Freelance Lodgeburgers, Psychic Understudies, More

The Lincoln Lodge has given me the thumbs up, and I'm lined up for a guest set there in the next few weeks.

I didn't get into Time Out Chicago's "Funniest Person in Chicago" contest, but Dan did! I'm going to try to go to the contest at the Lakeshore so I can scream on his behalf.

Along with a new communications partner, I'm going to do the PR for the Chicago Advertising Federation for the next year. This means working with people like McDonald's CCO, who's a very savvy and cool woman.

Last night at ChUC I freaked everybody out with talk about my returning premonition dreams. I'm being called everything from "touched" to "spooky." One of the highlights of the last go 'round of this sort of psychic adventure happened one night when I was 13, and I was walking through my family's living room while then-President Reagan was giving a speech on tv. I absent-mindedly mumbled three sentences of his speech at the same time he said them. My family, gathered around the tube, spazzed out. "How did you know what he was going to say?" And I said "He said that last night on tv. We watched it together, remember?" And they said "No, this is a live broadcast, you little weirdo...he's never said that before." I know, I know, this is the kind of thing that got women burned at the stake not so many generations ago. Maybe I should stop talking about it.

I'm doing rehearsals for my friend Nancy's play about her experiences as a comedy writing teacher at Second City. I'm an understudy and will probably be onstage only 2 or 3 times. The show is directed by the very awesome John Hildreth, who does work with Second City's BrownCo, and is a lot of fun. Nancy totally tricked me into this by saying, "I know you've never acted, and you're big 'fraidy-cat, but this will be good for you, very low-key. You'll be offstage, script in hand, reading into a mic." Guess what was required of me at the first rehearsal? Acting, dancing, and singing -- including solo singing. Ha ha ha. Very sneaky, Nancy.

Oh, and Technorati alerted me to the fact that a blogger in Plano, Texas linked to an ancient blog post on Bella Rossa, and referred to me as a "failed girl comedian." He seems to have a good sense of humor, so I gave him a friendly poke in return, acknowledging that yes, perhaps at the "few months" mark of my comedy career, I should have reached stratospheric heights of fame already, and maybe I should pack it in. Oh, silly internets, I love you so.