Sundayclothes Seersucker Selfie!

If my sister had done some damn alliterative planning when she landscaped her back yard, I could title this portrait Bridget and the Begonias. But nooooooo.

So we’ve had to rename the dog Prudence.

Pretty pansies

Tourist. Times Square. Tacky tselfies.

Remember how last year my Big Birthday Broadway Bash Blowout! was delayed NINETEEN HOURS

because of bad weather and broken planes and canceled flights and I ended up DRIVING IN A CAR WITH COMPLETE STRANGERS ALL THE WAY TO O’HARE to get on the last possible flight to NYC and I ended up getting there at 2:00 am and I missed my Jimmy Fallon taping and my window for a show the night of my flight in? Remember? REMEMBER?

IT’S. HAPPENING. A. GAI. N. N. Nnnnn.

Our goddamn plane broke between the gate and the O’Hare runway and then officially was declared out of service and we came back to a different gate and got kicked off and the guy seated behind me had already established himself as totally goddamned obnoxious because He Was The Most Important Person On The Plane Who Therefore Will Kick Me Repeatedly In Every Way Possible Even From Under My Seat and Now He Had To Get Off Immediately Because Fuck All You Little People so I made a point of getting in front of him as we got in the aisle and OH NO IT TOOK ME A VERY LONG TIME TO BEND OVER AND PICK UP MY CARRY-ON FROM UNDER THE SEAT IN FRONT OF ME AND THEN OOPS I FORGOT MY BOOK SO I HAD TO SEARCH FOR IT IN THE SEAT POCKET HMMM WHERE DID IT GO OH THERE IT IS so that part was at least kind of awesome but anyway American just happened to have a spare of the almost exact same plane just sitting around—kind of like I do with peanut butter and lack of boyfriends—so our flight wasn’t canceled but we had to move to yet a different gate WHERE THE DAMN GATE AGENT ALSO PRONOUNCED IT CONCI-AIR and now we’re on the plane and we lost our exit row and Cap’ Assholepants has resumed kicking me plus the guy next to him is playing shitty music really loudly because of course he is and I’m doing the math in my head and I’m pretty sure I’ll still get there in time for a matinee but in the mean time look at my selfie and say our new gate number really fast and you’ll know what I think about my Big Birthday Broadway Bash Blowout Bad Breakdown Bummer Bane Bungle Burden Bullshit Boobies.

I might have added boobies at the end just to see if you were still paying attention. Or to complete the rhythmic alliteration. Or because I’m catastrophically immature.

Huh.

It turns out that when you suddenly no longer have EXACTLY 42 MINUTES AND NOT A SECOND MORE to squeeze in a plausible workout between work and rehearsals or shows, you’ll lollygag and futz around and get to the gym an hour later than you’d planned and you’ll stretch your (expanded, to be fair) workout to almost two hours. BUT! You’ll have a whole new pile of fresh meat—oops: fresh inspiration. sorry. typo.—preventing you from taking a passable stealthfie.

Also! Not not to brag, but I just jumped up to 80 lb dumbbells on the incline press and the 80 lb barbell on skull crushers (which, if you do them right, do not, in fact, crush your skull). I may be a Peter Procrastinator tonight, but I also feel like a big ol’ Mike Monster.

Pre-Performance Pec Pump and Pic Project!

(And Iowa Public Radio Instant Promotional Raiment!)

Leg Day in cheap, ill-fitting track pants is more miserable than Melania on Smocking Hamburder Night

I’d like to think my pants are all bunchy in all my uncomfortabunchy zones because of my mighty man quads and cantilevered cantaloupe calves, but it’s really because I was a big Clearance Clarence who was reeled in by the racing stripes. These stupid pants are tailored for cartoon ostrich legs, and they’re literally compromising my manly squats.

But they have pockets!

In other news, my Graffiti Wonder Woman shirt hasn’t sparked a single conversation about which is the definitive cast recording of Sondheim’s Follies. (It’s a tossup for me between the OBC and the Papermill Playhouse. Any other opinion is invalid.)

Back and biceps at the gym

Then show tunes and stripping at rehearsal.

#AlliterativeLife

Second day. More advanced.

