too much has happened lately to do anything but summarize and plunge ahead, so:

-moved to a new apartment, still in chicago.
it’s lovely, except for the shiny apricot bathroom.

-bought a (used) car
also lovely, no apricot color scheme, thankfully. owning a car is making my job SOOO much easier. haven’t had to ride the train with something weird in tow (a 3′ tall puppet, a fog machine, an ironing board, to name a few) in more than a month now. the car is already littered with random crap (mapquest directions to theatrical suppliers, bits of twine and cable, a boombox from the office, pages from a script, some old binders). when friends ride in my car, my excuse is: “production manager’s car. i bought it so i wouldn’t have to drag around so much crap in my backpack.”

-thanksgiving with our “chicago family:” chelsea, lee, justin and cliff, where i triumphed over the chemistry experiment that is gravy, creating something from scratch that actually tasted like a sauce, rather than greasy flour. (the secret, in case you’re wondering, is to start with a proper flour-and-butter roux, so that the flour has already cooked before you start making sauce out of it.)

-opened a couple of plays: The God of Hell (now closed), The Long Christmas Ride Home (playing through December 11) and Bottle Can Draft (now extended through December 19). am also getting ready to go to Washington DC to work on a remount of BETTY Rules, which, well, rules.