okay, so it took till two weeks after christmas to actually complete the project, but i did manage to knit eight pairs of these children’s alligator mittens, as modeled below by my impossibly cute niece, zo&#235. top right is the strawberry baby hat that mom commissioned me to make for her friend abigail.

the exciting news is that i quit my job. the better news is that i have a shiny new one at a another theater in town.

the bad news is that i have another bad cold, so i’m too dopey to write much else. recent changes in lifestyle have shot my theories on why i’m always sick full of holes: 1) i bought a car, so i no longer subject myself to strangers’ sneezes on public transit on a daily basis, and 2) i moved to a new apartment where the average indoor temperature is ABOVE 63 degrees, so i’m not being constantly chilled.

let’s blame the job. since i’m getting out of there soon, i’ll assume that it’s the community center full of germy little kids.

My other car is a Pynchon novel

just a couple of days after I added this to the 101 list i got a call from Theatre J in Washington DC asking me to spend a few days in december helping re-stage BETTY Rules, the rock musical featuring my favorite (and only) rock star friends, BETTY (most recently, of L-Word fame, for those of you lucky enough to have cable tv). my boss, seeing he probably had no choice, gave me 10 days off to go to new york and dc to rehearse and remount the production. (lucky for us, the new york portion of the rehearsal was over before the transit strike, and the transit strike was over before most of the design staff had to go back home to new york). an ulterior motive for going to the optional rehearsal in new york, of course, was getting to spend one night staying up late with lauren, paging through her collection of “wedding porn” (mainly glossy flower magazines) and gabbing about wedding plans, and a much-too-brief breakfast of new york-style bagels with mari (me: “will they toast bagels here?” mari (hushed whisper): “no, this is new york. don’t ask, they’ll laugh at you.”)

alyson and tony’s daughter, ruby, was kind enough to try out a pair of the alligator mittens i’ve been knitting for christmas gifts. when asked if they were alligators or crocodiles, she got very quiet for a moment, then responded “alligator!” with admirable conviction, and bit her father’s nose with a mitten-clad hand for emphasis. let’s hope that all the kids that are getting mittens this year like them that much – i’ve been knitting a pile of alligator mittens since July (and i still have two more pair to finish on the plane tomorrow).

the Vic is a chicago landmark, a slightly grimy old historic concert hall just around the corner from our old apartment in lakeview. i walked by there on a daily basis for two years but somehow never managed to go inside for anything, concert or otherwise, until i finally made it to a Brew n View. the whole experience was pleasantly remenicent of Flicks (the student movie night in college): the movies are six months out of date, the crowd raucous, and shouting at the screen is still encouraged, but in this version, there’s also beer! 5 dollars and an ID gets you admission to a double feature of slightly-aged movies, and access to cheap and plentiful beer. amazingly, the 40-year-old virgin (a film that wild horses couldn’t have dragged me to see but peer pressure finally succeeded), turned out to be much funnier, and have more heart, than the wedding crashers, which looked like a 90-minute j.crew commercial that left me wishing i’d had more to drink and that Owen Wilson would get a damn haircut.

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.

the long weekend in california whizzed by much too quickly, but highlights included a drive on hwy 82 through sun-dappled redwood-clad hills to pescadero beach of near-car-commercial-perfection. the beach was predictably 40 degrees and foggy, but i wouldn’t recognize it any other way. the seals were unwilling to preen on the rocks for our viewing pleasure, but we stood in the stiff, salty-damp breeze and watched their heads bob in the rough surf. on the way back we stopped at a roadside farm for a flat of fresh strawberries and a pumpkin. the farmer accused us of having brought the fog with us down from san francisco, in spite of our protests that we’d come the other way. a mile back up the road towards palo alto and it was all sunny california again.

the following day’s adventure was slightly less successful, as i dragged andy and val and grant all up to ocean beach to go to mus&eacutee m&eacutecanique (see 3/19/01), which, as it turns out, has been temporarily relocated to pier 45. on the other side of the city. which we did not have time to cross. hell, maybe i dreamed up the whole surreal experience – this museum of 18th century mechanical boardwalk amusements, croweded into an old building perched over the sea in the grey, misty fog of point lobos. my companions were good sports about the whole we-drove-from-san-jose-to-san-francisco-for-a-cup-of-coffee thing, and took it all in the good spirit of a roadtrip adventure, but i was still disappointed. oh well. it probably would have turned out complete different from the way i remembered it anyway. those things always do.

the reunion itself held the strangeness of an awkward social situation i’ve never been in before. people i had almost no memory of came running up to me like i was an old best friend; there were others with whom i had had significant relationships who barely recognized me. i held a most unsatisfactory conversation with my old departrment advisor, who was thoroughly unimpressed and uninterested in my theatrical achienvements since college. damn it, she was the only person i actually expected to give a shit about my career, i’m doing what she trained me to do. whatever. more important than the people i haven’t talked to in five years were the people i have spoken to in the past five years, and my vist with them was lovely, long over-due, and much too short. fortunately, we all have the next wedding to provide us with an excuse to get together soon.

Dear April,

This is a hard letter to write, but long overdue. I can’t do this any more. I’m sorry, but we have to break up. The distance is just too much for me. We’re only together when I come to see you; in more than two years, you’ve never once made the effort to come to Chicago. I haven’t seen you since March.

I want to be totally honest with you, and telll you that I’ve met someone new. His name is Eric, and he’s really wonderful. He really gets me. He lives here in Chicago, and he’s always here for me when I need him. My friend Chelsea introduced us. April, I’m sorry to make this so blunt, but: I’m leaving you for Eric.

I want you to know that I will always remember you.

we have the VCR (yeah, no tivo here yet) set to record the next 8 episodes of SNL, featuring new cast member Bill Hader, who also happens to be andy’s sister’s fiance.

the internet sez: “New guy Bill Hader’s gift for impressions should be a real asset; his Al Pacino was uncannily good — and funny.”

yay! i’m almost related to someone almost famous!

a: this wine cost less than the bottle opener.
j: [shrugs and keeps drinking]