And I'm crossing a lot of things off my to-do list:
My first visit to Orlando that isn't built around a Disney vacation. Keith and Andrew have been bugging me to come visit them here for years, so I finally booked the trip, packed my sorry excuse for a swimsuit ... and here I am!
My first time reading The Da Vinci Code. I bought it way back in like 1975 when it was available only in a 75 lb hardcover edition. Now that it's out in a convenient paperback, I decided to schlep the damn thing to Florida and back with me. I'm halfway through it (at this writing they're all holed up in the French chateau while enemies from every side close in on them) so don't ruin it for me. And this might sound as sacreligious as the book itself, but I don't think it's very good. Sure, the plot is fascinating and fast-paced. And I've always been sucker for stories about ancient secrets bubbling up to drive modern adventures. But the writing. Oy, the writing. There are two kinds of lazy writing I find inexcusable when it's done by professionals: tons of -ly adverbs ("they entered the house carefully while he looked around expectantly") and tons of adjective-noun combinations ("the red book in the wooden table in the vast room held the terrible secret that drove the endless plot"). The Da Vinci Code is guilty of the second offense. In spades. I mean in endless spades. Granted, you can't avoid adjectives, and I have frequently phoned in some adjective-laden posts just to get something online so you, my dear readers, don't get bored from waiting and start poking around and discover that there are acutally more interesting things to read on the Internets. But I'm not charging you a thing to read my blog. And it's not an international best-seller. And it's not being turned into a freakin' movie.
My first visit to a nude beach. (SPF 30! SPF 30!) I hadn't seen either ocean in more than 15 years, so I was more excited to see the waves and contemplate the watery vastness than to frolic about with the uninhibited and unclothed, who are not traditionally obsessed with physical fitness anyway. And it was pretty windy and hovering near the cool side of comfortable yesterday, so I just read my book and napped a bit as the waves crashed endlessly ashore about 10 feet from us. Technically, nuding is not allowed on Florida beaches, but Playalinda (just north of Cape Canaveral) has little fenced-off areas where hardcore nudists can congregate without sending the general population into a downward spiral of witchcraft, lesbianism and child-eating. And as a man who almost never spends time in the sun, I wasn't interested in burning anything useful, but in the interest of having something interesting to blog about (so when are you gonna start being interesting, Jake?) I went almost nude (I kept my sunglasses on) for a very quick moment in the sun and another 10 or so minutes in my chair with my book. Then it just felt silly so I put my ugly suit (my ugly swimsuit, not my ugly birthday suit) back on.
My first visit to Disney World in 2006. OK, in April 2006. Keith dances in one of the shows at Disney-MGM Studios, and he signed our friend David and me in for the day on Friday while he worked. David and I hit the best parts of three parks in 12 hours and ended our day parked at one of my favorite spots: the lakeside cafe in Epcot's Mexico pavilion, where we watched the fireworks show over spicy goodness and a shared margarita. (Damn. Look at all those adjectives. This paragraph is doomed to be turned into another Tom Hanks vehicle.)
My first visits to Club Orlando and the Parliament House. Keith and I worked out at Club Orlando's awesome gym yesterday, where he pushed my chest and shoulders to a state of abject pain. But it was the good kind of abject pain. (We did not, however, partake of the club's more prurient offerings.) Then we headed over to the famed Parliament House, where Kieth is easily the hottest backup dancer in the drag shows. I'd heard all kinds of stories about the Parliament House, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But it's totally cool, with tons of bars and a fabulous outdoor patio and great shows and a restaurant and even a time-share resort area going up next door. And after his shows, we stayed up dancing until 3:00. So now I'm tired AND my feet hurt AND my chest and shoulders are screaming at me every time I reach for my mouse.
On the agenda for the rest of the trip: Finishing my book. Sleeping in the sun. Working my back and/or legs as hard as we worked my chest and shoulders. Finding me a suitable swimsuit that is somewhere between the baggy Target special I usually wear and the squarecut things the trendy gay boys with the little waists frolic around in. Getting my blog turned into a movie.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Thursday, April 27, 2006
CSI Episode Requirements
CSIs may wear hazmat suits and other protective clothing while processing an area that’s potentially contaminated and/or lethal, but only if it looks sexy.
CSIs must never wear hairnets or any other garments that would look unflattering or help prevent the personal contamination of a crime scene.
The more gruesome the crime scene, the more light-colored cashmere the CSIs must be wearing to process it.
The uglier the victim, the more we have to see him or her naked.
Female victims of violent crimes must look as though they applied their own fake blood and bruises with rouge and eyeshadow so as not to undermine the beauty that got them cast in the first place.
In the moments before he is murdered, the victim must be visited by at least three separate people in rapid succession who don’t know each other but who coincidentally all have reason to kill him.
The murderer must either pass in front of the camera in the opening 10 minutes of an episode or be the last possible suspect the CSIs can think of.
Every suspect brought in for questioning must have watched enough cop shows on TV to know that he or she is free to walk out at any moment—but only after making a dramatic statement or sassy threat.
At least one potential suspect—preferably a close relative—must show cool indifference over the victim’s death.
If at all possible, murderers and suspects must be played by actors who will eventually appear on Desperate Housewives.
CSIs must know vast amounts of arcane information on entomology, satellite technology, obscure scientific disciplines and esoteric forms of popular entertainment, yet they are required to explain basic tenets of forensic science (“pooling blood always follows gravity”) to each other.
Lab results must first be given in highly scientific terms (“polyfartypoopoochloride”) so they may be helpfully translated into laymen’s terms (“typing paper”) by knowledgeable CSIs.
Every episode must contain at least two of the following words: exsanguination, petechial hemorrhaging, through and through, the vic, alleles, CODIS, Jake and Nick/Eric/Danny really make a cute couple.
CSI labs, morgues and gun vaults must have more indirect lighting and funky ambiance than a trendy nightclub.
CSIs must have beautiful bodies and fabulous hair and wear tight-fitting couture, yet they must never earn the salaries required to afford their wardrobes and they must never be given the personal time necessary to work out or shop.
If a CSI suffers some physical or emotional trauma on the job, he must stubbornly refuse to seek the required treatment until Something Bad Happens to make him reconsider his obstinance.
If the sister or girlfriend of a CSI is dying of cancer, it must be the kind of cancer that makes her more and more beautiful as it progresses.
There is a mole in the CSI: Miami lab. They’re gonna tell you about it in every episode, but they’re never gonna give you any useful hints beyond that. So stop trying to guess who it is.
CSIs must never wear hairnets or any other garments that would look unflattering or help prevent the personal contamination of a crime scene.
The more gruesome the crime scene, the more light-colored cashmere the CSIs must be wearing to process it.
The uglier the victim, the more we have to see him or her naked.
Female victims of violent crimes must look as though they applied their own fake blood and bruises with rouge and eyeshadow so as not to undermine the beauty that got them cast in the first place.
In the moments before he is murdered, the victim must be visited by at least three separate people in rapid succession who don’t know each other but who coincidentally all have reason to kill him.
The murderer must either pass in front of the camera in the opening 10 minutes of an episode or be the last possible suspect the CSIs can think of.
Every suspect brought in for questioning must have watched enough cop shows on TV to know that he or she is free to walk out at any moment—but only after making a dramatic statement or sassy threat.
At least one potential suspect—preferably a close relative—must show cool indifference over the victim’s death.
If at all possible, murderers and suspects must be played by actors who will eventually appear on Desperate Housewives.
CSIs must know vast amounts of arcane information on entomology, satellite technology, obscure scientific disciplines and esoteric forms of popular entertainment, yet they are required to explain basic tenets of forensic science (“pooling blood always follows gravity”) to each other.
Lab results must first be given in highly scientific terms (“polyfartypoopoochloride”) so they may be helpfully translated into laymen’s terms (“typing paper”) by knowledgeable CSIs.
Every episode must contain at least two of the following words: exsanguination, petechial hemorrhaging, through and through, the vic, alleles, CODIS, Jake and Nick/Eric/Danny really make a cute couple.
CSI labs, morgues and gun vaults must have more indirect lighting and funky ambiance than a trendy nightclub.
CSIs must have beautiful bodies and fabulous hair and wear tight-fitting couture, yet they must never earn the salaries required to afford their wardrobes and they must never be given the personal time necessary to work out or shop.
If a CSI suffers some physical or emotional trauma on the job, he must stubbornly refuse to seek the required treatment until Something Bad Happens to make him reconsider his obstinance.
If the sister or girlfriend of a CSI is dying of cancer, it must be the kind of cancer that makes her more and more beautiful as it progresses.
There is a mole in the CSI: Miami lab. They’re gonna tell you about it in every episode, but they’re never gonna give you any useful hints beyond that. So stop trying to guess who it is.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Soup to grunts
When I moved to Chicago six years ago, some guys I’d met on earlier trips here—guys I barely knew beyond a conversation in a bar and a few follow-up emails—showed up at 10 am on a Sunday to help my folks and me unload our truck and haul a bunch of heavy furniture down a long hallway and up a spiral staircase to the world’s smallest fourth-floor apartment, even though the apartment number was officially 305. (And now that I know these guys better, I understand what a supreme sacrifice it was for them to do much of anything at 10 am on a weekend morning.)
Despite their generosity with their saving-Jake-a-bundle manpower, these guys and I have never really become friends. I see them around, we make small talk, some of us exchange holiday cards … but we don’t hang out and we don’t call each other and we never really clicked on any lasting level. So I can never directly repay the immense favor they did for an almost complete stranger on a lovely July morning six years ago.
So I switched to Plan B: paying it forward. Since my movers-dropping-from-the-heavens experience I’ve grabbed every opportunity to help other friends move, lend people stuff, give rides, paint kitchens, pledge money, offer up a couch to crash on, introduce potential love interests, hold hands in the hospital, show up with treats and do any number of other things that just seem like a great way to pass along the goodwill.
So when my friend Barb told me she needed to replace the ceiling light in her kitchen, I volunteered to do it for her. (Replacing a ceiling light is relatively simple, falling somewhere between braiding Barbie hair and stuffing a cat in a cereal box. And the change you create is often so dramatic you look like a total stud for doing it.)
Barb is a bright, interesting woman with bright, interesting friends and a cool house (now with a brighter, interesting kitchen!) and delightful gay neighbors. And after I installed her light yesterday afternoon, I also learned she’s an amazing cook. To thank me, she whipped up a little something that would take me decades just to plan: a carrot-ginger soup that was so good it almost made me hum, a lovely Greek salad, grilled Vidalias and red peppers, and a flank steak marinated in pure deliciousness. And for dessert, ginger gelato and about four hours of delightful conversation. All of which is totally harshing the buzz I used to enjoy from the post-workout protein binge (fistfuls of lunchmeat, pb&j on wheat, tuna salad without mayo, etc.) I usually wolf down every afternoon.
What’s more, now I’m obsessed with carrot-ginger soup! I’ve already googled it and printed four of the recipes I found, all of which I intend to try. (I didn’t print the recipes that included butternut squash, which is just gross, or anything from the butter/cream/childbearing hips family.) And thank goodness my sister bought me an everything-you-ever-needed-to-know-about-cooking cookbook for my birthday, because I wouldn’t know how to peel ginger if I were stuck on a desert island with her.
And the next time I move—which should be within the next year; I’ve been working with a Realtor to make it happen sooner than later—I’ll definitely hire movers so I won’t feel guilty about not being their BFFs. And I may even offer them some delicious soup.
Despite their generosity with their saving-Jake-a-bundle manpower, these guys and I have never really become friends. I see them around, we make small talk, some of us exchange holiday cards … but we don’t hang out and we don’t call each other and we never really clicked on any lasting level. So I can never directly repay the immense favor they did for an almost complete stranger on a lovely July morning six years ago.
So I switched to Plan B: paying it forward. Since my movers-dropping-from-the-heavens experience I’ve grabbed every opportunity to help other friends move, lend people stuff, give rides, paint kitchens, pledge money, offer up a couch to crash on, introduce potential love interests, hold hands in the hospital, show up with treats and do any number of other things that just seem like a great way to pass along the goodwill.
