When you were planning on stuffing yourself with Tylenol PM and going to bed the moment you got home

but your mom and dad made you some pie so you decided to stay up for a little bit first:

We’ve been in Galena four hours and we’ve already been told by the toothless cashier at Walmart that her husband’s best friend got her pregnant and gave her chlamydia

And “gave her chlamydia” is not am impoetic euphemism for “gave her a baby they eventually named Chlamydia once it was born.” I asked to make sure.

But! Our rental house! Is cuuuuuute!

It comes with a Carol-Brady-including collage of wall art over an actual working turntable and a library of suspiciously gay LPs, a curvy scripted self-promoting hashtag painted in shimmery gold by a round mirror reflecting two suspiciously gay kissing husband roommates, a gilded squirrel thing, a fire pit at the end of a rocky walkway, and an actual working bird’s nest with actual working robin eggs that appear to be actually hatching.

Plus I brought pie!

Ice-cold Cherry Bubly? Check.

Two freshly homemade pies? Check. Gay-ass Longaberger pie carrier with gay-ass fruit-print ruffled liner? Check. New thingie I just bought to stick in my cigarette lighter and broadcast show tunes and podcasts from my phone to a radio station? Check. A library of more show tunes and podcasts than one person could listen to in five lifetimes? Check.

Full tank of gas to get me to my Galena weekend reunion vacation without having to stop?

Shit.

Three Easter pies can become infinity Easter pies with enough mirrors

When life gives you canceled flights, make canceled-flight pie

Pi Day came back!

We've run out of summer

1. Last training run of the season!
2. My second and last half marathon is in eight days.
3. And no, I won’t be training any more for it.
4. Because after my summer of chronic injuries and my aborted NewBo half marathon, I’ve kind of given up.
5. But I’ll start next weekend’s half marathon with optimism and see what happens.
6. I’ll also start with a super-cute outfit.
7. So there’s that.
8. Rob and Scott joined me this morning for our last hurrah of 2018.
9. They’ve been awesome running buddies and all-around friends all summer.
10. Now that training season is over, I’m sure we’ll revert to our usual state of evil, backstabbing nemesises.
11. Those poopyheads.
12. See? It’s already started.
13. It’s impossible to say nemesises without sounding gay.
14. Same with cilantro citrus salad.
15. Sssssssssssssss.
16. Chicago David was in town so he also ran with us.
17. But he’s either an overachiever or a showoff because he kept running when we stopped so he could do more miles.
18. So he didn’t get to be in the selfie.
19. The poopyhead.
20. Nemesises.
21. I’m sweaty.
22. And sleepy.
23. And sworn to secrecy about my cilantro citrus salad recipe.
24. So shhhhhhhhhh!
25. I saw a show long ago that took place on a gay ship named the SS Sibilant S.
26. I don’t remember where I saw it, but it was silly.
27. Anyway.
28. We chose a pretty tree as the background for our final selfie today.
29. Which is so low-concept that it forced me to wander off on a whistley-lisp tangent here.
30. Whistley lisp.
31. Cilantro Nemesis and the Whistley Lisps.
32. I’ll take Polka-Punk Bands I Would Never Listen To for ssssssix hundred, Alex.
33. Sssssssso sssssssleepy.
34. My knee injury is apparently NOT as healed as it had led me to believe.
35. I don’t see it causing me any problems for the Disney races, but it will certainly make its presence known.
36. I may have a goofknee, but at least I don’t have a plutoe.
37. I just made that up.
38. You owe me sssseven dollars if you found it amusing.
39. Good jokes don’t write themselves.
40. And a GOOD joke would cost you a whole lot more.
41. Mom made a peach pie while we were out running.
42. I bought my folks some fancy pie fillings when I was in Galena.
43. And my dad’s birthday is Tuesday.
44. Which is more than enough reason to spontaneously bake a pie.
45. So is the fact that the jars of pie filling were still sitting on the counter where they couldn’t be ignored.
46. Since he’s blind, we’re getting him an Alexa (or one of her smart-speaker sisteren, I forget which) in the hopes that she’ll make it easier for him to listen to the news or play music or bake a pie or whatever else it is that those things do.
47. Since he’s blind, he also can’t read Facebook so I can say what his gift is here and he’ll never know.
48. AND YOU’RE NOT GOING TO BLAB TO HIM.
49. Because Alexa will find out and hunt you down and make you listen to Polka Punk.
50. Smart speaker sisteren.
51. You thought I was gonna let that one slide, didn’t you?
52. Ssssslide.
53. To review:
54. Nemesises.
55. Cilantro citrus salad.
56. Sweaty.
57. Sleepy.
58. Sworn to secrecy.
59. Cilantro citrus salad recipe.
60. SS Sibilant S.
61. Silly.
62. Whistley lisp.
63. Cilantro Nemesis and the Whistley Lisps.
64. Smart-speaker sisteren.
65. Ssssslide.
66. Sixty-six.
67. Well THAT was a surprising coincidence.
68. Surprising coincidence.
69. Sssssssso sssssssleepy.
70. See ya!

