With profound apologies to Florida

We don’t sit IN the box. We glare from BEHIND the box.

Bitch Kitty don’t care that I went on an epic shoe binge

Bitch Kitty has a butt to lick.

Shoes

Do you know why I’m betophatted and bekneepadded at our five-hour Hello, Dolly! rehearsal?

I’ll tell you why I’m betophatted and bekneepadded at our five-hour Hello, Dolly! rehearsal: Hello, Dolly! the musical is totally proper and elegant and shit, but Hello, Dolly! the choreography is a FULL-CONTACT SPORT.

Hello, five-hour Saturday rehearsal!

THREE-DAY WEEKEND!

I hope I don't slip up and accidentally go to work on Monday.

Exhibit A

Apparently I have an alert fan

1. Bitch Kitty heard my car pull up tonight and stood in rapt attention like this until I came in the door!
2. Mom took this artfully composed, figure-flattering photo to document the event.
3. THEN! BITCH! KITTY! SAT! NEXT! TO! ME! AND! LET! ME! PET! HER!
4. For about 34 seconds.
5. Mom also documented this event with a number of photos.
6. But I looked fat in every one of them so they are wisely not seeing the harsh backlit light of technology.
7. But still ...
8. PROGRESS!

Oh, nothing

Just sitting here taking a plain old unremarkable rehearsal selfie.

Move along. Mind your business.

Wait, what?

This--THIS!--is what inspired me to go into fashion writing. The fearless metaphors! The nimble wordplay! The bold yet never vulgar turns of phrase! It's all here, preserved for the ages. Just like the creased, flared, no-natural-fibers-denim fashion tsunami it generated that splashes through our wardrobes to this day. Well, at least those of us who LIVE FOR FASHION.

Though I'm pretty sure embroidered, possibly ruffled shirts with lightly ballooned sleeves undermine all claims of being either a dude or a stud, but that's just a quibble.

Please note: Shoes are sold separately on page 442

Carrtoones

Fun fact: Chaucer is the only class I ever dropped in college. I didn't declare my English major until halfway through my junior year so I had three semester to read approximately 7,004 books, and Chaucer had to be painfully translated from Hobbit language to real language before you could read it and it took TOO MUCH TIME and everyone who tells you it's worth it because it rewards you with stories of saucy Medieval sexiness has obviously never read a way-sexier-than-Chaucer leaflet about chlamydia. I mean chlayemeadiaeaeaea. Translate THAT, Chaucer-lovers!

Flashback Tuesday: Aging Gracefully Edition

American artist Ivan Albright painted his lurid, mildewy Picture of Dorian Gray in 1944, inspired by Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel of the same name. It hangs just around the corner from Grant Wood’s iconic 1930 American Gothic in the Art Institute of Chicago’s American Art wing.

But the point of this post is that some stupid white-shirted jerk totally photobombed this handsome, distinguished formal portrait of me.

"wHy cAn'T wE Do tHaT?"

1. Because it's a stupidly dangerous idea
2. Because a nuclear bomb would need to be surrounded by tons of additional air that we have no way of moving on that scale to affect just the eye of a hurricane
3. Because a hurricane's tradewinds would spread the nuclear fallout on a far more massive scale over water and land and create catastrophic environmental devastation
4. Because the idea was first presented and quickly shot down in 1959 for these very reasons
5. BECAUSE A RUDIMENTARY GOOGLE SEARCH WOULD TELL YOU THIS FASTER THAN YOU COULD SPUTTER OUT THE DUMBASS GIBBERISH IN THIS QUOTE

Nighttime NewBo Coolness

LITANY OF DEMANDS

1. Laundered socks will reunite on their own like Cary Grant and Debra Kerr in An Affair to Remember but sooner and with no off-screen auto accidents or racist music recitals.
2. Smoke alarms with dying batteries will not chirp so randomly that you can’t figure out which ones need rebatterying but will instead shout HEY! OVER HERE! THIS ONE! MARCO ... MARCO ... MARCO ... POLO! YOU FOUND ME! NOW REPLACE MY BATTERY!
3. I will finally master the “bowler brim” verse of “Put On Your Sunday Clothes.”

