Polina's birthday, part 3

On Saturday night Polina and I hosted the first public event for Open Love NY, a combination kick-off meeting and birthday party for her 19th birthday. It’s something we’ve been planning for the past three weeks or so, and the past couple of weekends we’ve been working pretty hard on it. I’m happy to report that everything went off pretty much as planned, and a great time was had by all.

I picked Polina up from my local train station in Montclair Friday night and we stopped at the local diner for dinner. I was amused by two kids in the next booth behind her who couldn’t stop staring at her purple hair. We got home and worked on our donation jars for our three non-profit causes – Cunning Minx’s podcast Polyamory Weekly, Kenneth Haslam’s Polyamory Library at the University of Indiana, and the Jim Collins Foundation (which helps pay for life-altering surgeries for transgender people). We also finalized the event sign-in sheet, survey, donation descriptions and sent out a reminder on Facebook.

Saturday we got a very late start after a relationship check-in talk before getting out of bed in the early afternoon. We had some cereal while waiting for our friend Laura to arrive before we all went out to gather the birthday cake, food and last minute errands, like making copies of the survey and buying a wireless microphone (which we ultimately ended up not using). By the time we got home there was barely enough time to get something to eat, get changed, and load up Yoshi – and we still had to go back once because we forgot Polina’s MacBook that had our music playlist on it.

We were fortunate not to hit too much Saturday night traffic and got to the gallery at about a quarter after 7 p.m., which gave us only 15 minutes to set up. People were already arriving, and there were some gallery customers loitering around, which made things a little hectic and confusing, but we managed to get things set up quickly.



We set our table with red pepper hummus and spicy flatbread, a tray of four kinds of sliced cheese and multigrain crackers, stuffed grape leaves and giant green olives stuffed with garlic, guacamole and tortilla chips, and large black seedless grapes. For drinks we had soda and pomegranate blueberry juice. We set out our donation jars at the head of the table, along with short descriptions of each.



We cut the music and started our meeting at about 8:45 pm, but people kept trickling in throughout the night. I introduced myself and Buck and we talked a bit about Open Love NY’s reason for being and mission to plan more social events for the polyamorous community of New York. I thanked the gallery owner and our volunteers (which should have included a shout to Laura, who was so helpful the whole day) and we went around the room to introduce ourselves. I had a few more remarks about the survey and then we started the birthday celebration by clearing space at the table for Polina to sit.

While Barbara prepared the candles on the cake, I gave a short speech about Polina and how this event came about because I wanted to do something for her birthday while also helping get OLNY off the ground (something we both were eager to have happen). I talked about how we came from such different backgrounds, and yet managed to find each other through the polyamorous community, and how our community is organized around the idea that we should be free to love openly and honestly.



Barbara brought out the cake, which I had customized with the infinity heart symbol of polyamory (like the pendant I gave her for our anniversary) in purple to match her hair:



The party continued until about 11 p.m., with some people still arriving in the last hour to say hello and happy birthday. We had about 24 people show up altogether, which was very good considering the crappy weather in the city that night. There were lots of old friends, newbies, longtime polys and group hugs all around. It was lots of fun playing hostess, although I did run out of gas a bit near the end and had to take a break or two.



Polina, Laura and I packed everything into Yoshi around midnight and went home to put everything away, have some tea and we watched Chicago on my big screen before going to bed. All in all, it was a very successful event, and I'm proud of our effort in putting it on and seeing it through. Hopefully it will have the desired effect in getting OLNY jump-started - there was already talk about planning a holiday party as our event was winding down.

Open Love NY/Polina Party

For the small number of people who read my various blogs, I am announcing here first that Polina and I are planning the first big public party for Open Love NY that will be a joint celebration for Polina's 19th birthday.

It's going to be at the Lyons Wier Gallery, 175 Seventh Ave. (at 20th Street) on Saturday, Nov. 14 at 7:30 p.m. Non-alcoholic beverages and snacks will be served. Admission is $10, which also gets you a limited-edition Open Love NY bracelet. Plus, $1 from each ticket sold will be donated to poly-related efforts that are important to the poly community.

Lyons Wier Gallery is conveniently located near the 23rd Street Stations on the C, E, 1, F and V subway lines. More details will be forthcoming in the next few days, but I wanted to start getting the word out here.

Labor Day retreat

Hello everybody! Well, it's been a while since my last post, and a lot has happened. In a nutshell, Tara and I formalized our breakup on Sept. 1 (exchanged house keys, agreed not to visit/talk with each other anymore, etc.), got confirmation on my new job starting Sept. 10 in Princeton, and just got back from a three-night weekend retreat at my friend Buck's house in Middletown, NY with Open Love NY leaders Simon, Donna, and Kyle. How's that for an eventful week?

As the first two items are the most important but the most personal, I will focus this post on the most recent event, the trip to Middletown this weekend. The purpose of the trip was to do some bonding among the Open Love NY leadership and talk about our mission and vision for the fledgling group. We also had a lot of fun together hanging out, going to the Renaissance Festival, shopping and cooking together.

Friday night Simon and I drove up together and met Buck, Donna and Buck's daughter Clara at Buck's house. Simon, Buck, Donna and I went to a Mexican restaurant called El Bandito for dinner, which was pretty good food for the northeast. We also stopped at a hippie store across the street and I saw a wonderful gong windchime that I fell in love with, and resolved to buy later.

