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Learn from my experience.

Never organize your photo albums while watching Fear Factor.

The old boy's still got it.

Though it jiggles in a few places he doesn't like.

I ran today for the first time since that fateful August day when I made it barely across the street before having to limp home to months of physical therapy. And I got in a full four miles tonight—which pleased me to no end. Thankfully, there was no sign of pain in the hip that has caused me so much trouble over the last two months ... but my knees sure weren't liking the workout.

I'm on a mission to get back to my fighting weight ASAP; Manuel is going to take some physique shots of me just as soon as my abs reappear. So I've been carb-free since 5:03.

Four Fags at Six Flags

Day two of Jake and Dan's Weekend of Fun found us at Six Flags with Matt and Steve. It was Matt's company's private corporate day at the park, so the lines were relatively short, and the day was packed with adventure. Our first adventure was the new Superman–Ultimate Flight—the roller coaster where you get strapped into your seat, the floor drops and you get rotated 90 degrees so you're stomach-down and ready to "fly" through the ride's many twists and turns. The ride is spectacular, but it broke while we were riding it. The breakage didn't affect our flying experience, but when we got back to the loading station we were left hanging (literally) face-down over the staging area for a good 20 minutes until the pokey ride engineers waddled up to fix it. And since it was kind of cold, I had a runny nose. So I left a bit of a puddle by the time we were rescued and able to stand vertically again.

We spent the rest of the day doing the usual amusement park stuff: riding all the cool roller coasters, eating really crappy food, scoping out the small handful of cute guys in the park and playing Whack-a-Mole. And I experienced my first bungee jump. Daredevil Dive, as it's called at Six Flags, isn't your typical bungee experience; you strap yourself into a body bag-type thing before you get hooked to the cord (saving a step later in the process should things go wrong) and—I guess we didn't learn our lesson on the Superman ride—you're suspended face-down before you're hoisted about a million miles in the air. Then you pull your own rip cord, plummet to almost certain death, and swing in the wind whooping and screaming like a big girl. (At least that's how I did it.) And since it was cold and windy and I was strapped to Dan as we jumped, I got major skydiving flashbacks through the whole experience. And now we're all psyched to jump again next year.

We left the park at 4 and raced back to Chicago so Matt and I could make it to rehearsal. We now have all the music for our Christmas show, and I got assigned to choreograph a tap number and a disco number (you know—like they did at the first Christmas). After rehearsal I hit Ping Pong with Shawn and Rich for some fabulous pan-Asian fare.

Then I had the brilliant idea to catch the Red Line home at the Addison stop. You know: The one right by Wrigley Field. On the night the Cubs beat the Braves in their first post-season NL Division Series win since 1908. So I got to cap off my day with a ride on the Drunken Fan Train. Woo-hoo!

Big Fag Day

I got up at the ungodly weekend hour of 6:30 this morning to roadtrip with Dan to his old Indiana stomping grounds—and we spent eight full hours shivering our asses off together watching some amazing performances at the 2003 District Marching Band Festival. We both have long and distinguished high-school marching band careers; I played trombone and mallet percussion, and Dan played saxophone and eventually became his school's drum major (a title I never got to claim because I was "too valuable" as a musician, but I'm not bitter).

A few observations about marching bands, then vs. now:

1) I remember marching band being about pride in our skills and good-natured competition among our city's schools. Now it seems to be a blood sport.

2) Our drum majorettes wore cute little drum majorette outfits complete with epaulets and tasseled boots. Now the majorettes literally wear evening-length couture complete with opera gloves and velvet capes.

3) When I was in high school, the bands programmed their field shows around themes like famous musicals or Latin music. Now they do abstract "concept" shows inspired by obscure emotions and march to the 5/4 nightmares of Gustav Holst.

4) I don't remember our band parents being as rabid as the parents I saw today. (See observation #1.)

5) I also don't remember spending gazillions of dollars on props and set pieces and matching marimbas ... and all that couture. (See observation #2.)

