It was a fairly busy weekend for me but full of good and productive things. It seems like I’m finally starting to adjust to an early sleep schedule, but I still need to work on keeping my apartment clean when I don’t have unlimited time to pick up after myself. It’s not terrible by most people’s standards, but I’ve gotten used to keeping things tidy, especially when I have company over (which is a lot rarer occurrence these days).
So this weekend, I left directly from work on Friday and drove up to Middletown, NY to visit with Buck and Donna so that we could transcribe a poly timeline that was created back in March at the national poly leadership summit I attended as a volunteer. The original scroll of the timeline will be housed at the Kinsey Institute, which has a poly library of historical documents, but we wanted to capture the information on an Excel spreadsheet so it can be used and expanded on a future Web site. Friday night we all had dinner together at a Mexican restaurant, followed by some group cuddling on the couch back at Buck’s place before bed.
Saturday Donna had another engagement upstate, so Buck and I had the day to ourselves. We started with him getting a haircut at a nearby salon, which was also hosting a bridal party that morning. It was actually quite fascinating watching the bride getting her hair done, and it gave me a new appreciation of how much work it takes to create these beautiful hairstyles for special occasions.
Afterwards we had brunch at a Perkins restaurant and then went to Sunshine Studios so I could buy the Woodstock Chimes Emperor wind gong I saw last month when we visited for the Open Love NY leadership retreat. We spent the entire afternoon transcribing the timeline scroll, which extends from about 500 BCE (before Common Era) to 2050 CE and charts the growth of polyamory in the categories of Self, Group, Movement and Culture.
On Sunday I went into the city to meet up with Polina and attend my first group circle at a friend's house for Mabon. It was quite a big step for me to share my spiritual practices with other people, but as part of my continued growth and dedication to my practice, I felt it was a good opportunity to see how it feels as part of a group. My friend Katie (who is married to Patrick, one of the board members of Polyamorous NYC) organizes a family-friendly circle with her five-year-old daughter Evie to teach kids about paganism. Katie and her girlfriend Laura, and her daughter and I joined Evie in circle, and it was a lovely experience. The presence of the children made the circle feel more casual, but also brought a nurturing energy to it.
As Mabon is a time of harvest where we give thanks for the bounty we reap from our efforts throughout the year, I have two major things to be thankful for – my new job and my relationship with Polina. As I said in circle, these are the things that I’ve worked on and put effort into this year that I’m thankful have borne fruit.
Polina arrived afterwards and joined us for the potluck lunch party around the same time that Patrick and little Jasper came home from gymnastics class. I gave Polina a DVD of the MTV True Life episode she hadn’t seen yet (my big national TV debut) and she brought me a present from her trip to Switzerland, an aluminum water bottle with pictures of Swiss postage stamps on it. She also returned my copy of Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon, which she managed to slog through so we can see the movie together when it comes out on November 20.
Polina and I left around 3:30 p.m. and decided to watch a movie, but we couldn’t find a theater nearby that was playing anything we liked. So we stopped in our usual frozen yogurt place on Christopher Street to relax and have another check-in about our relationship, which is moving toward a more poly structure as we both pursue new people while continuing to nurture our bond to each other.
We both acknowledged how our relationship has progressed in the past several weeks, even given the disapproval of her family and the limitations we currently have on spending time together (although I think we are both a little surprised that we’ve managed to see each other three weekends in row after our month-long separation in late August and early September). We had a very candid talk, followed by as much snogging as we could get away with in public, before heading back to Yoshi and dropping her off at her grandmother’s house for Yom Kippur services that evening.
In other news, the job has been going very well so far, other than the commute is rather long. Through familiarity with the route, I have it down to about an hour’s drive time each way. I get to focus on writing all day long, without having to deal with budgets, team supervision, client meetings or any of the other managerial/administrative things that I had to do at my last two jobs in public relations agencies. I also keep pretty regular hours since I’m a contracted employee (unless they want to pay me overtime) and it’s nice being fed a nutritious lunch every day in the free company cafeteria.
However, I’m getting renewed interest from PR firms I interviewed with over the summer as the economy bounces back, and I admit it would be a good thing to live and work in the city, all else being equal, so that I could spend more time with Polina and my other friends. Career-wise, I’d probably be better off staying in Princeton and getting more in-house communications experience, but we’ll see if I get an offer that makes it worth making another jump.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
SBU football, Thriller and Rosh Hashanah
As you can probably tell from the headline, it was another busy weekend for me and Polina. I'm really happy that we continue to find reasons and ways to see each other as much as possible instead of going for several weeks or a month between visits. While we stay in touch constantly via phone, text and video chat, there is no substitute for touch and smell and feeling her energy shine from her eyes.
Friday night I left straight from work to head into the city to meet Angel, who had invited me to a party celebrating the first anniversary of Spice NYC, a queer party planning organization. The party was held at Leopard Lounge, above a bar called Sin Sin on 2nd Avenue and Fifth Street. I was early, so I went to get my nails done and browsed at a few shops before meeting her outside the door. She was toting her suitcase full of sex toys to show at the party and we sat at a booth while she set up a raffle for a dildo she was giving away. It was actually quite funny watching her show people a giant pink dildo and trying to get them to buy raffle tickets.
I left as the party was getting hot because it was still a long way out to Stony Brook University, where Polina goes to school. I bought a Garmin GPS unit on Friday since I no longer have my family to help me with directions when I get lost (I used to call them Oracle based on the DC Comics character) so I made decent time once I got out of Manhattan. Our friend Afiya was also visiting, so they came out and met me in the parking lot just after midnight when I arrived. I changed out of my work clothes and we went to another room on her floor to watch "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and an episode of "Entourage" with a couple guys before returning to sleep.
Saturday morning we met up with several of Polina's friends to have brunch, which turned out to be a late lunch since we were waiting on people to show up.
After lunch Polina left with her friends to get ready for band rehearsal while Afiya and I wandered around the campus looking for stuff to do. We found some people practicing walking on a slack rope tied between two trees, so Afiya gave that a try, without much success. We played basketball in the athletic center for a little while before they kicked us out. Afiya and I have yet to play a one-on-one match, which we've been trash-talking about for months now. Eventually I'll get to kick her butt somewhere. We parked Yoshi at the stadium and hung out, sitting on Yoshi's inverted couch out the back, tailgate style. We threw my softball around with her using my glove and I used batting gloves which are lightly padded in the palm - it's actually good practice for cricket, which doesn't allow fielding gloves except for the wicketkeeper.
Eventually it was time to go into the stadium, and we watched the pre-game show and visited Polina in the stands:
The halftime show was very entertaining, and I captured it on video using my camera, while Afiya took pictures from higher in the bleachers. They played Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit", Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (also known as the cowbell song from Will Ferrell's classic Saturday Night Live skit), "Thriller" by Michael Jackson (where the whole band gets to mimic the famous dance steps, and Penny gets to do them while holding cymbals), "Bye Bye Bye" by N*SYNC and "Disturbia" by Rihanna.
But while the band was very exciting, for once they could not compete with the football game, as SBU won the game 21-20 on a touchdown in the final two minutes and a missed field goal attempt by Brown University as the clock expired. Fans from the student red zone stormed the field in an amazing display of school spirit:
After the game the three of us went to an Indian restaurant to grab a quick bite before we were to drop Afiya at the train station, but we ended up missing the train by about a minute, so we dropped her off at her home on Long Island on the way back to Staten Island. All of Penny's grandparents were there, plus another family friend visiting for Rosh Hashanah, so we slept downstairs in the living room, her on the couch and me on my air mattress.
The next morning we had breakfast together and drove into the city to Pier 45 where Penny's Jewish community group The New Shul had a ceremonial throwing of bread into the Hudson River to symbolize tossing away your sins to the fishes. We then walked to Washington Square Park for a brief lesson by the rabbi, and Penny and I recorded a digital video greeting for her Dutch boyfriend Peter, who is having a commitment ceremony with his girlfriend Floor in Amsterdam this weekend.
We stopped off at the group's art installation called The House of Awe & Repentance before going back to my place so Penny could do some homework and I could make us some food. I made her an improv meal of turkey bacon, white rice and kim chee, while I had some fried rice with very un-kosher Chinese sausage. We drove back to the city so I could drop her off at her grandmother's apartment for a birthday party which was for family only. Unfortunately, that meant I wasn't able to take her back to SBU as we'd planned, so she had to take the train back early Monday morning and call a friend to pick her up from the station.
Finally, I want to wish everyone a very happy Mabon, or Fall Equinox, which is today.
Friday night I left straight from work to head into the city to meet Angel, who had invited me to a party celebrating the first anniversary of Spice NYC, a queer party planning organization. The party was held at Leopard Lounge, above a bar called Sin Sin on 2nd Avenue and Fifth Street. I was early, so I went to get my nails done and browsed at a few shops before meeting her outside the door. She was toting her suitcase full of sex toys to show at the party and we sat at a booth while she set up a raffle for a dildo she was giving away. It was actually quite funny watching her show people a giant pink dildo and trying to get them to buy raffle tickets.
I left as the party was getting hot because it was still a long way out to Stony Brook University, where Polina goes to school. I bought a Garmin GPS unit on Friday since I no longer have my family to help me with directions when I get lost (I used to call them Oracle based on the DC Comics character) so I made decent time once I got out of Manhattan. Our friend Afiya was also visiting, so they came out and met me in the parking lot just after midnight when I arrived. I changed out of my work clothes and we went to another room on her floor to watch "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" and an episode of "Entourage" with a couple guys before returning to sleep.
Saturday morning we met up with several of Polina's friends to have brunch, which turned out to be a late lunch since we were waiting on people to show up.
After lunch Polina left with her friends to get ready for band rehearsal while Afiya and I wandered around the campus looking for stuff to do. We found some people practicing walking on a slack rope tied between two trees, so Afiya gave that a try, without much success. We played basketball in the athletic center for a little while before they kicked us out. Afiya and I have yet to play a one-on-one match, which we've been trash-talking about for months now. Eventually I'll get to kick her butt somewhere. We parked Yoshi at the stadium and hung out, sitting on Yoshi's inverted couch out the back, tailgate style. We threw my softball around with her using my glove and I used batting gloves which are lightly padded in the palm - it's actually good practice for cricket, which doesn't allow fielding gloves except for the wicketkeeper.
Eventually it was time to go into the stadium, and we watched the pre-game show and visited Polina in the stands:
The halftime show was very entertaining, and I captured it on video using my camera, while Afiya took pictures from higher in the bleachers. They played Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit", Blue Oyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper" (also known as the cowbell song from Will Ferrell's classic Saturday Night Live skit), "Thriller" by Michael Jackson (where the whole band gets to mimic the famous dance steps, and Penny gets to do them while holding cymbals), "Bye Bye Bye" by N*SYNC and "Disturbia" by Rihanna.
But while the band was very exciting, for once they could not compete with the football game, as SBU won the game 21-20 on a touchdown in the final two minutes and a missed field goal attempt by Brown University as the clock expired. Fans from the student red zone stormed the field in an amazing display of school spirit:
After the game the three of us went to an Indian restaurant to grab a quick bite before we were to drop Afiya at the train station, but we ended up missing the train by about a minute, so we dropped her off at her home on Long Island on the way back to Staten Island. All of Penny's grandparents were there, plus another family friend visiting for Rosh Hashanah, so we slept downstairs in the living room, her on the couch and me on my air mattress.
The next morning we had breakfast together and drove into the city to Pier 45 where Penny's Jewish community group The New Shul had a ceremonial throwing of bread into the Hudson River to symbolize tossing away your sins to the fishes. We then walked to Washington Square Park for a brief lesson by the rabbi, and Penny and I recorded a digital video greeting for her Dutch boyfriend Peter, who is having a commitment ceremony with his girlfriend Floor in Amsterdam this weekend.
We stopped off at the group's art installation called The House of Awe & Repentance before going back to my place so Penny could do some homework and I could make us some food. I made her an improv meal of turkey bacon, white rice and kim chee, while I had some fried rice with very un-kosher Chinese sausage. We drove back to the city so I could drop her off at her grandmother's apartment for a birthday party which was for family only. Unfortunately, that meant I wasn't able to take her back to SBU as we'd planned, so she had to take the train back early Monday morning and call a friend to pick her up from the station.
Finally, I want to wish everyone a very happy Mabon, or Fall Equinox, which is today.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
The Way I Loved You
Taylor Swift has been in the news a lot lately, and I've been listening non-stop to her album Fearless since I checked it out of the library last week. But while I like all the tracks, the one song that is on my mind at the moment is track 10, "The Way I Loved You."
As you can see from the lyrics if you click on the link, the song is about how someone can have a seemingly perfect relationship and somehow long for a volatile and tumultuous one that develops somewhat equal parts of both pain and passion. And this is interesting to me because both Polina and I have one thing in common - we both recently ended ex-relationships that fit this description. But having gone through them, we've also both realized that we're not the sort who long to have that kind of relationship back.
As you can see from the lyrics if you click on the link, the song is about how someone can have a seemingly perfect relationship and somehow long for a volatile and tumultuous one that develops somewhat equal parts of both pain and passion. And this is interesting to me because both Polina and I have one thing in common - we both recently ended ex-relationships that fit this description. But having gone through them, we've also both realized that we're not the sort who long to have that kind of relationship back.
It remains to be seen for both of us if our aversion to relationship drama will extend into future relationships, since we are both open to dating new people. But for now, I think we both appreciate how our relationship has become one that is stable, nurturing, positive and transparent. We work closely on specific issues together to improve our communication, and we both put forth effort to meet each other's needs.