When Rob and I met Monday morning for our first-ever chest workout together at my new (but his old) gym, we quickly managed—despite our Don’t-Strain-Yourself Barbie(R) weights—to savagely rip our moobs from their moorings, force them mercilessly into a wood chipper, and spend the next 48 hours woefully unable to punch Nazis. Which is gymbro talk for “we had a good workout.”

I came back tonight fired up to show the same unholy cruelty to my back, biceps and babdominals (alliteration runs rampant!), and now that the carnage is over I’m typing this as fast as I can before the rigor sets in.

The good news: I’m pretty sure I’ll be unable to roll over in my sleep tonight.

The other good news: Nobody will be able to steal my wallet from my locker.

The reason for this jarring non sequitur: I discovered that I didn’t have it with me at Target on my way to the gym tonight. As an impatient line of people waited behind me and the cashier had to call for help canceling all the purchases she’d rung up and I sweated bullets mentally retracing my every step over the last 17 years to see if I could remember where I might have lost it.

The good news: I called my folks and they found it on my bedroom floor.

The bad news: I didn’t get to buy those super-cute track pants I’d found.

The second non sequitur in this rambling post: WHY ARE ALL THE GUYS AT THIS GYM SO HOT? And why won’t any of them volunteer to come roll me over in my sleep tonight after the rigor sets in?

And so it begins:

The Fiber Finals. The Pulp Probation. The White-Bread Warm-Up. The Mushy-Foods Marathon. The Deliciousness Death March. The Canned-Food Commencement. The Plain-Jell-O Purgatory. The Soft-Bananas Smackdown. The Hearty-Foods Hunger Games. The Pudding Punishment. The Corn-Flakes Correction. The Wet-Noodles Weariness. The Plain-Crackers Plague. The Clear-Broth Commencement. The Full-Grain Forfeiture. THE COLONOSCOPY COUNTDOWN.

5K along the ocean!

from the left: guest gay, token chick, homo host, shirt sherpa, opportunistic photobomber, opportunistic photobomber

Hondreds of hostas to the horizon!

Your jealousy is the ugly stepsister

We have a refrigerator at work filled with icy cold pop and an honor-system piggy bank (that’s shaped like an actual pig!) on top for us to pay a quarter every time we take a pop. Naturally, I brought every quarter I could scrounge out of random couch cushions and pay phones to work and stacked them so precariously on my desk that they became a safety hazard and five OSHA violations. So I searched through our storage room at home for a handsome, tasteful demitasse or votive that I could possibly repurpose as a quarter caddy (coffer? cradle? cauldron? kettle? so many alliterative options!) ... and instead I FOUND A WHOLE BAG OF ASSORTED DISNEY PRINCESS PARTY CUPS, the Cinderellaiest of which I—as people do—arranged on my desk with a Diet Coke can and an artful jumble of quarters for this celebratory photo:

My. Skin. Hurts.

While Productive Cough and the Why Does My Skin Hurt When I Move Pestilence would be a catchy name for an Eastern European boy band, it’s an even catchier description for how I woke up this morning. But I’m too miserable to go on a boy-band tour right now. 

I did just go on an emergency-clinic-to-pharmacy tour though. The clinic was only taking walk-ins and I was told I’d have a 35-50 minute wait when I got there but I was called right in and after the nurse took my vitals and left the room, the doctor came in and OH MY GOD HE WAS HANDSOME and he looked in my ears and throat and did other things that I’m sure in some cultures count as pitching woo but WHY DOES HE ALSO HAVE TO HAVE A SHY SMILE AND A SELF-EFFACING DEMEANOR he had on a jet-black wedding ring THAT MADE HIM EVEN SEXIER IF THAT’S EVEN POSSIBLE which I took to mean he piloted jets or something because that makes sense right AND HE WAS WEARING KICK-ASS RED RUNNING SHOES BUT HE KIND OF IGNORED ME WHEN I COMPLIMENTED HIM ON THEM BUT I’M SURE IT WAS BECAUSE HE WAS HUMMING “TRUMPET VOLUNTARY” IN HIS HEAD BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT HE WANTED FOR OUR WEDDING PROCESSIONAL and anyway STOP IT WITH THESE INSANELY HOT DOCTORSCEDAR RAPIDS BECAUSE I’M RUNNING OUT OF CAPITAL LETTERS TO SWOON OVER THEM.

His verdict, unfortunately, was the flu.

You might say I opened the window and influenza.

