Musical Theatre Gents I'd go Straight For.

Allo.

You know that day after you've been sick for a few days where you feel invincible? That was yesterday for me. This past weekend has been spent in a fevery daze complete with headaches, blazing tonsils, and acid reflux to rival a night of tequila. The latter was brought on by an incredibly stupid decision on my part to take about 30 times the normal dose of vitamin C on an empty stomach. In case you were wondering, it turns your innards to flames. Actual flames. Like self-induced vomiting on the lake shore trail in clear view of Navy Pier, flames. It was a rough night.

But now I feel awesome.

That has nothing to do with my actual blog. I just needed an intro. So I dumped some unwarranted personal medical information on you. Anytime.

So today at work, I was whistling "Why Should I Wake Up" from Cabaret (a welcome change from "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," which is a touch problematic when you work at a Jewish school). Anyway, it reminded me of a conversation I had with my dear roommate Sam about our favorite musical theatre songs. We watched her favorite, "Younger Than Springtime," sung by a shirtless Matthew Morrison.

So. Hot.

Now, to clarify, I'm supa gay. But there's something about musical theatre gents singing love songs that makes me completely heterosexual for approximately three and a half minutes. Perhaps its that I'm usually 99% sure that the guy on stage is gay, so there's no actual threat of me having to see a guy with his pants off. We could totally just sing at each other, drink some wine, and then dance off into the curtain call and our respective partners.

Anyway, these guys deserve some recognition. Or at least the songs. No offence gentlemen, but you're interchangeable at this point. As long as you've got a deep voice and a strong vibrato, we're good to go. So come at me benevolent sexism, woo me with your hegemonic masculinity.

1. "Some Enchanted Evening" from Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific. Performed by: Brian Stokes Mitchel.

Holy bass Batman. I think my stomach just fell onto the floor. In a good way.

2. "Love to Me" from Adam Guettel's Light in the Piazza. Performed by: Matthew Morrison. 

If you're not swooning right now, I don't know what to tell you. But seriously Matt, I appreciate you. For kicks (and for Sam) I'm gonna throw this gem up there as well.

Look at his pecks. Just. Ugh. Sam and I have probably given this video half it's views. You're welcome youtuber.

3. Why Should I Wake Up? from Kander and Ebb's, "Cabaret." Performed by: Nic Rouleau

Ok, so I couldn't find the OCR but you get the idea right? Yeah. I wouldn't want to wake up either. Not ever.

4. "On The Street Where You Live" from Lerner and Lowe's My Fair Lady. Performed by: Bill Shirley 

So damn classy. If I can't get a dude to stand outside my window, I'm taking matters into my own hands. Don't think I won't abuse my job at the costume shop to obtain this ensemble. I've done worse things in public. Singing in the middle of the night is pretty run of the mill for me.


And there you have it. The magical spell that gay men singing show tunes cast over me, now shared via youtube videos. But no joke, when I was first coming out this phenomenon was rather confusing. Then I saw Catherine Zeta Jones in Chicago. Conflicts: resolved.

By the way, I've had several conversations with several of my gay friends who cite Jones' performance in Chicago as one of their earliest crushes. There's something to that. just sayin'.

Have a good night =]

Kait

Biking. The Kaitlyn Dessoffy Story.

Allo.

As if my previous posts haven't made this abundantly clear, I have developed an emotional connection to my bike akin to that of a couple celebrating 50 years of marriage. Never mind that I have referred to myself as "emotionally stunted," and "totally comfortable with being totally uncomfortable in all situations ever." I have a bike that I love. And who probably would love me back if ze had a functioning nervous system.

Yes, I did just address my bike with a gender neutral pronoun.

Now I have fancied myself a cyclist since fetus-hood, and my love of biking has only increased with age. When I was a youngin, my family went on annual trips to Kelly's Island to bike the whole thing all day and drink wine. I didn't drink wine, cause I was 5. Throughout middle and high school I would bike to school, the pool, work, BW. And one summer my friend and I biked the metroparks like twice a week at what felt like 20mph. He was in much better shape than I. But I liked hanging out with him, so I developed quads of steel and kept up.

