the ocean

Maybe I'll become one of those Disney travel tips people. Tip number one: you are not actually obligated to go to Disney at all, though it may feel like it.

At Animal Kingdom, there was a dinosaur ride that included a film starring Phylicia Rashad for some reason. She did not get eaten by a dinosaur. Nor did anyone, actually.

Even with all of the high-tech, expensive rides, it turns out that the kids still wanted to spend half an hour digging in what was essentially a dinosaur-themed sandbox.

We went on a fake safari and saw giraffes. And a lot of other animals, too, but giraffes are undeniably baller.

There was a river ride where people got very wet. Fortunately, we had purchased some obviously very high end ponchos to help protect ourselves.

There was a Finding Nemo stage show where they strapped puppets and heavy machinery onto the actors before they had to sing and dance about. I hear this is how Glenn Close started out.

Moving to Hollywood Studios, they have a fake version of L.A.'s "Chinese Theater." I have seen the actual version and can attest that this version is superior for the lack of traffic and people trying to spit in your mouth.

Lots of Star Wars stuff. I have not even seen all of the Star Wars movies, but I think I got the gist of it. Frodo has to use The Force to beat Voldemort, right?

My favorite source for cutting-edge technological news, Us Weekly, has informed me that artificial intelligence is going to be huge, at least insofar as it can be used to create “bikini body” deepfakes that displease Jennifer Aniston (who, sources assure me, is still going to die alone). So even though I remain firmly convinced that the internet is a fad and we will all return to the use of illuminated manuscripts painstakingly created by monks who are ultimately driven mad by their efforts, I decided to enlist ChatGPT’s help for this year’s holiday greeting. This did not go well. My initial prompt returned only highly generic references to “cherished moments with loved ones” and “success, health, and happiness,” which have already been optioned for a Hallmark movie to star Jodie Sweetin as a maker of bespoke mousepads who falls for the single father who plays Joseph in the town Nativity but fail to meet my rigorous standards of sassiness. When I asked it to make it funnier, it added a joke about a Wi-Fi router. Just for kicks, I asked it to do it in the style of Virginia Woolf; the result was honestly pretty credible, but that only made me want to put on a fake nose and drown myself. Thus, like the sisters of the Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin “classic,” I am doing it for myself.

The holidays are nice. I realize this is a pretty spicy take, but I genuinely believe it. In a world where people fight over everything from Oxford commas to the ethnicity of cartoon characters, it’s pleasant to have a season where people generally bring the temperature down a little bit (if not literally; people who put their thermostats on 65 and offer you a cardigan can die in fires). Regardless of age, race, or creed, we can all come together to express concern about Mariah Carey’s mental health as she performs “All I Want for Christmas is You” for the 9027^th time. CEOs and secretaries alike can find joy in watching the junior analyst who legitimately never shuts up about crypto get what appears to be a lightly-used talking toilet paper spindle in the office gift exchange. Conservatives and liberals alike can probably agree that The Nutcracker is really pretty creepy if you think about it, and RFK Jr. just wants to retrieve the Mouse King’s corpse and dump it in Central Park. Yes, we are all still secretly judging each other on the inside, but there’s something to be said for at least pretending to be nice for a while. Just ask Katherine Heigl.

And although Ian and I never did make it to Shondaland this year (transitions!), we did have some other interesting journeys. I went to London for work, where I considered using a night off to find out who is still seeing Phantom some three decades in, but instead got drunk and housed some Five Guys hot dogs. (Cultural.) We vacationed in Mexico City and were delighted to discover that we did not immediately burst into flames upon entering the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe. We also visited Montreal, which was lovely aside from the roughly fourteen hours we were trapped on a malfunctioning train to Quebec City watching Canada’s bougiest professionals go Lord of the Flies over the rationing of microwave pizza slices. (I want Diane Lane to play me in the movie.) There was movement on the home front as well, as I transitioned my white collar practice over to Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, where I am accepting referrals as well as recommendations for good Spanish restaurants and home contractors who are unlikely to murder you in your sleep.

So that was 2024, to the extent it can be crammed into half a page. I’ll leave more detailed reporting to people who were not raised with MTV and therefore have attention spans, but no real appreciation of Madonna. Happy holidays and best wishes for a great 2025!

I'm still here! It's been a crazy few weeks. I had to go to DC for work, where I did everything from taking people's coats and getting them nametags to chatting up state Attorneys General (hooray for weird plurals!) over veal I sincerely did not want to eat. Perhaps the most notable part of the experience was that hotels in DC were for some reasons thousands of dollars per night, which makes sense, because spending several days in DC is exactly as valuable as owning an economy car. It was also kind of nice that DC was about 30 degrees warmer than Chicago over this period, though I did have to come back eventually, and was absolutely not equipped with the coatage for that.

I've also been rehearsing extensively for my amateur theatrical for lawyers. Objectively it is insane that I spend this much time on something I will never be compensated for (and indeed even spend money on, as RFK Jr. costumes aren't free), but it does keep me off the streets. This year has a Back to the Future theme, I guess because we just found out that movie exists? Also, fart jokes. So if you happen to be in Chicago January 10-11 and want to spend $50 on something, let me know. Or just buy eggs; I hear they are killer expensive in Joe Biden's America.