Saturday Kyle arrived by train, and we all went out to Sugarloaf, a quaint village filled with artisan crafts stores of all kinds: clothes, magick shops, artworks, herbs, records, etc. We visited all the stores, but didn't buy much other than some fresh vegetables for dinner. We stopped by Donna's condo in Chester, NY to visit with her son and his fiancee who live with her, then back home so Donna could start dinner. Buck and I went out to the grocery store for a few things (he let me drive his BMW Z3 because his back was hurting) and when we came back we sat down to a meal of salad, stuffed artichokes, un-chicken parmagiana, portobello mushrooms stuffed with a broccoli rabe, angel hair pasta with tomato-vegetable sauce and ice cream for dessert.

Sunday we got up early to go to the New York Renaissance Faire in Tuxedo, NY, only the second time I've been to this particular event (although I've been to the Texas Ren Faire many times). Here we are at the front gate:



The first show we saw were some aerial acrobatics, like those my friend Kerry can do, in the context of a play about the tales of Scheherazade:



The best thing about going to the Faire was that now that I have a job in front of me, I felt a little more comfortable spending money (which makes it so much more fun!) I bought several things at various shops, including a gorgeous purple leather mask that reminded me of Neil Gaiman's characterization of Death of the Endless from Sandman (I also got an ankh to complete the image), a pewter talisman for poets and writers (appropriate for someone starting a writing job), a new sterling silver talisman of a seven-pointed faery star, and a replacement pair of goddess earrings I had bought the last Faire that I subsequently lost in the fire of 2007. I also bought a pair of lace-up leather bracers, or wrist guards, for Polina.

We also saw the glassblowing demonstration, which is always a fan favorite - here they are just finishing a small flower vase:



Kyle's new boyfriend Mike joined us for the day and we saw a comedy show starring two nuns called "Hey Nunnie Nunnie!" that was quite funny. We also saw the jousting and a bit of the stunt show. Interestingly, this year the Faire was rebranded as a "family festival" so unlike past events, you could not buy sharpened swords or other weapons (although swords for stage play or display were available) nor could you buy any whips, floggers, handcuffs or other kinky items that have been available in years past.

We came home and ate leftovers from the huge meal the night before, and sat up to watch The Unbearable Lightness of Being, one of my all-time favorite movies which has a quasi-poly theme and generated a lively discussion into the wee hours of the morning.

Monday we actually buckled down to get some work done on our work for various poly groups, including Open Love NY. We started working on recording a timeline of polyamory for the Polyamory Leadership Network, and the bylaws for OLNY. I also tried to go back to get that wind chime gong, but the store was closed for Labor Day, so I gave Buck the money to pick it up for me later. We worked on things for as long as we could, then Simon, Kyle and I drove back to Wayne so they could take a bus back into Manhattan.

Here's a picture of our group at our lunch on Monday:

Fire play

Lots of things to talk about, starting with the verdict in the Zapata murder trial - the defendant was found guilty of first-degree murder and that it was a hate crime. It's one of the first times that a hate-crimes law was applied to the death of a transgender person. I'm just glad the deception argument (or what I call "The Crying Game defense") was unsuccessful.

Here's a photo of me talking with my bisexual women's group at Sylvia's Restaurant last Sunday, that was just posted on our group Web site:




Last night we had our first official planning meeting of Open Love NY at my friend Kyle's apartment, the first time I'd been there. I'm always astonished at the quirks of New York living spaces, not the least of which is how little you get for your money in the city. Kyle and I pay about the same amount in rent, but his entire apartment (which he shares with a roommate) is probably less than a third the square footage as mine, and without air conditioning, parking, washer/dryer, window views or a lot of the amenities I take for granted. But the weird thing is that his sink and shower are inside his front door, but the private toilet is in a separate space with its own door a few steps down the hallway, so he has to use a key to get into his own toilet.

We met for about two-and-a-half hours before Kyle had to go to work, and then Simon, Buck, Lyndell and I walked 10 blocks to a club called Dtox where a friend of ours was throwing a party for open-minded people of all stripes. Her name is Mina, and I met her the same night I met Simon and Lyndell, at the Supermassive Cuddle Party in 2007. Although we have only seen each other infrequently since then at PolyNYC meetings, she belongs to a pretty small group of individuals (seven and counting, six in my adult life) who have kissed me on the lips with romantic intent. If it seems like a lot, then you need to get out more.

Anyway, Mina was performing what she calls fire play on volunteers at the back of the bar, where a padded bench was situated in the middle of a small dance floor. This involved the subjects (Lyndell took a turn) disrobing from the waist up and laying facedown on the bench. Mina would then take two rods about the size of chopsticks with gauze wrapped at each end, soaked in alcohol and light them on fire. She would tap the person's back with the flaming tips, transferring some of the burning alcohol to the skin, where it would burn for a fraction of a second before Mina put it out with her hand. Then she would go one step further and draw curves with a non-flaming alcohol swab, then light it, creating arcs of flame for an instant at a time before snuffing them out. She also used an alcohol sprayer with a flame in front of it to spray flame at the skin, but it never caught fire (although it seems like it could if the person was hairy). I was talking to Lyndell while she was doing this last bit and the flame spray got really close to my face, but Mina was very careful.

It's the first time I'd seen fire play, so I was asking a lot of questions about it - was it performance art or some kind of fetish play? Mina says it's just fun, and other people commented that it's also a display of trust for the bottom (the person it's being performed on). For me, it was just a fascinating example of the diversity of human play that I've never been exposed to before.

Speaking of play, since the weather is so nice today, maybe Tara and I will go out and have a nice, ordinary game of tennis.