last night i dreamt that andy and i were getting married, and it was the day before the wedding and i’d totally failed to get wedding plans together(1). there were no flowers, my dress wasn’t ready, and i’d forgotten to make wedding favors for the guests. plus, we’d planned the wedding for a tuesday and so practically no one could come. there was no wedding officiant, so i was going to have to ask andy’s dad, who is a judge, to officiate, instead of being a guest, which i thought rather awkward. oh, and the wedding was going to take place in this ugly old warehouse, that was also sometimes a church(2), so the guests that did come would probably look at the chainlink fence and think they were in the wrong place and leave again.

(1)just about every woman i know is getting married this summer, and i’m stage managing a couple of these weddings, hence the anxiety about planning

(2)in the dream, while i was crossing the church, i had the oddest floating sensation, and then i discovered that i could levitate and glide smoothly through the air. it was a cool sensation, and given that i had a lot of wedding-planning details to worry about, i didn’t really think too hard about the causes of this newfound skill. just then a priest entered the church, however, and looked at me and he knew the reason i could levitate on holy ground was that i was half demon(a). he was most displeased about me being in his church, so i realized we’d have to hold the wedding somewhere else. being half demon didn’t feel particularly different, tho.

(a)i blame this on the fact that i was watching charmed while i folded laundry last night. can anyone follow the plot of that show? buffy was so much better.

last weekend was a nearly perfect road trip. we flew into oakland late saturday afternoon, picked up a rental car and headed to chez paul and jessie in berkeley. we made a late dinner at a himalayan restaurant and, comfortably weighed down with delicious curry, we passed out cold and slept soundly with paul’s good cat Cami keeping us company. the next morning we were up early and walked through the deserted streets of berkeley in search of a coffee shop open at 8am on a sunday. i forget about college towns – they sleep in. we settled for window shopping the plethora of excellent book stores we found our coffee and gave ourselves the walking tour of UC Berkeley’s campus wrapped in the summer morning fog. then we hit the road, headed across the bay bridge, snaked across san francisco and got onto hwy 1.

we stopped for lunch in santa cruz, munched tacos at an excellent little (thank you lonely planet) taqueria, then strolled the board walk looking at all the people, and wandered across town breathing in the smell of sea salt and eucalyptus. then andy found a skate shop, and it was all i could do to extract him in a timely manner. ah, my skate-boarding boyfriend. i can pretend i’m still 15.

after santa cruz the view really starts getting beautiful. by mid afternoon we’d reached Big Sur, where we stopped and hiked out to this photo op and then up into the redwoods. i would have been content to hike all day, but we did have further to go, so back into the car.

after Big Sur is when the drive really gets spectacular (or white-knuckled, depending on how you feel about twisty narrow roads and sheer cliffs). the hwy turns inland slightly, and we reached San Luis Obispo by sundown. after what amounted to the only minor squabble of the trip over directions (i swear that the streets in SLO are like an Escher drawing), we found the strip of cheap motels we were looking for and checked ourselves into the lovely (in a cheap kitch sort of way) 1950’s-era Sand Motel. the stay there would have been unremarkable, except that right after entering our room i noticed that our bathroom didn’t have a shower curtain. andy offered to go down to the front desk and ask for a replacement. when he got back a few minute later, he said the clerk offered to just move us to another room. well, i hadn’t unpacked yet, so we grabbed our bags and headed down the balcony the new room. which turned out to be…the bridal suite! (note the look of alarm on andy’s face.) (no panicking, mom, i promise we didn’t elope). now i know what the bridal suite in a 60-dollar-a-night motel looks like. same cheap nylon bedspread, single-ply toilet paper and crappy soap. but the room did stink like floral-scented spray, feature several large locked cabinets filled with crystal and silver, and had this cliche of a painting hanging directly over the bed. for dinner we wandered past a whole series of restaurants already closed at 9pm on a sunday night, with a growing apprehension that dinner was going to be 7-eleven snacks on the floor of our tacky bridal suite. but as it turned out we just weren’t in the right neighborhood. we wandered far enough down the hill and found a hip, inexpensive sushi joint filled with students and young people. we were feeling smugly pleased with ourselves and the choice of resturant, in spite of or perhaps because of our surprise: every so often all the lights went off, the japanese pop cranked up and the storefront restaurant turned into a disco while they celebrated someone’s birthday with sake and polaroid photos.

