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.

Flashback Sunday: More Underpants Edition

2011 Chicago Undie Run!

Fun fact: There are precious few places you can pin a running bib when you’re wearing only your underpants.

EEK!

After a massive FIVE-WEEK wait to get on the dermatologist’s schedule, I’m finally having my scabby, itchy wrist mole—which turned out to be a squamous cell carcinoma, which it turns out is not, in fact, Bigfoot’s drag name—removed.

I tried to take a picture of Mickey looking terrified of it, but twisting my arm to show the mole next to his face looks more like I was trying to take a gratuitous flexy selfie. But the dermatologists is totally cute, so I do not regret this gross-mole-canceling serendipity.

Flag Day shirt! With smear of peanut butter down the front!

When the blood lady realized she forgot to fill one of her vials after she’d pulled the big scary needle out of one arm

so she had to poke a new needle in the other arm and thankfully the stretchy wrapping tape color she picked now doubly matches my questionable shirt.

Tentative diagnosis: occipital neuralgia. Which in all my discussions with my doctor and in my subsequent googling seems very plausible given the locations of my headache pain. Final diagnosis still pending ...

Happy birthday, Stephen Sondheim!

Thank you for redefining musical theater. For redefining music. For redefining theater.

Thank you for composing music that's at once asymmetrical and balanced, halting and fluid, atonal and lush, messy and perfect.

Thank you for finding lyrics that explore the outer limits of rhythm and structure and rhyme, that tell a story or define a character or celebrate a moment or break a heart in sometimes just a handful of words, that always seem fresh, that always seem timeless, that always seem effortless.

Thank you for creating an apotheosis of creative and intellectual order, design, tension, composition, balance, light and harmony.

Thank you for inspiring as only you can an enraptured young writer to think outside his own thoughts, to feel outside his own feelings, to never stop searching for the perfect word or the lyrical phrase or the essential defining idea in a universe of creative entropy, to always make sure he's proud of how he creates and proud of what he writes.

And thank you for the phrase that I rely on almost daily to turn an undefined someday into a compelling now ... to pull me out of inertia and propel me sometimes through a bipolar fog and sometimes just through my own complacency to run a marathon, broaden my perspective, take on a challenging writing project, upgrade to a difficult tap class, find a solution, emerge unscathed or at least unbroken, or some days to just show up.

Careful the things you say; children will listen. And sometimes they'll turn your words into kick-ass tattoos.

Feel the flow,
Hear what's happening:
We're what's happening!
Long ago
All we had was that funny feeling,
Saying someday we'd send 'em reeling.
Now it looks like we can!
Someday just began.

Do you have ANY IDEA how hard it is to achieve the holy confluence of isolation, gumption and aim that it requires to take a reasonably flattering gym stealthfie of this artistic and compositional caliber? DO YOU?

No, you do not.

Open letter to One Direction: No matter how many times you mushmouth through that stupid chorus, never in this or any other language does “hotel rooms” rhyme with “rendez-vous.” Sheesh.

What’s the #1 reason to get a flu shot?

Right: for the flexy band-aid selfie in the car afterward.

Also: to give yourself photographic evidence that you’re overdue to shave the old-man hair off your shoulders. Because gross.

#ArmDayFail

Well. I just did three sets of 40 lb dumbbell curls with a 40 in one hand ... and a 35 in the other. Without noticing. Which portends for me a day of unmitigated success at walking in a straight line and paying attention to detaif,

Anyway, here’s the arm I didn’t screw up:

Flashback Friday: Proto Tattoo Edition

Here's my big-ass shoulder tattoo back when it was a henna prototype going through my rigorous R&D testing:

Fun fact: Henna tattoos last a good long time, unless you spend that time being boiled alive in a hot tub on a gay cruise. Then they quickly fade to a smeary bruisey purpley brown, which lingers for about 48 unattractive hours before they mercifully disappear.

Hi, Jake

My name’s Jake, I’m 49, and I wear Abercrombie & Fitch without express written permission from the Gurl You’re Too Old For That Council.

Plus there were too many judgey people in the gym this morning for me to take a proper Thankfully Productive Arm Day selfie so I had to use a mirror I found in a tanning room.

Arm day, yo

Also: Every Day Is Muscley Scowly Younger-Than-me-y Straight Guys I’m Afraid To Nod Hello To Day, yo.

But Arm Day is easier to type.

Douchebag gym selfie!

Because it’s been awhile. And I wanna keep my gym-douchebag cred up.

My super-dudebro gym outfit makes me look either trendy and age-appropriate or 49 and delusional

Flashback Friday: I Wonder What Happened To That Shirt Edition

Remember when I didn't even pretend to be subtle about taking flexy selfies?

Me neither.

Things to do when you’re alone in the gym on a surprisingly pumpy arm day

When your date has to cancel on you because he has the flu ...

You logically deploy your emergency I-suddenly-don’t-have-a-date contingency plan: Get a flu shot.

 

Also: get a bright red post-flu-shot souvenir band-aid > take a flexy shoulder selfie to post on Facebook

Also: post a flexy shoulder selfie on Facebook > score yourself a quality boyfriend

Also: stagger through the aisles of Walgreens in crippling, bewildering, post-flu-shot pain with no boyfriend on any radar anywhere anyway > wander innocently past the cookies

Also: discover you have enough Walgreens rewards points for three virtually free packages of Oreos > it’s none of your damn business what I’m having for my dateless dinner tonight

The glories of summer have ended ...

the scrunchie is making a comeback (you heard it here first), there's a new Fake Melania (Now With More Role Model Charisma!™), but one thing will always stay reliably constant: the gym selfies I take in a desperate attempt to stay relevant in a Millennial-obsessed culture.

Flashback Friday: Look I'm Doing A Pushup Edition

This oh-hello-you-caught-me-right-in-the-middle-of-doing-a-push-up photo was taken in 2008 (I think) on my first photo shoot with Scott Barnes, who'd found me through this here blog thingie. We did a range of I'm A Serious Model shots in the finest selections from my Gap wardrobe, but then we added a few show-some-skin shots where I could be all gratuitously flexy and maybe find a boyfriend. I remember neither of us really caring for this shot at the time, but now that I'm old and droopy I kind of love it. It's proof that I used to be a total dish.

Flashback Friday: Art Isn't Easy Edition

Chicago Art Institute. 2011. We may not have been smart enough to stand in decent lighting, but at least I was mart enough to flex when I knew there was a camera pointing at me.