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Valentine’s gifts for the queers you love

Elevated chocolates, top-shelf liquors, and more

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Spread the love this Valentine’s Day with these festive, fun, and sometimes frisky gifts to fill all your special someone’s hearts with happiness and appreciation.

Love Script Pillows

PillowScript’s royal-hued love script pillows – in muted green, red, blue or gray – imbue your personal space with optimism, openness and a velvety softness smoother than Cupid’s bare bottom. $50, PillowScript.com

Tale as Old as Time

At once slim and sleek, the Vincero Kairos and Eros Petite mesh and leather-banded watches look stunning on a beauty or a beast. $99-$178, VinceroCollective.com

Fondue Feasts

You dip, she dips, they dip bite-size savories and sweets into BOSKA’s cheese and chocolate fondue sets equally suited for a sophisticated date night at home or as the centerpiece of a ’70s-inspired Galentine’s party. Better dust off the orgy lamp. $33-$44, USA.Boska.com

Covered in Love

Kisses and hugs and on-the-couch snugs are instantly cozier in Sunday Citizen’s XOXO throw or the Mamas Blanket x Calhoun & Co.’s pink-and-red girl-power blanket for wrapping up near-and-dear babes and broads. $170, SundayCitizen.co; $138, AustinMotelStore.com

Playboy Pleasure

You might assume that a synonymous-with-sex brand like Playboy would already have a leg (or two) up on the adult-toy industry, but its recently launched, first-foray Playboy Pleasure line couldn’t be rushed: The inaugural collection includes vibrators with heating, tapping, and thrusting functions; a spinning butt plug; multi-motor cock rings; toys with flickering tongues; solo strokers, and a first-of-its-kind flapper shaft for the G-spot. You’re gonna need a bigger tarp. $26-$200, LoversStores.com

Chinola x Vesta Chocolate

Skip the Stover’s and improve your chocolate-gifting game with limited-edition Chinola bonbon and ganache chocolates, the melt-in-your-mouth collab between Dominican-sourced Chinola Passion Fruit Liqueur and Vesta Chocolate, co-founded by Chef Roger Rodriguez. $25-$48, VestaChocolate.com

Lace Charms

Customize your kicks with splashes of sparkle when you outfit their laces with burnished beads and baubles – like Lace Charms’ Digital Pink Bundle, featuring gold stars and rosy bling-blings – fit for sneakerhead kweens and king-kings. $30-$75, LaceCharms.com

Happy Juice

You’ll get your lips kissed when you twirl a Sunkist on the stylish Verve Culture artisan citrus juicer (available in gold, rose gold, and black), your new go-to hand-operated appliance that gilds the lily of an already decadent holiday brunch in bed. $98-$150, VerveCulture.com

Power Flowers

If Miley can buy herself flowers, so can you: Treat your resilient self to Perfect Plants’ bounty of blooms – including houseplants, trees, shrubs, hedges and a wide selection of coveted Drift rose bushes – that’ll keep your space fresh long after love stales. $40+, MyPerfectPlants.com

Gas You Up

Motivational neon signs that empower you to “Rise & Grind,” “LISTEN TO YOUR HEART,” “Hu$tle,” and “BE A BAD ASS WITH A GOOD ASS” not only add pops of radiating light and liveliness to your home and office, but they just might reduce your therapy bill too. $200-$600, CustomNeon.com

Big AND Beautiful

Lizzo launched a thousand hips with her body-positive lyrics and lifestyle, and you can continue that self-satisfying trend with Le Chic Miami’s hand-painted, more-to-love basswood Venus hoop earrings, available in three everywoman skin tones. $27, LeChicMiami.store

All the Restaurants

Former New Yorker magazine editor turned self-taught artist John Donohue recognizes that most Americans’ first dates take place at restaurants (Starbucks is #1 while In-N-Out Burger clocks in at #2, according to a survey of Clover app users), which is why he’s made it his mission to commemorate the occasion with signed, limited-edition prints of your fave romantic dining destinations, including Manhattan’s 12 Chairs Café and Abilene Bar, Jaleo in D.C., and London’s Noble Rot. $95, AllTheRestaurants.com

Bye-Bye Dry January

Build a more discerning home bar in 2023 with a curated selection of luxury liquors, including Empress 1908 and Jaisalmer gins, Rampur Double Cask and Bearface Triple Oak whiskies, Tequila Ocho Plata, and L’etoile du Nord vodka. Prices vary, Drizly.com; TotalWine.com

Jaisalmer Gin Negroni

1.25 oz Jaisalmer Indian Craft Gin

1 oz Camapri

.75 oz Cocchi Torino Vermouth

Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass. Add ice and stir until proper chill and dilution are achieved. Strain into a double rocks glass.  Add a few large pieces of clear ice. Garnish with an orange twist.