But I think the big secret to the success of our relationship so far is our ability to enjoy the present, to live in the moment, and not to dwell or obsess over future scenarios or obstacles we have yet to face. If our relationship works well on many different levels over a long period of time, we can eventually overcome a lot of the issues that seem insurmountable right now. But for right now, we focus on loving each other as best we can, and letting the future unfold as it will.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Poly parties
It's Wednesday at work, and I'm looking forward to going home and chilling out for the evening. It seems like it's been a non-stop whirlwind since I started working last week, and indeed it has.
As you recall from my last post, I started my new job on Thursday sleep-deprived because of a mix-up in communications where I didn't think I was going to start so I stayed out late in the city the night before at my poly women's meeting, only to find out that I was expected to come in at 8 a.m. And that's pretty much been par for the course as my body tries to adjust to a different sleep cycle that requires me to leave the apartment at 7 a.m. to beat traffic down to Princeton each morning.
And then of course last weekend I was camping for the wedding, which was lots of fun but not overly conducive to a restful sleep. Sunday evening was fairly restful as I got caught up on laundry and putting things away from the camping trip, but I still wound up going to bed late and waking up early Monday morning.
But enough griping since I don't want anyone to think I'm in any way unhappy about having a job or spending time with my lovely girlfriend. Monday evening I took off a little early after work to drive into the city for two different parties. First up was the monthly Poly Cocktail Hour at China 1 Restaurant, where I met up with my Open Love NY friends Buck, Donna, Lyndell, Simon, and Leon, and also was pleasantly surprised to see so many members of my women's poly group there as well - Sylwia, Barbara and Oxy showed up. I said hello to other regulars (Derek, Norman, and a few I haven't learned their names yet) and met some new people, but didn't really engage with any of them since there were so many of my friends there and I wanted to spend time with them. Oxy and I started talking about boobs and she let me touch her ample, all-natural bosom (she's an F cup) which I did ever so gently with the tip of my finger.
I only mention this because of what happened later in the evening at the second party, which was Diana and Kerry's MTV True Life viewing party. I took a cab down to Fulton Street near South Street Seaport where Diana's friend Hookah Mike rents a huge, six-bedroom loft that he shares with five roommates. The apartment has two large common areas in an open floor plan with 12-foot ceilings; one area includes the windows and the other connected to the kitchen and dining areas. This place was so big, they had room for a ping-pong table in between these two common areas, which each had its own projection TV and sofa/loveseat/coffee table. I say all this because I've never seen such a spacious apartment in the city and I was a little overwhelmed. I can't begin to imagine what a place like that must cost in monthly rent!
I only saw a few people there I knew - Birgitte (past president of Polyamorous NYC), Reid (co-founder of Cuddle Party), Hannah (a butch genderqueer I met a few months ago at Poly Cocktail Hour), Diana's boyfriend Ed and Kerry’s boyfriend Kyler - but most of the people seemed to be friends of Diana who had helped or participated in the MTV show, plus several of Diana's partners of course. The show started 30 minutes later than it was supposed to, which caused some confusion, but once it started, it was a non-stop rollercoaster of laughter, groans and general hysterics. Kerry, Diana and Ed, who starred in the show, didn't get to see it prior to airing, so they had the biggest reactions since they were on the screen most of the time.
My participation was reduced to a brief cameo, as I was in the background for a couple shots and got one close-up that lasted about half a second. None of my dialogue was used (which I’m a bit relieved about) so it's not likely anyone is going to notice me (although I was wearing a very sexy, low-cut turquoise silk top seen below with Erika, Birgitte's girlfriend).
During the show, I was sitting on the floor next to Hannah, who was sitting next to a Korean girl, who introduced herself to me as Nari. I immediately was sure we'd met before because she seemed very familiar - it turns out she is quite famous as an associate producer for the Travel Channel who appeared on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show when they went to Seoul, South Korea. I've seen that particular episode several times because I love Korean food, and it's also one of the funniest episodes of the show, with Nari's bubbly and youthful optimism in stark contrast to Tony's world-weary cynicism clashing at every turn. And I'm not the only one who liked the episode – you can read plenty of Nari's fan mail in the comments section of her recent post about Vancouver on the Travel Channel blog.
Since Nari works in television, she had a lot to say about how it looked like MTV took advantage of the three poly men from North Carolina who appeared on the show. We all agreed that Diana and Kerry (and Ed) did a great job presenting polyamory as a legitimate and workable (albeit complicated) lovestyle, requiring good communication, maturity and flexibility to be successful. Unfortunately, the flip side with the poly men showed the opposite is also true, that without those qualities, polyamory can result in major drama and heartache. It was also pointed out repeatedly that the NC men lacked any kind of poly support network or the experience of someone like Diana that might have helped them learn how to handle things better.
Of course I am reminded of my own experience with trying to start a poly family where the problem was a complete lack of buy-in to polyamory as a sustainable lovestyle by the other three-fourths of the family. My ex-girlfriend often lamented what she saw as my need to be part of a larger community to help deal with our poly situation, something she had no interest in doing. Predictably, people who find themselves in poly situations without adequate resources or experience find it a lot harder to make things work in the end.
Once the show wrapped up, people started to drift toward Hookah Mike's bedroom to talk about the show. I was talking to Nari and her fiance Sam and showing her some of my pictures on my camera. I asked Sam to take a picture of us, and he took several while Nari started getting really frisky with me. Sam sort of encouraged it while he was taking the photos too. After the photo shoot Sam wanted to go home, and said he would wait for Nari downstairs. Nari wanted to take me to a karaoke bar or do something else since the party seemed to be winding down, but I demurred, saying I had to get home and get some sleep as it was around midnight.
She was very persistent however, so I settled for chatting with her while she smoked a cigarette while we sat on the window ledge. If anyone has seen the episode with Nari on the Travel Channel, let me tell you: she is every bit as energetic and perky in person as she was on the show. We both look much younger than we actually are - she’s 27 but looks like she’s 17 and still gets carded for cigarettes. Her first guess at my age was 28 and it took her about five guesses to get high enough. I found out that she was getting married to Sam this Friday, and I asked if she was poly. She said no, but that she and Sam were very open and poly-friendly.
We talked about our exes and she told me about her first girlfriend in college. She didn't say she was bisexual, but she did say that while she loves cock, she also loves big boobs and can't wait to get pregnant so that her boobs will grow bigger (she's almost totally flat-chested). I asked her if she would like to feel mine, and she dove in with gusto, putting a two-handed grab on my chest that would make any NFL wide receiver green with envy.
I think it was right about then that Sam walked in, complaining that he had been waiting for half an hour because he'd been locked out downstairs. They got into a bit of a fight, and I tried to explain that I wasn't trying to keep Nari from leaving or doing anything inappropriate, at least given that we were at a party with mostly sex-positive, polyamorous people. Sam practically dragged her away, but not before Nari planted a goodbye kiss on me. After they left, I and two other people who had watched this scene unfold sat looking stunned at each other, wondering what it was all about. They certainly did not seem like they belonged at that party, nor should be getting married in four days. Shortly after, I said goodbye to everyone and left myself, passing the couple once more on the street on the way to get Yoshi from the garage.
Tuesday night after work I stopped by Il Trapezio Cafe in Nutley, NJ to attend a book reading by my client, author and academic Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, who has just published Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet. Several of my friends also attended - Buck and Donna, Murray and Sandy, and Adele from my women's group, who works a few blocks away at the public library. We had a nice lively discussion, and Serena signed a book and gave it to me. I've been working for her for the past three months, but I have to end our working relationship now because I simply don't have the time anymore. But hopefully the seeds we've sown in the media will bear some fruit in the coming months that will contribute to the success of her book.
So now I'm all caught up on the weird and fun stuff that's been happening lately, I'm looking forward to a couple of quiet nights at home, watching movies and catching up on sleep before the weekend. Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) begins on Friday at sundown and ends Sunday at nightfall (which I guess is full dark), so I'm going to visit Polina at Stony Brook to watch her marching band Saturday night, and then celebrating with her family on Sunday.
Postscript: A shout goes out to my best friend Lori, who just accepted a marriage proposal today from her boyfriend of 2 and a half years, Erik. The date is set for May on the anniversary of their first meeting. Congratulations!
As you recall from my last post, I started my new job on Thursday sleep-deprived because of a mix-up in communications where I didn't think I was going to start so I stayed out late in the city the night before at my poly women's meeting, only to find out that I was expected to come in at 8 a.m. And that's pretty much been par for the course as my body tries to adjust to a different sleep cycle that requires me to leave the apartment at 7 a.m. to beat traffic down to Princeton each morning.
And then of course last weekend I was camping for the wedding, which was lots of fun but not overly conducive to a restful sleep. Sunday evening was fairly restful as I got caught up on laundry and putting things away from the camping trip, but I still wound up going to bed late and waking up early Monday morning.
But enough griping since I don't want anyone to think I'm in any way unhappy about having a job or spending time with my lovely girlfriend. Monday evening I took off a little early after work to drive into the city for two different parties. First up was the monthly Poly Cocktail Hour at China 1 Restaurant, where I met up with my Open Love NY friends Buck, Donna, Lyndell, Simon, and Leon, and also was pleasantly surprised to see so many members of my women's poly group there as well - Sylwia, Barbara and Oxy showed up. I said hello to other regulars (Derek, Norman, and a few I haven't learned their names yet) and met some new people, but didn't really engage with any of them since there were so many of my friends there and I wanted to spend time with them. Oxy and I started talking about boobs and she let me touch her ample, all-natural bosom (she's an F cup) which I did ever so gently with the tip of my finger.
I only mention this because of what happened later in the evening at the second party, which was Diana and Kerry's MTV True Life viewing party. I took a cab down to Fulton Street near South Street Seaport where Diana's friend Hookah Mike rents a huge, six-bedroom loft that he shares with five roommates. The apartment has two large common areas in an open floor plan with 12-foot ceilings; one area includes the windows and the other connected to the kitchen and dining areas. This place was so big, they had room for a ping-pong table in between these two common areas, which each had its own projection TV and sofa/loveseat/coffee table. I say all this because I've never seen such a spacious apartment in the city and I was a little overwhelmed. I can't begin to imagine what a place like that must cost in monthly rent!
I only saw a few people there I knew - Birgitte (past president of Polyamorous NYC), Reid (co-founder of Cuddle Party), Hannah (a butch genderqueer I met a few months ago at Poly Cocktail Hour), Diana's boyfriend Ed and Kerry’s boyfriend Kyler - but most of the people seemed to be friends of Diana who had helped or participated in the MTV show, plus several of Diana's partners of course. The show started 30 minutes later than it was supposed to, which caused some confusion, but once it started, it was a non-stop rollercoaster of laughter, groans and general hysterics. Kerry, Diana and Ed, who starred in the show, didn't get to see it prior to airing, so they had the biggest reactions since they were on the screen most of the time.
My participation was reduced to a brief cameo, as I was in the background for a couple shots and got one close-up that lasted about half a second. None of my dialogue was used (which I’m a bit relieved about) so it's not likely anyone is going to notice me (although I was wearing a very sexy, low-cut turquoise silk top seen below with Erika, Birgitte's girlfriend).
During the show, I was sitting on the floor next to Hannah, who was sitting next to a Korean girl, who introduced herself to me as Nari. I immediately was sure we'd met before because she seemed very familiar - it turns out she is quite famous as an associate producer for the Travel Channel who appeared on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show when they went to Seoul, South Korea. I've seen that particular episode several times because I love Korean food, and it's also one of the funniest episodes of the show, with Nari's bubbly and youthful optimism in stark contrast to Tony's world-weary cynicism clashing at every turn. And I'm not the only one who liked the episode – you can read plenty of Nari's fan mail in the comments section of her recent post about Vancouver on the Travel Channel blog.
Since Nari works in television, she had a lot to say about how it looked like MTV took advantage of the three poly men from North Carolina who appeared on the show. We all agreed that Diana and Kerry (and Ed) did a great job presenting polyamory as a legitimate and workable (albeit complicated) lovestyle, requiring good communication, maturity and flexibility to be successful. Unfortunately, the flip side with the poly men showed the opposite is also true, that without those qualities, polyamory can result in major drama and heartache. It was also pointed out repeatedly that the NC men lacked any kind of poly support network or the experience of someone like Diana that might have helped them learn how to handle things better.
Of course I am reminded of my own experience with trying to start a poly family where the problem was a complete lack of buy-in to polyamory as a sustainable lovestyle by the other three-fourths of the family. My ex-girlfriend often lamented what she saw as my need to be part of a larger community to help deal with our poly situation, something she had no interest in doing. Predictably, people who find themselves in poly situations without adequate resources or experience find it a lot harder to make things work in the end.
Once the show wrapped up, people started to drift toward Hookah Mike's bedroom to talk about the show. I was talking to Nari and her fiance Sam and showing her some of my pictures on my camera. I asked Sam to take a picture of us, and he took several while Nari started getting really frisky with me. Sam sort of encouraged it while he was taking the photos too. After the photo shoot Sam wanted to go home, and said he would wait for Nari downstairs. Nari wanted to take me to a karaoke bar or do something else since the party seemed to be winding down, but I demurred, saying I had to get home and get some sleep as it was around midnight.