As traumas go, having to go to a different buffet restaurant than the one you are used to for Thanksgiving is definitely not at the top of the list, but it did make things a little weird. Our normal Chicago spot got out of the game this year (no doubt due to Biden's War on Thanksgiving) so we had to go to a place my sister found out in the suburbs, which might as well have been on Mars. The food was fine and all, but we were in a banquet hall seated at rickety round tables that seemed likely to collapse at any given moment. Also, the buffet lines were insane and there were separate lines for the salad and carving stations. The end result of which was that I loaded up on mac and cheese (which was admittedly amazing) and called it a day. The kids had fun loading up on sugar and pretending they were puppies, though, so I guess it was a win.

After the big luncheon, we went out to Ian's parents' place, since they have relocated to the northwest suburbs from Minnesota. They are in a seniors-only community, which is kind of the dream. They have classes, entertainment, and a clubhouse with a very credible club sandwich. Plus you can drive your golf cart anywhere you want. It does give a little bit of a wife swapping vibe, but I'm sure that's optional. Anyway, we were just there for dessert and the rebroadcast of the Macy's parade, which gave us an opportunity to realize that we didn't even recognize the names of half of the pop stars featured. Ariana Madix singing The Cardigans I knew, though. It was like that one was aimed straight at my heart.

So yeah, Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I'm laying low today so as to avoid being crushed in a flat-screen-TV fracas, but that is something to be thankful for in and of itself.

I was in Florida for work this week. Fort Lauderdale, specifically. It was perfectly fine, particularly given that it snowed in Chicago, but I didn't see a ton of actual sun. Also, I found the suiting situation confusing. It was fall, but hot, so should I dress for the weather or the season? I just decided to put on jean shorts and call it a day.

The trip was for a conference, which was interesting and well-organized, but it is kind of exhausting to be attentive and interesting all day for three days. There were potential clients to be met, don't you know. So I made a lot of small talk about the weather, everyone's health, and likely white collar enforcement priorities for 2025. We are a fun group, to be sure.

Traveling will never not be the worst, though, am I right? Not the part about being other places, just the part about getting there. The flight there I had a talker sitting next to me who was impervious to my earbud trick and I couldn't get the outlet under the seat to work. The flight back we were delayed and had the endless taxi at O'Hare to top it off. We seriously landed at 6:30 and I wasn't off the plane until 7. At least this time I didn't get the gate mathematically calculated to be the absolute farthest from any sort of ground transport. 

Anyway, I'm back, and looking forward to the holiday. I view three days as the optimal length for a work week.

My sister's family enjoys watching Nailed It!, the show in which ordinary people fail at complex baking tasks. They decided they wanted to do their own personal live version. Though I've only seen the show in their presence while vigorously texting or playing Candy Crush on my phone, I agreed to join. The results were predictable yet no less glamorous.

Last night I hosted a fun show featuring several of my favorite performing friends. They all nailed it and I asked a few questions and then sat on a stool at the back of the stage watching them sing and looking awkward. It was great!

Of course, we forgot to practice our bows, and they were messy AF, but I consider that to just be a metaphor for life.

After railing against the very concept of fall, I went to a fall festival with my sister and her family this weekend. It was a lot. Things did not begin on a good note when I pulled into the wrong entrance and a woman with a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth reprimanded me vigorously, despite my seemingly uncontroversial position of complete capitulation and apology. But it did improve from there.

They had a lot of these for the kids to pose in. And unlike pretty much everything else at this event, they were free. (The event operated on a ticket-based economy, like many a Dave & Busters and Lake Zurich Alpine Festival before it.)

We were not fortunate enough to see the Wheels of Agriculture Game Show, much less participate, but I can tell it was amazing from the name alone.

Maggie said she wanted to ride the camel, then got scared and refused to ride it after we had already forked over the tickets, then changed her mind again and said she wanted to ride it with her mother. This photo looks like they had a glorious time, but the constant fear and tension in my sister's face as she attempted to prevent her daughter from lurching off the camel's back are not pictured.

This sign was in the porta potty. Which ruined my day, let me tell you. Where else was I supposed to make my chicken fricassee? 

As it turns out, most of their calls are not laughable in retrospect. The Beatles at #1? Groundbreaking. Elvis at #2? You're probably not getting any angry letters on that one. But there are some inclusions that perhaps not aged as well. I mean, I enjoyed the X-Files as much as the next person, but not if the next person was on the staff at Entertainment Weekly, because I remember them doing approximately 2700 cover stories on that show. And it comes in at #76 on their list. Just ahead of Diana Ross at #79. Sorry, Ms. Ross, you had some hits, but no Cigarette Smoking Man.

And while we're on the subject, how is a TV show an "entertainer?" People are entertainers. Bands are arguably entertainers, though also arguably groups of entertainers. But shows are shows. And if we're including shows as entertainers, why X-Files, Star Trek, and Saturday Night Live, but not, say, The Dick Van Dyke Show or All in the Family? Or The Single Guy with Jonathan Silverman? Egregious oversights.

The all-new iMac! We had a lab full of them at my college. They looked less cute when you were up all night trying to finish that Major English Authors paper you put off to the last minute. I'm sure now they really brighten up the landfills, though.

Huge boxy TV! And woman who is probably not Julie Bowen but definitely there's a resemblance. Wearing clamdiggers. And a sweater. What a time it was to be alive!

They also did internet polls that they included in the issue, which were definitely very representative of the public at large. What figure loomed larger in '90s television than Seth Green? I mean, perhaps David Spade, but I just don't think he was given the same caliber of material. And this was before James Van der Beek became a meme.

Can I add that Meryl Streep (#38) was ranked below both Bill Cosby (#24) and Woody Allen (#26)? I mean, I know none of us were psychic, but did people really love Mighty Aphrodite that much? And Ghost Dad? Okay, that was unfair, Ghost Dad still slaps.