We did our usual meet-and-greet of people we've met previously and new faces in the crowd. I ran into a guy I dated last year that I haven't seen since October. Polina's ex-boyfriend Patrick also attended - we met each other last November when I took her out for her birthday ("Museum weekend" - November 10, 2008). Plus Diana's girlfriend Kerry (not spelled "Carrie", as previously reported) of pending MTV fame ("Birthdays, MTV and Polina" - May 6, 2009) made an appearance and chatted with me for a bit.
Since Polina and I were hosting a Firefly viewing party at my apartment the next day, we left together at 11:30 p.m. to catch the last train back to New Jersey. On the train we met a guy named Byron who is a comics artist, writer and reporter, and thought polyamory was "wicked," as in cool, not as in sinful. For some reason it seems to me that when Penny and I are together, even if we're not doing anything demonstrative, we seem to attract more attention than we do separately. I'm not sure why that is.
So Penny spent the night at my place for the first time, and only the second time we've shared a bed ("Cooking party" - January 24, 2009). We were much more comfortable with each other this time around, and fortunately she does not find my bed too soft to sleep on in comparison to her very firm, post-industrial bed. The downside was that my building superintendent chose that morning to knock on my door at nine o'clock in the morning to replace my air filters and change my smoke detector battery.
After a breakfast of eggs and turkey bacon (since she obviously doesn't eat pork) we went out to pick up Penny's friends Katie from the bus station, and Laura (whom I met at the aforementioned birthday last November) met up with us there. We took them back to the apartment and started them on the first episode of Firefly, which neither of them had seen before. About halfway through, Penny and I went to fetch Afiya from the bus station and returned before the episode was finished. We plowed through about five more episodes before taking a break for dinner - Penny and I made pan-fried vegetable dumplings, bok choy and onion with black bean garlic sauce, and a spicy chicken curry with potatoes over rice.
After dinner we got all the way to "Ariel" on Disc 3 of the 4-disc set before calling it quits. We took some pictures to document what we hope might turn into a recurring event, but I especially like this one I accidentally snapped of Penny when she was handing me the camera:
After dropping Laura off in North Haledon, about 10 minutes from my place, we took Afiya and Katie back to Penny's house in Staten Island, where we all crashed for the night. Penny and Katie got up early to go into the city for various things, while I waited for Afiya to shower before dropping her off at the ferry terminal and heading home. We tentatively plan to complete the Firefly marathon on June 20, including a screening of the movie Serenity.
Tomorrow I have my first job interview in quite a long while, so I'd better get to bed. More news as it happens later.