This summer took my already unnatural love of biking to terrifying new levels. Specifically, May 8th. The day my CTA pass expired. That very day I was working at the Court Theatre on the south side of Chicago. Biked it. Took me 2 hours. While this was a tad ambitious, I loved it. What a better morning commute than a brisk buzz down the Lake Shore Trail? Since then, I have begun biking everywhere. Literally everywhere all the time. I arrive sweaty, exhausted, happy as a clam, and depending on the time of day, covered in dead bugs. (You know those swarms of gnats you walk through? Try it at 15mph.)

Really I just want to nerd out about biking. So enjoy the easy to follow titles and geek out with me.

Embarrassing Places I've Biked To This Summer:

1. Dates. Sometimes downtown. Sometimes when it's 90 degrees outside. I like to give people a realistic first impression.

2. Rehearsal in the rain. Specifically tonight. Nothing screams "professional actress" like showing up soaked to the skin and having your sports bra soak through the sweat-shirt you thankfully thought to bring.

3. Bars. Biking TO the bar is not the problem.

4. My fingerprinting for my summer job. Only because I didn't realize they were located in the swankiest building downtown. I trudged in wearing shorts that can best be described as "swampy" and a real grody t-shirt. We've had a humid summer. And I have very little shame.


Though this kind of sounds nightmareish, I absolutely love biking everywhere. It's so much faster than CTA, it's great exercise, and it's free. And it's bad ass.

So bad ass that it has elevated my aggression levels dramatically. I think it's a cyclist thing, but I do whatever the hell I want. When you're biking somewhere, your job to get yourself there as fast as humanly possible. Bikes are faster than pedestrians and smaller than cars. In my mind, this gives me clearance to zip around traffic as I please. As long as I get my butt there in one piece, I'm good to go. Stopping at every stop sign and actually waiting at the light, HA. No. Yep, I'm that guy. A rolling lawsuit with no regard for vehicle laws or personal safety.

That must be frustrating for you and your air conditioned car. But you know what else is frustrating, literally everything and anything that stands in the way of my high speed tour de force.

Things that Piss me off about Biking Chicago:

1. Cars that Don't Signal. If I am about to go through an intersection and you decide to casually turn right without signaling, ya run me into a curb. Not only do you kill my momentum, but you might kill my body as well.

2. Cars that Hesitate. Yo, I know where I'm going. And if you are at an intersection, I will resentfully stop for you. And if you hesitate in taking your right of way, I will stare you down. If this causes you to hesitate further, I will cut you off.

3. CTA Busses. You know exactly what I'm talking about here. You pass the bus while it's at a stop. Then it passes you and stops 30 yards ahead of you. You pass the buss again. It passes you again. You try to lose it by buzzing through a red light but that mother trucker catches up with you. Or you go so fast that you catch up to the next one. And you thought having a car wiz by ya was bad? Try a bus whose main goal is to bottleneck you into a corner of bus, curb, and little old lady waiting with her fare. It's awful.

4. Ohio Street Beach. Yo downtown "exercisers," why must you walk 6 abreast on the downtown section of the Lake Shore Trail? It's an exercise trail! It's not a sidewalk, it's not a place for you to make out, it's NOT a place you should ever let go of your child's hand ever. It's a personal hell that I have to bike through (usually at something like 5mph). Make everyone's day a little easier, stay to the right, TAKE OUT YOUR HEADPHONES, and treat that thing like a highway.

5. Cars parked in the bike lane. One day I will just ram into your f*cking car. Mark my words.

6. Delivery trucks parked in the bike lane. This might do more damage to me than it does to the truck and I am absolutely sure that it will be worth it.

7. Construction IN THE BIKE LANE. Can we not just clear the bike lane? Because by the time I swerve around my 9th obstruction, I am filled with actual rage.

But this video makes it all ok. Mostly because I almost peed with laughter. Just skip to 1 minute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzE-IMaegzQ

8. Potholes. My bike doesn't have suspension. And my lady bits are not pleased with the road conditions. Here's lookin' at you Magnolia and Sheridan.

9. Car Doors. If you're not watching when you exit your vehicle, you will not only get run over by a bike, but you will send said cyclist flying through the air. It's a lose lose.

10. The Lack of Parking. I know no one can park cars in Chicago. But when you have no bike racks, I will tie my bike to a tree or a sign or a fence. And I will not pay whatever ticket you slap on my bike. Because ya know what's great about having a bike? No identifying information.


Other Chicago Bikers, do you feel me? Yeah. Yeah ya do.

