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Yesterday the California governor (who shall not be named) announced the final design for the state quarter, which will be minted starting in January of next year. Eh. Granted, it is basically the design I favored from among the five finalists, depicting John Muir at Yosemite, but there’s something a little off about it, and it took me a minute to figure it out: the scale. In the original design submission, you get a sense of the natural grandeur (yes, even on the back of a quarter), but in the final design, which I suppose is more of a collage of symbols, it looks like Muir could just walk a few steps, give Half Dome a swift push, and send it rolling down the hill.

Speaking of coinage, the nickel is getting a makeover for a few years, with new reverse designs. The familiar depiction of Monticello will return in 2006.

Have we seen one of the new McDonald’s commercials? Apparently the fast-food giant thinks sex sells food. The spot opens with some eye candy: slow tracking shots of a few hot young guys at the office–the intern, the mail guy, etc. I’m thinking, mmm, nice. Is this an ad for clothing or cologne or a car or something? (Distracted by the boyish virility on display, I forget that these days commercials are never obvious about what they’re advertising.) We then pan over to see that they’re being ogled by a woman at her desk, eating a McDonald’s salad. Dang. Thanks for ruining the mood.

This commercial doesn’t make me want to go out and get a salad. If anything, it makes me want to sit back on the couch and, well, watch the commercial a few more times.

Speaking of McDonald’s marketing, what’s up with their Asian-American outreach? “I Am Asian“? I guess all you need is a simple grasp of subject-verb sentence structure to write copy over there. That whole site is a little strange. The title of the Latino campaign, “loMcximo,” a play on lo máximo, is somewhat clever, if unintelligible at first glance.

Last Friday, before heading to Lisner for Bye Bye Birdie, Thom and I had dinner at Nectar, a swank little restaurant nearby at The George Washington University Inn. And I do mean little; the dining room is about the size of a large garage. But it’s a warmly decorated and intimate space. I had a salad (spicy greens, fresh herbs, seaweed, and sesame) and the salmon (served with beets and caviar, nicely presented on a square glass plate, textured and translucent). The service was by turns attentive and underattentive, but foodwise everything was very good. Mmm.

I tend not to write about The Relationship per se, so the following might sound cryptic. It’s perhaps more for me than you, but here it goes anyway. Recent misunderstandings, since resolved, give me pause to reflect briefly on the importance of communication. I know, obvious, right? I’m not making excuses, but for an introvert (and sometime loner) like me, not very experienced in the dating world at that, my default mode has been all about listening and (over)processing, and less about talking and expressing. Put another way, for so long my main conduit of communication has been with myself, internalized–I call this not so much “talking to myself,” but rather “talking as if someone else were there”–and sometimes I forget that there really is a whole other person there, looking out for me, loving me.

Earlier tonight we happened to catch a couple of episodes of Significant Others on Bravo. I’d seen their commercials before and for some reason thought it was some kind of reality show, but it’s really a loosely scripted comedy about married couples in and out of counseling. I know, that doesn’t exactly sound comedic, but the episodes we saw were actually pretty funny, with a very quick sense of humor. New episodes air Tuesday nights at 9:30 p.m.

Bye Bye Birdie with the Gay Men’s Chorus was a lot of fun. It’s such a perfect show for an all-male cast. While some of the female roles were done in drag, most notably Albert’s mother, who was hilarious, some of the women were played as men, including Kim McAfee, who’s a starstruck gay boy, and really, weren’t we all (or still are)?; and Albert’s love interest, Rosie Alvarez, whose full first name, we later find out, is Roosevelt. Cute. Some other audience-pleasing queer touches include Rosie crashing a leather party (instead of a Shriner’s meeting), and Albert announcing their journey west to Multnomah County, Ore., where he can finally become an English teacher, and Rosie can be “Mrs. Albert Peterson, the English teacher’s wife.”

Ah, I can now add Rosie to my list of dream roles… but only if I get to write some hunky leather men into my contract.

Tonight Thom and I are going to see an all-male production of Bye Bye Birdie, by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington. Sounds like fun! It premieres at Lisner (GW) tonight and plays through Sunday. Side note: did you know that both Thom and I have played the character of Albert Peterson in school productions of Bye Bye Birdie? For me it was in the seventh grade with Mrs. Christensen’s drama class. Ah, and thus a starlet was born.

Side note to the side note: my middle school now has a website, including a staff directory, and of all the teachers I had, it seems the only one still on the staff is Ms. Ross, who taught social studies and the yearbook/journalism class. Yours truly was editor of the yearbook in eighth grade. I remember, to apply for the top staff posts we had to write a short essay–maybe it was just a paragraph–and I think I likened to yearbook to a “gem” or some such inanity. Yes, the gift of hyperbole, even then.

Last side note, I promise. Speaking of essays, my high-school entrance essay was on what famous person I wanted to meet (or be?), or something like that. I decided on the President. But for some reason that will continue to escape me to the end of my days, I specified the current President at the time, George H. W. Bush. Yikes. You’d think I was a young Republican-in-training. God forbid that essay ever gets dug up and quoted back to me, Tim Russert-style. “Senator, let’s get your words up on the screen. In 1991 you wrote, and I’m quoting here…” Hm. That’s pretty unlikely. Never mind, then.

Have a great weekend, kids.

Kathy Griffin’s comedy special on Bravo, The D-List, which premiered last night, is hilarious. I love her. The way she gabs about her run-ins with celebs higher up (Whitney Houston at the Billboard Music Awards)–and not so high up (Anna Nicole on Hollywood Squares)–on the food chain, periodically interrupting herself to give you every momentarily forgotten detail, it’s like listening to a good friend (you know, the really gossipy one) dish the dirt. Check it out.

Speaking of great stand-up, Margaret Cho will be in town at the Improv Apr. 23-25. And her website says she’s planning a fall tour through swing states, titled “State of Emergency.” Amen, sister.