So when my friend Barb told me she needed to replace the ceiling light in her kitchen, I volunteered to do it for her. (Replacing a ceiling light is relatively simple, falling somewhere between braiding Barbie hair and stuffing a cat in a cereal box. And the change you create is often so dramatic you look like a total stud for doing it.)
Barb is a bright, interesting woman with bright, interesting friends and a cool house (now with a brighter, interesting kitchen!) and delightful gay neighbors. And after I installed her light yesterday afternoon, I also learned she’s an amazing cook. To thank me, she whipped up a little something that would take me decades just to plan: a carrot-ginger soup that was so good it almost made me hum, a lovely Greek salad, grilled Vidalias and red peppers, and a flank steak marinated in pure deliciousness. And for dessert, ginger gelato and about four hours of delightful conversation. All of which is totally harshing the buzz I used to enjoy from the post-workout protein binge (fistfuls of lunchmeat, pb&j on wheat, tuna salad without mayo, etc.) I usually wolf down every afternoon.
What’s more, now I’m obsessed with carrot-ginger soup! I’ve already googled it and printed four of the recipes I found, all of which I intend to try. (I didn’t print the recipes that included butternut squash, which is just gross, or anything from the butter/cream/childbearing hips family.) And thank goodness my sister bought me an everything-you-ever-needed-to-know-about-cooking cookbook for my birthday, because I wouldn’t know how to peel ginger if I were stuck on a desert island with her.
And the next time I move—which should be within the next year; I’ve been working with a Realtor to make it happen sooner than later—I’ll definitely hire movers so I won’t feel guilty about not being their BFFs. And I may even offer them some delicious soup.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Pictures! I have pictures!
Last night’s birthday blast (OK, mini-blast) was everything a boy could hope for on a chilly Tuesday night in April. Take a look:
6:00 pm. Mother Hubbard's.
Here is a picture of me taking a picture of my birthday tart. I’ll type that again slowly so you can more readily comprehend its cosmic implications: It’s a picture of me taking a picture. Of a tart, but that’s not the point. And see that beer toward the left of the image, right in front of my friend Barb? SEE IT? That, my friends, is the second beer I’ve ever ordered in my life—and the first beer I’ve drunk all the way to the bottom ever. EVER! Unfortunately, the waitress came and hauled it away before we could have it bronzed.
Here is the above picture I took—posted right below the picture of it being taken. Some of us are still trying to wrap our brains around this concept. Like most everything associated with cell phone “technology,” the picture kinda sucks. But the sour-cream-and-apple tart featured in the picture was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Even more delicious than Suri Holmes-Cruise’s placenta, which Tom reportedly planned to eat around the same time because he just had to have his alien freak beard-child on MY birthday.
Caroline and Gray. Caroline brought the abovementioned tart. She’s certifiably French, so she knows from tarts. Gray is certifiably heterosexual, so there is a more realistic chance that he is Suri’s actual sperm father.
Me and Matthew. Neither one of us is in danger of being accused of fathering children. Though my alien eyes might make me a more attractive prospect for a dubiously heterosexual Scientologist looking tosquelch a rumor make a baby.
8:00 pm. Kevin.
Kevin is a fabulously upscale Asian fusion (that’s fun to say: Asian fusion!) restaurant ironically located right next door to the very dive-bar-y Mother Hubbard’s. Matthew took me there for a nice birthday dinner after my drunken whole-bottle-of-beer debauchery, and it was delicious (the restaurant, not the debauchery).
We were too full of beer and tarts to order alcohol and desserts, but the pastry chef made me this complimentary birthday cookie plate anyway. That beautiful scripty stuff on the plate is actual chocolate, and it was so pretty I could barely stop myself from licking it like a rutting pig. Barely.
I also don’t think this is the best picture of me, but let’s focus on the cookies and the chocolate, shall we? Yes, let’s.
11:00 pm. Jake’s house.
I have no pictures to share here. But I went to bed soon after I got home. Because I’m 38 now, and I need my rest.
6:00 pm. Mother Hubbard's.
Here is a picture of me taking a picture of my birthday tart. I’ll type that again slowly so you can more readily comprehend its cosmic implications: It’s a picture of me taking a picture. Of a tart, but that’s not the point. And see that beer toward the left of the image, right in front of my friend Barb? SEE IT? That, my friends, is the second beer I’ve ever ordered in my life—and the first beer I’ve drunk all the way to the bottom ever. EVER! Unfortunately, the waitress came and hauled it away before we could have it bronzed.
Here is the above picture I took—posted right below the picture of it being taken. Some of us are still trying to wrap our brains around this concept. Like most everything associated with cell phone “technology,” the picture kinda sucks. But the sour-cream-and-apple tart featured in the picture was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Even more delicious than Suri Holmes-Cruise’s placenta, which Tom reportedly planned to eat around the same time because he just had to have his alien freak beard-child on MY birthday.
Caroline and Gray. Caroline brought the abovementioned tart. She’s certifiably French, so she knows from tarts. Gray is certifiably heterosexual, so there is a more realistic chance that he is Suri’s actual sperm father.
Me and Matthew. Neither one of us is in danger of being accused of fathering children. Though my alien eyes might make me a more attractive prospect for a dubiously heterosexual Scientologist looking to
8:00 pm. Kevin.
Kevin is a fabulously upscale Asian fusion (that’s fun to say: Asian fusion!) restaurant ironically located right next door to the very dive-bar-y Mother Hubbard’s. Matthew took me there for a nice birthday dinner after my drunken whole-bottle-of-beer debauchery, and it was delicious (the restaurant, not the debauchery).
We were too full of beer and tarts to order alcohol and desserts, but the pastry chef made me this complimentary birthday cookie plate anyway. That beautiful scripty stuff on the plate is actual chocolate, and it was so pretty I could barely stop myself from licking it like a rutting pig. Barely.
I also don’t think this is the best picture of me, but let’s focus on the cookies and the chocolate, shall we? Yes, let’s.
11:00 pm. Jake’s house.
I have no pictures to share here. But I went to bed soon after I got home. Because I’m 38 now, and I need my rest.
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
H B T M
38 years ago today I made my grand entrance, breaking my mom’s tailbone on the way. Then I totally forgot my lines. And the costumer never came up with anything to work around my figure flaws, so I just proudly went without.
In those 38 years, I’ve filled my dance card with piano lessons and trips to Europe and skydives and marathons and a precocious nephew and a comically independent niece and a writing career in a big city. I’ve also survived broken bones and lost loved ones and burnt toast and mean kids on the playground and now the indignity of old-man hair on my back and arms.
So far, it’s all added up to a pretty charmed life. My family loves me. I’m able to live in a highrise with a pretty spectacular view. I have all my own teeth. Friends laugh at my jokes. Perfect strangers read my blog and even send me fan mail. People still think I’m cute.
And to celebrate all this, I’ve gotten socks (I needed socks!) and two cookbooks for all the dinner parties I want to throw and a Scrabble dictionary and a couple gift certificates at my favorite stores and diners and parties and cards and emails and well-wishes from friends and family members alike.
I’ve even given myself something special. Something I may blog about later (it would make the perfect spring/regrowth metaphor!). Or I may share it with only a few relevant friends. Or I may just keep it to myself. But it’s pretty cool, and I’m kind of excited about it. Sorry to be such a tease—but hey! It’s my birthday! I can do whatever I want! Like waste exclamation points!
It’s a beautiful sunny day today. My family just called to sing to me. It looks like I’ll have a light day at work. I’m meeting some friends for drinks afterwards, and another friend is buying me dinner tonight. And my parents are bringing me socks when they come to visit this weekend.
Who could ask for anything more?
Birthday update! My family in Iowa sent a cake to my office this morning to help mebribe my co-workers to stop giving me wedgies celebrate. This is how it looked before it took up residence on my gooey, 38-year-old manhips:
In those 38 years, I’ve filled my dance card with piano lessons and trips to Europe and skydives and marathons and a precocious nephew and a comically independent niece and a writing career in a big city. I’ve also survived broken bones and lost loved ones and burnt toast and mean kids on the playground and now the indignity of old-man hair on my back and arms.
So far, it’s all added up to a pretty charmed life. My family loves me. I’m able to live in a highrise with a pretty spectacular view. I have all my own teeth. Friends laugh at my jokes. Perfect strangers read my blog and even send me fan mail. People still think I’m cute.
And to celebrate all this, I’ve gotten socks (I needed socks!) and two cookbooks for all the dinner parties I want to throw and a Scrabble dictionary and a couple gift certificates at my favorite stores and diners and parties and cards and emails and well-wishes from friends and family members alike.
I’ve even given myself something special. Something I may blog about later (it would make the perfect spring/regrowth metaphor!). Or I may share it with only a few relevant friends. Or I may just keep it to myself. But it’s pretty cool, and I’m kind of excited about it. Sorry to be such a tease—but hey! It’s my birthday! I can do whatever I want! Like waste exclamation points!
It’s a beautiful sunny day today. My family just called to sing to me. It looks like I’ll have a light day at work. I’m meeting some friends for drinks afterwards, and another friend is buying me dinner tonight. And my parents are bringing me socks when they come to visit this weekend.
Who could ask for anything more?
Birthday update! My family in Iowa sent a cake to my office this morning to help me
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Get your tickets already!
I just spent eight hours in rehearsal for this show, and it's going to be a HOOT. We have some awesome talent bringing to life some creative, clever, BRILLIANT writing. If you miss it, you'll not only miss out on one of the funniest, most intelligently written shows I've been a part of, but you'll also be a total loser. With saggy man-boobs. And breath that smells like feet.
And if great writing isn't enough to get you to cough up some dough and commit two hours of your life to us, try this: You can see my delicately nuanced choreography being performed with sensitivity and respect by a stage full of rowdy homos. Many of whom will have their shirts off.
So click on the banner already!
Go on! CLICK!
Saturday, April 15, 2006
Watching things come crashing down
Tuesday is the 100th anniversary of the famous San Francisco earthquake. More importantly, it’s the 38th anniversary of my miraculous birth.
And since nobody has stepped up to throw me a surprise party (ahem), I’m throwing my own damn party. Tonight. And you are welcome to stop by and watch me wrinkle.
Please don’t bring presents. But feel free to click on that big square icon to your right and sponsor me in the AIDS Marathon. :-)
The vitals:
Saturday, April 15 @ 8 pm
Crew Bar + Grill
4804 N. Broadway (at Lawrence)
We’ll be in the back by the pool table. There will be cake. I may drink alcohol.
And I guarantee you will have at least this much fun:
And since nobody has stepped up to throw me a surprise party (ahem), I’m throwing my own damn party. Tonight. And you are welcome to stop by and watch me wrinkle.
Please don’t bring presents. But feel free to click on that big square icon to your right and sponsor me in the AIDS Marathon. :-)
The vitals:
Saturday, April 15 @ 8 pm
Crew Bar + Grill
4804 N. Broadway (at Lawrence)
We’ll be in the back by the pool table. There will be cake. I may drink alcohol.
And I guarantee you will have at least this much fun:
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
It’s not spring in Chicago until …
• The El starts smelling like pee again.
• The first bad gay of spring appears in capri pants.
• The first bad straight of spring appears in jean shorts.
• There’s a run on self-tanner at Walgreens.
• You make it through the night without having to get up to find a blanket.
• Shaving your legs starts sounding like a good idea.
• So do highlights.
• But you promised yourself you’d remember past mistakes and leave well enough alone.
• You have your first meal at a sidewalk café.
Chicagoans love to eat outside—even when it’s not quite warm enough—and Jason and I inaugurated sidewalk café season tonight with a delightful dinner at Uncommon Ground. Which I’d never even heard of, though it’s HUGE and AWESOME and OTHER CAPITALIZED WORDS. It looks like it was one of those best-kept-secret storefront cafés that quietly gained a following and eventually swallowed up the whole block. The place now comprises four different storefronts (bar, café, fussy dessert place, poetry slam room), with outdoor seating that fills the entire sidewalk. And it has delicious food.