She was very persistent however, so I settled for chatting with her while she smoked a cigarette while we sat on the window ledge. If anyone has seen the episode with Nari on the Travel Channel, let me tell you: she is every bit as energetic and perky in person as she was on the show. We both look much younger than we actually are - she’s 27 but looks like she’s 17 and still gets carded for cigarettes. Her first guess at my age was 28 and it took her about five guesses to get high enough. I found out that she was getting married to Sam this Friday, and I asked if she was poly. She said no, but that she and Sam were very open and poly-friendly.
We talked about our exes and she told me about her first girlfriend in college. She didn't say she was bisexual, but she did say that while she loves cock, she also loves big boobs and can't wait to get pregnant so that her boobs will grow bigger (she's almost totally flat-chested). I asked her if she would like to feel mine, and she dove in with gusto, putting a two-handed grab on my chest that would make any NFL wide receiver green with envy.
I think it was right about then that Sam walked in, complaining that he had been waiting for half an hour because he'd been locked out downstairs. They got into a bit of a fight, and I tried to explain that I wasn't trying to keep Nari from leaving or doing anything inappropriate, at least given that we were at a party with mostly sex-positive, polyamorous people. Sam practically dragged her away, but not before Nari planted a goodbye kiss on me. After they left, I and two other people who had watched this scene unfold sat looking stunned at each other, wondering what it was all about. They certainly did not seem like they belonged at that party, nor should be getting married in four days. Shortly after, I said goodbye to everyone and left myself, passing the couple once more on the street on the way to get Yoshi from the garage.
Tuesday night after work I stopped by Il Trapezio Cafe in Nutley, NJ to attend a book reading by my client, author and academic Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio, who has just published Gaia and the New Politics of Love: Notes for a Poly Planet. Several of my friends also attended - Buck and Donna, Murray and Sandy, and Adele from my women's group, who works a few blocks away at the public library. We had a nice lively discussion, and Serena signed a book and gave it to me. I've been working for her for the past three months, but I have to end our working relationship now because I simply don't have the time anymore. But hopefully the seeds we've sown in the media will bear some fruit in the coming months that will contribute to the success of her book.
So now I'm all caught up on the weird and fun stuff that's been happening lately, I'm looking forward to a couple of quiet nights at home, watching movies and catching up on sleep before the weekend. Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) begins on Friday at sundown and ends Sunday at nightfall (which I guess is full dark), so I'm going to visit Polina at Stony Brook to watch her marching band Saturday night, and then celebrating with her family on Sunday.
Postscript: A shout goes out to my best friend Lori, who just accepted a marriage proposal today from her boyfriend of 2 and a half years, Erik. The date is set for May on the anniversary of their first meeting. Congratulations!
Sunday, September 13, 2009
A wedding story
I had the most lovely time with Polina and her tribe this weekend as we went camping in Barryville, NY to celebrate her sister Ella's wedding. I've heard much about Ella, but have never actually met her until yesterday, her wedding day.
I arrived at the campground around noon on Saturday and had a nice reunion with Polina - we hadn't seen each other for a month and it was wonderful to hold her and kiss her again. She helped me set up my tent and we socialized a bit and helped set things up. Here's a photo of Yoshi and my brandy-new tent with my air mattress and sleeping bag (which I bought last year for a trip to Assateague Island that got cancelled due to a bout of food poisoning):
The campground was called Luke's Landing, and it sits on the upper part of the Delaware River, an area with lots of river rafting outfits. The campground is the home of a music festival organized in part by the groom, Sasha, so it's an area with lots of good memories for both families. Here's the gorgeous view from just outside my tent at my campsite - you can hear the gurgling of the river very clearly:
At around 2 p.m. Polina and I went to get changed into our party clothes and put on some makeup. I wore a diaphanous beaded orange and yellow dress with a silk wrap, an outfit that has an interesting back story. After the fire of 2005, I found this dress at a Lohemann's store in Houston, so it was one of, if not the first dress in my current wardrobe. One of the straps was damaged, and it's a braided string of beads, so I had to have my tailor find the same beads and rebraid the strap. Then, a year later, I was visiting Mandy and Colleen in Columbus, Ohio and we went to the Columbus Fine Arts Museum. I saw the orange silk wrap, so the wrap and dress were bought separately and are a perfect match, even down to the pattern of circles on both. The dress survived the second fire in 2007 since it was in a protective bag, but I had never had an occasion to wear it until now - yesterday was the first time it's ever been worn in public.
Speaking of perfect matches, you can see from the photo that Polina's bangs, which had previously been colored a deep shade of red, have faded to a light orange and yellow blonde, which we took great delight in pointing out that it matched my dress perfectly:
The wedding started at 3 p.m. with some games presided by Polina's eldest sister Sophie, where Sasha was given several tests, such as guessing people's hands while blindfolded, and picking out his bride's lipstick mark from several others in the wedding party. Each time he guessed wrong on the latter game, the woman he thought was Ella would get to place a lipstick mark on his face. He only had to endure this twice (Polina was his second wrong guess) before he successfully recognized his bride's lips. After completing all the tests, he was allowed to go find Ella, who was hiding on the other side of the campground near my tent, and together they walked back to the party to start the wedding ceremony.
The wedding took place under open sky outside the main tent under a huppah, which symbolises their home, and the house they hope to build someday. The families of both bride and groom are led into the huppah and several rituals are performed of walking circles clockwise and counter-clockwise, sharing wine and exchanging rings.
Once the rings and vows are exchanged, the newlyweds are wrapped into the talles of the huppah, where they share their first kiss as a married couple and Sasha breaks a glass to remember the fragility of our world:
After the wedding recession, everyone gets to throw rice on them and the feasting and drinking begins in earnest. There were lots of toasts (Polina and her family sang a song in Russian about how the couple met that reminded me of the Brady Bunch theme) and as night fell, even a heavy downpour did not dampen our spirited dancing, nor the determination of a fellow named Roman who managed to start a bonfire.
We gradually migrated to the bonfire, where we sang songs (Sophie played many songs on guitar) and talked until the wee hours, until people started drifting off and it was just me and Polina, her sisters, mom and grandmother. We sang lullabys, showtunes and Beatles songs, and I managed to play and sing "All I Want Is You" by U2 and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver on the guitar. Around 2 a.m. we decided the fire was low enough to leave for the night, so we said good night and I dropped Polina, her mom and grandmother at their tent and retired to mine (which luckily was not too wet because I'd stupidly left only the bug screens closed when I left the tent that afternoon).
In the morning we had some breakfast and chatted a bit before breaking down campsites and starting the cleanup. Polina had to leave early to catch her ride back to Stony Brook University, so we had a nice goodbye before I finished packing up my tent. I asked Ella if I could take some of the extra mugs (they were used for coffee and tea during the wedding, but some people didn't take them home) so I could finally replace the mugs I've been using since the 2005 fire, which were part of a china set that someone donated to me. It's nice to have mugs that remind me of happier things than the fire, and this weekend was certainly one of the happier times in my recent memory.
On the way home I stopped at High Point State Park, the highest elevation in the State of New Jersey, just south of the New York border, and visited the Veteran's Memorial obelisk at the summit. It was a beautiful day after the rain and clouds of the two previous days, and it was wonderful to feel the wind whipping through my hair at top of the mountain. Here's the view of the glacier lake in the park:
Tomorrow after work I'll head to Poly Cocktail Hour for a bit, then to Diana and Kerry's viewing party for the MTV True Life premiere. But I will certainly remember this weekend for a long time to come, not just for the fun I had, but also as a milestone in my relationship with Polina where we officially were recognized as a couple by her family and close friends. The way I was accepted as Polina's girlfriend, with such warmth and open-mindedness, was both humbling and gratifying, and I hope to see many of those people again soon.
I arrived at the campground around noon on Saturday and had a nice reunion with Polina - we hadn't seen each other for a month and it was wonderful to hold her and kiss her again. She helped me set up my tent and we socialized a bit and helped set things up. Here's a photo of Yoshi and my brandy-new tent with my air mattress and sleeping bag (which I bought last year for a trip to Assateague Island that got cancelled due to a bout of food poisoning):
The campground was called Luke's Landing, and it sits on the upper part of the Delaware River, an area with lots of river rafting outfits. The campground is the home of a music festival organized in part by the groom, Sasha, so it's an area with lots of good memories for both families. Here's the gorgeous view from just outside my tent at my campsite - you can hear the gurgling of the river very clearly:
At around 2 p.m. Polina and I went to get changed into our party clothes and put on some makeup. I wore a diaphanous beaded orange and yellow dress with a silk wrap, an outfit that has an interesting back story. After the fire of 2005, I found this dress at a Lohemann's store in Houston, so it was one of, if not the first dress in my current wardrobe. One of the straps was damaged, and it's a braided string of beads, so I had to have my tailor find the same beads and rebraid the strap. Then, a year later, I was visiting Mandy and Colleen in Columbus, Ohio and we went to the Columbus Fine Arts Museum. I saw the orange silk wrap, so the wrap and dress were bought separately and are a perfect match, even down to the pattern of circles on both. The dress survived the second fire in 2007 since it was in a protective bag, but I had never had an occasion to wear it until now - yesterday was the first time it's ever been worn in public.
Speaking of perfect matches, you can see from the photo that Polina's bangs, which had previously been colored a deep shade of red, have faded to a light orange and yellow blonde, which we took great delight in pointing out that it matched my dress perfectly:
The wedding started at 3 p.m. with some games presided by Polina's eldest sister Sophie, where Sasha was given several tests, such as guessing people's hands while blindfolded, and picking out his bride's lipstick mark from several others in the wedding party. Each time he guessed wrong on the latter game, the woman he thought was Ella would get to place a lipstick mark on his face. He only had to endure this twice (Polina was his second wrong guess) before he successfully recognized his bride's lips. After completing all the tests, he was allowed to go find Ella, who was hiding on the other side of the campground near my tent, and together they walked back to the party to start the wedding ceremony.
The wedding took place under open sky outside the main tent under a huppah, which symbolises their home, and the house they hope to build someday. The families of both bride and groom are led into the huppah and several rituals are performed of walking circles clockwise and counter-clockwise, sharing wine and exchanging rings.
Once the rings and vows are exchanged, the newlyweds are wrapped into the talles of the huppah, where they share their first kiss as a married couple and Sasha breaks a glass to remember the fragility of our world:
After the wedding recession, everyone gets to throw rice on them and the feasting and drinking begins in earnest. There were lots of toasts (Polina and her family sang a song in Russian about how the couple met that reminded me of the Brady Bunch theme) and as night fell, even a heavy downpour did not dampen our spirited dancing, nor the determination of a fellow named Roman who managed to start a bonfire.
We gradually migrated to the bonfire, where we sang songs (Sophie played many songs on guitar) and talked until the wee hours, until people started drifting off and it was just me and Polina, her sisters, mom and grandmother. We sang lullabys, showtunes and Beatles songs, and I managed to play and sing "All I Want Is You" by U2 and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver on the guitar. Around 2 a.m. we decided the fire was low enough to leave for the night, so we said good night and I dropped Polina, her mom and grandmother at their tent and retired to mine (which luckily was not too wet because I'd stupidly left only the bug screens closed when I left the tent that afternoon).
In the morning we had some breakfast and chatted a bit before breaking down campsites and starting the cleanup. Polina had to leave early to catch her ride back to Stony Brook University, so we had a nice goodbye before I finished packing up my tent. I asked Ella if I could take some of the extra mugs (they were used for coffee and tea during the wedding, but some people didn't take them home) so I could finally replace the mugs I've been using since the 2005 fire, which were part of a china set that someone donated to me. It's nice to have mugs that remind me of happier things than the fire, and this weekend was certainly one of the happier times in my recent memory.
On the way home I stopped at High Point State Park, the highest elevation in the State of New Jersey, just south of the New York border, and visited the Veteran's Memorial obelisk at the summit. It was a beautiful day after the rain and clouds of the two previous days, and it was wonderful to feel the wind whipping through my hair at top of the mountain. Here's the view of the glacier lake in the park:
Tomorrow after work I'll head to Poly Cocktail Hour for a bit, then to Diana and Kerry's viewing party for the MTV True Life premiere. But I will certainly remember this weekend for a long time to come, not just for the fun I had, but also as a milestone in my relationship with Polina where we officially were recognized as a couple by her family and close friends. The way I was accepted as Polina's girlfriend, with such warmth and open-mindedness, was both humbling and gratifying, and I hope to see many of those people again soon.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
First day at work
Just got back from my first day at work, an 11-hour one at that, so I'm pretty beat. But there's so much going on, I have to write a few lines just to keep up with my fast-moving life.
Tuesday night I went to Madison, NJ about 30 minutes away to hang out with my friend Kerry. She's been feeling a little apprehensive about the upcoming MTV premiere of True Life titled "I'm Polyamorous" in which she and her now-ex girlfriend Diana will be featured and wanted some advice. I'll probably also appear in a cameo from the party at the Slipper Room way back in May ("Birthdays, MTV and Polina" - May 6, 2009) but not for more than a few seconds, I'm sure. If you want to catch it, the show premieres this Monday at 10 p.m. ET ("TNG poly documentary coming to MTV" - Polyamory in the News).
The worst of it was that I had a job interview the next morning with a PR firm in Hackensack, so even though I felt like crap I managed to drag myself out of bed and get to the interview, a few minutes late because I got lost due to poor directions. The interview was fine, but it will be a few weeks at least before I hear anything. I also got emails that morning saying that I wasn't going to start my job on Thursday as expected, so I figured I'd at least be able to sleep late the next day, as I had plenty left to do on Wednesday.
