Pay no attention to the junk piled behind the tree that I didn't notice you could see when I took this picture with my phone

Well hello, long-hibernating tabletop tree that I bought for Shoebox Manor—my first elfin Chicago apartment—and that eventually became our dining-room tree when my ex and I bought our palatial two-tree-accommodating condo. I finally rescued the tree when I liquidated my storage unit this summer, and at last its branches are complete again in their mélange of silver, white and cornflower blue ornaments, ribbons and besequined birds artfully curated to complement our old Wedgewood dining room. The palette doesn’t quite work with my mom’s Rustic Kountree Krafts décor, but I choose to squint and pretend it does. Plus I did a sloppy job perching the birds on the branches so I’ll have to edit some pokey-outy feathered tails at a later date.

I wasn’t really in the mood for Christmas carols, but I found an old Chicago playlist so I decorated the tree to the dulcet—and wistfully nostalgic—tones of Beautiful Day, Ray of Light, Around the World, Bad Romance, Get Lucky, Single Ladies, Whispering Your Name and other regular-rotation players from the soundtrack of my old life. The combination of my Chicago tree and my Chicago tunes put me in a mood I’m not sure I’m ready to be in, but the corner is dusted and vacuumed, the tree is up, and all that’s left to do is figure out where I hid my timer so the lights will automatically be on every night when I go to bed and every morning when I wake up.

Speaking of going to bed ... good night!

Last-minute tips from me to you for getting the most out of Sunday's Chicago Marathon:

1. Do your crying up front. You'll be emotional at the starting line as it is, so let your tears flow then. Trust me: You won't have any moisture left in your body at the finish line anyway.
2. Speaking of moisture, PEE BEFORE THE RACE. Then get back in the porta-potty line and pee again.
3. There are very few people in the world who get to be cheered and screamed at by literally a million fans for plus-or-minus four hours. You're one of them. Drink it in.
4. That said, don't let all that screaming distract you from the race. It's fun to smile and wave at everyone, but doing so burns precious energy. Find the balance between being a rock star and being a disciplined runner.
5. THAT said, all bets are off in Boystown. The second you turn left from Addison onto Broadway, you will be overcome by megatron levels of cheering and screaming and drag queens and music and pure unbridled joy. It is the BEST mile of the race, so smile and wave and cheer and pump your arms and maybe even cry a little. You won't be able to stop yourself anyway, so dive in and enjoy it.
6. There's no shame in walking if you need to. Your legs will start to stiffen up if you walk too long, though, which will make it harder to resume your running. But you probably already know that by now.:-)
7. That said, suck it up, put on your badass runner face and start running like a world-class athlete whenever you see the marathon photographers. (See photo below.) You'll thank me when it comes time to buy your commemorative marathon photos.

8. I'm not gonna lie: Your last few miles running north up Michigan Avenue will suck like you won't believe. The cheering crowds will thin, your feet will hurt all the way up to your neck and you will swear that someone has put the Willis Tower--your one shining beacon leading you to the finish line--on wheels and is slowly pushing it farther and farther north just to mess with your mind. Rest assured that's not the case; there seriously isn't time to get all those wheels installed.
9. The route is pretty uniformly, blessedly flat. For the first 26 miles. In a twist that can only be described as Geneva-Convention-defying cruel, the route becomes a st-e-e-e-e-p hill once you pass the 26-mile marker and turn right on Roosevelt. To mitigate the situation, though, there will be another massive crowd there to cheer you on. Drink in as much as your body will let you.
10. Check out your skin after you cross the finish line. You will be covered in homemade salt. You're a margarita! So drink it in again! So to speak.
11. IMMEDIATELY GO HYDRATE.
12. IMMEDIATELY GO HYDRATE.
13. IMMEDIATELY GO HYDRATE.
13.5. PLUS EAT A FREE BANANA.
13.75. AND A FREE COOKIE.
14. And you won't want to, but you'll thank yourself later if you do some gentle stretching as soon as you get through the finisher crowd.
15. YOU'VE! RUN! A! MARATHON!

Throwback Thursday: Wachoo

Blerg. I used to get up at 5:00 every weekday to take the train to the Loop and get physically abused by my cruel, brutal trainer at my appallingly expensive gym for an hour before hobbling off to work.

But sometimes I stopped to take pictures of pretty buildings along the way:

Willis Tower peeking between the Federal Reserve Bank Building and the City National Bank and Trust Building. 5:30 am.

