I didn’t really know anybody by the time the first pride parade happened soon after I moved to Chicago

So I went by myself to watch it. And, standing among thousands and thousands of cheering, smiling, happy, proud people who were watching with groups of friends and waving at other friends who squeezed by on the crowded sidewalks, I never felt more alone.

It was actually so devastating in my mind that pride weekend literally filled me with dread for the next 15 years I lived in Chicago.

I did notice that first year that the people dancing and waving on the floats looked very happy—and they didn’t have to be surrounded by friends or even anybody as they enjoyed the parade from their glorified perches. So I made up my mind that I needed to make the connections to get myself on a float by the next pride parade.

As I slowly—finally!—made Chicago friends and watched the next few parades with them, I still harbored an irrational, unshakable dread that I’d lose them—or they’d actually leave me—and I’d be alone all over again in the crowds. So I kept trying to figure out how to get myself on a float.

Then I joined the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus. And we marched in the parade! But not on a float. And I very very stupidly decided to wear my rollerblades and they hurt and I was bad at stopping so I kept running into people and I was so miserable I had to hobble home the moment it was over so I couldn’t hang out and celebrate with anyone afterward so as far as I’m concerned the whole experience didn’t count and I don’t want to talk about it.

Then! Finally! I got on a float! And let me tell you: Though standing in a Speedo sucking in your abs and holding on for dear life on a lurching, frequently stopping vehicle technically sucks all the fun out of it, having hundreds of millions (in my fantasies my math says I have hundreds of millions of adoring fans so shut up) of people screaming and cheering for you is ALMOST as awesome as dancing and waving high on a moving platform where the cooling breezes are plenty, the jostling crowds are penned up on the sidewalks below you and the scenery changes by the second to keep everything interesting.

Plus you get to dance to your favorite disco hits.

I got myself onto many more floats for the rest of my years in Chicago. The weather was always perfect, my cheering, adoring fans swelled into the billions (shut up), and the joy and pride were always plenty. And my irrational dread—though never gone—was always in check.

Today is Chicago’s pride parade. My Facebook and Instagram feeds are filled with joyful, excited, rainbow-colored, mostly shirtless pictures of my Chicago friends and acquaintances already celebrating, and while I’m thrilled and proud to have (eventually) been a part of those traditions, our dramatically more subdued Cedar Rapids pride festival next weekend is now WAY more my speed. And not my Speedo.

So I wish all of you celebrating pride in Chicago today—whether on the sidewalks or on a float—an awesome day and an awesome experience both personally and with everyone around you. I’ll be happily painting my room—and no doubt dancing to my favorite disco hits and/or belting to my favorite show tunes—instead. And we all can’t stop the music.

Well apparently I’m never going upstairs again.

Bitch Kitty’s powers are so strong that not only have they imprisoned me in my basement dungeon until a handsome prince (preferably wearing a speedo and singing show-tune duets in a comfortable key) comes to rescue me, but they’ve also turned our staircase walls into shiny molten caramel.

So apparently I’ve consistently been pretty naked on stage every January since time immemorial

because Facebook just gave me THIS memory from seven years ago when I tapped to “Rubber Ducky” in a flesh-colored speedo covered in soap-suds-colored tulle with a bunch of equally almost-naked tappers wearing rubber-duckie butts:

Pro tip: Never tap in the presence of bubbles ... unless you want to put yourself at risk for slipping during your Maxie Fords, breaking every bone in your body and ending up in the ER wearing nothing but soap-suds-colored tulle.

Hello, 1980s glasses frames with old prescriptions in them that I just found while I was (don’t ask why) looking for all my old Speedos

And no, that isn’t my sister’s 1980s senior photo behind my head as I pose next to my own 1980s senior photo to provide historical context for my 1980s glasses frames. It’s just a weird shadow.

I didn’t really know anybody by the time the first pride parade happened soon after I moved to Chicago

So I went by myself to watch it. And, standing among thousands and thousands of cheering, smiling, happy, proud people who were watching with groups of friends and waving at other friends who squeezed by on the crowded sidewalks, I never felt more alone.

It was actually so devastating in my mind that pride weekend literally filled me with dread for the next 15 years I lived in Chicago.

I did notice that first year that the people dancing and waving on the floats looked very happy—and they didn’t have to be surrounded by friends or even anybody as they enjoyed the parade from their glorified perches. So I made up my mind that I needed to make the connections to get myself on a float by the next pride parade.

As I slowly—finally!—made Chicago friends and watched the next few parades with them, I still harbored an irrational, unshakable dread that I’d lose them—or they’d actually leave me—and I’d be alone all over again in the crowds. So I kept trying to figure out how to get myself on a float.

