Left to right:

My small, medium and large calf (née knee) compression sleeves are washed and drip-dried in my deluxe-soothing-grey-with-an-ey-like-fancy-Europeans-spell-it-spa-like bathroom and ready for the sweaty onslaught of Hello, Dolly! production week.

My gastrocnemius strain won’t stand a chance.

Don't try this at home, kids

Since my slowly healing wrist wound is now starting its FOURTH DAMN WEEK of preventing me from going to the gym, I’m wearing all my weird clothes that would normally get me beaten up by all the gymbrodudes.

To wit:

• My fancy-gay clingy plunging-V-neck shirt that says—in dramatic lettering—Provincetown, which is the High Nirvana Holy Land for vacationing gays who ride things called ferries without irony

• My jackass-plaid Bermuda shorts that I won in a game of Zima Pong against a frat boy named Blaine
• My Squared Moc Toe Exaggerated Profile Driving Shoes of Beyond Forgiveness
• Please don’t hit me

Really, Behr: “Premium Plus Ultra Stain Blocking Paint & Primer In One” is an awfully long name for the shitty skim milk in your can

Two coats of your runny, drippy lies can’t even cover beige woodgrain.

Why did Facebook randomly put my friend Sage's picture next to this bright blue top-of-my-feed you-have-memories-of-cats-to-look-back-on-today cat-photo-compilation-that-you-just-KNOW-will-be-all-about-Bitch-Kitty alert?

More importantly, why is Facebook sending me a bright blue top-of-my-feed you-have-memories-of-cats-to-look-back-on-today cat-photo-compilation-that-you-just-KNOW-will-be-all-about-Bitch-Kitty alert?

I’ve been singing choral music for 35+ years

and I STILL get tripped up reading a bass line that’s scored in the treble clef. WHY THE HELL DO YOU DO THAT, MUSIC-WRITER-DOWNER PEOPLE? IT’S STUPID. AND DUMB. AND STUPID.

That said, read this bass line in G-major treble clef—WHERE IT’S STILL WICKED-FREAKING HIGH—and you’ll have my favorite belty four-count phrase in all of 9 to 5. After one week of rehearsals, at least.

We sure have some creepy ornaments

And some breathtakingly-adorable-child-picture ornaments. And, curiously but still admittedly Christmasy, a shapely-woman-wearing-a-tasseled-hanging-hook-and-beveling-in-an-unmissably-red-dress ornament. And, for reasons known only to the tooth fairy, a wooden bunny ornament. A wooden Christmas bunny ornament.

But, of course, the only reason I'm making this post—aside from finally exposing the Christmas terrors of my haunted, haunted childhood wrought by our creepy pantsless flat-handed pantyhose-head child-eating demon elf ornaments—is to report that I have just now, almost in time for an Easter visit from a wooden Christmas bunny, completely denuded our Christmas tree.

Dude. I totally just said denuded.

A letter to one future husband

Dear Boy-Next-Door-Handsome-But-Also-Holy-Shit-Alarmingly-Handsome Dude At The Gym Who Looks Like A Young Keanu Reeves But More Meet-The-Parents-Respectable With One Of Those Sharp-Edged Haircuts And A Degree In Maybe Applied Biochemistry Or Entrepreneurial Public Policy Or Conversational Latin Or Something Equally Impressive That You Got On A Non-Threateningly-Hot Supermodel Scholarship At A Small But Not Elitist College Where You Also No Doubt Selflessly Fostered Ugly Puppies And Tirelessly Tutored Dead Children: Even though I was studiously not noticing you so as not to appear twice-your-age creepy, you made my night when you not only noticed me but also ASKED ME TO SPOT YOU.

Also: When I said “that’s quite an impressive feat, dude” about you benching 90-lb. dumbbells, that was just me showing you how witheringly awkward I am capable of being around non-threateningly-hot supermodels.

Also: Not that I noticed, but let’s talk about how we can fix that problem with your missing wedding ring.

Are you sitting down?