Shirts I have found while excavating:

• Social Climbers team T-shirt for the BEST-NAMED *EVER* Hustle up the Hancock stair-climbing team
• (motto: We like it on top)
• AIDS Marathon team tank top that I personalized with GO JAKE GO
• (Putting GO JAKE GO on the front of your marathon shirt is like giving a handy script to 26.2 miles of people who are ready and willing to cheer you on at the tops of their lungs)
• The back of the T-shirt I wore for my first marathon
• (Putting MY FIRST MARATHON on the back of your first marathon shirt guarantees 26.2 miles of back slaps and atta-boys from every runner who passes you)
• The GO JAKE GO T-shirt I wore for many subsequent Chicago Marathons
• The GO JAKE GO T-shirt I wore for the New York Marathon
• (New Yorkers always wear black)
• (Because they’re all artists and tortured intellectuals who snap when they hear poetry)
• My Pigman Triathlon T-shirt
• (The pig head used to glow in the dark)
• My Forever Plaid T-shirt
• (That’s me on the bottom)
• (Notice it doesn’t say GO JAKE GO)
• (Because the character I played was named Smudge)
• (But that’s the only reason)

18 years ago this morning ...

I ran a little late and got caught in the rush-hour crowds that prevented me from getting a seat on my EL train. But as I stood there—a relatively new Chicagoan—I was still in awe of the fact that I actually lived in Chicago and rode a train to work and I reveled in the fact that I was one of THEM: my fellow Chicagoans packed in the train car with me, commuting to (or from) our jobs as waiters, insurance brokers, construction workers, actuaries, janitors, bankers, personal trainers, writers and every other career and purpose in our big, always-moving city.

When I finally arrived at work and got off the elevator, I saw everyone in my office crowded around the TVs in our glass-walled conference room. My first thought was that my colleagues would see I was late. But after joining them and watching the towers burn and fall, seeing the gaping wound in the Pentagon, learning of the disappearance of an entire airplane and its passengers in a fiery pit, I was struck by the fact that my underground commute that morning with my fellow train riders—a microcosm of the city, if not the country—was our last collective moment of innocence before we had access to any news and we suddenly had to face the sickening, horrifying, misanthropic enormity wrought by other human beings on a scale none of us could have imagined.

18 years ago today I never felt closer to colleagues, friends, family members and even strangers as we worked to understand the hatred and comprehend the savagery of perhaps the ugliest tragedy in our lifetimes.

18 years ago today we lost a certainty in our collective safety but we gained a powerful strength in our ability to care for and protect and even love each other when we needed to ... and even when we didn't.

18 years ago today, our world changed immeasurably. Our hearts broke irreparably. Our determination grew mightily. Our humanity spread defiantly. Time may erode the intensity of our initial united magnanimity, but we will never forget.

Flashback Saturday: Underpants Edition

Seven years ago I did my second annual Chicago Undie Dash, the title of which needs no explanation or clarification beyond the fact that it was a 5K and it ended with a private party aboard a massive yacht that was moored at one of the lakefront marinas whose name I can’t remember. A few years earlier I’d sung at a wedding on the deck of that same yacht. If I remember correctly, I wore Superman underpants that I bought just for the occasion. (The Undie Run, not the wedding.)

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.

#Pride101:

Virtually every pride parade and public event draws a crowd of hate-filled, mouth-frothing religious bigots carrying signs (notice the ever-popular message in this photo: GAY = Got AIDS Yet?) and screaming at us with bullhorns and often trying to goad us into physical fights so they can videotape them and whimper to the police about the cruel persecution they endure just for expressing their First Amendment rights. At bigger events like the Chicago Pride Parade, they're walled off in pens like the rabid swine they are at the end of the route where they're more of a nuisance than a violence-inciting threat. But at smaller events like the Cedar Rapids Pride Fest, they wander freely in much smaller numbers at the perimeters, hauling massive signs as if they were crosses and yelling into bullhorns and goading us from afar so they can run like the cowards they are if they feel outnumbered and/or want to stoke their wannabe persecution complexes. But we keep showing up to our events, not letting their cruel, puerile, relentless harassment undermine our celebration of who we are how far we've come. THIS IS WHY WE USE THE WORD PRIDE.

