Lively performances

It's been a nice run of fun times with some of my favorite people this whole week, as I alluded to in my previous post. Wednesday I managed to drag Lori to my poly women's group meeting, where Katie and Sylwia joined us for a lively chat until the store was about to close. Since Lori is sex-positive but not poly, she brought a nice alternative view to everything.

Thursday I worked from home because it's been a bad allergy week and the office has been empty anyway. Since I was home, I took the opportunity to try the Book of Mormon ticket lottery. There are fewer people on weekdays, but I still didn't win. Piper was coming over for our Hitchcock movie marathon, but as it turned out, I did win the lottery for Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which is playing at the theater around the corner from my apartment. So instead of our movie, we had a quick bite to eat at the Famous Dave's barbecue and then saw the show from the front row (I sat right behind the conductor, and he gave me one of the souvenir ping-pong balls). The show was a spectacle of drag opulence, and a fitting accompaniment to the student drag show I saw last Friday at SBU.

On Friday, I joined Kacey, Becker and their friend Erin (whom I met several months ago when we saw the play "How to Begin") in Williamsburg for a site-specific production at a private residence. The play was titled "The Foreplay Play," and it's about a straight, vanilla couple that comes to a lesbian, kinky couple's apartment for dinner, drinks and a foursome and things do not go as planned. I enjoyed the acting and the production, but since I'm part of both the kink and poly communities, I found a lot of the plot a bit cringing, since I don't have much respect or sympathy for people who throw themselves headlong into these situations without educating themselves first. And sure, everyone can have bad experiences no matter how prepared they are, but I thought it was overly dramatized, and everyone knows I'm not a fan of drama in relationships, fictional or otherwise.

What I also liked was that after the show, all the actors and crew came out and mingled with the audience, many of whom were friends. Kacey did the photography for the show and materials, as you see on the web site. A group of a dozen of us went out afterwards to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner, and I sat between two new people named Liz and Lita. Liz, who you can see on her web site is "the little lady with the big voice," is also from Texas, born in San Antonio and went to a Catholic high school in Houston just down the road from Pearl's family home. She looks 17, but she's actually 27, and she does have a much bigger-than-expected voice, which I guess she uses to great effect as a stage manager.

I spent the day Saturday cleaning the apartment, specifically the pile of mail on my dining table, since I had invited Beth to come over in the evening. But first I went to White Castle and picked up a case of burgers and took a cab to Riverside Park to meet up with Kacey and Becker and more of their friends to have a picnic and watch the sunset. I met Christina again, an actress and director whom we've met at the last two Shotz! productions, and another friend from her work who looked familiar (and I to her) but I can't say if we've met before. I had to leave to meet Beth, and so missed Storm who arrived later (she texted me for directions). For some reason, even though Kacey and I met at Storm's Easter egg party last year, we have never all three been at the same event since then.

I took a cab down to SoHo and met Beth as she was closing up her bakery store. We walked around the neighborhood for a bit, then stopped to have a quick bite of food. We came back to my apartment and watched the original "Tron" movie and played some games on the PS3. As it was getting late and the weather was starting to deteriorate, I invited her to stay over and she accepted. It was the first time since Bonnie two years ago that someone besides Puck has slept over, even as just friends.

So it's just been a terrific week of experiences since last weekend, spending time and doing fun things with many of my closest friends. It takes a bit of the sting out of the Rockets missing the playoffs again this year.