Frozen extremities notwithstanding (does prolonged shivering count as cardio?), we had a great day, and I was repeatedly amazed by the talents (and manifest dedication) displayed by the musicians and color guard members we watched. Best of all, we spent the 2+ hour drive each way singing along with Bette, Barbra and a host of show-tune CDs.

We were going to cap off the day with Jake and Dan's Night of Raunchy Leather-Bar Hopping, but we're cold and tired—and we exchanged a ton of CDs we want to burn to our hard drives. (Barbra is being ripped as I type this.)

Last night started with a fabulous dinner with Matthew from the chorus, then we retired to his equally fabulous Gold Cost condo for a couple hours of conversation over sparkling water and designer chocolates. Mmm!

I got home late and slept until 11—so it's a good thing I took today as a comp today as payback for some long-ass hours I put in at work a few weeks ago. It's rainy and cold and generally crappy outside today, which makes it an ideal day to stay in and valiantly struggle to organize five years' worth of photos and clippings and reviews into the pile of photo albums that have been gathering dust in the corner since I moved here.

You'd be amazed how many pictures of cats I found. I haven't had a cat in three years.

VERY garlic-y pizza (which is a good thing) and a Queer Eye rerun last night with Paul and his roommates Brandon and Mike, who popped in and out as we sat enthralled for like the seventh time by the gay magic of Butch's transformation.

This afternoon I go in for a preliminary evaluation to see if I'm a good candidate for LASIK surgery—even though paying for it is really just a pipe dream. Maybe I could have a bake sale.

MORON.

From playing Pirates to playing Packers in just three days

Chris, Bill and I met for drinks tonight at a dive bar around the corner from our office. It was a total guys' night out, complete with beer and salty bar snacks and talk about chicks—except I was always available to help keep things nice and gay.

After Chris took off to catch his train to the suburbs, Bill invited me over to his place to watch the first Bears game in the newly refurbished Soldier Field—which, contrary to popular opinion, I kind of like. Yes, it looks like a giant toilet bowl/space ship parked inside the shell of the old Soldier Field, but the two elements provide a spirited dialogue between the stately, controlled march of the original columns and the swirling, asymmetrical vortex of the new stadium. And the ongoing uproar over the renovation has not only underscored the obvious importance of architecture to us Chicagoans, but it's also reinstated colonnade into the vocabulary of civil discourse. Everybody wins!

So Bill, his wife and I sat in their living room all night multitasking our collective asses off: While we used the magic of Picture In Picture technology to watch both the game and the final, gripping episode of Temptation Island 3, Bill heated a pizza in the oven, Laura studied for an actuary exam, I tried to develop a meaningful friendship with their new dog, and Bill beat me in a high-scoring game of Scrabble. (While I racked up an impressive 45-point quote, he managed to squeeze a whopping 77 points out of sizzles. The bastard.)

Bill and I capped off our evening with a rousing medley of show tunes at his piano. But the biggest news of the night came when we discovered—after working with each other for five months and working out together five days a week for almost as long—that we have the same birthday. Who knew?

Uncle Jake and the 40,000 cheering fans

My sister and her family got here Friday afternoon for our fabulous weekend together, and we hopped right on the train—my four-year-old nephew about shit himself sideways from all the excitement—and headed downtown to my office so I could show him off to my adoring co-workers. Then we went to what I always considered to be a tourist trap of a restaurant at the base of the mighty John Hancock Center—and it was fabulous! The menu puts delicious twists on standard restaurant fare, and the décor has this Goudí-inspired organic vocabulary that creates a fascinating, otherworldly ambience. Our tummies happily engorged, we waddled over to the evil consumerist mother ship down the block for some incredulous gawking before we headed home to chat and pull out the couch so Gunnar could have a sleeping adventure.

Saturday ranks as one of the great mountaintop experiences of my singing career: I sang the National Anthem with with the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus in front of 40,000 rabid Cubs fans right before the Cubs clinched their division victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates in a frenzied double-header.