As we were leaving, Jason stopped to unlock his bike from a rack next to a table of street hoodlums straight out of central casting: slouchy postures, baggy clothes, gang gestures … the only reason they weren’t covered in bling is they looked too young todie in a war vote.
And as Jason adjusted his bike helmet, I adjusted my prejudices:
Street Hoodlum #1: You gonna go out with her again?
Street Hoodlum #2: Nah. Too weird.
Street Hoodlum #1: Who cares? She’s HOT.
Street Hoodlum #2: I thought she was too. Until she started text messaging me.
Street Hoodlum #1: And?
Street Hoodlum #2: She doesn’t know the difference between they’re and their.
• The first bad gay of spring appears in capri pants.
• The first bad straight of spring appears in jean shorts.
• There’s a run on self-tanner at Walgreens.
• You make it through the night without having to get up to find a blanket.
• Shaving your legs starts sounding like a good idea.
• So do highlights.
• But you promised yourself you’d remember past mistakes and leave well enough alone.
• You have your first meal at a sidewalk café.
Chicagoans love to eat outside—even when it’s not quite warm enough—and Jason and I inaugurated sidewalk café season tonight with a delightful dinner at Uncommon Ground. Which I’d never even heard of, though it’s HUGE and AWESOME and OTHER CAPITALIZED WORDS. It looks like it was one of those best-kept-secret storefront cafés that quietly gained a following and eventually swallowed up the whole block. The place now comprises four different storefronts (bar, café, fussy dessert place, poetry slam room), with outdoor seating that fills the entire sidewalk. And it has delicious food.
As we were leaving, Jason stopped to unlock his bike from a rack next to a table of street hoodlums straight out of central casting: slouchy postures, baggy clothes, gang gestures … the only reason they weren’t covered in bling is they looked too young to
And as Jason adjusted his bike helmet, I adjusted my prejudices:
Street Hoodlum #1: You gonna go out with her again?
Street Hoodlum #2: Nah. Too weird.
Street Hoodlum #1: Who cares? She’s HOT.
Street Hoodlum #2: I thought she was too. Until she started text messaging me.
Street Hoodlum #1: And?
Street Hoodlum #2: She doesn’t know the difference between they’re and their.
Monday, April 10, 2006
Extortion. Now with springier shoes!
With two Chicago Marathons behind me, I’m finally taking steps this year to transform all that huffing and puffing into something more important than my personal running goals.
So I’m running the Chicago Marathon on behalf of the AIDS Marathon organization this October, which for me means the opportunity to train with a group of people (who meet a block from my house!), make new friends, log a good 500 miles this summer and finally meet (or beat!) my so-far-unreachable 4:00 goal.
For you, it means the opportunity to sponsor me and generate much-needed (tax-deductible!) funds for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
And for the AIDS Foundation, it means more opportunities to provide direct medical care, food, housing and other vital services for people living with HIV and AIDS. To run the AIDS Marathon, I have committed to raising $1,400 in sponsorships before July 5—though my personal goal is $2,500.
It couldn’t be easier to make a donation—just click on this logo, and together we can improve the lives of thousands of people living with this disease:
I’ve made a $200 starting donation, but the AIDS Marathon office tells me it can take up to five business days for donations to be acknowledged on my pledge page. So at this writing there’s no record that anyone has pledged any money to sponsor me. Please don’t let this weird little technical problem stop you from donating. You can pledge any amount you want—and you can get immediate acknowledgement if you add a comment at the bottom of this post bragging about how generous you are.
Despite recent advances in the treatment of AIDS, the epidemic is far from over. More than one million Americans—and 40 million more around the world—are now living with HIV. It’s no longer the gay disease once gleefully dismissed by the religious right; it’s now the LEADING cause of death among adults age 15-59 worldwide—gay or straight, black or white, male or female. The LEADING cause. That’s a lot of people who who are not only sick, but potentially homeless, jobless, ostracized, trying to raise children or otherwise in desperate need of what the AIDS Foundation provides.
I’ve grown kind of addicted to marathon running, and now I’m asking you to share in the experience with me. Every beautiful, sunny training run … every training run through rain or blinding heat … every Saturday morning milestone … every goosebump and tear of joy and euphoric smile on October 22 … sponsor me today, and I’ll carry you in my thoughts for four straight hours (or more if I suck!) as I soak up the amazing energy from 40,000 other runners and more than a million cheering spectators along the marathon course.
Last year some spectator yelled NoFo! at me somewhere near mile 18. Or maybe some mofo threw a spectator pump at me. I was kinda tired by that point. In any case, that woman had read my blog enough that she recognized me out of 40,000 fast-moving runners. You’ve built up enough of a connection that you’ve read almost to the end of a post written solely to guilt you out of your money. Please. Whip out your credit card, click on the link above and join me on my third marathon adventure.
Thank you.
So I’m running the Chicago Marathon on behalf of the AIDS Marathon organization this October, which for me means the opportunity to train with a group of people (who meet a block from my house!), make new friends, log a good 500 miles this summer and finally meet (or beat!) my so-far-unreachable 4:00 goal.
For you, it means the opportunity to sponsor me and generate much-needed (tax-deductible!) funds for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
And for the AIDS Foundation, it means more opportunities to provide direct medical care, food, housing and other vital services for people living with HIV and AIDS. To run the AIDS Marathon, I have committed to raising $1,400 in sponsorships before July 5—though my personal goal is $2,500.
It couldn’t be easier to make a donation—just click on this logo, and together we can improve the lives of thousands of people living with this disease:
I’ve made a $200 starting donation, but the AIDS Marathon office tells me it can take up to five business days for donations to be acknowledged on my pledge page. So at this writing there’s no record that anyone has pledged any money to sponsor me. Please don’t let this weird little technical problem stop you from donating. You can pledge any amount you want—and you can get immediate acknowledgement if you add a comment at the bottom of this post bragging about how generous you are.
Despite recent advances in the treatment of AIDS, the epidemic is far from over. More than one million Americans—and 40 million more around the world—are now living with HIV. It’s no longer the gay disease once gleefully dismissed by the religious right; it’s now the LEADING cause of death among adults age 15-59 worldwide—gay or straight, black or white, male or female. The LEADING cause. That’s a lot of people who who are not only sick, but potentially homeless, jobless, ostracized, trying to raise children or otherwise in desperate need of what the AIDS Foundation provides.
I’ve grown kind of addicted to marathon running, and now I’m asking you to share in the experience with me. Every beautiful, sunny training run … every training run through rain or blinding heat … every Saturday morning milestone … every goosebump and tear of joy and euphoric smile on October 22 … sponsor me today, and I’ll carry you in my thoughts for four straight hours (or more if I suck!) as I soak up the amazing energy from 40,000 other runners and more than a million cheering spectators along the marathon course.
Last year some spectator yelled NoFo! at me somewhere near mile 18. Or maybe some mofo threw a spectator pump at me. I was kinda tired by that point. In any case, that woman had read my blog enough that she recognized me out of 40,000 fast-moving runners. You’ve built up enough of a connection that you’ve read almost to the end of a post written solely to guilt you out of your money. Please. Whip out your credit card, click on the link above and join me on my third marathon adventure.
Thank you.
Wow.
I have gotten the nicest feedback about my tribute to Joanne.
In addition to the comments attached to the post, I’ve received 26 emails from readers. (I normally get about one or two emails a week from my blog.) A friend of ours forwarded the post to almost a hundred people, many of whom wrote me very touching thank-yous. Another friend of Joanne’s is getting it published in two newspapers and maybe included in a memorial at the theater where she and I did Grease together so long ago.
I’ve also discovered some factual and chronological errors in my recollections, but they’re relatively minor and I like the way they build the narrative, so I won’t change them.
I hadn’t seen much of Joanne since I moved to Chicago in 2000, so I feel pretty removed from her death. I decided not to go home to her funeral, but people have told me it was packed with family and friends, and all the music and shared memories made it last an hour and a half—all of which in itself is a lovely tribute.
I made the post for the usual reasons: to help me sort through my thoughts, to tell our shared story and to do my little part to perpetuate the memory of a remarkable woman. The fact that it touched so many people is a nice little bonus. And a great feeling.
And I feel honored to be a part of people’s memories of her. Thank you for sharing in that with me, and for helping me celebrate her life.
In addition to the comments attached to the post, I’ve received 26 emails from readers. (I normally get about one or two emails a week from my blog.) A friend of ours forwarded the post to almost a hundred people, many of whom wrote me very touching thank-yous. Another friend of Joanne’s is getting it published in two newspapers and maybe included in a memorial at the theater where she and I did Grease together so long ago.
I’ve also discovered some factual and chronological errors in my recollections, but they’re relatively minor and I like the way they build the narrative, so I won’t change them.
I hadn’t seen much of Joanne since I moved to Chicago in 2000, so I feel pretty removed from her death. I decided not to go home to her funeral, but people have told me it was packed with family and friends, and all the music and shared memories made it last an hour and a half—all of which in itself is a lovely tribute.
I made the post for the usual reasons: to help me sort through my thoughts, to tell our shared story and to do my little part to perpetuate the memory of a remarkable woman. The fact that it touched so many people is a nice little bonus. And a great feeling.
And I feel honored to be a part of people’s memories of her. Thank you for sharing in that with me, and for helping me celebrate her life.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
To sleep
When I first met her, she was one of a hundred new faces in the cast of a show. It was January 1991, and I had just graduated from college and moved back to my hometown to start The Rest Of My Life. The first order of business was getting cast in Follies, an annual song-and-dance extravaganza whose cast members quickly became my extended family, my professional network and my closest friends.
I’m sure I talked to her five or six times before her face and name—along with the many other faces and names in the cast and crew—started to solidify in my mind. She was about my parents’ age, and she’d actually been friends with them in a past life when they were newlyweds who traveled in the city’s theater circles with her.
And while she was measurably older than I was, she was quintessentially young at heart, often hanging out with us kids during breaks and after rehearsals and performances.
Blessed with a confidence and a commanding presence that belied her relatively short stature, she owned any role she played. Her voice had a rawness that lent a great deal of character to her solos and her funny bits of stage business. And she never let fear hold her back. In fact, I’ll never forget the self-satisfied evil she dredged up from some delightfully dark corner of her otherwise Midwest-wholesome, every-hair-in-place self to play Snow White’s witch in a Disney tribute. One look in her eyes told you she didn’t care if she came off as greedy or cruel—she would be the fairest in the land, and no pasty white virgin was about to stand in her way.
And when she played the irascible Miss Lynch in a summer production of Grease a few years later, I admired her for throwing herself so delightedly into the role—but I admired her more for yanking a wooden ruler out from between her boobs every night on stage with the kind of force that sent one terrifying word shivering up and down my spine: splinters
And then one January, soon after that year’s Follies rehearsals had started, she was gone. They’d found a mass in her abdomen the size of a cantaloupe. It was ovarian cancer, the bastard cancer that advances so stealthily that women don’t even know it’s eating them alive until it’s almost too late. She promptly underwent her surgery and stated her treatments, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t back where she belonged—right there on stage next to us—when the show opened that March.
But she came back with a few accessories. Follies shows are always about glitz and splash; if the costumes and sets aren’t colorful enough, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a few more layers of satin and lamé. So when her cancer treatment dictated that she go through life for a while with shunts and tubes connected to a backpack full of I’m not sure exactly what, she just wrapped her backpack in coordinating fabric and stood proudly on the stage, singing her heart out and sharing the glow of the lights with her Follies family.
Two weeks later, as we were all striking the set, she came up to me in tears. I had told her on opening night how great it was to have her back with us—backpack and all—considering the alternatives. She told me it had taken the entire run of the show for the reality to really sink in: She had come this close to death. But she didn’t die, because she had more solos to sing, more bows to take and more friends to hug. And she thanked me for being a part of that journey with her.
Her cheerful defiance against an almost insurmountable barrage of relapses and complications inspired everyone around her for more than a decade. She was in the hospital again, we’d hear. But we all knew she would not go down without an epic fight. And we always knew her time wasn’t yet up. Besides, she never showed any signs of admitting defeat—at least not to us. She always threw her energies at living her life and enjoying her world and beating the enemy that kept encroaching on her fun.