But you shouldn’t say that. Nobody should say that. Ever.

So anyway, this week brought us Mom’s aggressive UTI and Dad’s COPD exacerbation plus pneumonia plus staph plus MRSA plus five days and counting in the hospital and the only thing our family was missing on our sickening scourge scavenger hunt was the flu so now our punch card is full and we all win a chalupa.

Speaking of chalupas, the pharmacist told me I needed to eat before I took my Tamiflu and it’s almost like we were having a cosmic mind meld because I’d picked up a package of Chips Ahoy! on my way to the pharmacy counter partly because I like using exclamation points in the middle of sentences and partly because pestilent people deserve partially hydrogenated pastries but mostly because I was stocking up on food items to be a responsible Tamiflu taker and WHY ARE YOUR DAMN BLISTER PACKS SO DAMN HARD TO OPEN, TAMIFLU?

So now I’m home eating cookies and drinking Gatorade and listening to Sunday morning 88.3 kcck jazz, which is the balm that cures all ills, but I’m still coughing up hearty chunks of lung and I’m still so feverish that I’m unsteady on my feet and I’m modeling the latest trend in face masks which makes me catnip to the ladies but can you really blame them and MY SKIN HURTS WHEN I MOVE WHY THE HELL DOES MY SKIN HURT WHEN I MOVE?

Attend the tail

Don't laugh but we used to have two sister cats named Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett. I SAID DON'T LAUGH. They were stripey in a gorgeous spectrum of ochres and chestnuts and they totally matched our umber marble sink, where they frequently held court for their Council of Cute Conclaves and were obsessively photographed in adorably languorous poses.

So the obvious takeaway from this memory is that umber marble is easier to say than Irish wristwatch. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?

Flashback Friday: F Word Edition

I celebrated my 40th birthday (Yesterday! I mean alt-yesterday!) in New York binging on Broadway shows and bodega food and big AMEX bills. Coincidentally, this lady was doing something 40-related on bus stops and sidewalk billboards all over town as well. And she was gracious enough to pose for a picture with me. (You're lucky I don't know any words that start with F because if I did I might descend into tedious alliteration here, which is the lowest form of writing imaginable. You're welcome.)

New math

1/2 mile run
1 mile sprint
1/4 mile run
1 mile sprint
1/4 mile run
1 mile sprint
1/4 mile run
1 mile sprint
+ 1/2 mile cool-down
= not as bad as you'd think

We had our second Miracle Mile training run on Saturday, and though my times are nothing that will ever see the inside of a record book (or, more immediately, nothing that will ever see the light of day on this blog), the run wasn't as horrible as I'd anticipated. Finding parking near the track (a few blocks east of the John Hancock Center) is about as fun as sharing underwear with John Hagee. So I got there early Saturday morning. As in an hour early. But so did a lot of people. And we all found parking rather easily. (Thank goodness I was wearing our lucky underwear!) And as we were all standing around and chatting and casually stretching before our run, Peter, Matthew and I suddenly realized we were all doing the exact same stretch at the exact same time. Like, OMG!


Then we did the run. Which I will not describe in any detail here, except to say that I have not yet mastered the art of recording separate laps on my high-tech new running watch. And it does not seem to have mastered the art of not losing touch with its GPS signal whenever I pass under the tree in the southwest corner of the track. So my official sprint times are lost to the ages. And since we were all pretty much running on our own, it's not like I could just borrow the official time of anyone in my pace group.

Speaking of, our group continues to be a revolving cast of characters that have yet to coalesce into any kind of social entity. But Matthew continues to bring his camera, and even though we didn't even pretend to run together this week, we still took a team picture. And if you can tear your eyes away from the right side of the picture, you'll notice me there on the left. I'm the one in the yellow tank top. And the red arms. And the white legs. Remember me?


Thank you. You may now return your eyes to the right side of the picture.

Sunday morning, Matthew and Peter and I decided to whip out a quick six miles on our own. Unfortunately, we picked a path that was all concrete and no trees. And a morning that was all heat and no breeze. (HA! I MAKE POEM!) And by the time we'd reached our three-mile turnaround, I was woozy and goosebumpy. Which also means I was also totally buzzkilly. Because heat + goosebumps does not = a body processing heat correctly. (More math metaphors! Alliteration runs rampant!) But Matthew and Peter walked me to the nearest cab, and for the first time in my running career* I actually aborted a run and cabbed back to home base.