#Pride101

Probably every gay, lesbian and trans person you know has been called a faggot. Or worse. I have. More times than I can remember. Probably every gay, lesbian and trans person you know has had something thrown at them with the intention to hurt or humiliate them. I have. It was a barrage of eggs as some friends and I stood on a sidewalk in Chicago's Boystown. Where we'd assumed we were immune from such bullshit. The worthless cowards who threw the eggs missed all of us and ran away cackling like they were big men who somehow mattered in the world. Many gay, lesbian and trans people have been physically, violently assaulted. I never have, but I have friends who've been assaulted so violently that they've been hospitalized. It's 2019. The homophobic violence that our forebears endured may have lessened, but it hasn't stopped. But we all still get up, walk out the door every day, and live our lives as openly as we dare and as comfortably as we can. THIS IS WHY WE CALL IT PRIDE.

More things I found in my storage unit yesterday

• Clear salt and pepper shakers shaped like cats that I got as a housewarming gift when I bought my first house in 1993
• A teacup from my grandmother’s Blue Willow china
• Chinese-inspired objets d’art are called chinoiserie
• You’re welcome
• An Army rubber ducky that I got from my friend Mike who's a kick-ass Army veteran
• A plaque I bought at the Museu Picasso in Barcelona with a shimmery sky-blue frame that has never gone with anything in any house I’ve ever owned
• Picasso is tacky and his stupid “art” will never catch on
• Loser
• An authentic finger bowl or flower vase or vomit bucket or who knows what the hell it’s for that I rescued when I survived the Titanic sinking
• Or maybe it’s just a reproduction that I bought at a Titanic exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
• At my age, my memory is shot so its provenance is now lost to the ages
• So shut up
• A French sign about reading on the toilet that I bought at a Euro-charming little shop in Montmartre high above Paris
• A Norwegian kitchen witch that I cross-stitched and framed at Skogfjorden language camp in 1983
• Shut up
• It’s totally not gay
• So shut up
• A stone coaster printed with a vintage Eiffel Tower print
• Though it’s neither real stone nor authentic vintage
• But I like it so shut up

FORTY WHOPPING FIVE DOLLARS

So way back in my old life in Chicago, I was working out with a top-tier (read: exponentially most expensive) trainer at a mega-trendy (read: exponentially most expensive) gym in the Loop (read: a few blocks from my office, which is why I was coughing up exponentially so much money). I met with my trainer at 6:30 am three days a week and worked out on my own at the same time two days a week, which meant I maintained a rigorous schedule of planning ahead, meal prep, gym-bag clothes packing and disciplined sleep every weekday. Plus I kept emergency backup food in my freezer and emergency backup clothes in my gym bag. Just in case.

But.

Despite all my extremely conscientious, extremely disciplined, extremely successful planning and packing over the course of four-plus years, there was one sweaty morning I unpacked my bag at the gym and discovered to my horror that I hadn’t packed any work clothes. Not. A. Stitch. And it was 7:30 am on a weekday in the Loop, which meant there were absolutely no places open to buy clothes anywhere for the next few hours.

But.

My mega-trendy gym DID have a mega-trendy (read: exponentially most expensive) little (read: tiny, shitty selection of merchandise) boutique in its lobby, which also wasn’t going to be open for the next few hours. But the woman at the nearby check-in desk heard my tale of woe and took pity on me and found a key to open up the mega-trendy (read: exponentially most expensive) boutique so I could find something reasonably priced (read: HAHAHA!) that I could buy and wear to work.

The bad news: There was nothing in the entire boutique that said “white-collar desk job.”

The good news: My white-collar desk job had a pretty flexible, non-collar-of-any-color-obligating dress code when we weren’t meeting with clients.

The bad news: There was nothing in the entire boutique that said “less than a mortgage payment.”

The good news: My gym shorts weren’t TOO sweaty and I did have emergency backup clean underwear and I figured could probably get away with spending one day at work dressed like I’d just run a marathon.

Long story short: This T-shirt cost me FORTY WHOPPING FIVE DOLLARS. And while it got me through a mega-casual workday, it actually fits like a cheap-ass five-dollar shirt to this day and I should just get rid of it but IT COST ME FORTY WHOPPING FIVE DOLLARS.

So I feel like I still have to keep it in my shirt rotation. Because FORTY WHOPPING FIVE DOLLARS.