Goodbye, weekend vacation home with the poop-n-greet bathroom and the towering living room and the dearth of pie servers and the peek-up-my-little-black-dress over-the-sofa “art” print and the lovely Chicago friends and the glass table that has Gilloollied all of our shins AND THE AWESOME-ALBEIT-KNOTTY-PINE-APRÈS-SKI-LODGE-ESQUE EVITA BALCONY

Cards Against Humanity With Gays For Pie

Breakfast pie!

OK ... super-late-breakfast pie ...

There’s a lot of dramatic architecture in our Galena rental house

There’s also still a lot of Diet Coke and pie.

Gayest. Pie basket. Ever.

#WeirdStuffICollectOnMyPhone

Pi Day came back!

#FlashbackFriday: More Hot Pies Edition

A long time ago in a stunningly (ahem) appointed Wedgewood blue dining room far away, my ex and I—along with my visiting parents—used to host an annual pie party for 50+ Chicago friends to help kick off everyone’s holiday waistlines. We (mostly meaning my mom) would make (the oddly specific number) 17 from-scratch pies in about 10 assorted flavors and spend the next five hours gasping in horror as people tore into our beautiful culinary creations and ate them. But it was an awesome reason to haul out all the Christmas decorations in a timely manner, dust the expertly (ahem) installed frame moldings, remember where we’d been hiding the tablecloth and actually use the nice dishes. It was always nice to see our friends too, I guess. Especially the ones who stayed so long they felt compelled to help vacuum crumbs of perfectly (ahem) flaky pie crust out of the rugs.

Come see One Man, Two Guvnors

Or I swear I'll jump off this pretend pier into the not-even-there pretend water below. But I'll have the darting let out on my suit coat first so it's not so bunchy around my middle. Or I'll stop eating pie backstage. Either way, I might as well look presentable when they find me, old chap.

Get your tickets post-haste at GivingTreeTheater.com

Mom and I are making pies for friends

We can't help the people trapped and threatened by the hurricane. We can't alleviate anyone's suffering. But we can make pies for friends. So we're making pies for friends.

Good, you got it!

Think about it ...
Lots of other gentlemen'll
Soon be comin' for a shave,
Won't they?
Think of!
All them!
PIES!

Pro tip: Use pink and glitter if you're gay

But what's that white stuff on top?

Why, yes -- we DO have a mall in Iowa with a first-place-at-the-fair-cherry-pie mural bursting with color and local-culture pride from its merry little triangle in the ceiling trusses. Our celebrated mall also has an Abercrombie & Fitch guy in a small, lat-hugging T-shirt who wouldn't look up from his folding when I walked by him 73 times. OK, 74. Because it has to be an even number or I'd still be standing at the back of the store. And that would make me seem pathetic.