One Love

Dateless for V-Day? Toast your single status – self-imposed independence should be celebrated (just ask Shakira) – with a bottle of Beau Joie Rosé Champagne and poppable Doughp cookie dough bites, in upbeat flavors like Cinnamood, Brownie Beast, Cookie Monsta, and Red Velvet Vixen. $135, TotalWine.com; $12-$16, Doughp.com

Mikey Rox is an award-winning journalist and LGBTQ lifestyle expert whose work has been published in more than 100 outlets. Connect with Mikey on Instagram @mikeyroxtravels.

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Theater

Signature’s fresh take on classic ‘Forum’

Actor Mike Millan says ‘it’s like a new work in many ways’

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‘A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’
Through Jan. 12
Signature Theatre
4200 Campbell Ave.
Arlington, Va.
$40-$126
sigtheatre.org

For out actor Mike Millan, Signature Theatre’s production of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum,” couldn’t feel fresher. 

Set in ancient Rome, the 62-year-old Tony-winning hit (music with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart) borrows from Roman comedy, farce, and a dash of bawdy vaudeville to the tales of slaves, soldiers, courtesans, and a lovesick young man. 

Millan plays Hysterium, a nervous slave in the House of Senex, whose tagline reads “I live to grovel.”

“I’ve never done ‘Forum,’ so to me it’s like a new work in many ways,” he says. “And because it’s older and has a classic musical point of view and we’re doing it now, it’s as if we’ve been given a lovely opportunity to make it our own.” 

And indeed, they are doing just that. Directed and choreographed by Matthew Gardiner, the Signature production is introducing new bits and playing with gender: the central character Pseudolus, a sly slave role created by Zero Mostel, is played by Erin Weaver; Erronius is played by Sherri Edelen in drag; and two male actors and one nonbinary actor play courtesans.

Though Millan, 35, is based with his partner in Los Angeles, he regularly travels to New York and is pleased to make Signature in Shirlington an additional destination on his bicoastal work journey. Recently, the affable actor took time to talk about Signature and “Forum.” 

WASHINGTON BLADE: A little about the brilliantly named Hysterium, please. 

MIKE MILLAN: As a gay actor, I can say that Hysterium is one of the gayer characters I’ve ever played. He’s a sort of fop and he’s in drag most of the second act. How can you not see him as a queer character?” 

When the part was written it was sort of gay coded and now it’s just abundantly clear, you don’t think twice about it. 

BLADE: “Forum” is unapologetically fun. Is now the right time for a romp? 

MILLAN: The show comes with a level of escapism that is really infectious. During these tense times, it feels great to be doing a silly musical. We’re doing fart jokes in tunics, and the material and jokes really hold up. You’ll feel better leaving than when you came in.

BLADE: All that and a Sondheim score too? 

MILLAN: He’s the reason I’m here. In high school, I discovered his “Into the Woods” and remember locking myself in my room until I knew every word to “Giants in the Sky.” 

“Passion,” “Follies,” I love it all. He’s so singular because he writes from a perspective of acting and storytelling; Sondheim touches me in a way that feels quasi-religious. 

When I think about the number of times I sang “Last Midnight” alone in my car, it fills me with a joy that I’ve never gotten from any other composer or jukebox musical.

BLADE:  In 2022, you played Idina Menzel super fan Jeff in “Which Way to the Stage” at Signature. Are you glad to be back? 

MILLAN: Yes, I’m happy to be employed. It’s a tough business. Not only are we asked to be great singers, dancers, actors, and performers but we’re asked to have a social media presence and to be the most popular kid in school. 

Signature provides a safe environment to try something new and different, to experiment with a community that respects doing that. Also at Signature, it never feels like any audience members are being dragged by their partners to see a show. It’s a supportive community. 

BLADE: Speaking of partners, do you miss being away from home?

MILLAN: Sometime it’s nice to have that time away from each other; it builds a little mystery.

BLADE: Will your performance change between now and January?