But on a serious note, bikers, do your part here. My little manifesto is exaggerated. For the love of all things good in this world, don't listen to your ipod, bike in the street, have control of your bike before blowing through an intersection, and wear a helmet. Mine looks like a bright yellow pith helmet. What I'm saying here is that under no circumstance will you look worse than me :) Be Safe. 

Uhmm I'm going to wrap this puppy up by highlighting 2 cycling events that I want everyone to know about.

1. Critical Mass. Thousands of bikers take over Chicago streets. 1st Friday of every month. And I always miss it. But I went once and it was my favorite ride ever.

2. Chicago World Naked Bike Ride. Critical Mass, naked. I was going to go this year but no one would go with me! While I totally understand the hesitation, let it be known that I am looking for a group of committed people who want to bike Chicago in very little clothing. Because this is not an opportunity one can just let pass by.

Well, short of writing a bike haiku, I'm pretty much done here.

On second thought, I really want to write a bike haiku:

My dear Diamondback,
Giver of ecstatic joy,
You make my heart smile.

Ok. This needs to stop. I have a pretty high threshold for embarrassment, but the haiku might have crossed a line. Enjoy your week friends. Go ride a bike.

Kait.

Acne.

Yo.

I'm going to complain about acne. And it's going to be gross. Not witty, not entertaining, Not even worth reading.

You've been warned.

So you know how every "normal" human starts getting zits around 13 or 14 and the developmental science literature tells you that they're gone by your "late teens?" Yeah, so I have pimples in my third grade school picture, I turn 22 this week and I am still covered in zits.

Nay, craters.

Except that I'm not joking. I had to excavate a cyst and it literally left a bruise, YES a bruise, the size of my thumbprint on my face. I have 4 more massive zits to wash, scrape, boil, and sanitize. I will look like I got in a bar fight by the time this whole process is done. And you know what? They. Will. Come. Back.

Make all the assumptions you want lovely skinned people. I wash my face 3 to 4 times a day, I don't touch my face, I ALWAYS have some sort of chemical on it. Yes, I've tried toothpaste, peroxide, Benzol peroxide, alcohol, every face wash ever invented ever, and as of three days ago, Proactive.

What I'm saying here is that I need to get my shit together and see a dermatologist. The typical visit involves me sitting in their room for a half hour while they look at my face. Then they tell me that I have acne.

WAIT WHAT? That's what that is? MIND IS BLOWN.

Then they tell me that I have lots of scars.

Really? Haven't noticed.

Then they tell me that half the zits on my face will leave scars.

Good. Great. Love it.

Now I can eat my words a little and admit that generally whatever concoction of goo they tell me to smear all over my face usually works pretty well.

But I'm still complaining tonight. Because my face hurts and looks like it got hit by a truck. Literally.

You're welcome.

Kait

Pride! The Parade, The Cookout, The Finale

Hello!

Before we get into the nitty gritty of Pride, I'm gonna make a quick note up here. I'm talking a whole lot about the LGBTQIA community in this blog. And LGBTQIA is a whole lotta alphabet soup to write over and over. So I'm going to define it once for you and then refer to it using the umbrella term, “gay.” Bisexuals, Pansexuals, *Trans folks I see you! And I'm talking to you! But for the sake of word economics, I'm gonna call ya gay.

L-Lesbian

G-Gay

B-Bisexual/Pansexual (why is there no P in this thing yet? Come on now)

T- Transgender

Q-Queer

I-Intersex

A-Asexual/Alli

Welcome to: Pride, Post Mortem Subtitle: The Last of the Pride Month Blogs

This weekend I attended my first Chicago Pride Parade, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. I started the day off at 10 am with jello shots. Because cereal, toothpaste, and vodka is the breakfast of (day drinking) champions. Then, slowly but surely, the gay powerhouse of friends began to assemble in our living room to head down to the parade together. I always feel squeamish about putting people's names on my blog without asking permission, So I'm going to give everyone super-hero alter ego names and actual descriptions just so you get a sense of the lovely people I was surrounded by all day. By super-hero I most nearly mean, mythical creature names.

1. Wonder Woman: My lovely roommate whose knowledge of lesbian pop culture rivals the writers for afterellen. Not to mention her puns and endless “wit” (*sarcasm). Also, she can drink us all under the table. And she did.

2. Batman and Robin: My dear friend from home and her girlfriend stayed with us this weekend! I loved having them over and kind of maybe think they need to move to Chicago so we could hang out all the time. Hint. Hint.