Treasures I uncovered today in my storage unit, part two:

• My collection of tourist-trap figurines from my world travels that I figured I’d never find again among the bajillion unopened boxes I have yet to spelunk BUT I DID
• The glazed ceramic Eiffel Tower ring stand/change dish I have no business owning because I don’t wear rings or carry change but it’s charming and Francophiley and I love it so shut up
• A red Chicago Marathon cowbell that all the spectators jangled along the race route to keep us fired up or at least running in fear from all the crazy people jangling cowbells at us
• National Treasure, the American Da Vinci Code and my gateway drug to swooning over all things Justin Bartha
• MY HELLA COOL A CHORUS LINE BOOK
• Three stray unmatched socks I thought might possibly pair up with the pile of lonely, forlorn unmatched socks I’ve been holding onto for years just in case their prodigal other halves eventually showed up ... AND TWO OF THEM DID!

Number 17: The Spread Eagle

In honor of the Fosse/Verdon premiere this evening, I found this photo of some hearty ladies from the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus re-creating the Chicago movie's vigorous "Cell Block Tango" way back in 2007. (Oh, dear. I just did the math. Was that really 12 years ago?) If you'd have been there, you would have seen me dancing bravely in an XXL leotard and size 13 clearance-rack heels with a bevy of similarly brave, wobbly-ankled souls.

Flashback Friday: What The Hell Is That Theater Called Edition

This was the view from my office in the Chicago Loop. In the 15 years I lived in Chicago, this venerable theater (which was called the Majestic when it was built in 1906) changed names from Shubert to LaSalle Bank to Bank of America to Private Bank, and since I left three years ago it's become the CIBC Theatre. Amid all those changes, it's been home to some amazing shows, many of which I went to see multiple times because it was right across the street from work. Jersey Boys and Book of Mormon sat there forever, 9 to 5 made a brief stop (where Dolly Parton herself walked right by me in the tiny lobby), and now Hamilton has taken up long-term residence. If you go see Hamilton or whatever comes next to its stage, look up to the fifth floor on the big squarish skyskraper across the street and wave. The next credit-card solicitation you receive in the mail might very well wave back at you from its colorful storyboard.

Throwing cheese at baby rapers

R. Kelly first appeared on my radar in the early 2000s as the world was first finding out about his proclivity for videotaping himself having sex with--and peeing on--young girls. I belonged to Crunch Gym in the basement of my Chicago office building at Grand and State (coincidentally across the street from the back entrance to Nordstrom). The Crunch chain of gyms was relatively new and extremely trendy and often populated with celebrities, and R. Kelly and his posse worked out at my Crunch location every day at the same time I did: noon. And by "worked out" I mean "showed up, sat around doing nothing on all the benches in the locker room, sat around doing nothing on all the equipment in the gym, mumbled things to each other that constantly ended with 'You know what I'm sayin'?' and generally pissed (ahem) off everyone at the gym."

But there's more!

The gym was in the basement of the building, spread out below a tiny lobby facing the sidewalk. The neighborhood was the newly booming River North, just (as you might imagine) north of the river and just west of the Mag Mile, which is the high-end-retail section of North Michigan Avenue. Street parking was restricted and very rare. But R. Kelly was above the laws of street parking, and he parked his massive Hummer on the street right in front of the lobby door ... and he parked one poor schmuck from his posse in the lonely little lobby presumably to keep an eye on the Hummer and fend off anyone who might stop to ticket or tow it as R. and the rest of his posse "worked out" in the basement below.

So let's review all the reasons from this story alone that R. Kelly is an entitled piece of shit: Having sex with little girls. Peeing on little girls. Videotaping it. Spreading out all over the gym and preventing people from working out on their lunch hours. Parking his Hummer on a street with no parking. Owning a Hummer. Making one of his posse sit and watch the Hummer to potentially bribe any authorities who might ticket or tow it.

Oh yeah: And everyone who witnessed all of this universally agreed that his Hummer was literally the color of ... wait for it ... pee.

#SparksOfJoy: A weekly post about something that makes me happy

An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison

This fearlessly, brutally honest 1995 memoir examines the exhilarating highs and soul-crushing lows of manic-depressive illness (now more commonly called bipolar disorder) from the perspective of a psychiatrist trapped in the disease. Her frank and intimately personal insights bring the disease's cycles of terror, elation and crushing, abject despair into stark and sometimes heartbreaking clarity. It was recommended to me soon after I was diagnosed as bipolar in 2008, and it grabbed me on every level--from its smart writing to the recognizable, relatable, almost comforting details of its narrative--and I all but literally didn’t put the book down until I’d finished it. I have an indelible memory of reading it on the Red Line EL train home from work one night in Chicago, and a man who’d clearly seen me reading it made sure we made eye contact as he stood up and then he patted me reassuringly on the shoulder as he got off at the Sheridan stop. That encounter--a direct extension of this book--made me literally weep as I was coming to grips with label “mentally ill” and discovering the signs I’d never thought to notice until then that I wasn’t alone. If you are or love someone who is bipolar--or struggling with any mental illness--this book will make you weep, give you hope and quite possibly change your life.