The first Horseman of the Apurrcopalypse:

Bitch Kitty just jumped up on the couch and sat next to me OF HER OWN ACCORD.

I HAD SHIT TO DO TONIGHT

But this morning’s awesomely brutal Hello, Dolly! choreography rehearsal literally sent me home into to a three-hour coma. AND LOTS OF CREAKY JOINTS. So instead of doing active shit tonight, I passively sent some photos from my phone to be printed at Walgreens as possibilities for the dramatic Jake-stars-in-the-theater wall I’m curating for my bedroom. My verdict: meh. The cropping feature on the app isn’t entirely accurate, and the cropping feature on the app isn’t accurate at all. Neither is the cropping feature:

And did I mention passive? Because I also bought two pints of Ben & Jerry’s when I picked up the photos and headed right home to binge on Lifetime Intimate Portraits of Bea Arthur, Rue McClanahan, Betty White and Estelle Getty. WHICH. IS. SO. NOT. GAY. NO. NOT. AT. ALL. SHUT. UP. SHEESH.

Rude.

Flexinations!

1. I just had my annual physical.
2. It turns out I am NOT—despite physical appearances to the contrary—pregnant.
3. Those of you who decided I was pregnant—even silently to yourselves—are just rude.
4. RUDE.
5. I’ve known my doctor since we were in middle school.
6. He just touched my bits.
7. It wasn’t awkward.
8. Not at all.
9. NOT. AT. ALL.
10. HE. TOUCHED. MY. BITS.
11. But I didn’t get pregnant.
12. It’s already flu-shot season.
13. Seriously.
14. VACCINES CAUSE NOT DYING.
15. So my body is now coursing with flu germs.
16. HE TOUCHED MY BITS.
17. Not awkward.
18. As the flu-shot nurse was setting out her supplies before injecting me with flu germs, I asked if instead of her boring Band-Aid she might have a Superman Band-Aid.
19. I was just being silly.
20. BUT SHE HAD ONE.
21. So now my flu-germy arm is also a flu-germy bird and a flu-germy plane.
22. And it can leap tall buildings in a single bound.
23. Of course I needed to take a picture of it.
24. The flexing was totally accidental.
25. Because I would NEVER do that on purpose.
26. 🙄
27. That’s my favorite emoji!
28. HE TOUCHED MY BITS.

Well, hello!

There’s something about old-school hand-written musical scores—their indulgently ornamental clefs, their plump flats, their angled text that looks like a note from a friend I’ve known since I did my first musical 35 years ago—that fills me with joy.

And it’s usually joy with a catchy melody.

Western Electric. 1974.

That top photo is giving me a panic attack.

You put your left paw in ...

Well, shit

I was THIS CLOSE to posting that I’d gone all day without having a bandage on my wrist with nobody noticing my still-hideous-but-no-longer-gaping wound UNTIL! someone who will not be named (because she isn’t on Facebook so there’s really no reason to shame her here there or here) noticed as we were leaving rehearsal tonight.

(Apparently I’d at one point very creatively described my wound to her as looking like a vagina because her first observation was that it doesn’t look like a vagina. I’d truly forgotten that I’d ever made that comparison. But I cannot disagree with the poetic imagery.)

So the key takeaways here are:
1. My wound is so much better that I feel safe leaving it unbandaged for a day.
2. It’s still gross enough, though, that I’m politely refraining from posting a photo of it here for fear you’d vomit all over yourself when you innocently scrolled by it.
3. HOLY SHIT DONALD TRUMP IS SO FUCKING BBEEYYOONNDD OFF THE RAILS TODAY WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH HIM OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD

Alexa ...