After the interview I went into the city for a haircut with Edison, and he did his usual thorough job. I had a few hours to kill before the Women's Poly Meeting, so I walked around the Lower East Side and had dinner at Whole Foods before my friends all showed up. We had a new woman named Sheila who had responded to my PolyNYC personal ad, and we've been emailing back and forth a bit, which is how she knew about the meeting. Afterwards, I took my friend and group co-founder Sylwia back to Weehawken before heading home.
When I got home at midnight, I found emails that contradicted the previous ones, and asked me to come in to my new job at 8 am! Yikes! So instead of sleeping in, I got about 4 hours of sleep and showed up a half-hour early (since I didn't know what traffic would be like). The first day was very good - got all set up on a computer with two screens in a quiet corner of the HR department. I found out that they serve free lunch every day, which is wonderful, and they also have free sodas and snacks for employees. They even have an indoor half-court basketball hoop and locker rooms for working out. It's a 90 minute drive down there without traffic, and god only knows how long during rush hour. At this point, I'm inclined to go early and stay late just to rack up paychecks and avoid sitting in traffic. My paycheck today is almost double my weekly unemployment check!
That is all for now - I'm off to bed.
Tuesday night I went to Madison, NJ about 30 minutes away to hang out with my friend Kerry. She's been feeling a little apprehensive about the upcoming MTV premiere of True Life titled "I'm Polyamorous" in which she and her now-ex girlfriend Diana will be featured and wanted some advice. I'll probably also appear in a cameo from the party at the Slipper Room way back in May ("Birthdays, MTV and Polina" - May 6, 2009) but not for more than a few seconds, I'm sure. If you want to catch it, the show premieres this Monday at 10 p.m. ET ("TNG poly documentary coming to MTV" - Polyamory in the News).
The worst of it was that I had a job interview the next morning with a PR firm in Hackensack, so even though I felt like crap I managed to drag myself out of bed and get to the interview, a few minutes late because I got lost due to poor directions. The interview was fine, but it will be a few weeks at least before I hear anything. I also got emails that morning saying that I wasn't going to start my job on Thursday as expected, so I figured I'd at least be able to sleep late the next day, as I had plenty left to do on Wednesday.
After the interview I went into the city for a haircut with Edison, and he did his usual thorough job. I had a few hours to kill before the Women's Poly Meeting, so I walked around the Lower East Side and had dinner at Whole Foods before my friends all showed up. We had a new woman named Sheila who had responded to my PolyNYC personal ad, and we've been emailing back and forth a bit, which is how she knew about the meeting. Afterwards, I took my friend and group co-founder Sylwia back to Weehawken before heading home.
When I got home at midnight, I found emails that contradicted the previous ones, and asked me to come in to my new job at 8 am! Yikes! So instead of sleeping in, I got about 4 hours of sleep and showed up a half-hour early (since I didn't know what traffic would be like). The first day was very good - got all set up on a computer with two screens in a quiet corner of the HR department. I found out that they serve free lunch every day, which is wonderful, and they also have free sodas and snacks for employees. They even have an indoor half-court basketball hoop and locker rooms for working out. It's a 90 minute drive down there without traffic, and god only knows how long during rush hour. At this point, I'm inclined to go early and stay late just to rack up paychecks and avoid sitting in traffic. My paycheck today is almost double my weekly unemployment check!
That is all for now - I'm off to bed.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
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:
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:
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Building intentional families
I was rather disappointed with Darren Aronofsky's latest work, The Wrestler starring Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei, who both garnered Oscar nominations for acting. While the acting was certainly fine, the whole movies just seemed to plod along in scene after scene of a pathetic aging wrestler. I understand that's what the movie is about, but I expected a more original telling from the director who gave us Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain. Maybe his updated take on RoboCop will be better.
On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, The Secret Life of Bees starring Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah. It was a very funny and touching story about a young white girl who finds love and a new life among a family of Black women in 1960s South Carolina. To me, it spoke volumes about the need we all have to be loved, and how we build intentional families based on love. While my first attempt to do this here in New Jersey has not been entirely successful, I am hopeful that the experience will be beneficial for the future.
When I think about why my family did not work out, I can't really say I'd do anything differently if I had to do it all over again. In hindsight, I recognize that we came together when I was in a period of great volatility in my life, figuring out elements of my core identity and personal values on the fly. Ultimately, as much as I would have wished otherwise, my self-actualization caused a deep incompatibility that we could not overcome. I'm sure we all have wished at one time or another that people didn't have to change in ways that drive us apart, but sometimes there's no way to avoid it. We all have the right to live how we feel is best for ourselves, and everyone else is free to decide if they want to come along or not. If I decide to build a new intentional family, I'm sure I won't be dealing with the same magnitude of change in myself as before, but perhaps I'll have to deal with it coming from other people instead.
But before I can even think about doing anything along that line, my first priority is finding a job and becoming self-sufficient again. Aside from the jobs in Princeton and Jersey City, I now have a lead on a job in Hackensack, which should result in an interview next week. I am definitely seeing more opportunities out there, so perhaps it will not be long before I find something and get back to a normal life, although I'm not looking forward to normalizing my whacked-out sleep schedule.
On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie, The Secret Life of Bees starring Dakota Fanning and Queen Latifah. It was a very funny and touching story about a young white girl who finds love and a new life among a family of Black women in 1960s South Carolina. To me, it spoke volumes about the need we all have to be loved, and how we build intentional families based on love. While my first attempt to do this here in New Jersey has not been entirely successful, I am hopeful that the experience will be beneficial for the future.
When I think about why my family did not work out, I can't really say I'd do anything differently if I had to do it all over again. In hindsight, I recognize that we came together when I was in a period of great volatility in my life, figuring out elements of my core identity and personal values on the fly. Ultimately, as much as I would have wished otherwise, my self-actualization caused a deep incompatibility that we could not overcome. I'm sure we all have wished at one time or another that people didn't have to change in ways that drive us apart, but sometimes there's no way to avoid it. We all have the right to live how we feel is best for ourselves, and everyone else is free to decide if they want to come along or not. If I decide to build a new intentional family, I'm sure I won't be dealing with the same magnitude of change in myself as before, but perhaps I'll have to deal with it coming from other people instead.
But before I can even think about doing anything along that line, my first priority is finding a job and becoming self-sufficient again. Aside from the jobs in Princeton and Jersey City, I now have a lead on a job in Hackensack, which should result in an interview next week. I am definitely seeing more opportunities out there, so perhaps it will not be long before I find something and get back to a normal life, although I'm not looking forward to normalizing my whacked-out sleep schedule.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Poly picnic in Bridgewater
I got a second-round interview for the customer relationship management company based in Israel. The hiring manager is the UK, so I have to get up early on Monday for that call. This job would be based in Jersey City, so this would be one job opportunity that would not require me to relocate just yet. We'll see what happens.
Today I went out to Bridgewater, NJ to Duke Island Park for a picnic with an older polyamorous crowd I don't get to see very often. My friend Adele, who comes to my women's poly group, is a central figure, so she invited me. Most of the others I met either at the Poly Leadership Summit back in March ("Poly Leadership Summit 2009" - March 3, 2009) or at the one Thursday night poly munch I attended back in February ("Limerancing through life" - Feb. 27, 2009). Adele was actually at that meeting in February, but we didn't know each other by sight back then.
The weather was pretty crappy but we had reserved a covered pavilion, so it was reasonably comfortable. I brought some tortilla chips and organic salsa, and baked some of my famous Ghirardelli triple-chocolate brownies, which were tremendously popular, along with Adele's peach and blueberry pie.
Here's a picture of Adele and our friend Bill - he was a volunteer at Poly Pride back in October ("Poly public relations" - Oct. 5, 2008) and also marched in the Pride Parade ("My first pride parade!" - June 29, 2009) yet somehow we've never actually been introduced, although Polina knows him. He's a former analyst in the intelligence industry, which is a fancy way of saying he used to be a spy.
Adele and her husband Lance also brought their six-year-old Haley and she was a delight to watch. She couldn't stop making comments about my height! She dragged Adele out from under shelter to splash around in the mud with another Michelle, who is in a triad with a fellow (Rob?) and a black woman named Stephanie (who recognized me from a PolyNYC meeting more than a year ago):
Here's a picture of me and Haley - she got really tired and grumpy at the end of the event, so she didn't feel much like smiling. She reminded me of Pearl at that age, who also used to get the same way. Or maybe it was her coming down from the sugar rush of eating three of my brownies. But I think I look cute in this picture, at least:
"Miss Polyamory" Beki Rosenthal called my friend Mark Van Pelt during the picnic, and I got to talk with her a little bit on his cell phone. I got to know both of them during the Leadership Summit since Beki was one of the online participants I handled during the event and Mark helped me with communications.
Polina also called me on my cell using Skype from Switzerland during the picnic, and we had a nice chat about chocolate fondue, foggy mountains, and video blogging. She comes back to New York tomorrow and goes straight to college from the airport. I'm very thankful she convinced me to start using Skype - it's been a wonderful tool to keep us connected while she's been on vacation. Plus I even had a chance to chat with her Dutch boyfriend Peter, who visited with them for a few days. But I'm certainly ready for her to be closer to home so we don't have to deal with the six-hour time difference when we talk.
All in all, it was a fun day, despite the wet weather. Tomorrow I'll go to Costco and buy some more brownie mix, since I've run out.
Today I went out to Bridgewater, NJ to Duke Island Park for a picnic with an older polyamorous crowd I don't get to see very often. My friend Adele, who comes to my women's poly group, is a central figure, so she invited me. Most of the others I met either at the Poly Leadership Summit back in March ("Poly Leadership Summit 2009" - March 3, 2009) or at the one Thursday night poly munch I attended back in February ("Limerancing through life" - Feb. 27, 2009). Adele was actually at that meeting in February, but we didn't know each other by sight back then.
The weather was pretty crappy but we had reserved a covered pavilion, so it was reasonably comfortable. I brought some tortilla chips and organic salsa, and baked some of my famous Ghirardelli triple-chocolate brownies, which were tremendously popular, along with Adele's peach and blueberry pie.
Here's a picture of Adele and our friend Bill - he was a volunteer at Poly Pride back in October ("Poly public relations" - Oct. 5, 2008) and also marched in the Pride Parade ("My first pride parade!" - June 29, 2009) yet somehow we've never actually been introduced, although Polina knows him. He's a former analyst in the intelligence industry, which is a fancy way of saying he used to be a spy.
Adele and her husband Lance also brought their six-year-old Haley and she was a delight to watch. She couldn't stop making comments about my height! She dragged Adele out from under shelter to splash around in the mud with another Michelle, who is in a triad with a fellow (Rob?) and a black woman named Stephanie (who recognized me from a PolyNYC meeting more than a year ago):
Here's a picture of me and Haley - she got really tired and grumpy at the end of the event, so she didn't feel much like smiling. She reminded me of Pearl at that age, who also used to get the same way. Or maybe it was her coming down from the sugar rush of eating three of my brownies. But I think I look cute in this picture, at least:
"Miss Polyamory" Beki Rosenthal called my friend Mark Van Pelt during the picnic, and I got to talk with her a little bit on his cell phone. I got to know both of them during the Leadership Summit since Beki was one of the online participants I handled during the event and Mark helped me with communications.
Polina also called me on my cell using Skype from Switzerland during the picnic, and we had a nice chat about chocolate fondue, foggy mountains, and video blogging. She comes back to New York tomorrow and goes straight to college from the airport. I'm very thankful she convinced me to start using Skype - it's been a wonderful tool to keep us connected while she's been on vacation. Plus I even had a chance to chat with her Dutch boyfriend Peter, who visited with them for a few days. But I'm certainly ready for her to be closer to home so we don't have to deal with the six-hour time difference when we talk.
All in all, it was a fun day, despite the wet weather. Tomorrow I'll go to Costco and buy some more brownie mix, since I've run out.
Friday, August 21, 2009
An embarrassing first date
So the job search is ramping up to high gear of late, which is a welcome distraction while Polina is away in Switzerland. However, she has been very good about calling me on Skype and videochatting with me regularly, so I don't miss her too too much.
The interview in Princeton went very well. The company is really in the middle of nowhere, smack dab in a giant corporate complex about 18 miles from the New Jersey Turnpike. They have a big trading floor that you can see behind glass as soon as you walk in the lobby, and the rest of the offices are open desks with no walls whatsoever. Not really my preferred environment, but I can't really be picky about that. My recruiter who set up the interview followed up afterwards and reported this morning that they really liked me, and thought I was a good candidate, but they are just starting their search and they want to see some more people. This is actually okay for me because I have a couple other interviews I want to explore before I'm required to make a decision.
The Midtown PR agency let me know they were not going to offer me a position, so that's a dead end there. I'm waiting to hear more from a phone interview I had last Thursday since the interviewer went on vacation for a week after she talked to me. Then I have another phone interview on Tuesday for a new position being created by an insurance brokerage company, one that reports directly to a CEO. That's a pretty exciting opportunity, so we'll see how that pans out next week.