I couldn't decide what I was more afraid of as we marched onto the field (through a gate fittingly labeled Q): getting booed (or worse) when we were introduced or becoming disoriented by the sound delay sure to ricochet around the stadium when we sang. But neither nightmare happened. Everyone cheered when we were announced, and the sound system made our 90+ voices resonate with a stirring power that sent shivers up and down my spine and tears rolling down my cheeks. People continued waving and cheering as we left the stadium—and when they passed out the chorus' comp tickets for the game, there were miraculously four left over ... so my whole family suddenly got to go to the double-header together. My brother-in-law, the quintessential sports-loving straight man, was like a kid in a candy store all throughout what was a historic (and pretty exciting) first game. Gunnar had enough patience, though, to last only nine innings, so he and my sister and I bought Cubs hats and went shoe shopping while Steve stayed behind to watch the second game with all my gay friends. And when it was all over, the four of us capped off the day with dinner at an Evanston restaurant built in an old firehouse—which all but sent my little firefighter-obsessed nephew over the edge.

This morning, after a breakfast of Mickey Mouse waffles and Ralph Vaughan Williams, we headed to the Chicago Children's Museum for more Gunnar overstimulation and quite a few exhibits that were probably more interesting for us than for him. (And while fascinating and surprisingly clean, this museum appears to be a terrible place for picking up men.)

Now everyone's gone and I'm left with a quiet house to put back together and some pretty amazing memories to keep me company.

Yet another late night at work. Then a date with a guy from Paris. WOOF. I made it home in time for the late rerun of Tuesday's Queer Eye -- the only episode so far I haven't seen the first time it aired. (Hey, you have your hobbies, I have mine.)

Now I'm cleaning and degaying the condo for the weekend visit of my sister, her husband and my precocious four-year-old nephew. Our weekend plans include the Lincoln Park Zoo, Shedd Aquarium, the Children's Museum on Navy Pier and the simple, wide-eyed excitement of riding the CTA train. We may wear out the poor little kid, but Uncle Jake plans to have a great time!

Long day at work today. Le Divorce tonight with Bob. The movie has Merchant Ivory charm by the truckload, but Kate Hudson's wig is abysmal. And that bit with the flying bag is too self-consciously Meaningful -- and too graphically amateur.

We stopped by the downtown Jewel before I grabbed the Red Line home and we saw two stunning men -- one of whom was wearing short shorts to show off legs so muscular they were almost cartoonish. WOOF.

R.I.P. Troll

????–2002

A year ago today my parents had to put Troll to sleep. Troll was the replacement cat for Patches, the venerable old kitty who lived with us for 19 years and who is buried under the resurrection lilies in the back yard where she liked to hide and watch the world go by. Our family went catless for a few years after her death, but we eventually missed the feline companionship, and Troll came to join us. (And by us I mean them; my sister and I had already moved out by the time my folks adopted Troll.)

Why Troll? We're Norwegian, see, and there's no better way to honor your heritage than to name your pets after elements of your heritage's culture. But with us Norwegians, there isn't a rich lode of adorable pet names to mine. My sister got the best one long ago: She named her cat Loki, after the Norwegian god of mischief. After Loki, the cool choices drop precipitously. Personally, I would have picked Lutefisk (a traditional white-Jell-O-looking dish of cod soaked in lye) or Lefse (a potato pancake that looks more like a napkin than a food) as pet names before I would have picked Troll (a generic figure in the folklore of many cultures). But Mom and Dad liked Troll, so Troll it was.

Anyway, Troll was a pretty good cat. She was always charming, always friendly and (almost) always willing to be petted when you needed some kitty love to cheer you up. Her head was installed a few degrees off kilter and she had a HUGE belly and a scraggly little tail, so she was funny-looking enough to be amusing even when she was trying to be dignified. And she was briefly christened Tickle-Me Troll by Dad during that Elmo doll fad because she'd burp out a cute little meow-purr every time you touched her.

One of my favorite Troll stories: Mom was having a fussy-little-old lady meeting at the house one night, and Troll managed to jump her chubby little body up on the fireplace mantle, plop down right in the center and start licking her ass with ravenous earnestness as the ladies sat around eating their finger sandwiches and talking of Michelangelo.

