guess that celeb in drag

I'll give you a hint. He is British. He played opposite Julia Roberts in Closer. He was in a wheelchair in Gattaca. Did I give it away? If you don't know, find out here.

This is seriously amazing

This is a hugely viral video-- it has 4 million views. You'll see why.

Courage Campaign

A while ago the Courage Campaign asked for photos, videos and stories of gay marriages for this video which was recently released. I think it is incredible to see the faces of people who are affected by the potential effects of proposition 8 in California. The jury is still out on whether the same sex marriages performed in california prior to the passage of prop 8 will stand or be nullified.

"Fidelity": Don't Divorce... from Courage Campaign on Vimeo.



If that doesn't break your heart...

The silver team goes down in flames

First let me say that this is the first time I have watched a season of the biggest loser but I am obsessed with it. Particularly with the "silver team" who just got eliminated this week. Ok, just to lay this out for you, in the first video usually the couple talks about how this experience brought them closer together, and the music is all positive and upbeat but what they are saying is SOO not. It's a pretty brilliant juxtaposition. Joelle's face kills me! She is the one on the left. Favorite quote from this is after Carla accuses her of not working hard enough and says all the work she did made her lose 0 pounds, and joelle, desperate for a retort comes up with, "You know? It may lead to 0." Brilliant!



In case you are curious, Fakin the funk means this:

when an indidvidual doesn't show his or her's true personality, individual fails to keep it real

OR

When an upper or middle class person suddenly becomes hard around the presence of colored or lower class individuals.

-- courtesy Urban Dictionary (spelling and punctuation kept in tact)

Apparently after not seeing each other since leaving, Carla and Joelle have a reunion. Its definitely worth the 2 minutes. Trust me.

A faith demoting story

Ok so I was walking home from work today and I decided to take a quick walk toward lake Michigan just to take in the brisk air coming in off of the water. As I was standing on the shore, I heard a rustling at my feet. I looked down and froze in my steps, because there was a rattlesnake right there. I was just starting to slowly move away, when the snake began to speak. "Can you help me" the snake pleaded. Its so cold here. I am old and dying, and all I want to do is have one more margarita in Boys Town." Completely put off by this troll snake I spat back, "First of all, QUEEN, you are way too old and scaly to hang out with me. I have the common sense to use moisturizer, and the common sense to not get stranded somewhere on the shore of one of the Great Lakes. Secondly, you are a snake! If I even pick you up I know you will bite me and kick my A to the curb at your first opportunity. So basically, NO. I won't help you. I suggest you find a leather bar somewhere closer and live out the rest of your days with your own kind." The snake slyly retorted, "No I swear I am not like that. I just tots need to get to boys town and I promise I will not bite you. Just take me Britney Spears 'Slave for you' style up past Lincoln Park and just drop me off at the corner. I'll manage from there." Well, I guess I was weak. I felt bad for the old betch. I guess I gave in to peer pressure. I picked that reptile up and started walking.

As we walked the snake was so chatty cathy! It was really annoying. He kept name dropping, "Oh I totally lived next door to Brangelina for 6 months before I came here. Oh me and the Olson twins tots designed this really fierce vintage crop top a while ago but we had a falling out.. over post-its LOLOLOL." Ug. So obnoxious. Matters got worse when he DEMANDED we stop at Starbucks so he could get a warm drink. He was SO rude to the barista demanding specifically a 7 pump non-fat chai latte extra hot. He made that poor girl make it 3 times and was finally satisfied when she burst into tears. I thought to myself this is IT I'm never picking up a gay snake AGAIN!

Finally, just as I was approaching the bar that Snakezoid wanted to go to, he coiled back and bit me right in the areola! It hurt so much that I just cried out in my falsetto, "HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?! You swore you wouldn't bite me. You skanky skanky tramp!" The snake just slithered away, and after a moment turned back, flipped his weave over his shoulder and said, "You knew what I was when you picked me up." I screamed back, "Yeah I did you F'ing snake! Now wait up I'm going with you! I had no idea you were into biting or I would have invited myself sooner."

And with that, the snake and I rode off into the sunset together and got married in Connecticut.

The End.

Political Cartoon incoming

Click on it to see it full size.

Speaks for itself

Ix-nay on the icrowave-may!

You know those TV dinners you find in the freezer section of your local grocery store? Well 3 years ago I barely knew they existed. Growing up we never ever encountered them in my home, and in the nearly 12 years after leaving the nest I had hardly eaten a single one of the microwave "meals in a box." Well that's not exactly true. I do remember this one time, (at band camp) at Food 4 Less (which apparently is not there any more) in Provo my roommate and I found some microwave dinners at about 25 cents each or something ridiculous. So Timmy and I bought about 40 of them and packed our freezer full. I think after eating them for a solid month I never even looked at those boxes again, that is until I met Constantine.