Because I was WHEN BITCHY KITTY OF HER OWN VOLITION AND YET-TO-BE-ARTICULATED-BECAUSE-SHE-ONLY-KNOWS-HOW-TO-MEOW-AND-WE-HUMANS-DON'T-SPEAK-MEOW-YET AGENDA JUMPED INTO MY CHAIR AND SAT NEXT TO ME PRESSED UP AGAINST MY INCREDULOUS LEG ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT:

It took me 60 hours to post this photo because I'm still processing this lurching plot twist in the soap-opera-frenemies Bitch Kitty Life storyline. Also because Mom didn't send it to me until late yesterday. But still.

Granted, once Bitch Kitty jumped into my chair she sat in an extremely weird position with her face buried in the back cushion and her self-righteous butthole gazing out into the room ... and she growled like an over-torqued automatic-pencil-sharpener motor as I tried to pet her ... and her over-torqued-automatic-pencil-sharpener-motor growling only intensified if my attempts at petting left her ears-and-head area and ventured down toward her tail-and-butt area but then again we did teach her to be a lady who doesn't put out on the first date so I guess we should be proud of her for that ... and I had just emptied her litter box so I was probably dusted in minuscule-but-still-possibly-scented particles of litter-box floaties so perhaps she was just following her nose and her baser instincts when she jumped into the chair with the intention to poop on me and quickly realized her error but was staying there only under a pathetically inept veneer of politeness ... but the fact remains that I now feel obligated to beg for her love every moment of every day until she deigns to jump butthole-out into my chair again one day next year ... and then one day the next year ... and then one day the next year ... until she up and dies on me and breaks my heart because I thought we had a thing going but her yet-to-be-articulated-because-she-only-knows-how-to-meow-and-we-humans-don't-speak-meow-yet agenda all along was to make me think I had a chance with her and she gave me the ultimate dis from beyond her over-torqued-automatic-pencil-sharpener-motor-growling grave. Sigh.

Also: I look like a short, wide squished marshmallow in this photo but I swear it's just the evils of foreshortening and shadows and I'm actually totally swole and ripped for my big stripper reveal in The Full Monty and you should come see it but you should also squint just in case I actually do become a short, wide squished marshmallow before then please pass the doughnuts oops did I say doughnuts I meant celery but I'll totally eat that box of doughnuts if you don't want them because it's a shame to waste perfectly good food.

Also: Mom and Dad hate those plaid chairs (we have two of them because civilized people have sets of matching chairs and we as a family no longer live in a cave) but while I'm not in love-love with the plaid I still love the chairs' clean Mid-century lines and confident geometries so tell Mom and Dad that we should keep their clean Mid-century lines and confident geometries incorporated in our gracious home décor and just re-cover them in something that doesn't look like it came from the textile tumble table at an Eddie Bauer Home Store going-out-of-business liquidation event.

Also: Textile Tumbletable would make a great drag name.

Also: Or not.

Also: I just purged a ton of shoes I haven't been wearing and I rediscovered these blue Chucks and aren't they awesome?

Also: I think that's enough alsos so I'll stop now. Also.

Onstage Officey Cubey Hidey During A Livey Matineey Of Elfy Selfie Report:

What do the stage-left onstage-officey-cubey-hidey-during-a-livey-matineey-of-Elfy-selfie people have in common with the stage-right onstage-officey-cubey-hidey-during-a-livey-matineey-of-Elfy-selfie people?

That’s right: handy, inventive racks for hanging our officey-bindery props!

Also: ME!

John Wilkes called ...

When you’re taking a selection of selfies in front of the telecommunications museum in the upstairs lobby of the theater as you wait to make your (surprise!) balcony entrance in Act II and a totally handsome and totally age-appropriate man comes out of the bathroom and catches you and you try to play it cool as he says hi and you I-would-NEVER-take-a-selection-of-selfies-in-front-of-the-telecommunications-museum-in-the-upstairs-lobby-say-hi back to him and as you pretend you’re being totally cool and normal you notice that he’s looking over his shoulder at you as he walks up the stairs to the balcony doors and you can’t decide if it’s because he thinks you’re weird or he wants your name so he can call you to ask you on a date and I’M IN THE PROGRAM UNDER DOUG THE CHRISTMAS COP AND YOU CAN FIND ME ON FACEBOOK!

Could there BE a more adorable child smiling toothlessly from a hand-gilded, kiln-fired, liquid-shine-glazed, holly-shaped, '74-time-stamped ceramic Christmas ornament?