the next morning (did i mention what an annoying morning person i was on this trip?) i was up early and determined to keep up with my running schedule, so i ran a few miles in the hills above SLO. it was the first really good run i’ve had in weeks. then i woke up andy, we stopped off for espresso on the way out of town, and headed for Santa Barbara. the drive there wasn’t particularly scenic, but it didn’t take long and we got to SB with enough time to check in at our lodging (that is, andy’s brother’s wife’s parent’s spare bedroom). there’s a historic old mission not far from where we were staying, and when i mentioned going over to see it, it turned out that our host is a docent there, and gave us a personal tour.

then we changed got dressed up and headed for the real reason for the trip: chelsea and lee’s wedding. the ceremony was in these beautiful botanical gardens, and they exchanged vows under a trellis covered in flowering vines – it couldn’t have been more perfect. the reception was held just steps from the beach. there’s something i can’t quite put into words, but i love to stand on the beach at night and listen to the crashing of waves and stare out into the darkness at sea.

anyway, the next morning we were (again) up early. our lovely hosts made us breakfast, and then we headed for the beach for a little frisbee time. then it was back into the car and we headed to LA (amazingly, hitting no traffic whatsoever). andy’s sister and brother-in-law, maggie and bill, are spending the summer in LA and so we met for lunch at a hipster diner. mmm…california food (bagel sandwich with egg, avocado, goat cheese and hashbrowns? yes please). then it was off to the airport, which we managed without a wrong turn, and got there in plenty of time for our flight. we landed at midway around 11pm, and as the plane descended over the south suburbs of chicago, we were first above the fireworks, then at the same level, and then below them. i was a little sad to be spending the fourth of july on a plane, because i LOVE fireworks, but as it turned out we got to see them in a unique way.

whew! long weekend, long post. yay for you if you made it all the way to the end. shorter posts to come, i promise. self portrait!

so my company sent me to a wig styling certificate program at the Theatre School at DePaul for the past week. after 35 hours of learning how to wash, color, style and maintain theatrical wigs i can tell i’ve only scratched the surface of this art, but it’s amazing. working on period styles on theatrical wigs is really a lot less like doing hair, and a lot more like sculpture. the medium (human hair) has it’s own unique characteristics, but just like sculpting with metal or clay, you have a series of techniques and materials with which to achieve the desired shape. and like building props or scenery or costumes for the stage, building wigs for the stage requires that you design the wig to be viewed from 40 or 100 feet away. so a pile of beautiful curls that looks stunning up close might look like a shapeless mass of nothing when viewed from the back of the house, and vice versa, exaggerated shapes and colors that look odd up close will read beautifully under the stage lights.

i’d really like to get into building and styling wigs for the stage on a freelance basis, but the start up costs are pretty challenging (a human hair wig can run $600-1500 just to start, before you’ve even bought the materials to customize it).

anyway, here are some pictures: the blonde is a mid-1930’s american style, and the brown one is turn-of-the-century gibson girl.

given my recent passion for recording training stats, i must have this.

9am: we began by sleeping in (which means that miraculously, zeke didn’t come in and meow at us at 5:30 when it started getting light), and woke to a blue blue sky, sunshine and mild temperatures.

10am: we took a walk through the leafy-green streets of ravenswood and met up with chelsea, lee, justin and cliff (our “chicago family”) for brunch at Over Easy, this breakfast spot on Damen that i’ve never been to but plan to go back soon, and often. (banana-rum french toast? yowsers!) we parted after breakfast, andy headed down to the class at IO that he’s auditing, and i headed home.

12pm: i’ve been wanting to own a bike for a long time now, not for serious rides across the city, (i’m not that hardcore, and more than a little afraid of riding in traffic) but just for toodling down to the grocery store or whatever. anyway, i found a guy on craigslist selling a bunch of bikes just a few blocks away, and went over to the sale and found a cute, vintage cruiser, complete with shiny chrome fenders and everything. since it’s actual vintage, not fake-vintage, it needs some work, but a few bolts, a kickstand and a rack on the back and it ought to be quite functional for errands. i’m getting really sick of being in the car since i started commuting to the south side a few months ago.

12:30pm: i rode my new bike home, changed into a sundress and headed up to javis st. beach for diane’s new baby (alexander)’s “coming out party.” it was a perfect day to be along the lake – dark blue waters dotted with bright white sailboats. i’m sorry i forgot my camera. anyway, after the bbq i walked home, stopping by the drop-off site where my CSA veggie share was waiting. i headed home with a sack full of fresh-from-the-fields salad greens and other goodies.

4pm: i changed clothes and headed over to foster st. beach for a run. the park was full of soccer games and people enjoying the sunny-not-too-humid weather. good people-watching while i ran, especially since the Falun Gong people were out doing their thing en masse. and yay, i’m almost over my cold and back to training again! i’ll save the details of that for the training log, and spare all of you who aren’t interested in the details of my running stats.