*And by "running career" I mean "please don't laugh when I use the term running career to describe my running hobby." Because I'm as apt to make a living on my running skills as John Hagee is on his underwear modeling skills.

By the time we'd gotten back to our cars, I was fine enough that I consented to join in Matthew's post-run cross-training plan. So for the next half hour, the three of us alternated between jumping rope, running up and down a surprisingly steep hill in Lincoln Park, and resting. And it was HARD. But it was in the shade, so I was able to participate without being the wheezy old guy who spoiled everyone's fun by dropping over dead in a puddle of my own vomit. To keep me distracted from the pain, there was a statue of some rich-white-pillar-of-the-community-type dude at the top of the hill. I'd never heard of him, so I tried to memorize his name so I could google him when I got home and talk about him here as though I'd known who he was all along. But his name didn't stick, so I was also a failure at perjuring myself on Sunday morning. But I don't want to leave you hanging, so I'll just say it was a statue honoring Howie Mandel for the cultural contributions he's made to Chicago through his selfless work on Deal or No Deal.

You haven't lived until ...

... you've sung the National Anthem as an out ’n’ proud gay man in front of 40,000 screaming baseball fans. This was the fourth National Anthem at the Cubs for the Chicago Gay Men's Chorus, and our performance this year was even better than the first three because 1) the brand-new seating that cantilevers over the the entrance we always use (labeled "Gate Q," which I mention here for no particular reason) created a nice shady place for us to wait until we were marched onto the field, 2) our artistic director fleshed out his already rockin' arrangement of the National Anthem with some lush new harmonies and some soaring vocal fireworks at the end and 3) our last few notes were drowned out by a roaring MILITARY FLYOVER that sent everyone in the stadium into a patriotic frenzy of screaming, cheering and voter registration renewing. (Unfortunately, there was no patriotic frenzy of televising us, so as far as you know, this whole post is one elaborate lie.)

... you've been personally picketed by Fred "Gay Buttsex" Phelps and his gang of we're-not-gay gay-buttsex-obsessed witnesses for Christ. A sad little contingent of Fred's peeps dragged their discount fashions and their sparkly, rainbow-festooned God Hates Fags signs all the way to the big city to convert the Cubs fans to their cute little religion on Saturday. But the Cubs security detail walled them off on some obscure street corner, so we didn't get a chance to cross paths with their cocksuckery ministry. The CGMC artistic director read part of the group's barely-English ("the abominable, ao (sic) called Chicago Gay Men's Chorus") press release out loud at rehearsal Sunday night. Its third-grader logic and its Ann Coulter vocabulary tempered its underlying hatred for us, but its declaration that we are "appropriately known as Chicago's Anal-Copulating Caterwaulers" drew some whoops and cheers. But not in the way Fred probably hoped—though most likely in the way Fred secretly fantasizes when he's alone with his Jergens and his fishnets.

...you've changed clothes in the Wrigley Field men's room. Matthew and I were not interested in watching the game in our black-and-white monkey suits, so we brought a change of clothes into the stadium with us after we sang. We figured the bathrooms on the ground floor—the fabled trough rooms lined with men peeing elbow-to-elbow in a tribute to urination efficiency—would be a weird place for two guys whose outfits announced to the whole stadium "Hey! We're gay! We just sang for you! In matching outfits!" to strip down to our name-brand underpants. So we climbed to the top tier where we figured the bathrooms would be 1) less populated and 2) less covered in pee. We had to sweet-talk a guard who wasn't about to let us up without top-tier tickets (alliteration runs rampant!), but she agreed that the steerage bathrooms weren't the place for two half-naked gay singers and she scooted us up to the fancy bathrooms so we could complete our transformation in relative privacy. But even the floors in the first-class loo still seemed like they were covered in pee.

... as a person who officially couldn't care less, you've pleaded with an 8-year-old to enjoy watching the Cubs kick butt. My brother-in-law is a Dodgers fan. So my nephew has decided he has to be a Dodgers fan as well. But his little 8-year-old world is still pretty black-and-white, which means he'd be committing a patriarchal betrayal on the magnitude of Greek tragedy if he—just for a moment—made some outward sign of happiness, approval or even basic organic function in the face of the Cubs' 9-5 whopping of the Pirates on Saturday. So sullen he sat (alliteration runs rampant!) while his Cubs-neutral uncle very conspicuously jumped up and cheered and clapped and sang about Cracker Jack for three hours next to him.