Constantine eats what I call a modified Amer-iterranean diet. Amer because there is a cookie or Fro-Yo after almost every meal, iterranean because there is often Hummus but ALWAYS plain yoghurt on top of everything and of course ample EVOO, and modified because he literally cooks everything in the microwave. ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING. His stove, which is in perfect working order, has never once been turned on. In fact, it is unplugged and full of copies of the New Yorker that he has not yet gotten around to reading. There might also be a stray copy of In Style or Us in there, but I can't say for sure. GWYNETH WORE WHAT?! OMG!

The first few times we ate together I was really surprised at how effectively he used that microwave. That kid can cook anything in there. And though he is creative with the machine, for the most part he sticks to the basics: meals in a box and the occasional can of soup. Since I was in college, the quality of these meals has definitely gone up. Of course, so has the price. My favorite TV dinner is the Kashi Southwest Style Chicken. Kashi also has some other great ones, but they usually run about 5 dollars a box. They have great ingredients, but they are only about 250 calories per box, which for me means I should probably eat about 3 boxes for dinner in order to keep my manly physiche (squeal). Wait 15 dollars for a dinner? I might as well go out to dinner! Wait do I really want to afford 10-15 dollars for dinner every night? This is NOT the way I was raised people!

So, ever since I arrived in Chicago I have vowed that I will not buy a single TV dinner. My first trip to the grocery store was a little bit confusing. I kind of forgot you can make other stuff. 1 week later, I find myself very contented with my progress. I remember now what I used to eat before the ameriterranean MODIFIED diet took hold of my heart. And if my calculations are correct, I have probably spent on average $2.50 per meal. And that includes swimmin'.

YES JUDGE JUDY!!!

I love the stance this iconic woman takes on the passage of prop 8 in California. She also talks about the recent passage of Arkansas law allowing only hetero couples to adopt. I like the way she shares her view. She seems tolerant yet passionate. YOU TELL 'EM JUDGE JUDY!

I don't mean to be a bitchy gay but..

Really girls? Eat a burger. Doesn't their hair look like it is falling out? I actually love Rachel Zoe's show. Its really good. This is just a lot to handle!!

Living for Friends

Normally when a new show starts the rehearsal process, there is always a period where you don't really know anyone and so everyone is forming first impressions, putting their best foot forward, and trying to find out who will be their new besty, their showmance, their fierce hookup, WHATEVER. When I first joined the BIZ I would always feel totally frantic the first few days of rehearsal because I was desperate to make everyone like me. I would make my way through the cast winning people over one by one. A few people in my first casts noticed this and once they got to know me better, they would sort of call me on it. I remember one guy I became good friends with at Gateway playhouse said to me-- "WOW you had an inside joke with literally everyone in the cast within 3 days. That's kind of too much." It might seem all fine and good at first glance, the only problem is that I was giving everyone besty energy at the same time. Sometimes gay boys mistook my overzealous-friendliness for romantic preference. I had a particularly awkward moment with this guy in my 42nd Street Moscow cast. He literally came in to kiss me this one night after we watched some funny videos and went through our russian flashcards. I was like WTF is happening right now!!? I was totally cornered so I just leaned away and pretended I was reaching for my plastic cup full of diet coke. I actually think I said, "ummm I need to get my diet coke" as I ducked his surprising advances. Talk about tots awks. He then complained to everyone in the cast that I had led him on. Good times. The other huge problem with giving unilateral besty energy is that people expect you (appropriately) to sustain it! And trust me, you can't sustain it with everyone. So you just end up becoming a huge flake.

I changed my ways after a couple of years. I learned to hold myself back: to remember that I didn't have to win everyone's approval to be a valid human being, and instead just be kind and warm to people. I learned to wait until natural connections formed with people, and then I was able to sustain the different levels of intimacy I earned with different people.

This time, I am going into the show with some VERY dear friends, so I have been able to bypass all that "I don't know anyone yet" stuff. My dear friends Tia (who I have known since 1998 and who I just worked with last year in HSM) and Eddy/Troy (who I worked with in 1999 at Tuacahn) are both in the cast. There are also several other people I have worked with in the past as well. It just makes such a difference to have people in the room that you love and know and who are tried and true friends. Tia and I were L-I-V-I-N-G all day today at our rehearsal. It was literally like YA days. We were just laughing our heads off and paying just enough attention to not get in trouble. We are both signing in everyday with YQ (yes queen) instead of our initials. I doubt anyone will notice but everyday when I see all those YQs in a line I can't help but smile. We are just so happy and having so much fun. We even had a lunch date at a Thai place just below our rehearsal space. We laughed our heads off the whole time. We had Thai iced coffee. We were hyper the rest of the day and had even more fun.