But when my niece began to crawl last year, Troll apparently mistook her for feline competition and started peeing all over the house to mark her territory. My folks tried changing her diet, sprinkling the entire house with stuff designed to dissuade cats from peeing and even putting her on kitty Prozac. But she wouldn't stop, and her many charms were soon eclipsed by the frustration they got from living in a giant litterbox. Dad said she pissed her way out of a pretty good deal.

Dad, who always pretended he didn't even like cats, was ironically Troll's favorite in the house. She followed him everywhere, and he always had to make a place for her on his lap or next to him when he read or watched TV. He also got elected to take her to her final visit to the vet. It was actually a pretty devastating day for our family, but we keep her memory alive by reminiscing about what a great cat she was -- and when the house gets particularly humid, we still remember exactly why she isn't with us anymore.

So rest in peace, little kitty. We miss you.

Shit.

We missed it.

Mark your calendars for next year.

A day in the 'burbs

We had a one-day chorus retreat (which is code for day-long rehearsal in a place far enough away that people will commit to rehearsing and won't be coming and going all day and being disruptive) today in Oak Park. We got a lot of singing done, but best of all we had some silly social games that forced us to get to know each other better. With 150+ members, it's easy just to talk to the people you know at rehearsals and never expand your circles -- and today I had a really good time talking to some of the guys I've been on only a nod-hello basis with. And now we're best friends forever.

We also had a two-hour lunch break, and one of the chorus members gave us an abbreviated walking tour of the historic Frank Lloyd Wright homes in the neighborhood where we were rehearsing. The architecture and the neighborhoods are really quite beautiful -- moreso than their photographs lead you to believe -- and it's always refreshing to walk along streets with more empty parking spaces than cars.

Tonight I'm on the party circuit: A new-chorus-member reception in Boystown and a birthday party at Paul and Mike's in East Rogers Park.

Pizza and an interesting DVD with T., whom I haven't seen in over a week.

About T.: He looked as hot as ever, and we spent the evening wrapped around each other on his couch. That man is fun to touch.

About Dustin Hoffman in Confidence: How can a man who mumbles every word he's ever said be considered a good actor? I can't stand him or any movie he's in. Luckily the movie also featured the disarmingly handsome Edward Burns and the outright hot Brian Van Holt.

Now it's 11:00 pm on a Friday and I'm hitting the sack so I can be up early for an all-day chorus retreat tomorrow. Have fun tonight without me.

It's started.

Kelly, who sits across the hall from me at work, has plastered the wall outside her office with Internet photos and bios of all the contestants on The Bachelor. And now the entire office keeps crowding around what I'd like to consider to be my office's front porch to discuss, analyze and mock the women and what they have to say about themselves (like the improbably named Misty's pride in her "cheerleading, tumbling and dancing abilities").

So far, I have nobly restrained my urges to draw curious disfigurements and patches of facial hair on all of them.

The team presenting the World's Biggest RFP that kept me living at work for the last week just called to report that the potential client loved loved loved our stuff. Which, in the irony of success, will probably just mean more work for us.

But it's great to be back into life. Last night I headed up Michigan Avenue after work to visit our newest gay store -- which was actually kind of a disappointment. (What's with this foo-foo embroidery trend? Practically everything at H&M was covered with tendrils of embroidery. And that's not good. If we as a society embrace embroidery, then International Male has won.) Then I balanced my checkbook, played on my computer and watched Queer Eye with Matt -- who was back from the Mediterranean with some decadent cruise stories to share.

And I have dates tonight and tomorrow. If anything newsworthy transpires, you'll be the first to know.

What's brown and sticky?

A stick.

My first stripper buck!

The show went over fabulously well -- despite the fact that we had no technical rehearsals and I had a bitch of a time hearing the piano on the monitors. And someone even stuck a dollar in my pants while I was singing! Woo-hoo!

The show was about half drag queens and half people singing live. The drag queens, of course, always haul in the bucks for their coutured histrionics. We singers are just lucky if we remember all the words. And since the show was in a bar, the audience wasn't always inclined to listen to the quiet stuff. My song started out quiet, but by the time I hit my money notes at the end, I think I had every ear open and every mouth shut. And I think we raised a good chunk of change for our benefit organizations.