Flashback Friday: Hustle Edition

Fun fact: “Hustle up the Hancock” is a cool name for a race up the almost 100 flights of stairs in Chicago’s John Hancock Center.

Other fun fact: “The Social Climbers” is the coolest Hustle up the Hancock team name ever invented by a team captain named Jake and emblazoned in a custom design on the team’s T-shirts.

Fact: Climbing almost 100 flights of stairs on a freezing February morning is really not all that fun.

Other fact: Though is feels like 700 hours of gasping and quad-screaming, the climb actually lasts only 20ish minutes.

One more fact: John Hancock Insurance removed its name from the John Hancock Center in February 2018, leaving the building with the stirring—and instantly memorable—name 875 North Michigan Avenue ... and this year causing Hustle Up the Hancock to be renamed the less alliterative but more badass Hustle Chicago.

This happy (relatively) warm-weather memory popped up in my Facebook memories today

(The Chicago Marathon is in October, so I have no idea why I initially posted this memory in January. Perhaps because it warmed my heart.) I still have this shirt, but I have no idea when or where I'd wear it again. I tried to give it to my nephew and niece to sleep in when they were kids, but they WEREN'T HAVING IT. Draw your boundaries where you can, I guess. Just don't expect me to ever call you Jake and cheer you on, you two ...

Come see our big-ass show!

When Theatre Cedar Rapids staged its 2018-2019 season announcement late last winter, I wasn’t able to attend the gala event for some reason. But my drive home that night took me down First Avenue past the theater, where the upcoming shows were excitedly scrolling across the marquee … and my heart almost skipped a beat when I saw The Full Monty flash by.

Those of you who’ve endured my effusive gushing about this show know that I have adored The Full Monty since I first saw the Broadway tour when I lived in Chicago more than 15 years ago. I was dating a guy who knew someone in the cast, and he got us house seats for four performances while it was in town. (Odd fun fact: The castmember played the character who strips at the opening of the show, and the first time we saw the show was on his birthday … so I have the odd distinction of being able to say I’ve eaten cake with a Broadway stripper in his dressing room. Which is not a metaphor for anything.)

Since then I’ve memorized every word and every note and every moment of the cast recording and I’ve fallen in love with the endless creative brilliance of David Yazbek, who has also written music and lyrics for equally awesome musicals based on the movies Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (I got to see the original Broadway production and have equal reverence for its cast recording as well) and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (I was in New York when it opened, but I crappily couldn’t get tickets to see it). And he just won the Tony Award for The Band’s Visit, if you need any more impetus to love his Full Monty score as much as I do.

Being in this show was on an ephemeral bucket list of things I was sure I’d never get the chance to do. Being cast in this show and then rehearsing it over the last two months have put me on a high I’m not even close to coming down from. I’m over the freaking moon (which I guess could be a butt metaphor if you’re so immature that you’d actually go there) to actually get to sing this score with a full orchestra and play one of the goofy, earnest Hot Metal guys along with the five other goofy, earnest actors who eventually strip with me. The six of us have gone from shyly showing our ankles in front of each other at our months-ago photo shoot to walking around butt-ass naked in a fully lit rehearsal room this week as we fine-tuned the timing of our G-string removal. And it’s been a supremely joyous journey to get here.

I can’t remember the last time I was this full-immersive thrilled to be a part of a show and to help bring it to life in front of three weekends of audiences. Aside from the brilliant music and lyrics, the story is funny and sharply written, the characters are nuanced and messy and interesting and fun, and the story is at once joyous and heartbreaking and ridiculous and endlessly entertaining.

And after all the excitement and waiting and rehearsing that started last winter when I first saw The Full Monty scroll across the marquee screen as I sat at a red light on First Avenue, WE’RE FINALLY OPENING TONIGHT. And you have only nine opportunities to see us. So get your tickets now and COME LOOK AT MY BUTT. (That’s also not a metaphor for anything.)

My blood starts pumpin'

I hate to brag, but eight years ago when I saw the 9 to 5 Broadway tour in Chicago, not only did Dolly Parton walk right by me in the lobby, but it was her birthday and I *personally* (well, along with 1,799 dear friends) sang “Happy Birthday” to her.