In other personal news, I had my first date with someone new since I started dating Polina almost a year ago. My friend Vivek, who runs the cricket meetup group I participate in ("My first cricket game" - July 8, 2009) asked me out to Lolita Bar on the Lower East Side near my old burlesque studio. I planned to go directly after my Women's Poly Meetup Group on Tuesday, and I did, but we ran quite long so I turned up almost an hour late. It also started pouring down rain when I was about two blocks away, so I got drenched and showed up looking like a drowned rat. To add to my embarrassment, he was dressed nicely in a suit and dress shirt, and I was wearing just a t-shirt, skirt and sandals. He seemed to take it all in stride and we had a nice time talking about all manner of topics. He lives in Jersey City and runs his own mergers and acquisitions firm with a partner, matching up companies that do IT outsourcing in India. We'll try to get the group together on Tuesday after my phone interview to have another cricket practice, and maybe I can get him to go with me to Brick Lane Curry House, which was recently featured on Man vs. Food, to eat some spicy food.
I've been captivated lately by Regina Spektor's last album, Begin to Hope, which I checked out of the library a few months back and listened to, but wasn't impressed with it at the time. This time, her quirky lyrics and quasi-electronic folk music have caught on with me. Maybe I will find a copy of her latest release, Far, and give that a listen as well. I am also now more than halfway through my collection of Ranma 1/2 DVDs, just starting Season 3 now. Even after all this time, they still make me laugh. Maybe after I'm done with those, I'll finally get to watching the first two seasons of The L Word, which is the only remaining TV series I own on DVD that I haven't watched yet.
All for now. Hopefully I will have some good news on my job search the next time I post.
The interview in Princeton went very well. The company is really in the middle of nowhere, smack dab in a giant corporate complex about 18 miles from the New Jersey Turnpike. They have a big trading floor that you can see behind glass as soon as you walk in the lobby, and the rest of the offices are open desks with no walls whatsoever. Not really my preferred environment, but I can't really be picky about that. My recruiter who set up the interview followed up afterwards and reported this morning that they really liked me, and thought I was a good candidate, but they are just starting their search and they want to see some more people. This is actually okay for me because I have a couple other interviews I want to explore before I'm required to make a decision.
The Midtown PR agency let me know they were not going to offer me a position, so that's a dead end there. I'm waiting to hear more from a phone interview I had last Thursday since the interviewer went on vacation for a week after she talked to me. Then I have another phone interview on Tuesday for a new position being created by an insurance brokerage company, one that reports directly to a CEO. That's a pretty exciting opportunity, so we'll see how that pans out next week.
In other personal news, I had my first date with someone new since I started dating Polina almost a year ago. My friend Vivek, who runs the cricket meetup group I participate in ("My first cricket game" - July 8, 2009) asked me out to Lolita Bar on the Lower East Side near my old burlesque studio. I planned to go directly after my Women's Poly Meetup Group on Tuesday, and I did, but we ran quite long so I turned up almost an hour late. It also started pouring down rain when I was about two blocks away, so I got drenched and showed up looking like a drowned rat. To add to my embarrassment, he was dressed nicely in a suit and dress shirt, and I was wearing just a t-shirt, skirt and sandals. He seemed to take it all in stride and we had a nice time talking about all manner of topics. He lives in Jersey City and runs his own mergers and acquisitions firm with a partner, matching up companies that do IT outsourcing in India. We'll try to get the group together on Tuesday after my phone interview to have another cricket practice, and maybe I can get him to go with me to Brick Lane Curry House, which was recently featured on Man vs. Food, to eat some spicy food.
I've been captivated lately by Regina Spektor's last album, Begin to Hope, which I checked out of the library a few months back and listened to, but wasn't impressed with it at the time. This time, her quirky lyrics and quasi-electronic folk music have caught on with me. Maybe I will find a copy of her latest release, Far, and give that a listen as well. I am also now more than halfway through my collection of Ranma 1/2 DVDs, just starting Season 3 now. Even after all this time, they still make me laugh. Maybe after I'm done with those, I'll finally get to watching the first two seasons of The L Word, which is the only remaining TV series I own on DVD that I haven't watched yet.
All for now. Hopefully I will have some good news on my job search the next time I post.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Job search update
First off, a quick update on my busy job interviewing schedule, which I haven't mentioned in a while. I had a decent interview with three vice presidents at a large PR firm in Midtown on Wednesday. This firm is very big on social media, and actually requires all its employees to be on Twitter (which I'm not, by the way). The job is pretty much the same things I've been doing the past nine years, so it would be more of the same, and in the same place as I was before. Not terribly exciting, but certainly not the worst job in the world.
The second interview on Wednesday was with a recruiter who has found me an opportunity with a large energy company in Princeton, NJ that is interested in talking to me. He just wanted to get some more background and meet me in person so he could see if I present myself well, and he said I passed on that score. So next Wednesday I'll drive down to Princeton and start interviewing directly with the company itself.
The third interview was a phone interview on Thursday, and it was a large company based in Israel that does customer experience improvement. The job would be based in Jersey City, and some days in NYC, plus some work from home. This would probably be my least favorite job opportunity because it's a little outside my bailiwick, but of course, I'll take anything at this point.
Friday I woke up relatively early to prepare to go into the city for one last visit with Penny before she leaves for Switzerland for a week-long vacation and then college. Since I had made plans to see a movie with my friend Angel that night, and Penny was working the last day of her job in the city, it was an opportunity I didn't want to pass up even though I thought when we parted Tuesday it was going to be our last meeting for a while.
I had been thinking about what I might get her as a college going-away present, my used mini-fridge notwithstanding. She gave me an idea when she recently expressed how much she was going to miss me, her friends, and the poly community in NYC. I decided to give her something that would help her keep all that in mind while she's away in school - a digital picture frame with photos from our adventures together this summer. So I went out to Target, picked out a Kodak frame, came home and set it up, loaded it with about 70 photos spanning the period from our cooking party ("Cooking party" - Jan. 24, 2009, the first time she visited my apartment and my first picture of her) through last Monday's Poly Cocktail Hour. I also included random photos like those of my stuffed animals and me in the dress I wore to her New Year's Eve party, pictures of our friends and a few others of us that have never been shown before. Then I repacked the frame and wrapped the box before hopping the train into the city.
I got to her workplace almost an hour early due to the train schedule, so I wandered around the Financial District until it was time for her to leave. Here's a photo of the New York Stock Exchange Building, where I sat for a while and read a book:
Here's a photo of Polina working with the dogs at Ciao Bow Wow:
Her ex-boyfriend Louis (whom I met at the New Year's Party) joined us when it was time to leave work, and we went to a nearby Borders Bookstore to buy some travel guides for her vacation. Then we went to grab a bite to eat at a cafe, and I gave her the present before I had to leave to meet with Angel.
Angel had invited me to a Meetup.com group of queer people who like movies, which certainly describes me. We were supposed to have a group of people to see the 7:20 p.m. showing of The Time Traveler's Wife, but by the time we got there, that show was sold out. So me, Angel and her straight friend Victor bought tickets to see the next showing at 8:20 p.m. Since we had some time to kill, we went to the Coffee Shop on the west side of Union Square and had a bite to eat. Victor and Angel sing opera together at an opera company. I love Angel's hair - it reminds me of the giant block of stibnite on display at the American Museum of Natural History, pictured below ("The week in review"- July 26, 2007):
Unfortunately, we dallied a little too long and by the time we got back, the theater was almost full so we had to sit near the front of the theater and look straight up at the screen. This might have contributed to my inability to emotionally connect to the movie, so I'll reserve judgement until I see it again, if I ever do.
I did have some more relationship stuff to write about, but since it's getting so late now, I think I'll save that for my next post.
The second interview on Wednesday was with a recruiter who has found me an opportunity with a large energy company in Princeton, NJ that is interested in talking to me. He just wanted to get some more background and meet me in person so he could see if I present myself well, and he said I passed on that score. So next Wednesday I'll drive down to Princeton and start interviewing directly with the company itself.
The third interview was a phone interview on Thursday, and it was a large company based in Israel that does customer experience improvement. The job would be based in Jersey City, and some days in NYC, plus some work from home. This would probably be my least favorite job opportunity because it's a little outside my bailiwick, but of course, I'll take anything at this point.
Friday I woke up relatively early to prepare to go into the city for one last visit with Penny before she leaves for Switzerland for a week-long vacation and then college. Since I had made plans to see a movie with my friend Angel that night, and Penny was working the last day of her job in the city, it was an opportunity I didn't want to pass up even though I thought when we parted Tuesday it was going to be our last meeting for a while.
I had been thinking about what I might get her as a college going-away present, my used mini-fridge notwithstanding. She gave me an idea when she recently expressed how much she was going to miss me, her friends, and the poly community in NYC. I decided to give her something that would help her keep all that in mind while she's away in school - a digital picture frame with photos from our adventures together this summer. So I went out to Target, picked out a Kodak frame, came home and set it up, loaded it with about 70 photos spanning the period from our cooking party ("Cooking party" - Jan. 24, 2009, the first time she visited my apartment and my first picture of her) through last Monday's Poly Cocktail Hour. I also included random photos like those of my stuffed animals and me in the dress I wore to her New Year's Eve party, pictures of our friends and a few others of us that have never been shown before. Then I repacked the frame and wrapped the box before hopping the train into the city.
I got to her workplace almost an hour early due to the train schedule, so I wandered around the Financial District until it was time for her to leave. Here's a photo of the New York Stock Exchange Building, where I sat for a while and read a book:
Here's a photo of Polina working with the dogs at Ciao Bow Wow:
Her ex-boyfriend Louis (whom I met at the New Year's Party) joined us when it was time to leave work, and we went to a nearby Borders Bookstore to buy some travel guides for her vacation. Then we went to grab a bite to eat at a cafe, and I gave her the present before I had to leave to meet with Angel.
Angel had invited me to a Meetup.com group of queer people who like movies, which certainly describes me. We were supposed to have a group of people to see the 7:20 p.m. showing of The Time Traveler's Wife, but by the time we got there, that show was sold out. So me, Angel and her straight friend Victor bought tickets to see the next showing at 8:20 p.m. Since we had some time to kill, we went to the Coffee Shop on the west side of Union Square and had a bite to eat. Victor and Angel sing opera together at an opera company. I love Angel's hair - it reminds me of the giant block of stibnite on display at the American Museum of Natural History, pictured below ("The week in review"- July 26, 2007):
Unfortunately, we dallied a little too long and by the time we got back, the theater was almost full so we had to sit near the front of the theater and look straight up at the screen. This might have contributed to my inability to emotionally connect to the movie, so I'll reserve judgement until I see it again, if I ever do.
I did have some more relationship stuff to write about, but since it's getting so late now, I think I'll save that for my next post.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Polys in the wild
It's been quite an eventful 48 hours with Polina, and following on the heels of our Great Adventure Shindig a week ago, we definitely have made the most of our dwindling time together. In four days she leaves for a week-long family vacation overseas, and then goes directly to college for band camp. That means we probably won't see each other again until Sept. 12, when she's taking me to her sister's wedding. But we've had some very good talks recently and I think we understand what's needed if we want this relationship to weather our extended periods of separation while she's at school.
Friday I brought Yoshi into the Honda dealer to have the engine problem looked at, and it turned out to be a major repair of almost $2,000 requiring a multi-day stay, so I drove a CR-V loaner all weekend. Saturday night I had dinner with my family, and we completed our Kill Bill series by watching the second movie. I think that's all the Tarantino I'm going to get out of them, but that's okay - I'm not a big fan of any of his other movies besides Pulp Fiction, which they've already seen.
Sunday morning Penny called me and we chatted for a while until Ryan showed up at her place for a visit - he came to the first part of our Great Adventure Shindig at my apartment ("Great Adventure Shindig" - Aug. 5, 2009). I packed for an overnight stay and joined them around 5 p.m. to hang out while Penny tended to laundry and helped her mom and grandmother work on a scrapbook for her sister's upcoming wedding.
Ryan, as you might recall, is a polyamorous guy who is dating a monogamous woman named Beth. We decided the best way to help him was to invite Beth to Monday's Poly Cocktail Hour so she could see for herself poly people in their natural environment, so to speak. After dinner with Penny's family, we three went upstairs so that Ryan could give us an improptu lesson in shibari (warning: link contains nudity). He performed this lovely tortoise shell tie on Penny (who of course kept her pajamas on):
He also demonstrated an ankle tie on me and performed some light S&M on both of us using a plastic rod from the window mini-blinds in Penny's parents' room. I know this sounds very kinky and probably weird to some people, but it was really just innocent play, and involved a lot of instructional talking about etiquette, role-playing and boundaries. Plus, we couldn't really do anything too loud or involved since Penny's parents and grandmother were downstairs working on the scrapbook. They even called for her once while she had her wrists tied to her ankles and we had to quickly untie her so she could go downstairs.
After we put the ropes away we sat up and watched an episode of HBO's True Blood on DVD before Ryan had to go home. Penny and I got ready for bed and watched six more episodes in bed together on her laptop until about 5:30 a.m. before we finally stopped to go to sleep. Then her mom woke us at 8:30 a.m. to ask about something, but we went back to sleep until about 11:30 a.m. before we finally got up.
