After a month of mostly inactivity, it has been and is going to be a busy week. Monday I went into the city for a Poly Happy Hour that takes place the second Monday of each month. I've never been to one because up until recently, Monday nights have been date nights for me and Tara, since it's also Buffy's yoga night.
The happy hour is held at China 1 Antique Restaurant and Lounge and it's one of the weirder places I've been. When you walk in, it just looks like a small, intimate Chinese restaurant, but with only about three tables and the rest of it bar seating. But when you descend down the narrow staircase in the back, it leads to a maze-like, subterranean space that kind of reminds me of the dungeon in The Silence of the Lambs. The air is heavily perfumed with incense, and the lighting is very dim, except in one brightly lit corner with seating and pillows arranged around a small coffee table. All along the walls are intimate booths where people can have more privacy, most of them with decorative grates attached to the wall that are used for bondage activities (I saw one girl handcuffed to the wall with her hands above her head). Apparently there are a couple of kink parties hosted there each month as well.
The downstairs consists of two large rooms, each about three times the size of the small room upstairs. One room has a DJ station and a fish tank with Chinese goldfish in the middle of the room. One of the booths in that room doesn't have a table, only a high couch or what looks like a small bed for people to cuddle. Apparently my friend Lyndell was snogging somebody in there earlier in the evening, but I heard about it from Kyle. All around the perimeter of the room are padded benches and pillows, and more dark booths.
I met some of my poly friends there in order to start the process of formalizing our new group, called Open Love NY, and discuss the terms of splitting off from Polyamorous NYC. We sat in the brightly lit corner and had our meeting as more people came and started to mingle. Once we settled everything, we brought some new people over and I met several of my friends' friends. Lyndell left with me around 10 pm to head to a karaoke party uptown, and we ran into one of her friends from her theater days on the 14th Street bus. Lyndell got off at Union Square, and I chatted with her friend all the way to Penn Station. He's a gay black man who works by day as a law librarian and at night is part of a troupe of actors doing William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. He has a marvelous speaking voice.
Tonight we went out to celebrate Bee's birthday at Colucci's Ristorante where local personality Uncle Floyd performs each Tuesday night. Part musician, part off-color comedian, he and his friends in the audience put on a show that had all of us in stitches. It's a very old-timey act full of bad jokes and one-liners, but done with so much style and pizzazz that you can't help but laugh.
Tomorrow I have my first real job interview since that last one in Hackensack - this one in the city a block north of Agent K (which is code for my old firm). That means I have to slosh around in the wet weather with my suit and heels on, carrying my portfolio - ugh. Then I'll stay in the city and help out at the PolyNYC meeting at 8 pm. I think with the lack of volunteers now, I've been promoted from chair arranger to door greeter and money taker. I hope I can handle the increased responsibility...