5:30pm: i got back home, iced my heel, showered and made some pasta for dinner and headed over to Webster Fitness Club to set up for for the second-to-last performance of Sandbox Theatre Project’s newest site-specific piece, CAN YOU SPOT ME? the show kicked ass, as usual. we’ve gotten a lot of great press, especially with news spots on WGN News and Metromix TV last week, which means that the last weekend is totally sold out. we’d extend, except that two of the four core STP company members, chelsea and lee, are getting married next weekend! so we’re all treking out to cali for the wedding. below, andy as rocco:

10pm: after the show we headed up to Sheffield’s, where Andy and Brooke were having a joint pre-birthday party. Sheffield’s gets my vote as one of the best bars in chicago because 1) it’s near an el stop, 2) it’s HUGE so if you just keep wandering from room to room you’ll eventually find a corner to hang out in, even on a friday night, and the back room seems to always been the chill actor hang-out and is relatively trixie- and chad-free 3) it has a pinball table and an old fashioned black and white photo booth, and a huge beer menu, from the very cheap to the hard to find, including my favorite, fat tire ale, which until a few months ago, couldn’t be found east of the rockies. anyway, all the good people in town were there, and andy, the popular half of this couple, for many obvious reasons, was well-loved. at some point in the evening we were introduced to the concept of couples pinball, in which each person controls flippers for one side of the table, and the game is played as a team. awww, cute. this dark fuzzy picture is us adapting our pinball style to work as a team. the couple who introduced andy to the idea promised to take us on a chicago pinball table tour/double date. ah, nerd love.

2am: on the way home we stopped in for a slice at Philly’s Best. the people that work there are SOOO rude (it’s supposed to be a gimmick, but it’s really just annoying, but then again, so are the late night customers they have to serve), but it can’t be denied that it’s open till 3am and has the best slice anywhere in town. took an el ride back to our car (thanks to PrideFest, lakeview was hopping at 2am last night, people out everywhere) and headed home.

days like this you can almost forget about winter in chicago.

and happy birthday to andy, who is officially 29 today!

here’s a little screen cap i took today to show you all how much i love windows’ logic:

look carefully. yes, that error message actually says, “In addition, some applications respond to your canceling this dialog box by immediately re-posting it.” think about that one for a moment. yeah.

most of the blogging going on lately is on the training log, but a few other items of note:

+ flag day (june 14) marked our four year anniversary. for the occasion we treated ourselves to dinner at cafe babareeba. not exactly a romantic, candlelit date spot (the noise can be deafening), but the spinach- and manchego-stuffed mushrooms with lemon hollandaise sauce were a celebration all by themselves. they were positively euphoric. i am left without the necessary language to adequately describe their goodness.

++ No. 78: Attend a modern dance concert with someone who knows more about it than me. so chelsea took me along to see Hubbard Street Dance Chicago‘s annual Inside/Out concert, in which company members showcase new works-in-progress that they’ve choreographed themselves for each other. unlike theatre, i find myself without the language to talk about dance. i know what i like, and don’t like, what moves me or awes me, but it’s hard for me to express why i have those reactions. in part, because i have training and background from which to talk about theatre, and not dance, and i think in part because theatre generally has a more clear-cut narrative. not that modern dance doesn’t have a narrative – it’s just that it communicates with us on many different, and more primal, levels than i think modern theatre does. anyway, it was the sort of thing that i’d never have thought to have gone to, so yay for chelsea dragging me along.

+++ last night was chelsea’s “suprise” (how does she always find out about these things?) bachelorette party. we kept it classy – no penis-shaped accoutrement (oh, the ratings that phrase will garner in my blog traffic stats) or parading the bride-to-be around in a veil or t-shirt emblazoned with tasteless messages – just all the sushi nine women could eat followed by a trip to Jet lounge for dancing and much drinking of the vodka. the club itself was gimmicky and fun (decked out to look like a private jet, with curved walls and white leather bench seating, plenty of high perches on dance on and specially-designed tables (also danceable, as we discovered) with recessed ice trays to keep the vodka cold), but we seemed to be the only group of people actually having fun. ah, clubbing lifestyle, i’m not hip (or rich) enough to understand you or fully do you justice on the page. we capped the evening with last call at the Village Pub, where we met up with the boys celebrating justin’s birthday. happy birthday, justin! you sent out an email bemoaning how old you feel now that you’re 27. all of us who are already OLDER than that cringe.

