This weekend, I’m going to be part of a great lineup of writer-performers, presenting an original piece for Paper Machete, a new “living magazine” show curated and hosted by my friend Christopher Piatt.

I like Christopher Piatt because he was the theater critic at TimeOut Chicago for a long time and once put my name under the “They Wuz Robbed” section after that year’s Chicago theater awards were announced. He said I should’ve been at least nominated for my turn as Bonnie, the coked-out stripper in The Gift Theater’s production of Hurlyburly. I agreed, but that’s not the only reason I … Read entire post

Today started out with me thinking that I could pretty much conquer the universe.

That never goes very well.

By four o’clock, I was in need of compassion. So I got some, in the form of the library, a big bowl of Ramen at a sushi place in Andersonville, a cupcake, and an hour or so with some friends. At my friend’s house was a sculpture-y thing hanging from the ceiling. It looked a little like a Christmas tree because there were Christmas lights on it. I felt so warm and good there in my friend’s house, and was actually letting go … Read entire post

1. Sleep.

2. The perfect cappuccino.

3. A friend that knew you in college.

4. Reinvention.

5. Bleach.

They canceled the stupid plane from stupid New York to stupid Chicago that Shanti was going to be on. Then they stupid canceled the stupid other one they put her on instead. So now my friend has to wait till stupid morning to get on a different stupid plane to get to stupid O’Hare and we lost a day.

When I’m upset, I often feel much better if I stomp around and yell and call everything stupid. Here are a few excerpts from my life to illustrate this. As you’ll see, being upset enough to holler at everything and call it … Read entire post