Then I joined the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus. And we marched in the parade! But not on a float. And I very very stupidly decided to wear my rollerblades and they hurt and I was bad at stopping so I kept running into people and I was so miserable I had to hobble home the moment it was over so I couldn’t hang out and celebrate with anyone afterward so as far as I’m concerned the whole experience didn’t count and I don’t want to talk about it.

Then! Finally! I got on a float! And let me tell you: Though standing in a Speedo sucking in your abs and holding on for dear life on a lurching, frequently stopping vehicle technically sucks all the fun out of it, having hundreds of millions (in my fantasies my math says I have hundreds of millions of adoring fans so shut up) of people screaming and cheering for you is ALMOST as awesome as dancing and waving high on a moving platform where the cooling breezes are plenty, the jostling crowds are penned up on the sidewalks below you and the scenery changes by the second to keep everything interesting.

Plus you get to dance to your favorite disco hits.

I got myself onto many more floats for the rest of my years in Chicago. The weather was always perfect, my cheering, adoring fans swelled into the billions (shut up), and the joy and pride were always plenty. And my irrational dread—though never gone—was always in check.

Today is Chicago’s pride parade. My Facebook and Instagram feeds are filled with joyful, excited, rainbow-colored pictures of my Chicago friends and acquaintances already celebrating, and while I’m thrilled and proud to have (eventually) been a part of those traditions, our dramatically more subdued Cedar Rapids pride festival in two weeks is now WAY more my speed. And not my Speedo.

So I wish all of you celebrating pride in Chicago today—whether on the sidewalks or on a float—an awesome day and an awesome experience both personally and with everyone around you. I’ll be happily cleaning the garage—and no doubt dancing to my favorite disco hits—instead. And we all can’t stop the music.

Inching back to normal one quarter mile at a time

My clumsy myopic-camel-struggling-to-avoid-potholes-on-a-three-wheeled-skateboard new running gait that my PT showed me + two quarter-mile walk breaks + a refreshing rainstorm + the benevolent run-on-my-injured-hip’s-terms patience of Rob and Scott = THREE SAD LITTLE 12:18-MINUTE MILES, BABY! Plus only a bit of hip pain at the very end. Plus some extremely waterlogged clothes. Plus some sexy just-out-of-the-lap-pool-in-a-Speedo hair. Plus a triumphant selfie in front of Rob’s midlife-crisis Ford Edsel. Or whatever.

#HowToTurn50 #Ouch

I just had my six-week psychiatrist checkup

(I'm still crazypants biploar but things continue to be stable and we're not altering my meds this time, thanks for asking) and when my psychiatrist met me in the waiting room she asked me if it was OK if a residency doctor observed my visit and of course I said yes because I'm clearly not a hide-my-crazypants-biploarness person and when we got to her office and she opened the door and he was politely standing there waiting to shake hands and introduce himself OH MY GOD HE WAS TALL AND HANDSOME AND LET'S NOT MINCE WORDS HERE HOT HOT HOT and we sat down for my visit but I kept looking over at his let's still not mince words here sexy forearms because that's all I could see besides his face because he rudely wasn't wearing a Speedo and WHY ARE YOU SO HOT STOP DISTRACTING ME and we talked about all the usual stuff like my moods and my appetite and my feelings of control and my ability to concen OH MY GOD I CAN'T CONCENTRATE BECAUSE JUST LOOK AT HIM HE'S TOO HOT TO WALK THIS EARTH trate and any side effects of my meds (still lingering exhaustion, but thankfully it's not 24 hours a day like it has been) and is there anything else I think would be relevant to tell her WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO ME HAVE YOU EVEN NOTICED THE LET'S AGAIN NOT MINCE WORDS HERE HOT HOT HOT MAN WHO'S ABOUT TO BE A DOCTOR AND I THINK WE CAN ALL AGREE IT WOULD BE A VERY GOOD THING FOR ME TO MARRY A DOCTOR AND HE'S SITTING IN THAT CHAIR RIGHT THERE SO CLOSE I COULD STARE AT HIM FOR HOURS WHOOPS I JUST DID and I said that I've actually ramped up the activities in my life like Follies rehearsals and editing a massive book pro bono and making my bedroom renovation finally really start to happen and cleaning out the storage room in our basement AND WHY WHY WHY DOES THIS INSANELY HANDSOME MAN HAVE TO KNOW I'M CRAZYPANTS BIPOLAR PLUS NOW HAVE A DOCTOR-PATIENT RELATIONSHIP WITH ME BECAUSE THAT PRETTY MUCH GUARANTEES THAT'S THE ONLY KIND OF RELATIONSHIP WE'LL EVER HAVE BUT HOLY SHIT WE'D LOOK HANDSOME IN OUR WEDDING PHOTOS and she gave me some more free samples of my really expensive medication and we scheduled my next six-week visit AND FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS GOOD AND HOLY MAKE SURE HE'S STILL RESIDENTING WITH YOU WHEN I GET BACK IN SIX WEEKS and I think we had a really productive visit.

