I’m working out at about 90% intensity. The best part: My sad little butt looks almost … butt-like now that it’s not hidden under a gooey pile of love handles.

5) I’m choreographing some numbers for a drag show (January 29 around 8 pm at Hydrate, if you want to go) that’s a fund-raiser for the Chicago Spirit Brigade. My dancers are working their butts off and looking pretty fierce—and the go-go boys backing up one of the numbers are smokin’ hot. And I can make them do whatever touching-each-other-in-sexual-ways things touching-each-other-in-sexual-ways things I want because I am the all-powerful choreographer! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

6) I just wrote my name in the snow.