No. There could not.

When you have no fireplace but you have a long banister and a clever gay who got the spacing counted out correctly on ONLY THE SECOND TRY

Plus when you have a Bitch Kitty WHO PLOPPED HER BITCH ASS RIGHT IN THE PERFECT SPOT JUST AS I WAS LINING UP THE PHOTO.

Since I was doing all the counting and hanging and decorating, I naturally put my stocking closest to the front door so I’ll get the most Sparkle Unicorn Rainbow Dream Kitten Pillow Glitter Sequin Diamond Pudding Smooches(R) Barbies before Santa runs out. Because it’s only fair.

LITANY OF COMPLAINTS

• Our Disney vacation is over
• I didn’t win the marathon
• Perhaps because there was only a half marathon
• Perhaps not
• But now we’ll never know
• Will we?
• No, we won’t
• Anyway ...
• Disney water
• It tastes like History and Safety First
• Turning it into ice and putting it in Diet Coke doesn’t help
• And it CERTAINLY doesn’t help the Diet Coke
• Speaking of ...
• A large cup of Disney History And Safety First ice with a splash of a Diet Coke costs less than $6
• But not much less
• Disney has stopped using lids on its fountain sodas
• Which is awesome from an environmental standpoint
• And I assume from a cost-overhead standpoint
• Plus an ordering-supplies-and-dealing with-invoices-and-delivering-stuff-to-all-the-restaurants standpoint
• But definitely not from a don’t-spill-your-tiny-splash-of-Diet-Coke-on-yourself-when-you-get-jostled-in-the-crowds standpoint
• Safety First!
• Anyway ...
• Runner dudes with muscularly lean, distractingly shapely calves
• Who didn’t ask me on dates
• Probably because they didn’t want to make things weird in front of their wives and kids
• BECAUSE ALL OF THE RUNNER DUDES WITH MUSCULARLY LEAN, DISTRACTINGLY SHAPELY CALVES HAD WIVES AND KIDS
• I am developing a healthy animosity toward wives and kids
• People who wore their race medals to the parks
• Three days after their races
• Really?
• Was a full day of wearing a rigid, itchy ribbon around your neck with a heavy, clangy medal bouncing against your chest a productive enhancement to your sweaty Disney joy?
• Asking for a friend
• Also:
• Also!
• People who stopped in the middle of a crowd of moving people to do something vitally important like take a selfie or scratch an elbow or clap on 1 and 3 or whatever other pressing needs really stupid, rude people face in their center-of-the-universe days
• Grrrrrr
• I bought three race shirts and zero other souvenirs but I somehow couldn’t get my suitcase closed this morning
• My cargo shorts are out to get me
• Or perhaps they wanted to stay a few more days
• And I broke their eminently-practical-and-yet-appropriate-as-always-multiple-pocketed hearts
• Now I’M the bad guy
• Speaking of my eminently-practical-and-yet-appropriate-as-always-multiple-pocketed cargo shorts ...
• I finally stopped having little panic attacks every time I realized I couldn’t feel my car keys in my front right pocket
• When I get home tonight, I’m going to start having an unsightly key bulge in my front right pocket again
• And it might be uncomfortable since I’m not used to it anymore
• WHEN
• WILL
• MY
• SUFFERING
• END
• ?
• We got our bills from our Magic Bands that we wore all week to buy food and charge it to our room ...
• Ouch
• Not OUCH
• But still ouch
• (I’m talking about the final tally of charges and not the bands themselves; the bands were actually quite comfortable)
• Remember our fancy, four-princess dinner in Cinderella’s castle where we got to see the fireworks show outside the quatrefoil-gothic castle windows?
• We were told our dinner was vaguely “already taken care of” at the end
• We assumed that meant it had been automatically charged to our Magic Bands, so we blithely went on our merry way
• But ...
• There was no fancy-four-princess-dinner-in-Cinderella’s-quatrefoil-gothic-window-castle charge on our bills this morning
• Was it an oversight?
• A surprise Summer Of Running Away From Being 50 birthday gift?
• A random act of Disney benevolence?
• Pre-emptive compensation for not winning the marathon?
• Do we need to contact them to see which option it was?
• THIS SITUATION IS NOT COVERED IN THE DISNEY PROTOCOL HANDBOOK
• Not a complaint: Our entire Disney stay was a beautifully immersive experience of colors and ethnicities and accents and physical abilities and sexualities and gender fluidities and ages and family sizes
• Especially on It’s a Small World
• ESPECIALLY on It’s a Small World
• That ride gives me hives
• On my runner-chafed unmentionable locations
• Anyway ...
• We never encountered an instance of racism or xenophobia or hostility or even poorly hidden frustration over our differences
• During the entire week of our stay
• In fact, we all seemed to celebrate each other and gladly accommodate people in wheelchairs and families with excited kids so we could all enjoy our collective Disney experience together
• For a whole week
• Except, of course, for the people who stopped in the middle of a crowd of moving people to do something vitally important like take a selfie or scratch an elbow or clap on 1 and 3 or whatever other pressing needs really stupid, rude people face in their center-of-the-universe days
• MAJOR. PET. PEEVE.
• Anyway ...
• We’re re-entering the ugly, not-Disney-égalité-fraternité world of our shithole president and his shithole orbit today
• I don’t know how all of you survived it over the last week
• But re-enter we must
• In a cloud of voter optimism and hope
• And three new race shirts that make my suitcase uncloseable
• My flight home is at 5:14 tonight
• Erik’s is at 2:31
• So we took the early Disney bus to the airport for him to catch his flight and for me to chill with a couple of books and a fully charged phone for a while
• I’m currently typing this as I sit in a comfy chair in front of the airport Chick-fil-A
• Speaking of non-Disney-égalité-fraternité
• Facebook keeps crashing on me, so I’m obsessively select-all-ing and copying this post after every other bullet I write on it here
• Just so I don’t lose this freaking endless list of rambling, mostly pointless litany-of-complaints line items
• Freezing and crashing apps are many-times-a-day occurrences on my iPhone X
• I am SOOOOOOO not impressed with the iPhone X
• Save your money and get an abacus and two cans with a string
• Much more reliable
• And affordable
• Anyway ...
• I had an awesome vacation with an awesome friend and an awesome surprise finish of a half marathon I’d fully expected to choke on and possibly even have to quit
• And now I’m chilling in a bustling airport seated near two hip and cool teenagers who are using hip-and-cool-teenager patois like brah to talk to each other and my boy to talk about their (presumably male) friends
• It’s both charming and amusing
• And I’m in a happy place, both in my head and in this airport
• Except the airport’s escalators look like they were installed in a columbarium
• Brah