And then.
I started hearing acknowledgements of defeat from our friends when I was home for Christmas this year. She’s had major surgery, and it looks like it’s just a matter of days, people would say. You should go visit her while you’re home, they’d tell me. Give her a final hug and say your goodbyes, they’d recommend.
So I did. I spent a couple hours visiting with her in the beautiful home she and her husband shared on a hilly, wooded development just outside of town. And for the first time since I’d known her, she looked little. The pain from the surgery kept her stooped when she walked, but she had no intention of being anything but the perfect hostess while I was there, meeting me at the door, offering me a drink and giving me hugs when I came and when I left.
We talked about everything that day. She was as frank with me about her cancer and her relatively bleak prospects as she was about her full intention to pursue every possible cure her doctors could suggest. We shared Follies memories. She gushed over my four-page Christmas letter. I told her all about my life in Chicago, the ups and downs of my job, the places I’ve traveled, the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, the miserable relationship I knew was about to end.
And before I left, after two more careful hugs and a belabored walk to the door, she handed me a memento: a potted clipping from a flowering cactus. A piece of something she’d cared for while others were caring for her. A living legacy.
The implication was clear: She’d finally accepted her fate. She was ready to go … but not ready to be forgotten. And she wasn’t going to go without a dramatic flourish, engineered to achieve lasting emotional impact.
But I refused to transplant the clipping from its cardboard pot into something permanent when I got home. Because I wasn’t ready to face the permanence her death would bring.
She lived three more months—long enough to see another March Follies. And when she finally died on Sunday morning, she left a huge shadow on a stage filled with witch’s capes and wooden rulers and dolled-up backpacks and a lifetime of flawless hair.
Your revels now are ended, Joanne. You’re now such stuff as dreams are made on, and your life—your presence, your fortitude and your undying grace in the face of adversity—is finally rounded with a sleep.
And you know what? You were the fairest of them all.
I’m sure I talked to her five or six times before her face and name—along with the many other faces and names in the cast and crew—started to solidify in my mind. She was about my parents’ age, and she’d actually been friends with them in a past life when they were newlyweds who traveled in the city’s theater circles with her.
And while she was measurably older than I was, she was quintessentially young at heart, often hanging out with us kids during breaks and after rehearsals and performances.
Blessed with a confidence and a commanding presence that belied her relatively short stature, she owned any role she played. Her voice had a rawness that lent a great deal of character to her solos and her funny bits of stage business. And she never let fear hold her back. In fact, I’ll never forget the self-satisfied evil she dredged up from some delightfully dark corner of her otherwise Midwest-wholesome, every-hair-in-place self to play Snow White’s witch in a Disney tribute. One look in her eyes told you she didn’t care if she came off as greedy or cruel—she would be the fairest in the land, and no pasty white virgin was about to stand in her way.
And when she played the irascible Miss Lynch in a summer production of Grease a few years later, I admired her for throwing herself so delightedly into the role—but I admired her more for yanking a wooden ruler out from between her boobs every night on stage with the kind of force that sent one terrifying word shivering up and down my spine: splinters
And then one January, soon after that year’s Follies rehearsals had started, she was gone. They’d found a mass in her abdomen the size of a cantaloupe. It was ovarian cancer, the bastard cancer that advances so stealthily that women don’t even know it’s eating them alive until it’s almost too late. She promptly underwent her surgery and stated her treatments, and I’ll be damned if she wasn’t back where she belonged—right there on stage next to us—when the show opened that March.
But she came back with a few accessories. Follies shows are always about glitz and splash; if the costumes and sets aren’t colorful enough, it’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a few more layers of satin and lamé. So when her cancer treatment dictated that she go through life for a while with shunts and tubes connected to a backpack full of I’m not sure exactly what, she just wrapped her backpack in coordinating fabric and stood proudly on the stage, singing her heart out and sharing the glow of the lights with her Follies family.
Two weeks later, as we were all striking the set, she came up to me in tears. I had told her on opening night how great it was to have her back with us—backpack and all—considering the alternatives. She told me it had taken the entire run of the show for the reality to really sink in: She had come this close to death. But she didn’t die, because she had more solos to sing, more bows to take and more friends to hug. And she thanked me for being a part of that journey with her.
Her cheerful defiance against an almost insurmountable barrage of relapses and complications inspired everyone around her for more than a decade. She was in the hospital again, we’d hear. But we all knew she would not go down without an epic fight. And we always knew her time wasn’t yet up. Besides, she never showed any signs of admitting defeat—at least not to us. She always threw her energies at living her life and enjoying her world and beating the enemy that kept encroaching on her fun.
And then.
I started hearing acknowledgements of defeat from our friends when I was home for Christmas this year. She’s had major surgery, and it looks like it’s just a matter of days, people would say. You should go visit her while you’re home, they’d tell me. Give her a final hug and say your goodbyes, they’d recommend.
So I did. I spent a couple hours visiting with her in the beautiful home she and her husband shared on a hilly, wooded development just outside of town. And for the first time since I’d known her, she looked little. The pain from the surgery kept her stooped when she walked, but she had no intention of being anything but the perfect hostess while I was there, meeting me at the door, offering me a drink and giving me hugs when I came and when I left.
We talked about everything that day. She was as frank with me about her cancer and her relatively bleak prospects as she was about her full intention to pursue every possible cure her doctors could suggest. We shared Follies memories. She gushed over my four-page Christmas letter. I told her all about my life in Chicago, the ups and downs of my job, the places I’ve traveled, the Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus, the miserable relationship I knew was about to end.
And before I left, after two more careful hugs and a belabored walk to the door, she handed me a memento: a potted clipping from a flowering cactus. A piece of something she’d cared for while others were caring for her. A living legacy.
The implication was clear: She’d finally accepted her fate. She was ready to go … but not ready to be forgotten. And she wasn’t going to go without a dramatic flourish, engineered to achieve lasting emotional impact.
But I refused to transplant the clipping from its cardboard pot into something permanent when I got home. Because I wasn’t ready to face the permanence her death would bring.
She lived three more months—long enough to see another March Follies. And when she finally died on Sunday morning, she left a huge shadow on a stage filled with witch’s capes and wooden rulers and dolled-up backpacks and a lifetime of flawless hair.
Your revels now are ended, Joanne. You’re now such stuff as dreams are made on, and your life—your presence, your fortitude and your undying grace in the face of adversity—is finally rounded with a sleep.
And you know what? You were the fairest of them all.
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Kids, cooking and candles
My brother-in-law was in Europe for the last half of last week, so my sister loaded up her kids on a whim and took them to visit Uncle Jake in Chicago in his absence. And for a rather spur-of-the-moment vacation, we all packed in a lot of adventure.
While I was at work, the kids got to explore the Field Museum and the Chicago Children’s Museum (crammed in next to every child of every Midwestern family on spring break). Then we spent our afternoons being trotted through Uncle Jake’s office like trained show dogs (show dogs who will probably need expensive orthodontia, from the looks of it) and our evenings splashing in the pool and making Kleenex superhero capes for the stuffed animals and cuddling up on the fold-out couch to watch the Sleeping Beauty DVD Uncle Jake didn’t even realize he owned. And I got to audition a recipe (chicken breasts dipped in chicken broth and breaded with crumbled corn flakes and mashed garlic and ground pepper and baked for 50 minutes at 350º) that I was planning on using at My First Dinner Party on Saturday night. (The recipe turned out quite tasty, but it seemed rather downscale for a dinner party. Even though it was very low-fat and the guests were all big homos.)
One of my sister’s shopping goals for the trip was to find a desk for my nephew, who is fast approaching his homework years. So Friday afternoon we traipsed up to the North Avenue shopping district to hit CB2 and the Crate & Barrel Outlet, where we didn’t find any desks but I found the perfect salad tongs (red bamboo!) for my fabulous new dishes … which meant I could serve salad at My First Dinner Party! And then, on the way back to the train from the C&BO, we ducked into a furniture shop to get out of the rain … and there was the desk my sister had been looking for. Everybody won!
Travel tip from my family to yours: If you are visiting your brother and you forget to bring the bag with all your toothbrushes and makeup, be sure your brother is a big stock-up-and-save queen. Not only will he have tons of extra toothbrushes on hand (bought on sale!) for you and your kids, but he’ll also probably have makeup for you to borrow—in shades that flatter your family skin tones.
After the family left on Saturday morning, I joined Matt and Preston downtown for a historical tour of the Palace and Oriental theatres. The tour was full of great information and worth the $15 charge, though I couldn’t get the big queen giving the tour to admit to singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” off either lobby balcony when nobody was around. And I was kinda hoping to get a backstage peek out of the deal, but we just stayed in the public areas and admired all the fabulous architectural porn that passed for decorating in the 1920s. (Though the Palace Theatre is kind of tacky when it’s not packed with people to distract you from its discount carpet and its relatively mousy-blah décor, the Oriental takes fabulous to new levels of culturally insensitive heights.)
When I got home, I commenced scrubbing the house from top to bottom (one breakfast of Mickey Mouse waffles x two kids = a million sticky fingerprints) and firing up my rudimentary cooking skills to feed hungry guests by 7 pm. And I have to say that My First Dinner Party was so much fun I want to have one every weekend. I have seating (and linens) for six, so my ongoing series of these parties will have to be in little five-guest increments. And this inaugural run taught me not to plan debilitatingly complicated menus; I spent the vast majority of my evening assembling attractive little mountains of chicken and pasta and dolloping homemade whipped cream on my individual pudding-filled Bundt cakes while my guests chatted amiably around my table.
The only casualty of the evening (aside from the carefully chopped peppers I forgot to add to the chicken) was my artful display of candles (varying heights! varying thicknesses! clearance prices!) that—thanks to the fact that our postprandial conversation never moved from the table to the candle-festooned living room where they could be monitored—melted faster and messier than Dubya’s approval rating. Except Dubya never ruined one of my tablecloths. At least not directly. Check it out:
Living-room lava floes notwithstanding, the house looked fabulous, the guests seemed to have fun, nobody died (at least not at the table, which would have been rude) and I got to add another entry to my slowly growing résumé of Alcoholic Things I Have Had In My Mouth: two expensive Bordeaux (is Bordeaux its own plural?) imported directly from France by my world-traveling guests. And now I, the alcohol novice with a palate so unrefined it can’t distinguish Coke from Pepsi, can confidently identify a dry red wine with a couple sips. Even though I ended up serving Bordeaux with chicken. And I forgot the chopped peppers. And my candles made a mess.
Sigh. If you find yourself on the receiving end of a dinner party invitation at Chez Jake, you should probably just resign yourself to a meal of Mickey Mouse waffles served with red bamboo salad tongs. It's just safer that way.
While I was at work, the kids got to explore the Field Museum and the Chicago Children’s Museum (crammed in next to every child of every Midwestern family on spring break). Then we spent our afternoons being trotted through Uncle Jake’s office like trained show dogs (show dogs who will probably need expensive orthodontia, from the looks of it) and our evenings splashing in the pool and making Kleenex superhero capes for the stuffed animals and cuddling up on the fold-out couch to watch the Sleeping Beauty DVD Uncle Jake didn’t even realize he owned. And I got to audition a recipe (chicken breasts dipped in chicken broth and breaded with crumbled corn flakes and mashed garlic and ground pepper and baked for 50 minutes at 350º) that I was planning on using at My First Dinner Party on Saturday night. (The recipe turned out quite tasty, but it seemed rather downscale for a dinner party. Even though it was very low-fat and the guests were all big homos.)
One of my sister’s shopping goals for the trip was to find a desk for my nephew, who is fast approaching his homework years. So Friday afternoon we traipsed up to the North Avenue shopping district to hit CB2 and the Crate & Barrel Outlet, where we didn’t find any desks but I found the perfect salad tongs (red bamboo!) for my fabulous new dishes … which meant I could serve salad at My First Dinner Party! And then, on the way back to the train from the C&BO, we ducked into a furniture shop to get out of the rain … and there was the desk my sister had been looking for. Everybody won!