MILLAN: In recent years, I’ve changed my acting approach from cracking the code on how to play a character to inviting the audience on a journey and making them part of the process. 

I was raised in musical theater, but by doing comedy, standup, and improv, I’ve come to find the joy of failure freeing. And I like being part of a changing show. I like the idea of somebody being able to say “I was there the night Patti LuPone yelled at the guy who took a picture.”

BLADE: An unexpected moment. 

MILLAN: Of course, I go in with certain things I have planned out, but I like the element of excitement that anything might happen. And I think the audience should feel that way too.

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Travel

2024 transatlantic cruise on Celebrity ASCENT: blog #1

Welcome to Barcelona

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The flight over to Barcelona was uneventful and landed on-time in this beautiful city. I was met at the airport by a very nice taxi driver I had pre-arranged through booking.com. He drove me to my hotel, the Barcelona Continental, on the Ramblas. It was a little disappointing. They neglected to tell those booking the road in front of the hotel was dug up and therefore you needed to be let out of the taxi across the Ramblas and had a long walk with your luggage. It is really old and not redone, except for the bathrooms, those are nice. But I would not recommend it.

I was early and they couldn’t get me checked in for a few hours, so had coffee and then met my friend Simone, also staying at the hotel. She had checked in a couple of days earlier and had the same reaction to the hotel I did. But that didn’t stop either one of us from enjoying Barcelona in all its beauty. I don’t sleep on planes, so the first day was spent relaxing and wandering aimlessly past cathedrals, long shopping streets, and wonderful little side streets off the Ramblas. Simone took off to do her shopping with more specific plans. It was an early night for me and we met again in the morning for coffee and spent a wonderful day together, shopping, walking, and seeing some great street performers. Then it was dinner with friends who we would be boarding the ship with the next morning. They kept predicting rain. It did come late at night and continued through us heading to the port to board the ASCENT. Because of the broken-up roadway we got a little wet heading to the taxi stand, which didn’t make us feel any better about the hotel.

It was a short ride to the port, and soon the beautiful ASCENT came into view. Boarding was easy and then suddenly the cruise was beginning. A walk around the ship unveiled some beautiful artwork, and small changes from the rest of the EDGE series ships I have been on. But it still felt like a welcome home. I headed to deck 15 and the Retreat lounge to meet some of the 70 people I would be traveling with. Scott and Dustin of My Lux Cruise had planned a sail-away party for all of us in their beautiful Iconic suite. They will be hosting a number of events during the cruise, which makes them such great travel agents, and friends. Another friend, the extraordinarily talented Andrew Derbyshire, who would be performing that evening, was there. He was on the ship for only one night, getting off in Alicante to head home to the UK the next day.  

I joined friends, Scott, Mike, and the irrepressible Jason, for dinner in Luminae, the dining room for the retreat.  It was to be a night where dinner came first and then the show. At 9 p.m. we were seated in the third row of the beautiful theater, to hear Andrew. He didn’t disappoint. He is better than ever. He has an incredible voice and such great stage presence. I, and everyone else, were just so sorry he wouldn’t be staying on the cruise with us. He reminded us he has been working with Celebrity for more than eight years and is one of their biggest stars. He also hosts their Pride month events doing so with great panache. As a young man Andrew performed in the West End in London, and has been a star performer for much of his life. Then it was off to The Club for a little disco music, and then off to bed with a satisfied smile on my face to complete day one on the ASCENT. 

Day two began with a knock on the door of my cabin with delivery of coffee, juice, and a bagel. I sat down to write, which I do every morning, and then headed to the gym for my first workout on the ship. It was empty, which was great, and the sun had come out and the view from the lifecycle made it fun. After the gym I headed to the retreat lounge and met some friends and had a cappuccino. The sky started to get gray and clearly it was going to rain in Alicante, our first stop. But that didn’t stop anyone from walking around the town. I was getting the best feeling this was going to be a great cruise. 

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Out & About

DC Center to host queer market

Clothes, shoes, accessories and other items will be available

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(Photo by Printenfisch/Bigstock)

The DC Center for the LGBT Community will host “Metro Queer Market” on Saturday, Nov. 9 at 11 a.m. at its offices at 2000 14th St., N.W., Suite 105.

Guests will have the opportunity to check out the center’s closet. Clothes, shoes, accessories and other items will be available. 

For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.

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