3. Captain America: He's political, he's Catholic, he's a super gay activist, and he's in love with Austria. The whole. Damn. Country. Also, he looked sexy in his tank top. Very sexy.

4. Cat Woman: Because I only know so many super-hero's. So it's gonna get dicey. But she's awesome! Seriously delightfully happy human to spend the parade with. And she's from P-town! Represent!

5. Harry Potter and Company: Half the Loyola Quidditch team, wrangled skillfully by Wonder Woman, joined us. Super fun group of friends, allies, gays, and the like.

6. Tinkerbell: She's super tiny and super cute and super crafty with her DIY Pride t-shirt. And I dragged her to an overwhelming number of events. Really delighted that I got to spend Pride with her.

7. The Flash: Girl's a champ. Found us at Pride after a crazy night out on the town. Then went on a run the next day. One of my favorite people ever.

So there's the crew. The parade was so much fun. It lasted nearly 4 hours and I enjoyed every minute of it. Pride gets some backlash within the gay community for being commercialized, not properly representing the gay community and giving people who are not good allies a platform to play activist for an afternoon. That's all true. But, like any event with millions of diverse people, Pride is what you make it. I surrounded myself with people that are out and active on a day to day basis to increase visibility and combat homophobia. Not to mention, they are so fun and cool that they deserve super-hero names. Doesn't get much better than that.

But Pride is significant as an event in and of itself. Sure, it's not a grassroots movement, but it is so empowering to be around that many people celebrating the gay community. Also, not to downplay the significance of our allies, but it's super cool to have that many gay people at one event. Every other day of the year we are the minority in most workplaces, classrooms, social settings, what have you. To be at an event with thousands of people who share a piece of your story really makes you feel accepted.

It's something I didn't fully realize until I came out more, but it takes a tough skin to live openly. Sometimes I have days when I'm feeling super insecure and I feel like everyone knows this super private, potentially dangerous, sometimes controversial fact about me. I live in Chicago, one of the gay-friendliest cities on the map, so I don't actually have much to worry about, but if I can feel insecure in a huge metropolitan hub, I can't imagine how the gay people in more conservative or rural areas must feel. Events like Pride create miles of safe space where gay people can express their gender regardless of their sex, be openly affectionate with someone of the same sex, and not have to worry about getting sideways glances. Even if your town doesn't have a big gay scene, I hope that you can celebrate with us in spirit and that you feel a little more accepted.

Regardless of your opinions towards same sex relationships and non-normative gender identities, we exist. And we are not going away. We need events like Pride and designated gay places like bars and community centers to create a safe space for us to be comfortable live openly.

*And that concludes our “feelings parade” section of this blog.

Speaking of acceptance, pride is the perfect place to just unleash all of your gay on the world with no shame. I mean, people show up to this thing in tutus, underpants, fishnets, rainbows everywhere, you name it. I took this as an opportunity to fulfill every gay stereotype on the planet. By the end of the night my outfit was down to rainbow earrings, a rainbow ring, Converse, flannel, beads, and a rainbow tie. I had actual clothes on as well, don't think I went naked...it was too cold this year... Anyway. It got to the point where Captain America reined me in before leaving for my friend's Pride BBQ. Lost the tie. But still looked flaming, fear not.

Literally, everyone can get something out of pride. Get ready for some stereotypes up in here.

Straight ladies: My “men with rock hard abs dancing around in their underwear” quota was filled for the next ten years in one day. And none of them will hit on you. Also, glitter and rainbows.

Straight men: Beer and Lesbians.

Lesbians: Beer and Lesbians.

Gay Men: Brittany Spears. Every other song. The other songs were Beyonce.

I hope I've offended everyone. I personally don't care for beer and I really enjoyed the glitter and rainbows. And Beyonce. You do you.

Well I think that about wraps it up for me. Pride was followed by one of the most fun cookouts I've been to in a while. I would write about it but this post it already hella long, so I'm gonna hold off. But gentlemen, you know who you are, if you're reading this, well done. Best cooking I've had in a loooong time.

SHIT I forgot to talk about Girl on Girl Feminist Radio! Balls. Ok. Next time. This was way too good to go unwritten about. They have a segment called Clam Jams. I mean, come on now. Literally the greatest thing ever.

Hope ya'll had a wonderful pride weekend. And a relatively painless hungover Monday.

Kait