Travel tip from my family to yours: If you are visiting your brother and you forget to bring the bag with all your toothbrushes and makeup, be sure your brother is a big stock-up-and-save queen. Not only will he have tons of extra toothbrushes on hand (bought on sale!) for you and your kids, but he’ll also probably have makeup for you to borrow—in shades that flatter your family skin tones.
After the family left on Saturday morning, I joined Matt and Preston downtown for a historical tour of the Palace and Oriental theatres. The tour was full of great information and worth the $15 charge, though I couldn’t get the big queen giving the tour to admit to singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” off either lobby balcony when nobody was around. And I was kinda hoping to get a backstage peek out of the deal, but we just stayed in the public areas and admired all the fabulous architectural porn that passed for decorating in the 1920s. (Though the Palace Theatre is kind of tacky when it’s not packed with people to distract you from its discount carpet and its relatively mousy-blah décor, the Oriental takes fabulous to new levels of culturally insensitive heights.)
When I got home, I commenced scrubbing the house from top to bottom (one breakfast of Mickey Mouse waffles x two kids = a million sticky fingerprints) and firing up my rudimentary cooking skills to feed hungry guests by 7 pm. And I have to say that My First Dinner Party was so much fun I want to have one every weekend. I have seating (and linens) for six, so my ongoing series of these parties will have to be in little five-guest increments. And this inaugural run taught me not to plan debilitatingly complicated menus; I spent the vast majority of my evening assembling attractive little mountains of chicken and pasta and dolloping homemade whipped cream on my individual pudding-filled Bundt cakes while my guests chatted amiably around my table.
The only casualty of the evening (aside from the carefully chopped peppers I forgot to add to the chicken) was my artful display of candles (varying heights! varying thicknesses! clearance prices!) that—thanks to the fact that our postprandial conversation never moved from the table to the candle-festooned living room where they could be monitored—melted faster and messier than Dubya’s approval rating. Except Dubya never ruined one of my tablecloths. At least not directly. Check it out:
Living-room lava floes notwithstanding, the house looked fabulous, the guests seemed to have fun, nobody died (at least not at the table, which would have been rude) and I got to add another entry to my slowly growing résumé of Alcoholic Things I Have Had In My Mouth: two expensive Bordeaux (is Bordeaux its own plural?) imported directly from France by my world-traveling guests. And now I, the alcohol novice with a palate so unrefined it can’t distinguish Coke from Pepsi, can confidently identify a dry red wine with a couple sips. Even though I ended up serving Bordeaux with chicken. And I forgot the chopped peppers. And my candles made a mess.
Sigh. If you find yourself on the receiving end of a dinner party invitation at Chez Jake, you should probably just resign yourself to a meal of Mickey Mouse waffles served with red bamboo salad tongs. It's just safer that way.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Harmonic convergence
Today’s eclipse might be impressive and all, but it’s really just planets and shadows—a mere parlor trick even Dubya could master. Once he learns his alphabet. And how to tie his shoes. And run a country.
The REAL harmonic convergence occurs April 1. At least it’s scheduled for April 1, but through the magic of being a little more organized than I’d planned, it’s already happened. You see, as an adult of a certain age, my body operates on two different cycles.Neither of which involves bleeding. One is on a three-month pattern and one is on a four-month pattern. And every April 1, they cosmically occur at the same time. Except this year, when they both occurred last weekend. Because they both seemed more interesting than starting my taxes.
Cycle #1: My mattress
I wrote JFM, AMJ, JAS and OND in thick black magic marker on the corners of my mattress when I bought it in 1993. And if you think I did it because they’re the initials of the members of my favorite boy band, that would be a good guess. But you’d be wrong. Because they are actually the initials of months, organized into handy little three-month chunks. And at the beginning of each of these chunks, I rotate my mattress so the appropriate initials appear right-side-up on the southwest corner of my bed. Then I spray the whole thing with Lysol to kill off any residual stench from the dead hooker. And if I had a bedwetting problem, I’d take this opportunity to wash copious amounts of dried pee out of my mattress pad as well, but I don’t have a bedwetting problem, though I wash my mattress pad at these times just to be safe. Because nobody wants to sleep in dried pee. Even if it is hypothetical.
Cycle #2: My credit
Ever since my fun (but mercifully short-lived) little adventure with identity theft last year, I’ve been extra-diligent about my credit cards and reports and ratings.And carbs.
Fortunately, about the time I got hacked, our financially responsible (HA!) congress and the fine folks at AnnualCreditReport.com appeared on the horizon with their guarantee of three free credit reports a year for everyone in America. You can order them all at once (you get one from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies) or you can space them out over the year. I opted for the latter, and I carefully wrote TransUnion, Experian and Equifax in my calendar on the firsts of April, August and December so I wouldn’t forget.
The reports are kind of long, but they’re packed with interesting information. And if you order one every four months, you don’t get overwhelmed. At least not totally overwhelmed. And it gives you time to correct any weird stuff you might find so your next report will be all the more accurate.
While the credit reports are free, your credit score is not, but you can buy it for about six bucks when you run your report. Just be sure you’re attached to a working printer. The whole process takes under 10 minutes, assuming government agents don’t peek through your cable modem and see how responsible a consumer you’ve been and come swooping in to haul you away to some secret church basement where you’re forced to teach Dubya and the other kids in his playgroup how to balance a freakin’ budget.
Which hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m keeping my Lysol handy just in case they let me touch their toys.
The REAL harmonic convergence occurs April 1. At least it’s scheduled for April 1, but through the magic of being a little more organized than I’d planned, it’s already happened. You see, as an adult of a certain age, my body operates on two different cycles.
Cycle #1: My mattress
I wrote JFM, AMJ, JAS and OND in thick black magic marker on the corners of my mattress when I bought it in 1993. And if you think I did it because they’re the initials of the members of my favorite boy band, that would be a good guess. But you’d be wrong. Because they are actually the initials of months, organized into handy little three-month chunks. And at the beginning of each of these chunks, I rotate my mattress so the appropriate initials appear right-side-up on the southwest corner of my bed. Then I spray the whole thing with Lysol to kill off any residual stench from the dead hooker. And if I had a bedwetting problem, I’d take this opportunity to wash copious amounts of dried pee out of my mattress pad as well, but I don’t have a bedwetting problem, though I wash my mattress pad at these times just to be safe. Because nobody wants to sleep in dried pee. Even if it is hypothetical.
Cycle #2: My credit
Ever since my fun (but mercifully short-lived) little adventure with identity theft last year, I’ve been extra-diligent about my credit cards and reports and ratings.
Fortunately, about the time I got hacked, our financially responsible (HA!) congress and the fine folks at AnnualCreditReport.com appeared on the horizon with their guarantee of three free credit reports a year for everyone in America. You can order them all at once (you get one from each of the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies) or you can space them out over the year. I opted for the latter, and I carefully wrote TransUnion, Experian and Equifax in my calendar on the firsts of April, August and December so I wouldn’t forget.
The reports are kind of long, but they’re packed with interesting information. And if you order one every four months, you don’t get overwhelmed. At least not totally overwhelmed. And it gives you time to correct any weird stuff you might find so your next report will be all the more accurate.
While the credit reports are free, your credit score is not, but you can buy it for about six bucks when you run your report. Just be sure you’re attached to a working printer. The whole process takes under 10 minutes, assuming government agents don’t peek through your cable modem and see how responsible a consumer you’ve been and come swooping in to haul you away to some secret church basement where you’re forced to teach Dubya and the other kids in his playgroup how to balance a freakin’ budget.
Which hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m keeping my Lysol handy just in case they let me touch their toys.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Good Morning, Starshine!
So I have apparently entered the trannie hooker phase of my home-decorating lifecycle.
I bought these new sheets, see, last month when I was in Iowa for my uncommonly photogenic nephew’s seventh birthday. I wasn’t shopping for sheets; I was just wandering the aisles of Kohl’s when they jumped out at me. They were 400-count primo cotton. They were a masculine gunmetal gray. They came with extra pillowcases (sold separately). They were on sale. (And I had a coupon!)
They were also something called “sateen,” which it turns out is code for “shiny as a drag queen’s eyeshadow.” And it is an all but literal slippery slope from sleeping on shiny sheets to buying a waterbed and collecting Hummel figurines.
But the color! Masculine and confident, my new sheets’ dark gray is the perfect match to the gunmetal color of my bedframe. Unfortunately, they go with the organic oatmeal color of my bedspread the way shiny wingtips go with cotton khakis. And after only two washings, the topsheet has already started to turn a bit aubergine. Or maybe it’s eggplant. Or plum. Definitely plum. (Being gay can make it such a challenge to describe colors with appropriate precision.)
In any case, here’s a gratuitous approximation of what I look like sleeping in my shiny new sheets, which you’ll notice blend so well with the bedframe it’s kind of like I’m lounging in an infiniti pool along the Mediterranean, except without the cabana boys:
And yesterday I bought a new bedspread* to match my shiny new sheets. I decided to embrace the plum, and I got a quilted blanket in a deep, confident purple—mostly because Linens ’n’ Things didn’t have anything gray … and I had a coupon. (Curse you, coupons! You’re filling my house with shiny purple things!) The blanket matches the sheets and the bedframe OK, but I’m not so sure I love it. Deliberate purple is always a bit of a paradigm shift, so I’m not going to completely unfold it from its packaging just yet, and I’ll wait until my family is here next weekend to give me second and third and possibly fourth and fifth opinions. (The fourth and fifth opinions would be from my nephew and niece, who think it’s OK to decorate in fire trucks and bunnies, so their input, though valued, will be factored in at lower percentages.)
*The bedspread shopping happened as part of a blind date with an exceptionally charming fella. We met for lunch yesterday, and I’d planned to go shopping alone afterward if the date sucked or invite him along if it went well. Fortunately, it went extremely well, and we not only bought a bedspread together (like lesbians do on first dates!) but we also bought shoes. Which is almost tantamount to foreplay in my book.
The rest of my weekend included a delicious steak dinner on Friday night with my very pregnant college friend Kim, who is here for a conference with her delightful (and NoFo reading friends) Shannon and Jason (hi, guys!) and a spa day with Matthew that included a fancy brunch followed by manicures and pedicures (of course, Matthew got the chatty spa clinicians who spoke English and I got the shy, monolinguistic ones who haven’t learned it’s OK for women in America to do assertive things like make eye contact and small talk).
Most exciting of all, though, is my commitment to run the AIDS Marathon this year. Before our spa day, Matthew and I attended a presentation by the AIDS Marathon organization (at the uncivilized Saturday hour of 10:00 am), and now we’re committed to raising at least $1,400 each by July 5. (Watch this space for your opportunity to sponsor me!) Full disclosure: My interest here is a bit selfish; after running two Chicago Marathons completely on my own, I desperately wanted a support group to train with … and celebrate with after crossing the finish line. But instead of joining a plain-old running club, I decided I could convert all my huffing and puffing into meaningful donations. I'll still be running the Chicago Marathon, but I'll be doing it for a far more important cause than my own sense of accomplishment. The training program starts in May, and the begging program starts as soon as I get my donation page up and running.
And the biggest donor just might win a shinynew set of sheets!
I bought these new sheets, see, last month when I was in Iowa for my uncommonly photogenic nephew’s seventh birthday. I wasn’t shopping for sheets; I was just wandering the aisles of Kohl’s when they jumped out at me. They were 400-count primo cotton. They were a masculine gunmetal gray. They came with extra pillowcases (sold separately). They were on sale. (And I had a coupon!)
They were also something called “sateen,” which it turns out is code for “shiny as a drag queen’s eyeshadow.” And it is an all but literal slippery slope from sleeping on shiny sheets to buying a waterbed and collecting Hummel figurines.