++++ and finally, a shout out to my favorite world traveler’s new blog, as mari chimes in from berlin with some pretty stunning architecture photos.

the missing photos from 5.6.06‘s entry are finally up now.

also on the recently completed list: lace pillowcases – this is what all that whining about knitting lace back in february was about.

the best thing that’s come out of my kitchen in a long while.

+ 4 chicken breasts
+ 8 oz herbed goat cheese or an herbed cream cheese
+ 1 jar roasted red pepers, sliced into strips
+ 2 eggs, lightly beaten
+ 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
+ 1 cup cream or half and half
+ 1/3 cup fresh parmesan, grated
+ 2-3 cloves garlic, minced and crushed
+ 2-3 shallots, minced and crushed
+ 4-5 Tbsp olive oil
+ 1-2 Tbsp butter
+ salt and pepper to taste

1. heat oven to 400 degrees

2. prepare chicken breasts by slicing horizontally almost all the way through, creating a pocket in the chicken. spread cheese and tuck red peppers into the pocket, and close.

3. heat 3-4 Tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan. meanwhile, dip the chicken breasts in egg and coat evenly with breadcrumbs. add the chicken to the pan and cook about 4 minutes on each side, until the breadcrumbs are nicely browned. transfer chicken to a glass baking dish and bake until chicken is fully cooked, 30-45 minutes.

4. meanwhile, heat 1 Tbsp olive oil and 1-2 Tbsp butter in another frying pan or sauce pan. add shallots and garlic and saute for 3-4 minutes. add remaining red peppers and stir until they are hot and coated in oil.

5. transfer the shallots, garlic and peppers to a blender or food processor. puree.

6. transfer the puree back to the same sauce pan. add cream or half and half and whisk until evenly blended. once the sauce is hot again, add paramsean and wisk until it has melted and blended into the sauce evenly. salt and pepper to taste. stirring occasionally, let the sauce reduce to the desired thickness, 5-10 minutes.

7. optional step: push the sauce through a strainer to get a smooth, even texture. or don’t, and enjoy the slightly pulpy texture of the red pepper puree.

8. plating: drizzle a small pool of sauce onto each dish and place a chicken breast in the center. top with a spoonful more sauce. serve with fresh string beans and some crusty bread.

for vegetarians, a tofu alternative isn’t really possible, but the sauce is so good i recommend making that and pouring it over, well, just about anything.

From: support@active.com
Date: 31 May 2006 20:30:46 -0800
Subject: Registration Confirmation

This message is generated as confirmation of your recent registration on Active.com. You have been successfully registered for the following:

Race: The Banco Popular Chicago Half Marathon
Registration Date: 05/31/06
Distance: 13.1 miles
Event Date: 10/01/06

so i’m not listing this task as done yet, by any means. but i started training five weeks ago, with seventeen more to go, and i’m feeling optimistic enough that i forked over the money for the race registration. my name’s listed on their website; i can’t chicken out now.

i’ve long known that i want to complete a marathon some day. i think running the half is a hurdle i have to get past before i can even really comprehend running the full thing. i ran on track and cross country teams in junior high and high school, and for many years being a runner, whatever that means, was central to my sense of self. in college i was distracted by all the usual things that distract college students, and separated from my running companions, and so running became an only very occasional habit. coincidentally, i gained 15 pounds. after college i injured my neck in a ski accident which left me with an impaired sense of balance, making running (or even walking straight) an exhausting feat. i learned to be a gym bunny (lost the 15lbs), used ellipticals, stairmasters and bikes, took yoga and cardio kickboxing classes as i slowly regained my sense of balance over the past five years. this spring i discovered i could run without my vision going all blurry and my feet going wonky. i don’t know how long this improved condition will last, but i’m grateful for it. when my friend becky told she was registered to run the half marathon in chicago in the fall, i decided that this was the right summer for me to train: i have health, a little free time, and a friend to train with. and hey, i’m 28 this summer, so maybe running the full marathon for my 30th birthday is a good goal. i might be getting ahead of myself here, tho – i’m only up to about 3 miles at a time now. 26.2 seems pretty far away.

our high school running coaches instilled in us the notion that running is 95% mental preparation and only 5% sheer physical effort. what’s been a pleasant discovery is that, after taking nearly 10 years off from running, it’s only the physical fitness that deteriorates from lack of use. all of the mental hurdles i’ve had to make with running are all still in place. and so training is, in some ways, easier this time. my head’s in the right place. i just have to get my body in shape. and boy, can i tell that i’m 10 years older than i was last time i ran competitively. yikes.

so in case you were wondering, the countdown in the upper right corner is counting down till race day. if you’re really interested, you can keep tabs on my mileage and other stats on the training log. and cheer me on to my goal on october 1!