...you've killed a man with your bare hands. Or so I hear.

...you've spent a weekend playing provider for the most important people in your world. My folks, my sister, and my niece and nephew came to Chicago to hear me sing and to hang out with Justin and me for the weekend. (My brother-in-law stayed home to tile and grout their new kitchen floor, which sounds like it could be a total Cubs-hating cop-out, but having just finished my own kitchen renovation I totally understand his need to stay on schedule and his burning desire to get the damn thing done.) And when my family wasn't enjoying their day at Wrigley Field on our dime, they were eating our food and sitting on our furniture and using our towels and sleeping safely and soundly in our beds ... and I just can't think of a more satisfying feeling than having everyone I love under our care for a whole weekend.

... you've watched your niece and nephew play happily with your fiancé (and vice versa). I'm getting everything I've ever wanted out of my relationship with Justin: a best friend, a happy home, a life of endless giggles and snuggles and Law & Order reruns ... and now the realization of all my extended-family domestic fantasies. Just as his family and his nieces have embraced me as one of their own, my family and my niece and nephew see him as a part of us. Amid all the meals and conversations and jokes we shared this weekend, we even got a bonus round: Justin's family stopped by so the adults could all meet each other and the kids could all play together and if I hadn't been so busy putting fruit garnishes on dessert options, I might have thought about how happy I was and burst into tears right there in front of everyone. Thank goodness my hand-sliced strawberry fans kept my runaway emotions in check.

The oracle said nothing about syndication

My friend Beth and I were the Lunt-Fontaines of my junior high and high school. Except we never got a theater named after us. Or made it to Broadway. And at our age it would have been kind of gross if we got married. And while I was never the leading-man type, Beth certainly had the looks and the talent to play any role that came her way. In any case, we did a lot of theater together, and we eventually did get married. Kind of.

Our debut in junior high (as I’m sure you all remember from the national coverage) involved the two of us acting out some Shel Silverstein poems in a speech contest. We were apparently entertaining enough that we made it all the way to the state competition, where we were pitted against people doing monologues about death and divorce and abortion while we skipped into the room with ”I cannot go to school today,” said little Peggy Ann McKay…

I don’t recall if we won or not, but since it’s my blog I’ll just say we both got the Tony that year. And it was handed to us by Liza.

Against my better judgment, I’m showing you what we looked like back then, at the dawn of the 1980s. Notice how stylish and put-together Beth looked. Then notice me with my Sears Braggin’ Dragon® shirt, my pencil-thin arms, my shoulder bones that could cut glass, my basketball head, my adult-size nose and my overall homeliness. Then weep for me and for all humanity that had to look at me.


Fast-forward to our junior year in high school, where we were in the chorus of West Side Story together. Once again, Beth looked stylish and sassy in her silver satin (alliteration runs rampant!) and I looked like an anorexic Ralph Macchio with a finger wave and a drop-shoulder jean jacket right out of a Pointer Sisters video. The Jets are looking kinda gaaaaay toniiiiiiight!


The next year, we were the leads in—of all things—Oedipus Rex. Because high-school kids + Greek tragedy = theater magic! I have to say I do look kind of majestic in my glue-on beard and my poly-blend robes, even though I’m a foot taller than my 16-year-old wife and mother. And the crown totally offsets my nose. Fortunately, this scan from a yearbook photo that spans the fold between the pages blurs out a lot of my skinny armness and dubious husband-and-fatherliness and what had to be frighteningly clueless acting. Tragedy indeed!


Now fast-forward 20 more years to our class reunion last month. Even though we hadn’t seen each other since our 10-year reunion, Beth and I made it through the whole weekend without one poem or explosive dance move or destructive marriage. That’s our friend Jen on the right, and if Beth and I wrote and starred in our own sitcom (Oedipus Simplex, Thursdays on NBC), Jen could be Aristophanes, the wacky neighbor who always drops by in a silly hat or something and then says a funny catchphrase like “You guys are for the birds!” and steals our thunder. It’s the least we could do to thank her for having the presence of mind to bring her camera to the reunion so we could have this picture in the first place.