But the color! Masculine and confident, my new sheets’ dark gray is the perfect match to the gunmetal color of my bedframe. Unfortunately, they go with the organic oatmeal color of my bedspread the way shiny wingtips go with cotton khakis. And after only two washings, the topsheet has already started to turn a bit aubergine. Or maybe it’s eggplant. Or plum. Definitely plum. (Being gay can make it such a challenge to describe colors with appropriate precision.)
In any case, here’s a gratuitous approximation of what I look like sleeping in my shiny new sheets, which you’ll notice blend so well with the bedframe it’s kind of like I’m lounging in an infiniti pool along the Mediterranean, except without the cabana boys:
And yesterday I bought a new bedspread* to match my shiny new sheets. I decided to embrace the plum, and I got a quilted blanket in a deep, confident purple—mostly because Linens ’n’ Things didn’t have anything gray … and I had a coupon. (Curse you, coupons! You’re filling my house with shiny purple things!) The blanket matches the sheets and the bedframe OK, but I’m not so sure I love it. Deliberate purple is always a bit of a paradigm shift, so I’m not going to completely unfold it from its packaging just yet, and I’ll wait until my family is here next weekend to give me second and third and possibly fourth and fifth opinions. (The fourth and fifth opinions would be from my nephew and niece, who think it’s OK to decorate in fire trucks and bunnies, so their input, though valued, will be factored in at lower percentages.)
*The bedspread shopping happened as part of a blind date with an exceptionally charming fella. We met for lunch yesterday, and I’d planned to go shopping alone afterward if the date sucked or invite him along if it went well. Fortunately, it went extremely well, and we not only bought a bedspread together (like lesbians do on first dates!) but we also bought shoes. Which is almost tantamount to foreplay in my book.
The rest of my weekend included a delicious steak dinner on Friday night with my very pregnant college friend Kim, who is here for a conference with her delightful (and NoFo reading friends) Shannon and Jason (hi, guys!) and a spa day with Matthew that included a fancy brunch followed by manicures and pedicures (of course, Matthew got the chatty spa clinicians who spoke English and I got the shy, monolinguistic ones who haven’t learned it’s OK for women in America to do assertive things like make eye contact and small talk).
Most exciting of all, though, is my commitment to run the AIDS Marathon this year. Before our spa day, Matthew and I attended a presentation by the AIDS Marathon organization (at the uncivilized Saturday hour of 10:00 am), and now we’re committed to raising at least $1,400 each by July 5. (Watch this space for your opportunity to sponsor me!) Full disclosure: My interest here is a bit selfish; after running two Chicago Marathons completely on my own, I desperately wanted a support group to train with … and celebrate with after crossing the finish line. But instead of joining a plain-old running club, I decided I could convert all my huffing and puffing into meaningful donations. I'll still be running the Chicago Marathon, but I'll be doing it for a far more important cause than my own sense of accomplishment. The training program starts in May, and the begging program starts as soon as I get my donation page up and running.
And the biggest donor just might win a shiny
Friday, March 24, 2006
My day so far
I woke up to the smell of pee. Or maybe it was rust. In any case, the water in my shower (where I do my waking up) gave off an unsettling waste-treatment-plant whiff this morning as it washed all over my body and deep into my crevices. And since I use unscented, hypoallergenic soap in the winter because I’m a delicate lotus blossom with skin as sensitive as a Dubya draft deferral document, I couldn’t mask the eau with anything. Ew.
And then when I got to work and started guzzling my eight glasses of water, I noticed that even our filtered stuff tastes like what you’d imagine Dick Cheney’s underpants smell like after a long day of drinkin’ and huntin’. So I’m thinking it’s an all-Chicago thing—though I don’t want to bring it up with anyone for fear of developing a Mr. Tinklewhiff reputation.
But that was just the beginning of today’s adventures. Because apparently it’s Bring Your Distracting Pet To Work Day. I spent the morning in an emergency meeting … with a dog. Don’t get me wrong: I love it when people bring their dogs to work. Seriously. It happens pretty frequently, and the dogs seem to fit nicely in our funky-casual office environment. In fact, when we moved into the building two years ago, there was a friendly old yellow lab that used to wander aimlessly around and visit everyone all day. But he disappeared after a couple weeks. We think he got promoted to the corporate office.
The dog today, though friendly and cute, really needed a bath. His smell was so pungent, in fact, that someone else in the meeting actually apologized because he thought he must have stepped in dog poop on his way to work. (I selfishly declined to mention that I’d showered in urine this morning. Again: Nobody wants to be called Mr. Tinklewhiff.)
But! The cloud o’ canine was soon eclipsed by the realization that we had a bird in the office today as well. And it wasn’t just any random pigeon that flew in through an air vent. No! It was a caged bird, which an employee consciously decided to bring to the office as if this were a good idea. And the goddamn thing has been chirping all day.
The animal drama doesn’t end there, because apparently a 250-year-old turtle in some remote zoo died recently. And my boss, who is certifiablyinsane compassionate (Hi, Kelly!), has been mourning it as though it were a fallen comrade in the War on Christmas. A Baroque zoo turtle! Cut down in the prime of life! The humanity!
Speaking of getting old, I also got an email inviting me to my 20-year high-school reunion this summer. And even though only old people qualify for 20-year high-school reunions, I’ve known this dark specter of imminent death was looming on my horizon for quite some time now. ’Cause I’m pretty good at math.
Which is one of the reasons I totally revamped my workout and drastically reduced my crap-food consumption in January.Because there’s nothing more transparent than a shy, homely high-school queer who feels the need to look hot at his 20-year reunion.
Part of my new workout came in a box of tiny brown gross-tasting pills I got with a 20% coupon at GNC almost two months ago. And today was my last workout on those pills. They’re called Endothil™, the Musculogenic Cell Recruiter™ that promises accelerated muscle recuperation* and growth*, increased body strength*, and greater muscle mass and circumference*. And if you say Endothil out loud, you sound like a total circuit queen. Or Cindy Brady. (That last joke is used without permission from my hunky friend Keith.)
*And when you read the fine print, you discover that not only have these statements not been evaluated by the FDA, etc., but that “to experience the full results of Endothil, the muscle groups must be exercised to exhaustion.” Which is pretty much what you need to do to see any growth in the gym anyway. Which makes me $47.99 (plus tax) poorer but not much wiser.
But it does make me (so far) nine pounds heavier! My chest and shoulders have really pumped up over the last two months (two trainers at the gym have even noticed!), and my quads and butt are slowly thickening to man-like proportions. I credit my progress to the workouts more than the Endothil, but I'm really more focused right now on the fact that I seem to be growing a butt. I’ve never really had a butt, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with it if I actually get one.
But I know what I’m doing tonight: having dinner with a friend from college who’s here on business. It’ll be kind of a pre-reunion reunion. Except it hasn’t been 20 years. And it’s not high school. And she’s six months pregnant, so I won’t be taking her to get punched by Brad Pitt and Edward Norton under the highway, like I usually do on Fridays.
So, to recap: Pee. Dog. Bird. Turtle. Nine. Butt. Pregnant. And, thankfully, not a single Mr. Tinklewhiff.
And then when I got to work and started guzzling my eight glasses of water, I noticed that even our filtered stuff tastes like what you’d imagine Dick Cheney’s underpants smell like after a long day of drinkin’ and huntin’. So I’m thinking it’s an all-Chicago thing—though I don’t want to bring it up with anyone for fear of developing a Mr. Tinklewhiff reputation.
But that was just the beginning of today’s adventures. Because apparently it’s Bring Your Distracting Pet To Work Day. I spent the morning in an emergency meeting … with a dog. Don’t get me wrong: I love it when people bring their dogs to work. Seriously. It happens pretty frequently, and the dogs seem to fit nicely in our funky-casual office environment. In fact, when we moved into the building two years ago, there was a friendly old yellow lab that used to wander aimlessly around and visit everyone all day. But he disappeared after a couple weeks. We think he got promoted to the corporate office.
The dog today, though friendly and cute, really needed a bath. His smell was so pungent, in fact, that someone else in the meeting actually apologized because he thought he must have stepped in dog poop on his way to work. (I selfishly declined to mention that I’d showered in urine this morning. Again: Nobody wants to be called Mr. Tinklewhiff.)
But! The cloud o’ canine was soon eclipsed by the realization that we had a bird in the office today as well. And it wasn’t just any random pigeon that flew in through an air vent. No! It was a caged bird, which an employee consciously decided to bring to the office as if this were a good idea. And the goddamn thing has been chirping all day.
The animal drama doesn’t end there, because apparently a 250-year-old turtle in some remote zoo died recently. And my boss, who is certifiably
Speaking of getting old, I also got an email inviting me to my 20-year high-school reunion this summer. And even though only old people qualify for 20-year high-school reunions, I’ve known this dark specter of imminent death was looming on my horizon for quite some time now. ’Cause I’m pretty good at math.
Which is one of the reasons I totally revamped my workout and drastically reduced my crap-food consumption in January.
Part of my new workout came in a box of tiny brown gross-tasting pills I got with a 20% coupon at GNC almost two months ago. And today was my last workout on those pills. They’re called Endothil™, the Musculogenic Cell Recruiter™ that promises accelerated muscle recuperation* and growth*, increased body strength*, and greater muscle mass and circumference*. And if you say Endothil out loud, you sound like a total circuit queen. Or Cindy Brady. (That last joke is used without permission from my hunky friend Keith.)
*And when you read the fine print, you discover that not only have these statements not been evaluated by the FDA, etc., but that “to experience the full results of Endothil, the muscle groups must be exercised to exhaustion.” Which is pretty much what you need to do to see any growth in the gym anyway. Which makes me $47.99 (plus tax) poorer but not much wiser.
But it does make me (so far) nine pounds heavier! My chest and shoulders have really pumped up over the last two months (two trainers at the gym have even noticed!), and my quads and butt are slowly thickening to man-like proportions. I credit my progress to the workouts more than the Endothil, but I'm really more focused right now on the fact that I seem to be growing a butt. I’ve never really had a butt, so I’m not sure what I’ll do with it if I actually get one.
But I know what I’m doing tonight: having dinner with a friend from college who’s here on business. It’ll be kind of a pre-reunion reunion. Except it hasn’t been 20 years. And it’s not high school. And she’s six months pregnant, so I won’t be taking her to get punched by Brad Pitt and Edward Norton under the highway, like I usually do on Fridays.
So, to recap: Pee. Dog. Bird. Turtle. Nine. Butt. Pregnant. And, thankfully, not a single Mr. Tinklewhiff.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Got your tickets yet?
Come for the commandments—stay for the plagues! We’ve taken the story of Moses, thrown in some Monty Python, added a touch of Gilbert and Sullivan, wrapped it all in the pageantry of Les Misérables and created an original musical you’re going to love for 40 years.
And it has something for everyone: epic drama, shirtless men, stories of oppression and redemption, and songs with titles like “A Bad Day to be the First Born.” All our shows are awesome, but this one is mega-awesome, with kick-ass music and a book that's full of some really funny shit. Seriously.
I'm co-choreographing the show, a job that has gotten so demanding that I actually won't be performing in it this time— though I'll be adding extra vocal oomph from the orchestra pit, and I may join in an occasional crowd-of-shirtless-Hebrews-running-across-the-stage scene. If only to justify all the extra time I've spent in the gym (and all the extra denial I've spent in front of the doughnuts) since January.
So get your tickets now—and make sure everything's coming up Moses for you this spring.
Monday, March 20, 2006
Who’s your Hoosier?
I am! I am!
I spent the weekend visiting my formerly-of-Chicago friend Bill in his fabulous new Indianapolis home, with its cool architecture and its multiple bathrooms and its endless supply of closet space. (Bill, knowing the depths of my storage envy, showed considerable restraint by not rubbing my face in his ample closets. So to speak.)
Our weekend was packed with the best kinds of fun, much of which involved lounging around chatting. But we also squeezed in two lovely brunches, an expert driving tour of Indianapolis’ fabulous neighborhoods and museums and historical buildings, and a lovely afternoon in the ultra-cool Indianapolis Museum of Art.