We're all ...

red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey and purple and white and pink and orange VOTE BLUE!

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

I’m having a delightful reunion weekend with my awesome old (WHEN DID WE ALL GET SO DAMN OLD?) friends,

but let’s take a moment to contemplate the (please vote: [] awesomeness, [] whatever the can’t-tear-your-eyes-away-trainwreck-polar-opposite of awesomeness is) of this painting in our Airbnb living room:

Well hello, knotty-pine-ski-lodge-with-towering-great-room-and-big-gay-Shane-photobomber-away-from-home!

BEHOLD THE REMORSELESS SCOFFLAWS!

So the trail was *technically* closed this morning, which means we were *probably*, *legally*, *morally*, *common-sensically* not supposed to run on it.

But we were RUNNING! So no dirty rotten coppers could even CATCH US! And we blazed blithely past the ROAD CLOSED sign all cavalier in our law-unabidingness and everything was fine ... until that everything that was moments-ago fine was suddenly covered in mucky, goopy, silty, sticky, and also slippery, splashy, every-other-kind-of-bad-stuff-adjective-that-ends-in-y-y mud. Which we macholy slogged through instead of common-sensoly turning around. Because we ain’t afraid of no mud; we’re MEN. Who just correctly used a SEMICOLON. And we have BAD JUDGMENT. With only ONE E. Because spelling it JUDGEMENT is WRONG AND DUMB AND WRONG SO STOP SPELLING IT THAT WAY, PEOPLE!