We spent a good portion of Monday afternoon looking at her family photo albums and cleaning up her room, which has been just this side of a disaster area for as long as I've known her. We hung up all her clothes, sorted out rubbish from recyclables, got everything off the floor and vacuumed. Now her room will be more presentable for any guests who need to use it while she's away at college:
Ryan came over after work and we followed him into the city to pick up Beth from her studio right at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. We had a bite to eat at an organic grocery store and proceeded to Poly Cocktail Hour at China 1 Restaurant. We met several first-time attendees early on, plus our friends Barbara and Joe, Simon, Lyndell, Bill, Diana, Rob ("Karaoke virgin no more!" - July 27, 2009), plus many other familiar faces. Far from feeling threatened and insecure, Beth seemed to have a very good time hanging out with us:
The event was quite successful this month, and they soon had to open a second room to accommodate the crowd. Polina and I spent the latter part of the evening participating in some group cuddling and giving/receiving massages with various people:
Ryan and Beth left around 11 p.m. while Polina and I stayed until about midnight, saying hi to the owner Alan when he showed up late. We said goodbye to everybody and drove to Ryan and Beth's apartment in East Rutherford for a quick visit and to see some of their collection of erotic and BDSM toys. We got home around 1:30 a.m. and had some tea while I showed Penny some of my shoebox photos from my former life that were rescued from the fire of 2005 before going to bed.
After breakfast the next morning we finished the last two episodes of True Blood and we got a text from Ryan, saying that Beth had a great time with us the night before, and that "progress was being made" in resolving their relationship issues. It's encouraging to believe that their relationship will be stronger now that Beth has seen what poly people are really like, instead of what she thinks we're like.
I drove Penny back to Staten Island to pick up the things I'd left in her house from the night before and then drove her to her doctor's appointment. Then I went to the White Castle near her house and bought a baker's dozen of hamburgers and jalapeno cheeseburgers to eat on the way home. Once home, I went to pick up Yoshi and now I've got to get ready for tomorrow's trip to the city where I have two job interviews and plan to visit Simon to work on his marketing stuff.
Friday I brought Yoshi into the Honda dealer to have the engine problem looked at, and it turned out to be a major repair of almost $2,000 requiring a multi-day stay, so I drove a CR-V loaner all weekend. Saturday night I had dinner with my family, and we completed our Kill Bill series by watching the second movie. I think that's all the Tarantino I'm going to get out of them, but that's okay - I'm not a big fan of any of his other movies besides Pulp Fiction, which they've already seen.
Sunday morning Penny called me and we chatted for a while until Ryan showed up at her place for a visit - he came to the first part of our Great Adventure Shindig at my apartment ("Great Adventure Shindig" - Aug. 5, 2009). I packed for an overnight stay and joined them around 5 p.m. to hang out while Penny tended to laundry and helped her mom and grandmother work on a scrapbook for her sister's upcoming wedding.
Ryan, as you might recall, is a polyamorous guy who is dating a monogamous woman named Beth. We decided the best way to help him was to invite Beth to Monday's Poly Cocktail Hour so she could see for herself poly people in their natural environment, so to speak. After dinner with Penny's family, we three went upstairs so that Ryan could give us an improptu lesson in shibari (warning: link contains nudity). He performed this lovely tortoise shell tie on Penny (who of course kept her pajamas on):
He also demonstrated an ankle tie on me and performed some light S&M on both of us using a plastic rod from the window mini-blinds in Penny's parents' room. I know this sounds very kinky and probably weird to some people, but it was really just innocent play, and involved a lot of instructional talking about etiquette, role-playing and boundaries. Plus, we couldn't really do anything too loud or involved since Penny's parents and grandmother were downstairs working on the scrapbook. They even called for her once while she had her wrists tied to her ankles and we had to quickly untie her so she could go downstairs.
After we put the ropes away we sat up and watched an episode of HBO's True Blood on DVD before Ryan had to go home. Penny and I got ready for bed and watched six more episodes in bed together on her laptop until about 5:30 a.m. before we finally stopped to go to sleep. Then her mom woke us at 8:30 a.m. to ask about something, but we went back to sleep until about 11:30 a.m. before we finally got up.
We spent a good portion of Monday afternoon looking at her family photo albums and cleaning up her room, which has been just this side of a disaster area for as long as I've known her. We hung up all her clothes, sorted out rubbish from recyclables, got everything off the floor and vacuumed. Now her room will be more presentable for any guests who need to use it while she's away at college:
Ryan came over after work and we followed him into the city to pick up Beth from her studio right at the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge. We had a bite to eat at an organic grocery store and proceeded to Poly Cocktail Hour at China 1 Restaurant. We met several first-time attendees early on, plus our friends Barbara and Joe, Simon, Lyndell, Bill, Diana, Rob ("Karaoke virgin no more!" - July 27, 2009), plus many other familiar faces. Far from feeling threatened and insecure, Beth seemed to have a very good time hanging out with us:
The event was quite successful this month, and they soon had to open a second room to accommodate the crowd. Polina and I spent the latter part of the evening participating in some group cuddling and giving/receiving massages with various people:
Ryan and Beth left around 11 p.m. while Polina and I stayed until about midnight, saying hi to the owner Alan when he showed up late. We said goodbye to everybody and drove to Ryan and Beth's apartment in East Rutherford for a quick visit and to see some of their collection of erotic and BDSM toys. We got home around 1:30 a.m. and had some tea while I showed Penny some of my shoebox photos from my former life that were rescued from the fire of 2005 before going to bed.
After breakfast the next morning we finished the last two episodes of True Blood and we got a text from Ryan, saying that Beth had a great time with us the night before, and that "progress was being made" in resolving their relationship issues. It's encouraging to believe that their relationship will be stronger now that Beth has seen what poly people are really like, instead of what she thinks we're like.
I drove Penny back to Staten Island to pick up the things I'd left in her house from the night before and then drove her to her doctor's appointment. Then I went to the White Castle near her house and bought a baker's dozen of hamburgers and jalapeno cheeseburgers to eat on the way home. Once home, I went to pick up Yoshi and now I've got to get ready for tomorrow's trip to the city where I have two job interviews and plan to visit Simon to work on his marketing stuff.
Sunday, August 09, 2009
Getting married
My friend Simon was out walking yesterday on Christopher Street and he took a picture of a lesbian couple getting married in a park:
It's such a lovely statement of love and the fight for equality that I just wanted to share it. And although I don't have any intentions of getting married again, I will continue to speak out for those who are denied the right to call themselves married if that's what they seek.
It's such a lovely statement of love and the fight for equality that I just wanted to share it. And although I don't have any intentions of getting married again, I will continue to speak out for those who are denied the right to call themselves married if that's what they seek.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Great Adventure Shindig
Penny and I threw a fun party together celebrating my fifth birthday at Six Flags Great Adventure. Various people came and went for different parts of the party, and hopefully a good time was had by all.
We started at my apartment Monday afternoon when Penny brought her longtime friend Dakotah (whom I met last New Year's) and a new friend Kyle (whom she met at Otakon last month - he lives in Pennsylvania and is visiting her for the week) on a bus from Port Authority Bus Terminal. Shortly after, Ryan arrived in his own car - he lives about 20 minutes away from me in New Jersey. Polina met him at Otakon too; he's a polyamorous man in a relationship with a monogamous-minded girlfriend (who called him about three times that evening), and also quite experienced in the local BDSM scene.
Once everybody arrived, we took a quick swim in the pool before going to Costco to buy some pizza, salad and ice cream for dinner, and Penny bought a 1TB external hard drive for her new MacBook Pro. After dinner we spread out to watch a movie on the cuddle space I created by putting a raised air mattress in front of my couch and loveseat, like so:
After the movie Ryan left, and the four of us remaining showed each other music and video clips on the Internet as we got ready to retire for the evening. After putting our guests to sleep in the living room, Penny and I stayed up a while and chatted in bed, finally going to sleep around 3 a.m. I was the first to awake at 8:15 a.m. and made omlettes, turkey bacon and toasted jalapeno parmesan bagels for the girls while Kyle had cereal.
We got to Six Flags Great Adventure just before noon and met with Penny and Dakotah's longtime friend Matt (nicknamed "Panda"), who took public transport directly to the park from his home in Brooklyn. Since we bought and printed our tickets at home, we went straight into the park, bypassing the horrendous ticket lines. Seriously, I don't know why anyone would come to Great Adventure without a ticket already in hand.
Of course, no visit to a Six Flags park would be complete without a picture with a famous cartoon character - how appropriate that we got this one with the most famous lover in the Warner Brothers stable of characters:
Our first rollercoaster was the Superman ride, which suspends you facedown in a flying position as it loops and rolls. Then we went to its neighbor, the Great American Rollercoaster. At this point we were getting really hot from waiting in lines, so we decided to go to the log flume ride to cool off. We were briefly tempted to try the "Guess Your Age/Weight" booth, but decided in my case it would be cheating.
After getting soaked on the log flume (Panda hit us with a water cannon at the end of the ride) we lined up for the Bizarro coaster, a revamped version of a rollercoaster originally called Medusa. They added flamethrowers and mist sprayers to represent Bizarro's flame breath and ice vision powers, but it's essentially the same coaster we've all ridden before.
We took the sky tram to the other side of the park and rode Skull Mountain, a small indoor coaster, then to Congo River water ride to get thoroughly drenched (Panda received his due karmic justice by getting the most soaked). We took a break for lunch, and had some fun taking pictures of unusually shaped curly fries:
The line for Nitro was too long and slow, so we had to skip that one, which is a shame because it was my second favorite coaster in the park (Kingda Ka is my favorite, and it wasn't running that day) so Polina, Kyle and I went to ride Batman and a new indoor coaster called The Dark Knight while Panda and Dakotah wandered around together.
As the evening started to wind up, we played a few games to try and win prizes. I almost won a large prize shooting a basketball, but left the shot just a few inches short. Polina came in second on a Whack-A-Mole contest, so no prize there:
Eventually we all played a water gun shooting gallery together, and Kyle won a stuffed M&M man in gangsta wear:
As I mentioned in past posts, originally our friends Reiko and Kerry were going to come, but both had to cancel at the last minute. I had intended to come home after dropping Polina and Kyle back at her house in Staten Island so they could have some private time together, but Yoshi started developing a bad engine vibration while I was dropping off Dakotah and Panda in Brooklyn, so just to be safe and not get stranded in the middle of the night, I stayed over at Polina's house. Her mom made us some dinner of pan-roasted chicken and spinach pancakes with some fresh cucumbers and tomatoes from their garden. We all went upstairs to share the air mattress, and I was pretty exhausted from the day, so I pretty much dozed off while Penny and Kyle stayed up to watch Eddie Izzard videos on YouTube. In the morning Penny and I woke up together and let Kyle sleep in while I left for home. Yoshi is running roughly, but made it home okay. He has an appointment on Friday to get checked out.
When I got to my apartment, I saw an injured kitten on the side of the road in front of my apartment building. I parked Yoshi in the garage and got a box and pillowcase and walked out to retrieve it. It was still alive, but breathing rapidly and had blood coming from its mouth. I brought it to the city animal shelter, and they directed me to an animal hospital, but I couldn't find it. I called my family and Bee helped me find a hospital with a doctor on duty. I brought it in and the doctor told me the kitty had sustained severe cranial trauma and had a broken jaw. Based on its eye reaction and breathing pattern, he said it wouldn't survive more than a day or two, even with intensive treatment, so he recommended euthanasia. I left the hospital crying for this poor baby kitten, but knowing that at the very least, I helped to lessen its suffering.
As with everything else in life, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but the point is to try and not to give up until we know there is no hope left. It was not the way I would have liked to end my birthday shindig, but sometimes we can't control what is put in our path. All we can do is control our own actions and handle things the best we can.
We started at my apartment Monday afternoon when Penny brought her longtime friend Dakotah (whom I met last New Year's) and a new friend Kyle (whom she met at Otakon last month - he lives in Pennsylvania and is visiting her for the week) on a bus from Port Authority Bus Terminal. Shortly after, Ryan arrived in his own car - he lives about 20 minutes away from me in New Jersey. Polina met him at Otakon too; he's a polyamorous man in a relationship with a monogamous-minded girlfriend (who called him about three times that evening), and also quite experienced in the local BDSM scene.
Once everybody arrived, we took a quick swim in the pool before going to Costco to buy some pizza, salad and ice cream for dinner, and Penny bought a 1TB external hard drive for her new MacBook Pro. After dinner we spread out to watch a movie on the cuddle space I created by putting a raised air mattress in front of my couch and loveseat, like so:
After the movie Ryan left, and the four of us remaining showed each other music and video clips on the Internet as we got ready to retire for the evening. After putting our guests to sleep in the living room, Penny and I stayed up a while and chatted in bed, finally going to sleep around 3 a.m. I was the first to awake at 8:15 a.m. and made omlettes, turkey bacon and toasted jalapeno parmesan bagels for the girls while Kyle had cereal.
We got to Six Flags Great Adventure just before noon and met with Penny and Dakotah's longtime friend Matt (nicknamed "Panda"), who took public transport directly to the park from his home in Brooklyn. Since we bought and printed our tickets at home, we went straight into the park, bypassing the horrendous ticket lines. Seriously, I don't know why anyone would come to Great Adventure without a ticket already in hand.
Of course, no visit to a Six Flags park would be complete without a picture with a famous cartoon character - how appropriate that we got this one with the most famous lover in the Warner Brothers stable of characters:
Our first rollercoaster was the Superman ride, which suspends you facedown in a flying position as it loops and rolls. Then we went to its neighbor, the Great American Rollercoaster. At this point we were getting really hot from waiting in lines, so we decided to go to the log flume ride to cool off. We were briefly tempted to try the "Guess Your Age/Weight" booth, but decided in my case it would be cheating.
After getting soaked on the log flume (Panda hit us with a water cannon at the end of the ride) we lined up for the Bizarro coaster, a revamped version of a rollercoaster originally called Medusa. They added flamethrowers and mist sprayers to represent Bizarro's flame breath and ice vision powers, but it's essentially the same coaster we've all ridden before.