The IMA building is an authoritative structure situated in a corner of the sumptuous Oldfields-Lilly House & Gardens. Like much of the newer architecture Bill showed me in Indianapolis, the IMA building has a sense of adventure, achieving its intended purpose with creativity and humor and a little visual experimentation. And the collection inside, while not as exhaustive as the building’s epic scale would suggest, is thoughtfully displayed, with useful information and a logical flow of ideas.
The best part of our tour: The Amy Cutler exhibit in the museum’s Forefront series. Amy (I call her Amy) has defined her own post-feminist genre, commenting on the social and familial experiences of women with a visual vocabulary that’s at once amusing, resigned, earnest and at times unapologetically ridiculous. Her images walk a line between the disturbing grotesqueries of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the oddly pedestrian horrors of Edward Gorey—especially in my favorite of her works, Dinner Party (left column, middle row), which features corseted ladies in gargantuan farthingales fighting each other with antlers made of upturned chairs and strapped-on cutlery.
If you do go to the museum—and you should—take care not to gesture too closely as you point out the carved penises on the wooden chair in the African exhibit. Because you’ll set off an alarm. And a suspicious-looking guard will follow you around and treat you like the penis-obsessed threat to moral decency you are.
One more word to the wise: Don’t go see The Hills Have Eyes just because your friend Bill’s hunky friend Eric wants to see it. Eric will still be attractive if you elect to do something more useful with your time, like organizing your celebrity crushes in the order of who has the prettiest feet.
My bad-movie-dar started beeping the moment Eric suggested it to us, but I was being polite—and for a man who saw all of three movies that got any Oscar nominations this year, I was in no position to pretend I was any kind of cinema authority.
But oh, the pain! With all the production qualities of an early episode of Land of the Lost and the kind of snappy, smart dialogue you’d find in the rough draft of a junior-high book report, The Hills Have Eyes was most definitely NOT alive with the sound of music. In fact, its best feature was its tagline: The lucky ones die first. And it wasn’t even true! Bill and I left soon after the firstsleestack mutant desert creature appeared munching on a very unrealistic severed limb, and we learned that the lucky ones leave after losing only an hour of their lives—and get a refund without even a hint of resistance! We figured the road had already been paved for us by armies of equally insulted movie-goers who opted instead to get their money back and head home to watch Dynasty reruns on the Soap Opera Channel. Just like we did. (Maxwell Caulfield … mmm …)
Butt-stupid movies notwithstanding, the vacation was a delight from start to finish, and it ended way too soon. But I did get to enjoy a sunny drive home in the land of 70-mph speed limits. And there were no laughable mutant desert creatures hiding in my tiny closets when I got home.
I spent the weekend visiting my formerly-of-Chicago friend Bill in his fabulous new Indianapolis home, with its cool architecture and its multiple bathrooms and its endless supply of closet space. (Bill, knowing the depths of my storage envy, showed considerable restraint by not rubbing my face in his ample closets. So to speak.)
Our weekend was packed with the best kinds of fun, much of which involved lounging around chatting. But we also squeezed in two lovely brunches, an expert driving tour of Indianapolis’ fabulous neighborhoods and museums and historical buildings, and a lovely afternoon in the ultra-cool Indianapolis Museum of Art.
The IMA building is an authoritative structure situated in a corner of the sumptuous Oldfields-Lilly House & Gardens. Like much of the newer architecture Bill showed me in Indianapolis, the IMA building has a sense of adventure, achieving its intended purpose with creativity and humor and a little visual experimentation. And the collection inside, while not as exhaustive as the building’s epic scale would suggest, is thoughtfully displayed, with useful information and a logical flow of ideas.
The best part of our tour: The Amy Cutler exhibit in the museum’s Forefront series. Amy (I call her Amy) has defined her own post-feminist genre, commenting on the social and familial experiences of women with a visual vocabulary that’s at once amusing, resigned, earnest and at times unapologetically ridiculous. Her images walk a line between the disturbing grotesqueries of Grimm’s Fairy Tales and the oddly pedestrian horrors of Edward Gorey—especially in my favorite of her works, Dinner Party (left column, middle row), which features corseted ladies in gargantuan farthingales fighting each other with antlers made of upturned chairs and strapped-on cutlery.
If you do go to the museum—and you should—take care not to gesture too closely as you point out the carved penises on the wooden chair in the African exhibit. Because you’ll set off an alarm. And a suspicious-looking guard will follow you around and treat you like the penis-obsessed threat to moral decency you are.
One more word to the wise: Don’t go see The Hills Have Eyes just because your friend Bill’s hunky friend Eric wants to see it. Eric will still be attractive if you elect to do something more useful with your time, like organizing your celebrity crushes in the order of who has the prettiest feet.
My bad-movie-dar started beeping the moment Eric suggested it to us, but I was being polite—and for a man who saw all of three movies that got any Oscar nominations this year, I was in no position to pretend I was any kind of cinema authority.
But oh, the pain! With all the production qualities of an early episode of Land of the Lost and the kind of snappy, smart dialogue you’d find in the rough draft of a junior-high book report, The Hills Have Eyes was most definitely NOT alive with the sound of music. In fact, its best feature was its tagline: The lucky ones die first. And it wasn’t even true! Bill and I left soon after the first
Butt-stupid movies notwithstanding, the vacation was a delight from start to finish, and it ended way too soon. But I did get to enjoy a sunny drive home in the land of 70-mph speed limits. And there were no laughable mutant desert creatures hiding in my tiny closets when I got home.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
People I have seen this week:
Name Unknown, the foreign cab driver who was extremely proud of his hybrid cab when he picked us up at LaGuardia at 12:30 am on Wednesday after a long evening of delayed flights. (The car actually sounded like it shut down when it came to a stop, only to rev up like nothing had happened when he stepped on the gas again. We were pretty impressed by this.) But when New York’s finest pulled him over in a fund-raising sting on the George Washington Bridge (I think) and cited him for his bald tires, he had to ask us, his exhausted business-trip passengers, what that meant. And we were left to wonder how a 2006 vehicle could have completely bald tires, especially when it’s only March.
Name Also Unknown, And Also Technically Unseen, the miscreant and/or drunken asshole who repeatedly tried to get into my room at New York’s grossly overrated Hudson Hotel early Wednesday morning. I heard the key card in the door, I heard the handle jiggle, I was very much awake—and I can’t tell if my heart was racing over the potential fright of it all or from the white-hot anger I felt toward the design tard who decided laminate flooring, with its magical abilities to magnify sound in the middle of the night, was a good idea for a hotel room. (Note to the Hudson Hotel: I know it’s trendy and cool to make your lobby seem like a nightclub, but if your guests can’t hear what the desk clerks are telling them about their bills, then your loud thump-thump music is anything but cool. Besides, “Funky Cold Medina” is what wedding reception DJs play—and what Pat Robertson listens to behind closed doors when he's feelin' kinda sexy. Seriously.)
A giant bald bodybuilder in a T-shirt that would be too tight on me wandering the hallways of LaGuardia before our flight home Wednesday evening. He was notable for his immense size, his extremely handsome face and the fact that there was nobody else to look at in the airport. And because he filled my mind with all kinds of Vin-Diesel-in-the-airport-bathroom fantasies.
Some woman from NPR whose name I didn’t recognize but whose voice I totally did, this afternoon at a luncheon to kick off The Economist’s new Chicago survey. I didn’t realize the event would be a Big Deal, so I wore a foo-foo trendy dress shirt (untucked, just like the gays wear them!) and expensive jeans. Every other man there was in a suit.
Dr. C, the dermatologist who looks and talks like Sherry Stringfield (and if she reminds me of an actress who plays a doctor on TV, she has to know what she’s doing). I had my annualcelebrity mole checkup today, and she told me not only that I “did a good job healing” from my biopsy scars from last March (Stop! I’m blushing!) but that I had no new moles that gave her concern. Oh, and she and her nurse agreed that I was in “excellent shape,” presumably for a man my age. (I find it funny that they always make a big production of giving me a moment of privacy to strip to my underwear and put on a hospital gown, only to have me take off the gown the moment they come in to examine me.)
D., the well-muscled fella with the megawatt grin and the ability to inject New Yorker references into any conversation. He makes my calloused, untrusting heart do tentatively bouncy things. And he’s not afraid to give me a peck on the lips in front of his co-workers. We’ve been seeing a (relative) lot of each other these last few months, though neither of us is in the market for a boyfriend.
Name Also Unknown, And Also Technically Unseen, the miscreant and/or drunken asshole who repeatedly tried to get into my room at New York’s grossly overrated Hudson Hotel early Wednesday morning. I heard the key card in the door, I heard the handle jiggle, I was very much awake—and I can’t tell if my heart was racing over the potential fright of it all or from the white-hot anger I felt toward the design tard who decided laminate flooring, with its magical abilities to magnify sound in the middle of the night, was a good idea for a hotel room. (Note to the Hudson Hotel: I know it’s trendy and cool to make your lobby seem like a nightclub, but if your guests can’t hear what the desk clerks are telling them about their bills, then your loud thump-thump music is anything but cool. Besides, “Funky Cold Medina” is what wedding reception DJs play—and what Pat Robertson listens to behind closed doors when he's feelin' kinda sexy. Seriously.)
A giant bald bodybuilder in a T-shirt that would be too tight on me wandering the hallways of LaGuardia before our flight home Wednesday evening. He was notable for his immense size, his extremely handsome face and the fact that there was nobody else to look at in the airport. And because he filled my mind with all kinds of Vin-Diesel-in-the-airport-bathroom fantasies.
Some woman from NPR whose name I didn’t recognize but whose voice I totally did, this afternoon at a luncheon to kick off The Economist’s new Chicago survey. I didn’t realize the event would be a Big Deal, so I wore a foo-foo trendy dress shirt (untucked, just like the gays wear them!) and expensive jeans. Every other man there was in a suit.
Dr. C, the dermatologist who looks and talks like Sherry Stringfield (and if she reminds me of an actress who plays a doctor on TV, she has to know what she’s doing). I had my annual
D., the well-muscled fella with the megawatt grin and the ability to inject New Yorker references into any conversation. He makes my calloused, untrusting heart do tentatively bouncy things. And he’s not afraid to give me a peck on the lips in front of his co-workers. We’ve been seeing a (relative) lot of each other these last few months, though neither of us is in the market for a boyfriend.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Weekend adventures
FRIDAY
8:15 Go on one of the shortest dates of my life. (He showed up high. Like ADHD high. I told him he was a loser.) Go home and watch TV instead.
SATURDAY
7:00 Wake up at the crack of dawn. For no useful reason. On my one day to sleep in. Stupid sunshine! Why do you have to peek in my windows and make my bedroom all warm and cheery and wake-uppable? Curse you!
9:00 Get my hair cut. It’s funny how you can go from shaggy fluffball to droopy power fro overnight. I’d reached critical droop earlier in the week, and I had to go to two client meetings looking like I had a nest on my head. So put a visit to the nice hair lady on the top of my weekend agenda. I go to one of those walk-in, no-appointment-necessary, take-your-chancessalons haircut stores because 1) I don’t see any reason to spend $40+ on a basic ’do I can get just as easily for $12 and 2) I can walk there from my house. And when you get there the moment the door opens in the morning, there’s (almost) no waiting!
9:45 Pick up dry cleaning. I own nine dress shirts (10 if you count the one that’s gettin’ kinda ghetto), and I’ve been traveling for work (the only time I play dress-up) so much lately I’d completely depleted my stockpile. Now everything’s clean again. Which means it’s gonna be that much harder to make decisions when I get dressed in the morning.
11:00 Begin Journey of Pain. I didn’t realize the St. Patrick’s Day parade was yesterday. I got on the train at 11:00, and by 11:01 I was regretting ever being born. The train was PACKED with drunken college kids in unnatural shades of green. And they all had their volumes set on Shriek. And they sprayed beer on each other. Oh—and there was some kind of problem four trains ahead of us, so we sat on the tracks for achingly long periods of time. Stupid loud, drunken kids. Always after me Lucky Charms.