Is there anything better than fun friends?

YAY

I'm back online. Oh my gosh I feel so complete now. Just go ahead and put the mark of the beast in my wrist or in my forehead or wherever they said its supposed to go. I just want to be on the internet all the time. Before I left for Chicago I was helping Constantine while he recovered from an adult Tonsillectomy-- a very painful surgery. He was on pain killers a lot of the time and so I was basically online as much as he was loopy. By the time he started feeling better, I was still online a lot at his apartment, and he was SOOO over me being basically attached to my laptop. I started to feel like that asian american couple on greys anatomy where the wife permanently lost her voice so she was just typing online all the time. Well, somehow they thought of a really dramatic way to give her a chance to speak again, but after the surgery she is scared to try and starts doing what she knows.. typing again. Her husband is like BITCH NO! NO MORE TYPING ON THAT F'ING computer. He gets all Thuy in Miss Saigon on her A and then she stops. I was beginning to think that C was going to flip his lid too. "You're always online! You never talk to me anymore." So I had to repent. In fact I had to do the five Rs of repentance to make sure. What were they again? Anyone remember?

SO. I live in these semi-furnished apartments in the Gold Coast area of Chicago. Its SO great. I say semi because it did have beds, but it did not come with dishes, kitchenware, bedding, towels, or a TV. I remembered about the kitchen and the TV, but not the bedding. So I had a mini camping trip with myself the first night.. sans smores unfortunately. It was just me in about 3 coats, 2 hoodies, a scarf and a sensible marc jacobs beany pulled down as far as it could get it. And believe it or not I slept like a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. I was also sporting my new patagonia long underwear courtesy of a gift card C's mother gave to me so I could get some winter essentials. After that first night of blissless camping, I got through my first day of rehearsal and then scurried down to the nearest Target and promptly spent 250 bucks buying everything I would need to get my apartment in shape. I actually got some cute dishes, some really great pillows, quilts, blankets so that my 6 months here would be cozy as can be. I am feeling really great about my pad now. Its all in order. I'm having a great time here. It might be freezing, but my heart is warm as can be.

Wired-less

Unfortunately I am still without Internet in Chicago. I have an appointment for Saturday morning with the cable company, so I should be good to go in a few days. I'll post some photos of my place in the gold coast area- I'm right by lake michegan!! I'm excited to read everyones blogs again!

In conclusion I'd just like to say:
Supercalifragilistic-betch-spialidocious.

Che farò senza Euridice

I am completely obsessed with the Met Opera HD Telecasts that are shown LIVE in theaters all over the world. There is about one every month. Last Saturday's was Orfeo et Euridice.. the story of a husband whose wife dies on their wedding day. Inconsolable, Orfeo, the husband, is visited by Cupid who tells him that he can get Euridice back by going down to Hades and taking her back. The one condition is that he must use music to get past the river Styx and the dead there.. and the other condition is that he must not look at Euridice until they reach the surface, nor tell her why. If he does, she will die again forever. Awakened from death, Euridice wants nothing more to than to be embraced by her lover. Orfeo, unable to look at her appears cold and unfeeling. On their way back to the surface she continues pushing him to look upon her, not understanding why he won't do so, notice her beauty, and comfort her. He cannot look at her and he cannot explain why. Eventually he feels so broken down by her sadness and complaints of his not loving her that he does look upon her at last. She dies again, and he returns to his agony. Then he sings the most famous aria from the Opera: Che faro senza Euridice? (what will I do without Euridice -- pronounced Eh-yur-ee-dee-chay) Its SO GORGEOUS! Traditionally the role was performed by a male castrato. Today a counter-tenor does it sometimes, but more often a mezzo sings the role dressed as a dude. In the HD telecast Stephanie Blythe sang the role. It was amazing. I just wanted to give you a little taste. This is a different artist-- a mezzo, but a great version.

QUEEN FEVER

Aretha's hat has created quite a stir. The minute she appeared on the TV screen the 1101001001010s started flying and text alerts where buzzing in people's pockets in a flurry of vibrations. A Flickr website has been dedicated to crowning other deserving "queens" with the sparkly regalia that was her hat. See them all here.

Here are several of my favorites.