Flashback Friday: Jingle Balls Edition

I don’t mean to dig up old photos of my younger, speedo-waisted self in a speedo (whoops!) but a photo me running Chicago’s first annual big gay Santa Speedo Run in 2011 made it in the TimeOut Chicago events calendar promoting the second annual Santa Speedo Run in 2012.
(*cheers and applause woooo*)

Now it’s 2017 and I just slept through the gym and I’ll probably eat Chips Ahoy!s for breakfast.
(*Diet Cokes and burps woooo*)

Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!

I’m finally going through the crates and crates of Christmas decorations that I amassed over my 15 years in Chicago so I can send the stuff back to my ex that he wants, keep the stuff that I want and give the rest to Goodwill in a seasonally timely manner. And I’m both amazed and appalled that I/we (but mostly I because I was the one with the decorating addiction) managed to collect SEVEN Santa hats. Aside from doing Boystown’s annual Santa Speedo Run a couple times, we had no other earthly reason to own more than two Santa hats. And why is our irresponsible surplus of Santa hats an odd number? What does this say about us as holiday consumers?

This will haunt me way longer than my childhood fear of enormously heavy reindeer crashing through our roof.

Legs and lists

1. Leg day.

2. Ouch.
3. Also: 20 minutes on the elliptical.
4. Also: alarmingly large puddles of sweat.
5. I found this shirt on the bottom of the pile this morning.
6. It's unflatteringly tight around my tummy.
7. Which is probably why it was on the bottom.
8. I used to run through the gayborhoods of Chicago in a Speedo every December.
9. I also used to own a red Speedo that fit over my hips.
10. Leg day. Also: 20 minutes on the elliptical.

Flashback Friday: All The Single Ladies Edition

Fun fact: I am not always the paragon of body-image-unattainable hypermasculinity that people know me for. In fact, I once sang a show tune.

And apparently eight years ago, while making my first-ever visit to the best-porch-on-earth Rehoboth beach house of some D.C. friends, I was inspired by the fact that all of us at the house owned black Speedos -- I know! An entire population of gay men who all own black Speedos? What are the odds? -- to teach a group of complete strangers -- who are curiously still all my friends -- a chunk of the "Single Ladies" choreography that we could use as a surprise performance at a pop-music-themed costume party ... all in the space of an afternoon. I convinced these poor men to go group shopping for matching black tank tops and enormous black pumps to replicate the bodysuits and combat heels from the Beyoncé video, and with the help of the magic of YouTube and the trusting patience of a group of guys who I again remind you were pretty much total strangers, we pushed aside the furniture, gamely donned our pumps and collectively put the proverbial ring on it:

Yes, there is extant video. No, I don't care to search around and find it for you.

We had intended to just casually announce at the party that we had a little performance we'd like to give and maybe uh-oh-oh in front of a few happen-to-be-nearby people in a corner, but imagine our surprise -- IMAGINE OUR SURPRISE! -- when we got to the party and discovered a CARPETED RUNWAY leading from the sidewalk to a FREAKING STAGE at the edge of the enormous back patio where probably a hundred pop-music-costumed people were watching expectantly as a Wynonna Judd drag queen emcee introduced each new group of guests to the party.

Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

Word spread instantly that my new beheeled and bespeedoed friends and I actually had an act to perform, and without even letting these guys have a moment to be nervous or offer up our own music, a random guest's iPhone was plugged into the sound system, the song was started from his iTunes library -- I know! How on earth did we manage to find a gay man with "Single Ladies" cued up on his iPhone at a moment's notice? -- and we all put our hands up, up in the club and started uh-oh-ohing to wild cheers ... until the iPhone playing our music suddenly got a call and the music abruptly stopped and we were left standing there mid-uh-oh-oh blinking blankly into the crowd until the iPhone owner could turn off the ringer and start the song again from the beginning and we could fully embrace our second chance to freaking ROCK OUR RED-CARPET RUNWAY ENTRANCE.

And that, my friends, is how you put gloss on your lips and a man on your hips and make an entrance-making show to an entire beach town of strangers that you have a sensitive side to your paragon of body-image-unattainable hypermasculinity. And uh-oh-oh you can't be mad at me.

Flashback Friday: Saucy Ankle Edition

The 2008 Atlantis Freedom Cruise -- a gay cruise where we were all held hostage in a zero-carb, all-Speedo environment for a week on a ship ironically named Freedom of the Seas -- included the opportunity to fake surf and for-real wipe out no matter how hard you hold on in front of a line of impatient guys who really want you to wipe out soon so they get a chance to try it. I remember this FlowRider -- yes, that's the name -- experience to be both totally fun and totally not worth it, given the wait-in-line-time-vs-the-time-it-takes-to-wipe-out ratio.

But I sure did have a saucy ankle back then.