11:46 Arrive a minute late for my back and upper-arm waxing, thanks to the abovementioned train delays. I don’t mind body hair on men, but I’m not a big fan of it when it’s on their backs and upper arms. And I’m REALLY not a fan of it when it’s on my back and upper arms. And the older I get, the more I seem to devolve into a hairy-back-and-upper-arms monkey-like state. Intelligent Design doesn’t seem to be making it go away, so I have a nice Polish lady who rips the hair right out of my skin for me. She has pictures of her Asian daughter (“she’s adopted”) all over her salon, and she chats away the whole time she’s tearing the flesh from your body. She usually does an awesome job, but this time she missed a few little islands of hair and I broke out in little pimples all over my arms by Saturday morning. Sexy!
1:00 Arrive for my first-ever visit to the Field Museum. I did a one-hour tour of the permanent exhibit (including an emergency meal at McDonald’s) and then met three friends at 2:00 for the last days of Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption. Giggly title notwithstanding, the exhibit is pretty interesting, but I’d hoped for a lot more frozen-in-time bodies and a lot fewer amulets and melted coins. It is well-researched, though—and it does a nice job of helping you understand the staggering enormity of the destruction.
5:00 Do some shopping for birthday cards, Chapstick (except I accidentally bought the Walgreens brand, so for the next couple months people will think I’m too poor to spend an extra 80¢ for name-brand lip balm), and other various and sundry items. Oh, I also bought a gift, because the next adventure on my schedule was:
7:30 Birthday party. My friend Paul had a nice little get-together last night for his 40something-th birthday, with homemade roast beef sandwiches, some shockingly delicious cake, and a nice gathering of men who laughed and snorted together over Stewie Griffin – The Untold Story and drooled together over the shirtless Timothy Olyphant (and the coupling of Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf) in Go. Then we watched a TiVo’d episode of Ghost Whisperer, which is so staggeringly retarded it could almost be elected POTUS. Except with worse dialogue.
8:30 Ruin the ending of Wicked for a friend AS HE’S WATCHING IT. My friend Mike called me from NYC to tell me how amazing the show was, and I—not doing the time-zone math right—thought he'd seen it to the end. So I asked him how soon he figured out that [element X in the show] would turn out to be [surprise element Y in the show]. Then I heard the announcement in the background telling patrons to return to their seats for Act II. And I felt very low. As low as a Munchkin under a farmhouse.
11:30 Aborted trip to the Eagle. I’d been in a skanky-bar mood for a while, so I brought my leather vest and wore my boots and low-slung jeans to the party so I could go trolling afterward. But by midnight I was too tired put myself through all the trouble. And the guys at the party were frankly a little horrified I would even consider it. One of them even used to work there—which was all the decision-making influence I needed.
SUNDAY
12:00 Meet Stan for coffee. We met at a Starbucks in Lincoln Park. Which makes us Trixies. Except we talked about politics and religion and other deeply, profoundly intellectual stuff. And while we did talk about boys for a bit, we never once compared purses or shared the names of our pedicurists. So we’re SO not Trixies.
5:00 Leave for rehearsal. The show is gonna be pretty awesome. Got your tickets yet?
8:45 Dinner at IHOP with Matt. Just like every Sunday.
8:15 Go on one of the shortest dates of my life. (He showed up high. Like ADHD high. I told him he was a loser.) Go home and watch TV instead.
SATURDAY
7:00 Wake up at the crack of dawn. For no useful reason. On my one day to sleep in. Stupid sunshine! Why do you have to peek in my windows and make my bedroom all warm and cheery and wake-uppable? Curse you!
9:00 Get my hair cut. It’s funny how you can go from shaggy fluffball to droopy power fro overnight. I’d reached critical droop earlier in the week, and I had to go to two client meetings looking like I had a nest on my head. So put a visit to the nice hair lady on the top of my weekend agenda. I go to one of those walk-in, no-appointment-necessary, take-your-chances
9:45 Pick up dry cleaning. I own nine dress shirts (10 if you count the one that’s gettin’ kinda ghetto), and I’ve been traveling for work (the only time I play dress-up) so much lately I’d completely depleted my stockpile. Now everything’s clean again. Which means it’s gonna be that much harder to make decisions when I get dressed in the morning.
11:00 Begin Journey of Pain. I didn’t realize the St. Patrick’s Day parade was yesterday. I got on the train at 11:00, and by 11:01 I was regretting ever being born. The train was PACKED with drunken college kids in unnatural shades of green. And they all had their volumes set on Shriek. And they sprayed beer on each other. Oh—and there was some kind of problem four trains ahead of us, so we sat on the tracks for achingly long periods of time. Stupid loud, drunken kids. Always after me Lucky Charms.
11:46 Arrive a minute late for my back and upper-arm waxing, thanks to the abovementioned train delays. I don’t mind body hair on men, but I’m not a big fan of it when it’s on their backs and upper arms. And I’m REALLY not a fan of it when it’s on my back and upper arms. And the older I get, the more I seem to devolve into a hairy-back-and-upper-arms monkey-like state. Intelligent Design doesn’t seem to be making it go away, so I have a nice Polish lady who rips the hair right out of my skin for me. She has pictures of her Asian daughter (“she’s adopted”) all over her salon, and she chats away the whole time she’s tearing the flesh from your body. She usually does an awesome job, but this time she missed a few little islands of hair and I broke out in little pimples all over my arms by Saturday morning. Sexy!
1:00 Arrive for my first-ever visit to the Field Museum. I did a one-hour tour of the permanent exhibit (including an emergency meal at McDonald’s) and then met three friends at 2:00 for the last days of Pompeii: Stories from an Eruption. Giggly title notwithstanding, the exhibit is pretty interesting, but I’d hoped for a lot more frozen-in-time bodies and a lot fewer amulets and melted coins. It is well-researched, though—and it does a nice job of helping you understand the staggering enormity of the destruction.
5:00 Do some shopping for birthday cards, Chapstick (except I accidentally bought the Walgreens brand, so for the next couple months people will think I’m too poor to spend an extra 80¢ for name-brand lip balm), and other various and sundry items. Oh, I also bought a gift, because the next adventure on my schedule was:
7:30 Birthday party. My friend Paul had a nice little get-together last night for his 40something-th birthday, with homemade roast beef sandwiches, some shockingly delicious cake, and a nice gathering of men who laughed and snorted together over Stewie Griffin – The Untold Story and drooled together over the shirtless Timothy Olyphant (and the coupling of Jay Mohr and Scott Wolf) in Go. Then we watched a TiVo’d episode of Ghost Whisperer, which is so staggeringly retarded it could almost be elected POTUS. Except with worse dialogue.
8:30 Ruin the ending of Wicked for a friend AS HE’S WATCHING IT. My friend Mike called me from NYC to tell me how amazing the show was, and I—not doing the time-zone math right—thought he'd seen it to the end. So I asked him how soon he figured out that [element X in the show] would turn out to be [surprise element Y in the show]. Then I heard the announcement in the background telling patrons to return to their seats for Act II. And I felt very low. As low as a Munchkin under a farmhouse.
11:30 Aborted trip to the Eagle. I’d been in a skanky-bar mood for a while, so I brought my leather vest and wore my boots and low-slung jeans to the party so I could go trolling afterward. But by midnight I was too tired put myself through all the trouble. And the guys at the party were frankly a little horrified I would even consider it. One of them even used to work there—which was all the decision-making influence I needed.
SUNDAY
12:00 Meet Stan for coffee. We met at a Starbucks in Lincoln Park. Which makes us Trixies. Except we talked about politics and religion and other deeply, profoundly intellectual stuff. And while we did talk about boys for a bit, we never once compared purses or shared the names of our pedicurists. So we’re SO not Trixies.
5:00 Leave for rehearsal. The show is gonna be pretty awesome. Got your tickets yet?
8:45 Dinner at IHOP with Matt. Just like every Sunday.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Business travel tips
Print your travel itinerary the night before you leave. Look at it long enough to give yourself a general idea of when your flight is and what airline you’re on. Leave it at work.
Discover when you get home that you can’t remember exactly when or how you're flying and you can't log onto your business email account or your account with the airline you’re pretty sure you’re on. Go to bed wondering if you’ll lose your job if you miss your flight the next morning.
Breathe a sigh of relief when you learn at the airport the next morning that you guessed the correct airline and flight.
Eat McDonald’s for breakfast at the airport. Feel fat and gassy the rest of the day.
Plop down in your seat on the plane and discover you're sitting next to someone you used to work with. For the second time in a year. Shiver over the cosmic coincidence.
Don’t pee before you give your client presentation. And wear underwear that climbs so far up your ass you can taste it. Discomfort breeds confidence. Clients pay a lot for that.
Arrive at the airport in plenty of time to discover that your return flight is delayed three hours.
Sit for an irritating half hour next to a lound cell-phone talker who actuallyyells says, "they'll probe you for whatever probative information they can probe out of you."
Travel with a colleague who has one of those fancy VIP-lounge memberships—and enough pull to get your entire party in the lounge with her.
Pee before you find out you can join her in the VIP lounge, so you have no excuse to check out the undoubtedly cool VIP bathrooms.
Wear a dress shirt you got at Filene’s Basement when you’re in the VIP lounge to reinforce your paranoid fantasies that all the VIP members can tell you’re an interloper just by looking at you.
As you’re finally boarding your return flight, get in line right in front of a belligerent crazy lady who will yell Fuck you! at the gate agent who’s double-checking that her carry-on is an acceptable size. Enjoy your front-row access to the gate agent telling her on no uncertain terms how she’s just fucked herself off a very delayed, very overbooked flight. Continue to stand there, now in awkward silence, as the belligerent crazy lady cries and apologizes to the other gate agent and pleads for her very life because she’s apparently missing her grandfather’s funeral as we speak.
Discover on the plane—using only a very innocent (innocent!) scratch of your upper-lip area—that you are way overdue for a nose-hair trimming. Worry that you've had bats in the cave all day. Be thankful the guy sitting next to you is so asleep he's drooling.
Get home feeling fat and lethargic and plagued with dragon breath. And nose hairs. Blog readers pay a lot for that.
Discover when you get home that you can’t remember exactly when or how you're flying and you can't log onto your business email account or your account with the airline you’re pretty sure you’re on. Go to bed wondering if you’ll lose your job if you miss your flight the next morning.
Breathe a sigh of relief when you learn at the airport the next morning that you guessed the correct airline and flight.
Eat McDonald’s for breakfast at the airport. Feel fat and gassy the rest of the day.
Plop down in your seat on the plane and discover you're sitting next to someone you used to work with. For the second time in a year. Shiver over the cosmic coincidence.
Don’t pee before you give your client presentation. And wear underwear that climbs so far up your ass you can taste it. Discomfort breeds confidence. Clients pay a lot for that.
Arrive at the airport in plenty of time to discover that your return flight is delayed three hours.
Sit for an irritating half hour next to a lound cell-phone talker who actually
Travel with a colleague who has one of those fancy VIP-lounge memberships—and enough pull to get your entire party in the lounge with her.
Pee before you find out you can join her in the VIP lounge, so you have no excuse to check out the undoubtedly cool VIP bathrooms.
Wear a dress shirt you got at Filene’s Basement when you’re in the VIP lounge to reinforce your paranoid fantasies that all the VIP members can tell you’re an interloper just by looking at you.
As you’re finally boarding your return flight, get in line right in front of a belligerent crazy lady who will yell Fuck you! at the gate agent who’s double-checking that her carry-on is an acceptable size. Enjoy your front-row access to the gate agent telling her on no uncertain terms how she’s just fucked herself off a very delayed, very overbooked flight. Continue to stand there, now in awkward silence, as the belligerent crazy lady cries and apologizes to the other gate agent and pleads for her very life because she’s apparently missing her grandfather’s funeral as we speak.
Discover on the plane—using only a very innocent (innocent!) scratch of your upper-lip area—that you are way overdue for a nose-hair trimming. Worry that you've had bats in the cave all day. Be thankful the guy sitting next to you is so asleep he's drooling.
Get home feeling fat and lethargic and plagued with dragon breath. And nose hairs. Blog readers pay a lot for that.
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