What are the chunkiest, dumbassiest shoes I could possibly wear to a choreography rehearsal exploding with precision-heeled sauts de basque?

That wide, inviting, super-comfy-looking banquette at the far end of Taste of India? DO NOT SIT THERE.

Under the table is essentially a big vinyl-covered mattress with zero option to put your feet on the floor or even bend your legs ... or, in my inflexible case, even get tucked under the table well enough to get anywhere near it.

Five stars for yumminess. Minus 597 stars for having to eat crisscross-creakysauce over my lap and spilling chickpeas all over my ankles.

Why I’ve done nothing more than fold laundry very slowly on the couch all night:

No dishes. No dusting. No vacuuming. No bedroom cleanup. Just hours of YouTube archives of brilliantly funny, delightfully indignant, sexily British, total-current-crush John Oliver.

BAM!

What do Aurora and The Cher Show have in common?

I mean besides the fact that I don’t push a lawnmower wearing kitten heels in either show?

Right! We both have our final performances today. Both of our matinees are happening as you read this, but my cast is far better than those lazy Broadway hacks because we have another show tonight. It’s at 8:30. If you don’t come see me play a judge, I will totally judge you in real life.

(Dramatic selfie courtesy of our dramatic backstage lighting.)

The bitch is badass in his new haircut

1. My haircut guy had me try a side part and I really like it.

2. I love Miles Davis and I love you, KCCK, but “Bitches Brew” is a horrible soundtrack for trying to take a decent hair selfie in my car. And OK, I’ll just say it: “Bitches Brew” is icky and I really never need to hear it again.

Look, I made a run-on sentence

When you’re taking a rehearsal break and your Hello, Dolly! rehearsal hat that totally doesn’t fit ESPECIALLY totally doesn’t fit when you’re lying on the floor but it’s on the same blue-tone colorway spectrum as your shirt and it’s sitting on your head like you’re a Fosse Pilgrim and that’s coincidentally your band name and you need a photo for your eponymous album cover anyway so here we are.

Didn’t make it three miles

Also didn’t factor in time to get ready for rehearsal. Hello, shower!

When your hair is so on point that you need to drop everything and take a selfie

It’s just on the warm side of perfect running weather, my hair looks AH. MAY. ZING., I have a new(ish) pair of Hoka One Ones I’ve been wanting to run in, I feel confident that I can work up a sweat on my wrist without needing to have it wrapped so I can finally wear my running watch again, and I actually feel like running so I’d better go out and do it right the hell now before I back down so there’s no time to call Rob and Scott to join me.

I’ll see you all in 3 miles and 2 waist sizes!

Finishing the

Our second wave of Wee Elfin Toddler Rehearsal Hats That Look Like They Were Stolen From Wee Elfin Toddler Pilgrims Who Can’t Afford BucklesTM has arrived. So we’ve had to cancel Hello, Dolly! and replace it with Mayflower the Musical: Ephram and Obadiah’s Excellent Adventure.

The Theatre Cedar Rapids Box Office Will automatically transfer your tickets.

I think my cat is broken

She mega-SUPER-barfed strategically in the shadowy part of the second stair down to my bedroom overnight and then held this pose with her mouth open while I took this picture of her this morning.

NORMAL CATS DON’T DO THIS.

Swear not

When the moon is really quite breathtaking and even though you’re tired and want to go to bed you wander up and down the street taking a bunch of pictures to make sure you get one that does it justice:

BUT WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED ON THIS SHOT? It looks like melted ghosts ...

The N is for Nice Hair

And Nowledge.