We took the sky tram to the other side of the park and rode Skull Mountain, a small indoor coaster, then to Congo River water ride to get thoroughly drenched (Panda received his due karmic justice by getting the most soaked). We took a break for lunch, and had some fun taking pictures of unusually shaped curly fries:
The line for Nitro was too long and slow, so we had to skip that one, which is a shame because it was my second favorite coaster in the park (Kingda Ka is my favorite, and it wasn't running that day) so Polina, Kyle and I went to ride Batman and a new indoor coaster called The Dark Knight while Panda and Dakotah wandered around together.
As the evening started to wind up, we played a few games to try and win prizes. I almost won a large prize shooting a basketball, but left the shot just a few inches short. Polina came in second on a Whack-A-Mole contest, so no prize there:
Eventually we all played a water gun shooting gallery together, and Kyle won a stuffed M&M man in gangsta wear:
As I mentioned in past posts, originally our friends Reiko and Kerry were going to come, but both had to cancel at the last minute. I had intended to come home after dropping Polina and Kyle back at her house in Staten Island so they could have some private time together, but Yoshi started developing a bad engine vibration while I was dropping off Dakotah and Panda in Brooklyn, so just to be safe and not get stranded in the middle of the night, I stayed over at Polina's house. Her mom made us some dinner of pan-roasted chicken and spinach pancakes with some fresh cucumbers and tomatoes from their garden. We all went upstairs to share the air mattress, and I was pretty exhausted from the day, so I pretty much dozed off while Penny and Kyle stayed up to watch Eddie Izzard videos on YouTube. In the morning Penny and I woke up together and let Kyle sleep in while I left for home. Yoshi is running roughly, but made it home okay. He has an appointment on Friday to get checked out.
When I got to my apartment, I saw an injured kitten on the side of the road in front of my apartment building. I parked Yoshi in the garage and got a box and pillowcase and walked out to retrieve it. It was still alive, but breathing rapidly and had blood coming from its mouth. I brought it to the city animal shelter, and they directed me to an animal hospital, but I couldn't find it. I called my family and Bee helped me find a hospital with a doctor on duty. I brought it in and the doctor told me the kitty had sustained severe cranial trauma and had a broken jaw. Based on its eye reaction and breathing pattern, he said it wouldn't survive more than a day or two, even with intensive treatment, so he recommended euthanasia. I left the hospital crying for this poor baby kitten, but knowing that at the very least, I helped to lessen its suffering.
As with everything else in life, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but the point is to try and not to give up until we know there is no hope left. It was not the way I would have liked to end my birthday shindig, but sometimes we can't control what is put in our path. All we can do is control our own actions and handle things the best we can.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
My life according to U2
Here's a clever little meme that has been going around the Internet that I thought I'd share in case anyone else wants to try it. Polina did one for Red Hot Chili Peppers that made me laugh.
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions.
Pick Your Artist:
U2
Are you male or female?
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Describe Yourself:
Can't Help Falling in Love (a cover from the soundtrack to Honeymoon in Vegas)
How do you feel:
Running to Stand Still
Describe where you currently live:
Where the Streets Have No Name
If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
The Playboy Mansion
Your favorite form of transportation:
Fast Cars
Your best friend is:
Out of Control
You and your best friends are:
In God's Country
What's the weather like:
Indian Summer Sky
Favorite time of day:
11 O'Clock Tick Tock
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
Pride (In the Name of Love)
What is life to you:
Some Days are Better Than Others
Your relationship:
Love is Blindness/Desire
Your fear:
Wake Up Dead Man (i.e. killer zombies)
What is the best advice you have to give:
Peace on Earth
Thought for the Day:
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
How I would like to die:
If God Would Send His Angels
My soul's present condition:
White As Snow
My Motto:
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, cleverly answer these questions.
Pick Your Artist:
U2
Are you male or female?
Even Better Than the Real Thing
Describe Yourself:
Can't Help Falling in Love (a cover from the soundtrack to Honeymoon in Vegas)
How do you feel:
Running to Stand Still
Describe where you currently live:
Where the Streets Have No Name
If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
The Playboy Mansion
Your favorite form of transportation:
Fast Cars
Your best friend is:
Out of Control
You and your best friends are:
In God's Country
What's the weather like:
Indian Summer Sky
Favorite time of day:
11 O'Clock Tick Tock
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
Pride (In the Name of Love)
What is life to you:
Some Days are Better Than Others
Your relationship:
Love is Blindness/Desire
Your fear:
Wake Up Dead Man (i.e. killer zombies)
What is the best advice you have to give:
Peace on Earth
Thought for the Day:
Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
How I would like to die:
If God Would Send His Angels
My soul's present condition:
White As Snow
My Motto:
I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Manhattan LoveFest IV
Tonight I went to Manhattan LoveFest IV - Summer of Love, a charity fundraiser benefiting the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, dedicated to causes for consenting adults who engage in alternative sexual and relationship expressions, and Fractured Atlas, a non-profit organization that provides services and support to artists and arts organizations.
On the way to the event, I stopped by to visit Polina at work - she works at Ciao Bow Wow in the Financial District as a dog sitter. One of the dogs, a boxer named Odysseus, took a liking to my fishnet hose and put a few rips in it, which I guess made my outfit a little more punk-y. He must have found the pattern irresistible.
I made my way to the Happy Endings Lounge and met my friend Lyndell at the door where she was a volunteer greeter. I talked with her for a while and then got a free chair massage from a tall, handsome black masseuse named Chaka. I haven't had a massage in such a long while - it felt wonderful. The next booth over had a Sybian machine (which costs around $1,400) that people were taking turns trying out. I also saw Rob there, whom I met a couple weeks ago at Poly Cocktail Hour and again last week at the Adventure Quest play.
The first program I attended was given by Steven Speliotis, who did a demonstration of Shibari, a form of erotic Japanese bondage. He demonstrated on a young woman named Alexandra, who is a aerial performance artist and teaches pole dancing classes. Using braided nylon ropes, they showed how to make intricate knots that stimulate erogenous zones on the body by applying and releasing tension, and controlling blood flow to different parts of the body, making them more sensitive to touch.
Then they demonstrated how to use a vibrator on the ropes, which transmit the vibrations to multiple parts of the body simultaneously. The audience was encouraged to participate by holding wrist knots extending Alexandra's arms, and applying the vibrator. After the program I chatted with him and Alexandra and her partner Michael before moving on to the next program upstairs.
The next presentation was by my friend Morpheus, who did an introductory course on BDSM. Using a volunteer from the audience, he demonstrated his expertise with various toys, such as a leather whip (which made an impressive "crack"), flogging with a martinet, and a violet wand, a device that generates static electricity which can be applied through the wand or through the fingers, tongue or lips. But he also talked about BDSM etiquette and the need for proper communication to make the experience a pleasureable and consensual transfer of energy from one person to another.
For the third hour, I listened in on Diana Adams' talk about Polyamory 101, a subject I obviously have plenty of expertise in already. Alexandra, who is poly, chimed in on the topic, but I didn't see Rob there. I saw my friend Kerry (she's Diana's girlfriend) and we listened together for a while, then went off to chat privately for a bit. Kerry is coming to our Great Adventure Shindig next week, so we discussed plans for that. After Diana's talk was done, I talked a bit more with Lyndell, then left to go home.
On the way to the event, I stopped by to visit Polina at work - she works at Ciao Bow Wow in the Financial District as a dog sitter. One of the dogs, a boxer named Odysseus, took a liking to my fishnet hose and put a few rips in it, which I guess made my outfit a little more punk-y. He must have found the pattern irresistible.
I made my way to the Happy Endings Lounge and met my friend Lyndell at the door where she was a volunteer greeter. I talked with her for a while and then got a free chair massage from a tall, handsome black masseuse named Chaka. I haven't had a massage in such a long while - it felt wonderful. The next booth over had a Sybian machine (which costs around $1,400) that people were taking turns trying out. I also saw Rob there, whom I met a couple weeks ago at Poly Cocktail Hour and again last week at the Adventure Quest play.
The first program I attended was given by Steven Speliotis, who did a demonstration of Shibari, a form of erotic Japanese bondage. He demonstrated on a young woman named Alexandra, who is a aerial performance artist and teaches pole dancing classes. Using braided nylon ropes, they showed how to make intricate knots that stimulate erogenous zones on the body by applying and releasing tension, and controlling blood flow to different parts of the body, making them more sensitive to touch.
Then they demonstrated how to use a vibrator on the ropes, which transmit the vibrations to multiple parts of the body simultaneously. The audience was encouraged to participate by holding wrist knots extending Alexandra's arms, and applying the vibrator. After the program I chatted with him and Alexandra and her partner Michael before moving on to the next program upstairs.
The next presentation was by my friend Morpheus, who did an introductory course on BDSM. Using a volunteer from the audience, he demonstrated his expertise with various toys, such as a leather whip (which made an impressive "crack"), flogging with a martinet, and a violet wand, a device that generates static electricity which can be applied through the wand or through the fingers, tongue or lips. But he also talked about BDSM etiquette and the need for proper communication to make the experience a pleasureable and consensual transfer of energy from one person to another.
For the third hour, I listened in on Diana Adams' talk about Polyamory 101, a subject I obviously have plenty of expertise in already. Alexandra, who is poly, chimed in on the topic, but I didn't see Rob there. I saw my friend Kerry (she's Diana's girlfriend) and we listened together for a while, then went off to chat privately for a bit. Kerry is coming to our Great Adventure Shindig next week, so we discussed plans for that. After Diana's talk was done, I talked a bit more with Lyndell, then left to go home.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Hogwarts professor
I spent two days in a row on the Hogwarts Express with Lori on Tuesday and both her and Polina on Wednesday. Tuesday I came into the city and met up with Polina at the Macy's Herald Square, where she needed to exchange some shoes. As a result of her ongoing wardrobe overhaul, she showed me some of the clothes she purchased earlier in the week with her sister. Afterwards, we had a bite to eat at a deli and then she caught an express bus back to Staten Island, while I continued to Lori's office to meet up with her so we could go to a lecture at the New York Public Library.
The lecture was titled "Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books behind the Hogwarts Adventures" by John Granger, author of the book with the same title, and most recently The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains the Final Harry Potter Adventure.
The lecture was quite good, and of course, to a very involved and interested audience. Mr. Granger explained how J.K. Rowling borrows from many of the greatest works of English and world literature, most notably Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dante's Inferno, as well as several different established literary genres, such as gothic romance, mystery, and English schoolboy fiction. He also confirmed that he is not actually a relative of Hermoine Granger's, as some people have asked him.
As longtime blog readers know, I'm relatively new to the Harry Potter phenomenon, having read all seven books for the first time in 2008 (since the Twilight Saga was done and I needed more stuff to read, so my family got me the box set of hardcovers for my last birthday - "Birthday gifts" - July 16, 2008). But even to a Potter newbie like me, the talk was very interesting, and will certainly enrich my future reading of the books.
After the talk, he signed books and Lori bought a copy of Harry Potter's Bookshelf. I said hello with her, and Mr. Granger explained why he was making a lot of eye contact with me, because he was using my reactions as an audience barometer of sorts. When I smiled and looked interested, he would take that as a cue to continue on that topic, and when I looked bored, he would move on. I was wondering throughout the presentation why he was looking at me so intently.
On Wednesday I had a very nice interview at a boutique (read "small") PR agency near Grand Central Station in the city. I met with the president and chief operating officer, and we seemed to hit it off very well. He even indicated which office I'd be sitting in if I were hired (which unfortunately doesn't seem to have a window that I noticed) but of course, this is dependent on them getting some new business in the door. The gratifying part for me was that he had called one of my former senior colleagues at Agent K and they had spoken highly of me, which is always nice to hear.
After the interview I went down to Union Square in the pouring rain to meet up with Lori and Polina at the Whole Foods to grab a bite to eat before heading to the movie theater to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Polina liked it all the way up to the end, but was peeved that the defense of Hogwarts against the Death Eaters was omitted. Also, she's still steamed about how Sirius Black met his end in the last movie. Lori was just shocked at the death of a major character in HBP, as she hasn't read the book yet. As for me, I still liked the new movie, but it doesn't surpass Order of the Phoenix as my favorite of the series so far.
The lecture was titled "Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books behind the Hogwarts Adventures" by John Granger, author of the book with the same title, and most recently The Deathly Hallows Lectures: The Hogwarts Professor Explains the Final Harry Potter Adventure.
The lecture was quite good, and of course, to a very involved and interested audience. Mr. Granger explained how J.K. Rowling borrows from many of the greatest works of English and world literature, most notably Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Dante's Inferno, as well as several different established literary genres, such as gothic romance, mystery, and English schoolboy fiction. He also confirmed that he is not actually a relative of Hermoine Granger's, as some people have asked him.
As longtime blog readers know, I'm relatively new to the Harry Potter phenomenon, having read all seven books for the first time in 2008 (since the Twilight Saga was done and I needed more stuff to read, so my family got me the box set of hardcovers for my last birthday - "Birthday gifts" - July 16, 2008). But even to a Potter newbie like me, the talk was very interesting, and will certainly enrich my future reading of the books.
After the talk, he signed books and Lori bought a copy of Harry Potter's Bookshelf. I said hello with her, and Mr. Granger explained why he was making a lot of eye contact with me, because he was using my reactions as an audience barometer of sorts. When I smiled and looked interested, he would take that as a cue to continue on that topic, and when I looked bored, he would move on. I was wondering throughout the presentation why he was looking at me so intently.