Anyway, once we (but not our formerly pretty shoes) survived the Half Mile Of Bad Decisions And Prolonged Regret And There’s No Reason To Turn Back Now Because Our Shoes Are Ruined Anyway, the trail was actually fine. We saw some people walking some totally tummy-rubbable dogs, but encountered no dumbass runners or bikers who were so dumbass that they’d slog through mud when the were clearly told not to. I was technically planning to run 6 miles this morning but was secretly hoping I’d feel up for 7 or 8, but I knew at the 3-mile mark I needed to turn around and head back ... and of course re-traverse all the mucky, goopy, silty, sticky, and also slippery, splashy, every-other-kind-of-bad-stuff-adjective-that-ends-in-y-y mud.

But we did it and my knee hurts only about 1% and I got to hang out with the fucking awesome Rob and not that potty-mouth Scott and even though my awesome-o newish running shoes are caked in mucky, goopy, silty, sticky, and also slippery, splashy, every-other-kind-of-bad-stuff-adjective-that-ends-in-y-y mud, I’m chalking it up as a great morning.

Except my texting thumb is STILL cold and creaky and I swear that’s why I’m writing and posting this three hours after we started running and not because I’ve gotten so slow that I’m mathematically running slower that someone who died in the Middle Ages and is now just dust with maybe a tiny bit of recognizable bone fragments. Because not only would that be a weirdly out of left field, but it would also be somewhere in Medieval England. And that would just be weird.

I AM A PILLAR OF MY COMMUNITY

Also: I am a master at nimble, melodious wordplay because THAT’S A PILLAR RIGHT BEHIND ME.

Also: GET IT?

Also: Because IT’S A PILLAR. And IT’S IN OUR SHOW. And OUR SHOW IS A COMMUNITY. And I’M AT ONE WITH THE PILLAR.

Also: My Edwardian-English-lord-and-gentleman-who’s-also-sometimes-a-suspicious-roustabout-so-watch-your-wallets hair part is SEVERE and RIGHT ON POINT and CEMENTED AND LACQUERED IN PLACE BY THREE DIFFERENT HAIR PRODUCTS PLUS SOME PLUCKY DETERMINATION SO IT’S GONNA LOOK THIS WAY UNTIL THE MIDTERMS.

Also: WHICH WILL BE AS AWASH IN GORGEOUS BLUE AS THIS PILLAR. Because OUR COMMUNITY DEPENDS ON IT.

Also: I hadn’t planned on bringing this beyond-weird Facebook post full-circle, but here we are.

VACCINES KILL

It’s true because it’s on a T-shirt worn by a completely-trustworthy-looking dude wandering Terminal E of Charlotte Douglas International Airport. The shirt is scarlet. As in fever.

Also: Charlotte Douglas International Airport is the size and shape of a charming-Belgian-hamlet-size spider squashed by Bob Fosse.

Also: I’m in the mood for a totally-not-abs-friendly snack, but I’ve trekked the full extent of Charlotte Douglas International Airport’s splayed-and-Fosse-angled spider legs and I haven’t seen a single damn gooeyfrostedcinnamonrollerie.

Also: I just followed a distractingly-latted-and-boyfriend-age-appropriate man in a contour-hugging gray T-shirt all the way from Terminal E to Terminal C on the far end of the Fosse-squashed charming-Belgian-hamlet-size Charlotte Douglas International Airport, but he stopped at Terminal C2 and I depart from Terminal C8.

Also: Stupid Terminal C8.

Also: My supposedly-auto-time-zone-synching running watch is refusing to auto-time-zone synch.

Also: Stupid supposedly-auto-time-zone-synching running watch.

Also: The cashier at Sbarro keeps aggressively demanding that every customer have a great day.

Also: DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO MY WATCH WON’T AUTOMATICALLY CHANGE TIME ZONES AND I ACTUALLY WANTED A GOOEY FROSTED CINNAMON ROLL INSTEAD OF YOUR SUSPICIOUSLY SUSPICIOUS PIZZA AND I JUST HAD TO SIT POINTLESSLY ON A TARMAC FOR 15 MINUTES AND GRAY SHIRT GUY IS FLYING TO DALLAS FORT WORTH YES I LOOKED IT’S TOTALLY NOT CREEPY SHUT UP AND MY PARENTS ARE TRYING TO VACCINATE ME TO DEATH SO IT’S WAAAAY BEYOND POSSIBLE FOR MEET YOUR AGGRESSIVE AND FRANKLY CRUEL GREAT-DAY DEMANDS.