The week following Memorial Day was eventful in a pretty negative way. It started well as Jen and I went to Shotz! for the first time. The theme was "The Melting Shotz" about immigration. The conditions were 1) A character must cross a border; 2) A character is forced to leave home; and 3) The line "How did we get here?"
A few days later we found out that Puck's great-aunt passed away in the hospital so we attended the funeral on Friday. I was meeting Jen and her friend Martha to see Alice Smith in concert at Irving Plaza and Puck had plans for a Welcome to Nightvale dance party that night with out-of-town friends Seth and D, who drove down from Delaware. It upset Puck's mom a bit that we kept our plans despite the passing, but we both simply didn't want to cancel our plans with such short notice.
The next morning things sort of reached a crescendo as I was rushing to make breakfast (and finding out all the eggs were gone) and food for the Brooklyn Queer Femme picnic that Natalia and I were going to while Puck and Jen played their tabletop game with Matt and Alex, who also came over with Natalia. So there were a lot of people in the house and I was scrambling to make food and on top of that, Chrissy texts me with unexpected news about Open Love NY. So it was one of those Calgon moments, as Tara used to say. People born in the 80s and 90s probably will need to Google that to get the reference.
The picnic was alright - Sabrina and her new girlfriend Sarah (both from the Cuddle Party with me and Natalia) joined us and we had a nice time in Prospect Park. I had a day to recover on Sunday and then Jen and I went to see a performance of Mozart's Requiem at Carnegie Hall. We sat through a couple of student choir performances before intermission, when we moved down to empty seats at the front of the mezzanine section for the Requiem. That made the experience so much better, without any of the visual and auditory distractions from sitting higher up. Although I have four or five different recordings of the Requiem, it's the first time I've heard it performed live.
Wednesday Liz invited me to see a play called "#liberated" about a women's group that decides to make it's own porn video. She is writing a review for a theater site, so we got reserved seats in a very small theater. The eight members of the all-woman company called The Living Room are dedicated to making work about contemporary American women. I thought the play was pretty inventive but I didn't care for the very dark ending.
On Wednesday the 22nd, I had my first in-person job interview since the move in Rockefeller Center. I thought it went very well - as well as any interview I've had since the start of the job search. I'm really hoping that it was the same on the other side.
Saturday was Pride weekend and unfortunately Puck was sick for most of it with a cold. Seth and D came back down for the weekend so I took them to the Poly Picnic in Prospect Park and met up with Jen there to eat, socialize and make signs for the march the next day. Chrissy and Charles also came with their kids, Andrew and Annabelle, whom I met for the first time. Kara also came since she's back for the summer from the west coast. I also got the unexpected bad news that Buck was out of town and couldn't bring the banner pole for the march, plus I'd left the banner at home so we had to go back to SBSC and then go to Lowe's at 11:30 pm to get a PVC pole to hold the banner. So it was completely exhausting and left little energy for actually celebrating Pride in the way we had wanted to.
The morning of the march was also pretty hectic because we were driving in from Park Slope and it took longer than I expected so I had to send Jen out on foot to deliver the banner and pole while I parked Yoshi. Luckily the whole march was behind schedule so it turned out we had plenty of time, but I was worried for a bit that I wouldn't get there in time with all the signs we made. Here's some pictures from the march.
On Monday I finally took care of something I should have done months ago - I applied for free health insurance through Obamacare. I was surprised how easy and painless it was and I'm now covered by Medicaid for free. My health plan starts in August and I'll be able to see my endo again and get back on my medical regime.
Tuesday Chrissy took me out to get a spa pedicure for my birthday and we spent the afternoon at the salon and shopping together. As I left her to meet up with Puck to head home I randomly ran into my dear friend Lori in the middle of Herald Square at a food stall and made plans for dinner on Friday. Wednesday Jen and I went to Bindle & Keep, a custom suit tailor specializing in non-gender conforming individuals, to get me measured for a new suit. Jen had gotten her order in a few weeks ago and I really enjoyed the process and meeting Daniel, the tailor featured on the HBO documentary "Suited." But unlike Jen's masculine-cut suits, mine will be a woman's suit, obviously, when I receive it this fall.
Thursday I hosted an SBSC viewing of "The Danish Girl" - notable because it was Katie M's first time staying over at SBSC as she joined me, Puck and Jen for the movie. I didn't care for the movie very much so that was disappointing but it was delightful as always to see Katie and to have her get to know Jen a little. That night Puck, Jen and I also shared the same bed for the first time as I stacked air mattresses so that we could sleep on our queen mattress sideways. Unfortunately, my snoring drove Puck downstairs to the other guest room so the experiment wasn't entirely successful.
Saturday was our long-planned SBSC Beach Day. Rebecca and Jen both came over Friday night and we watched "Guardians of the Galaxy" with Puck. In the morning Jen and I, who are not beach people, went shopping for food while Puck led Rebecca, Carolyn, Kal and a new friend named Jesse to Midland Beach. I grilled hamburgers, corn, peppers, onions, hot dogs and veggie burgers on the charcoal grill in the backyard and we had potato salad and chips and dip as well. It's the first time I've ever been in charge of a non-gas grill and I guess I acquitted myself reasonably well.