We’re switching Hello, Dolly! to Fiddler on the Roof because all our dainty-woman rehearsal hats fit me like yarmulkes

Our Hello, Dolly! floor taping looks like the subway map to Harmonia Gardens

Kickass montage of me being an extremely bad waiter in Aurora at Theatre Cedar Rapids

Courtesy of Studio Reserved

Today’s Vocabulary

DONEGAL: a tweed characterized by bright flecks distributed over a light background

CLOSE ENOUGH: this couch isn’t really donegal but it’s not proper tweed either

KERNING: the spacing between letters or characters in a proportional font

EYE TWITCHES: what graphic designers are experiencing because of my super-cute shirt

Mistakes were made

I weirdly had neither a rehearsal nor a performance tonight, and as I walked to my car after work wondering what the hell it is you people with free time DO with your free time, I noticed that it was perfect running weather outside. Mistake 1. So I texted Scott and Rob to test the waters and see if they might be up for an impromptu evening run. Mistake 2. Rob, to his eternal credit, already had a theater commitment LIKE A NORMAL PERSON. But not only was Scott free, his response to my query was “what time?” And I texted back to tell him when I’d be home. Mistake 3.
Fast-forward a bunch more mistakes. We’re standing in my driveway, noticing that it’s WAY more humid than I’d thought. But we take off running, with me secure in the knowledge that I’ll have to phone a tailor when we’re done to have all my pants taken in because of all the inches that were destined to melt off of me after surprising my body with an impromptu Monday evening 3-mile run in cleansingly heavy humidity.

Fast forward one mile, when I completely run out of will to live.

Anyway, here’s a photo of Scott looking like a dewy lotus blossom and me looking like a hair clog from the drain of a New Deal-era public pool after trudging back from our not-three-mile run:

In slightly exciting news, it WAS my first serious exertion since my stupid mole removal and I didn’t split open and exsanguinate all over our pretty running trail. SMALL. VICTORIES.

I’m going to make “harder to find than the peanut butter at the west side Walmart” a common phrase in the popular English lexicon if it’s the last thing I do

(It’s by the tea. Because why put it by the bread LIKE IN EVERY OTHER GROCERY STORE IN THIS AND ALL OTHER GALAXIES?)

Also: I accidentally hit the wrong button at the gas pump and now my car is purring along on way fancier gas than it’s used to. I’m already scorning all you gutteral commoners and your sad little budget gas.

Has it really been only two years?

Remember two years ago when KKK Grand Wizard (what the fuck is THAT stupid title about, racists?) David Duke responded expectantly to all your white-supremacist dog whistles when you started your appalling abortion of a presidency, trump? Now your inbred disciples are regularly following your orders to open fire on brown people with small-dicked-incel assault weapons. And you fucking SUCK at pretending you're shocked.

There is not enough piss in the world to properly drench your grave.

Cool shirt. Weird couch.

Thank you for taking my call

Meghna Chakrabarti was NOT in the mood to let morons derail today's Hong Kong protests/China trade war On Point discussions, and when the Florida idiot called in and immediately bleated "Jeffrey Epstein is alive. Pizzagate is ..." she shut him off HAAAAARD.

I think I'm in love.

Dear LORD that was a long day

I cleared some stuff out of my storage unit, sold a ton of books (for a meager $20, but still), learned choreography for 4.5 hours with a delightfully talented choreographer and a cast of dancers half my age, did a show that was spiced up with a tornado delay and a couple dropped lines on my part, emptied the litter box, decided to sleep with my gross wrist wound unbandaged to see how it survives a night in the open air, and took a helicopter selfie with Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged neck creases (too soon?) in our Kountry Krafts guest room where I’m still sleeping because the final push of my bedroom project has become kind of overwhelming. Good night!

“Places!”

“Thank you places!”

BEEEEEEEEP!

I’m just starting hour 4 of a 4.5-hour Hello, Dolly! choreo rehearsal that leads straight into an Aurora performance

I packed a snack to keep my vim and vigor up and a package of baby wipes to keep my Sturm und Drang down as I transition from exhausted, sweaty dancer to focused, pleasant-smelling actor. Wish me luck.

HAPPY GAY UNCLES DAY TO ME FROM ME since my ungrateful niece and nephew have clearly forgotten

Rude. (Snap!)