On Wednesday I had a very nice interview at a boutique (read "small") PR agency near Grand Central Station in the city. I met with the president and chief operating officer, and we seemed to hit it off very well. He even indicated which office I'd be sitting in if I were hired (which unfortunately doesn't seem to have a window that I noticed) but of course, this is dependent on them getting some new business in the door. The gratifying part for me was that he had called one of my former senior colleagues at Agent K and they had spoken highly of me, which is always nice to hear.
After the interview I went down to Union Square in the pouring rain to meet up with Lori and Polina at the Whole Foods to grab a bite to eat before heading to the movie theater to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Polina liked it all the way up to the end, but was peeved that the defense of Hogwarts against the Death Eaters was omitted. Also, she's still steamed about how Sirius Black met his end in the last movie. Lori was just shocked at the death of a major character in HBP, as she hasn't read the book yet. As for me, I still liked the new movie, but it doesn't surpass Order of the Phoenix as my favorite of the series so far.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Karaoke virgin no more!
Guess it's time for an update before the next round of activity starts again tomorrow, since it's been a week since my last post.
Friday I drove into the city and met with Polina and her friend Reiko near Union Square. I met Reiko on New Year's Eve, but we didn't get to talk very much, so it was like our first meeting. However, she is planning to go with us to Great Adventure next week, so we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other. We chatted for a bit over frozen yogurt treats, then she went home while Polina and I went to Brooklyn to see the Adventure Quest play at a venue called The Brick.
The play basically started as a live-action version of an early text RPG (e.g. Zork) with actors playing the roles of the Hero (who reminded me of Dirk the Daring from Dragon's Lair), Guard, Peasant Girl, etc. But as the Hero goes from scene to scene, talking to people and getting the same answers over and over, and figuring out what he needs to do, it slowly turns into an existential parody where he questions why he has to kill everyone in order to achieve his goals. Plus he falls in love with the Peasant Girl instead of the Mayor's Daughter whom he's supposed to rescue. There's an omniscient female computer voice giving instructions which adds to the realism (i.e. "You can't do that") and a points counter projected on the background goes up every time he does something right. It was a very clever and funny play, and a must-see for computer game geeks.
We met up with two new people at the play - Rob, a guy Polina and I met at the last Poly Cocktail Hour ("Deep fried pickles" - July 14, 2009) and Kevin, a bloke she met on the bus back from Otakon in Baltimore. After the play, we went to a diner for a bite to eat, then trekked back to Manhattan to find a karaoke bar in Korea Town, an area around 32nd Street and Broadway. Believe it or not, it was my very first time in a karaoke bar - since I grew up with karaoke machines in the house, there was never any reason to go out for that kind of entertainment.
So here is me singing Linkin Park's "In the End" - I sang Chester Bennington's part, and Polina rapped Mike Shinoda's lines, so we did it as a duet. We also sang "Attack" by 30 Seconds to Mars together, but that was a hard song to sing!
There was a lot of multilingual singing, as Rob is fluent in Japanese, and Kevin in Chinese. Polina also sang a few songs in Japanese. However, none of us were familiar with Korean, which made working the Korean remote control somewhat of a challenge. Kevin and Polina sang "Tribute" by Tenacious D together, Rob sang "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis and "Beautiful Ones" by Suede (among others - he's a really good singer). Kevin and I sang "Sweet Home Alabama" together, and we all sang "Phantom of the Opera" together, with Polina and I singing Christine's part and Kevin and Rob singing the Phantom's part.
One cool thing that we realized near the end of the night was that the four of us were each from a different decade in age: Polina in her teens, Kevin in his 20s, Rob in his 30s, and me in my 40s (biologically speaking). I have to think that's a pretty rare thing, and further proof that age is just a number, not a limit at least when it comes to having fun. From left to right, here's Polina, Rob and Kevin:
After a couple hours of singing, we parted ways and Polina and I headed back to her place for the night. The next morning we had Shabbat breakfast with Penny's parents before her grandparents, older sister Sofia and her husband Robert came over for a visit. Sofia and I spent a couple hours going through Penny's closet and critiquing her wardrobe before I left for home for Saturday night dinner with my family. After dinner we watched "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
Friday I drove into the city and met with Polina and her friend Reiko near Union Square. I met Reiko on New Year's Eve, but we didn't get to talk very much, so it was like our first meeting. However, she is planning to go with us to Great Adventure next week, so we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other. We chatted for a bit over frozen yogurt treats, then she went home while Polina and I went to Brooklyn to see the Adventure Quest play at a venue called The Brick.
The play basically started as a live-action version of an early text RPG (e.g. Zork) with actors playing the roles of the Hero (who reminded me of Dirk the Daring from Dragon's Lair), Guard, Peasant Girl, etc. But as the Hero goes from scene to scene, talking to people and getting the same answers over and over, and figuring out what he needs to do, it slowly turns into an existential parody where he questions why he has to kill everyone in order to achieve his goals. Plus he falls in love with the Peasant Girl instead of the Mayor's Daughter whom he's supposed to rescue. There's an omniscient female computer voice giving instructions which adds to the realism (i.e. "You can't do that") and a points counter projected on the background goes up every time he does something right. It was a very clever and funny play, and a must-see for computer game geeks.
We met up with two new people at the play - Rob, a guy Polina and I met at the last Poly Cocktail Hour ("Deep fried pickles" - July 14, 2009) and Kevin, a bloke she met on the bus back from Otakon in Baltimore. After the play, we went to a diner for a bite to eat, then trekked back to Manhattan to find a karaoke bar in Korea Town, an area around 32nd Street and Broadway. Believe it or not, it was my very first time in a karaoke bar - since I grew up with karaoke machines in the house, there was never any reason to go out for that kind of entertainment.
So here is me singing Linkin Park's "In the End" - I sang Chester Bennington's part, and Polina rapped Mike Shinoda's lines, so we did it as a duet. We also sang "Attack" by 30 Seconds to Mars together, but that was a hard song to sing!
There was a lot of multilingual singing, as Rob is fluent in Japanese, and Kevin in Chinese. Polina also sang a few songs in Japanese. However, none of us were familiar with Korean, which made working the Korean remote control somewhat of a challenge. Kevin and Polina sang "Tribute" by Tenacious D together, Rob sang "Don't Look Back in Anger" by Oasis and "Beautiful Ones" by Suede (among others - he's a really good singer). Kevin and I sang "Sweet Home Alabama" together, and we all sang "Phantom of the Opera" together, with Polina and I singing Christine's part and Kevin and Rob singing the Phantom's part.
One cool thing that we realized near the end of the night was that the four of us were each from a different decade in age: Polina in her teens, Kevin in his 20s, Rob in his 30s, and me in my 40s (biologically speaking). I have to think that's a pretty rare thing, and further proof that age is just a number, not a limit at least when it comes to having fun. From left to right, here's Polina, Rob and Kevin:
After a couple hours of singing, we parted ways and Polina and I headed back to her place for the night. The next morning we had Shabbat breakfast with Penny's parents before her grandparents, older sister Sofia and her husband Robert came over for a visit. Sofia and I spent a couple hours going through Penny's closet and critiquing her wardrobe before I left for home for Saturday night dinner with my family. After dinner we watched "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
The irony of monogamy
There is a very balanced and thoughtful essay on the irony of monogamy on Examiner.com today that is worth addressing. You can read the full article here.
The article asks the pointed question: how did we as a civilization come to idealize lifelong monogamy as the primary, if not only, form of loving relationship? How and why did this become our modern-day reality? Were we biologically predestined to be this way? Or are we the living in the shadow of historical accidents?
After much discussion about human biology and the patriarchal usurpation of goddess-based religion, the conclusion is that monogamy may have its roots in the control of female sexuality so that men could keep track of their lineage, thus historically linking monogamy with women's oppression throughout human history. And in a final huge ironic twist, the modern stereotype requires that women have to nail men down and make them commit to monogamy!
However, the article does conclude in a balanced way, saying that none of this means that monogamy, as such, in necessarily bad - only that these conclusions should give us pause for thought. The writer asserts that some people (maybe even a majority of people) are best-suited for some form of a monogamous lifestyle – whether it be life-long monogamy, or serial monogamy.
However, he also makes the point that people (especially women) might do well to seriously consider the roots of their own desire for monogamy and if they do, they might find that the best path for some people is some form of non-monogamy. Living as we do now, with the option of genetic paternity testing, it could be that the original motivation for the widespread social endorsement of monogamy as the "one true path" for a spiritually rewarding and socially fruitful life is now gone.
The article asks the pointed question: how did we as a civilization come to idealize lifelong monogamy as the primary, if not only, form of loving relationship? How and why did this become our modern-day reality? Were we biologically predestined to be this way? Or are we the living in the shadow of historical accidents?
After much discussion about human biology and the patriarchal usurpation of goddess-based religion, the conclusion is that monogamy may have its roots in the control of female sexuality so that men could keep track of their lineage, thus historically linking monogamy with women's oppression throughout human history. And in a final huge ironic twist, the modern stereotype requires that women have to nail men down and make them commit to monogamy!
However, the article does conclude in a balanced way, saying that none of this means that monogamy, as such, in necessarily bad - only that these conclusions should give us pause for thought. The writer asserts that some people (maybe even a majority of people) are best-suited for some form of a monogamous lifestyle – whether it be life-long monogamy, or serial monogamy.
However, he also makes the point that people (especially women) might do well to seriously consider the roots of their own desire for monogamy and if they do, they might find that the best path for some people is some form of non-monogamy. Living as we do now, with the option of genetic paternity testing, it could be that the original motivation for the widespread social endorsement of monogamy as the "one true path" for a spiritually rewarding and socially fruitful life is now gone.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Relationship talks
I just got home from a nice visit with Polina on Staten Island over the last day and a half. She has been busy working at her job in Manhattan, and was out all weekend in Baltimore for Otakon 2009, a huge anime, manga and Asian pop culture conference. She cosplayed as Duo Maxwell, a character from Mobile Suit Gundam Wing.
And she wasn't the only person playing Duo - there were at least three others at Otakon (but she was the only one who bothered to bind her breasts for added fidelity). Polina is at the far left:
She got back from Baltimore late Sunday night and slept over at her grandmother's place near St. Marks, and I picked her up from there Monday afternoon to bring her home with all her cosplay gear she had to carry. We hung out and read books together for a couple hours, making plans on Friday to see a show in Williamsburg called Adventure Quest with some of her new Otakon friends. Supposedly "capturing the style and spirit of the Golden Age of home computer gaming, Adventure Quest is both a nostalgic treat and a glimpse into the yawning Void." I expect that Penny and I will chuckle at different things in this play, considering that I was playing computer games that were state of the art almost a decade before she was born.
Afterwards we drove to Lori's place about 10 minutes away on Staten Island and she made us a nice dinner of spicy fried eggplant, pan fried vegetable dumplings, fresh green beans and onions in a curry sauce and rice. Then we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which neither of them had seen yet. We'll try to watch the new Harry Potter movie in the city next Wednesday. Lori's boyfriend Erik came home soon after the movie concluded and we chatted for a while before saying goodnight to them and going back to Penny's house to watch an episode of True Blood on Penny's MacBook.
I called Tara for goodnight around 1 a.m. to tell her I was staying overnight, and we had a decent chat, all things considered. Penny and I stayed up until almost 4 a.m., talking about very personal things that we've not shared before. I am encouraged that we continue to break new ground in our developing relationship, showing that we can trust each other and communicate about things that are sometimes uncomfortable to speak about.
The next morning we made an omlette for breakfast and continued watching True Blood. We got a pizza for lunch and had another good relationship talk in the car as I dropped her off at the ferry terminal on her way to visit with other friends over the next couple days.
And she wasn't the only person playing Duo - there were at least three others at Otakon (but she was the only one who bothered to bind her breasts for added fidelity). Polina is at the far left:
She got back from Baltimore late Sunday night and slept over at her grandmother's place near St. Marks, and I picked her up from there Monday afternoon to bring her home with all her cosplay gear she had to carry. We hung out and read books together for a couple hours, making plans on Friday to see a show in Williamsburg called Adventure Quest with some of her new Otakon friends. Supposedly "capturing the style and spirit of the Golden Age of home computer gaming, Adventure Quest is both a nostalgic treat and a glimpse into the yawning Void." I expect that Penny and I will chuckle at different things in this play, considering that I was playing computer games that were state of the art almost a decade before she was born.
Afterwards we drove to Lori's place about 10 minutes away on Staten Island and she made us a nice dinner of spicy fried eggplant, pan fried vegetable dumplings, fresh green beans and onions in a curry sauce and rice. Then we watched Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which neither of them had seen yet. We'll try to watch the new Harry Potter movie in the city next Wednesday. Lori's boyfriend Erik came home soon after the movie concluded and we chatted for a while before saying goodnight to them and going back to Penny's house to watch an episode of True Blood on Penny's MacBook.
I called Tara for goodnight around 1 a.m. to tell her I was staying overnight, and we had a decent chat, all things considered. Penny and I stayed up until almost 4 a.m., talking about very personal things that we've not shared before. I am encouraged that we continue to break new ground in our developing relationship, showing that we can trust each other and communicate about things that are sometimes uncomfortable to speak about.
The next morning we made an omlette for breakfast and continued watching True Blood. We got a pizza for lunch and had another good relationship talk in the car as I dropped her off at the ferry terminal on her way to visit with other friends over the next couple days.
