Staycation 2014

I've been battling a sinus infection the last couple of days which has really spoiled my Labor Day weekend. I started to feel it on Friday when Kacey and I visited Papacookie for the last time together. It was three years, four months and five days prior on Easter Sunday in 2011 when we first met there, so it was fitting that my final visit to this seminal space should be in her company.

Jonathan is moving out within the week and he is giving away a lot of the extra stuff that has accumulated over the many decades his family has lived there. As I've said to Jonathan before, I find Papacookie endlessly fascinating because everything is so old and vintage, and very few of my belongings have been in my possession for more than a few years (because of the two fires in 2005 and 2007) and my distance from my birth family. Probably the oldest possession (other than photos in storage) I have is my friend Snoopy on the couch, who just turned 20 this past Valentine's Day. I also have a Raymond Weil wristwatch that is probably about as old as Yoshi (and probably similar in value by now), both about 15 years old.

Earlier in the day, Kacey and I had a late lunch at our hidden Shanghai restaurant in Chinatown for soup dumplings and then went shopping. I found a huge 8.5 liter tea kettle at a restaurant supply store and Kacey showed me her new time lapse video app. After dropping things off at TSMC we met up with Becker at Papacookie and then we went to Battery Park City to see Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

But going back to last weekend, I had a nice visit with Puck in Boston. We visited the Museum of Science, which had a pretty amazing Lighting Show using a giant Van Der Graff generator.



We had an early dinner in the North End at a restaurant called The Daily Catch, which was featured in Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmerman, that serves Sicilian-style seafood caught within the past 24 hours. The menu is entirely written on a chalkboard that is updated daily. And the kitchen is smack-dab in the middle of the restaurant that only holds about 20 people.



I had these enormous cherrystone clams on the half shell, and a Clams Casino, plus a squid-ink pasta with anchovy butter, onions and peppers. Everything was tasty and wonderful, in that rustic homemade way when you're visiting a friend's house for dinner.





After the museum closed, we walked around the riverside park near the St. Charles River while enjoying some pastries we bought at Modern Pastry. As nighttime fell, we went back to the museum to visit the Hayden Planetarium and watch Laser Floyd, a laser show to the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's album "The Dark Side of the Moon."

Sunday we visited the Museum of Fine Arts, and their wonderful collection that included a magnificent J.M.W. Turner called The Slave Ship. There were also gorgeous frescoes by my favorite American impressionist, John Singer Sargent, and a nice collection of modern art as well.












We had dinner at Legal Sea Foods, where Puck had their first Bananas Foster, a classic Creole dessert of bananas flambéd with brown sugar, rum and banana liqueur and served over vanilla ice cream. This was hardly the best version I've had, but the ice cream. at least, was excellent.




Afterward, we went to the Skywalk of the Prudential Tower and took in the views of the city. We came back early and watched The Adjustment Bureau at the Magic Treehouse before turning in.



Monday I came back home and in the evening Lourdes came over for dinner of scallion pancakes and dumplings and to watch Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society - a good choice for her since she's a teacher and has never seen it.

Tuesday I took a trip up to the Bronx to visit Sylwia near her workplace and we had lunch at a Salvadorian cafe nearby. She met up with me later at TSMC and we went to the Open Love NY meeting together. I led a discussion with about 40 attendees about Poly 201 skills, or what I called 3 C's and an H - communication, consent, commitment and honesty. We went to the Theater Row Diner afterward as usual, and I had a nice catch-up with Katie M.

Wednesday Lori and I had an adventure in upstate New York. We packed a picnic and drove through Harriman State Park to find a picnic spot near a lake.

We drove to Woodbury Commons outlet mall and spent a few hours shopping. I found a few nice deals at the Tommy Hilfiger, Banana Republic and Ann Taylor Loft stores. We even bought some macarons (dairy-free for Lori) and drove to nearby Bear Mountain to enjoy them along with the view.

We walked around Perkins Memorial Tower and found a group of juvenile deer along the road, who let us get very close to photograph them.

We also watched a lightning storm roll in over the Bear Mountain Bridge until it got too close for comfort. We were standing on a mountain, after all.

We drove down Bear Mountain and visited Palisades Center, Lori's first visit to this gigantic mall. There's a five-story high rope course that was pretty awe-inspiring, and we did some more shopping before having a late supper as the stores closed. I managed to drop Lori off in Elmhurst and return the Zipcar with less than 10 miles and 30 minutes before my reservation limits.

Thursday I brought a couple of dresses to Nordstrom Rack to be altered and then Natalia came over in the evening to watch Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story. And then Friday was my day with Kacey and Becker. As far as staycations go, it's been a pretty busy one.

Update enroute to Boston

There’s nothing like a four-and-a-half hour train ride to Boston to get the blogging motor going. This is Puck’s last weekend in Beantown before they move on to their next assignment in Philly, so since I said I would visit them this summer, I’m taking the last opportunity to do so this weekend.

It’s been a fairly quiet week and a half since Tori, mostly because I’ve been sick for the first time in a while. I very rarely get sick and when it happens, it usually doesn’t last for long. I’m exceptionally lucky that I have such a strong constitution since I spend a lot on medical bills because of who I am. So last Saturday I reached my nadir and spent the whole day dozing on the couch, with barely enough energy to get up and feed myself and go to the bathroom.

Thankfully I was well enough by Sunday to go to the hair salon, where Kelly did a fairly subtle (for me) auburn red color around my rear hairline. So you can see the red peeking out behind my ears when my hair is down, but when I clip it up it looks like the crown of plumage on a phoenix, a blaze of orangey brownish red.

I went straight from the salon down to the Kraine Theater to meet up with Katie M to see a Fringe Festival play, MMF (a reference to a male-male-female triad in poly terminology). The play was pretty good, well-acted and one of the more realistic portrayals of a poly situation. I wish it had a little more awareness of polyamory, but this was a scenario where people just fall into it without the education and support of a community. From that perspective, “The Three of Us,” the winning play in my playwright competition, was a far superior play because at least one of the characters actually understood what polyamory is and acted with intention. Those are the stories that will be far more interesting than the accidental threesome stories we’ve seen so far in the vast majority of drama.

After the play we had an early dinner at the Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken place and talked through our usual litany of updates and stories. She actually did most of the talking since my voice was still pretty raw.

Monday night I hosted Natalia and Matt for a screening of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,”the latest in our martial arts series Natalia and I have been doing. Tuesday I had a needed night off at home before Wednesday’s Poly Women’s Group at Sabrina’s place in Forest Hills, Queens, where we had several new members join.

Thursday night I was back in the outer boroughs in Crown Heights to have dinner with Piper, Gette and Elisa, who is visiting from Seattle. Piper made grilled chicken thighs with roasted parsnips and apple-onion compote. She also served a raspberry and mint cream semifreddo for dessert. It was the first time I’d seen their new place, and only the second time I’ve visited Crown Heights (Emily used to live there).

Today I worked from home so that I wouldn't take a chance on missing the Boston train because of my always unpredictable work commute, so I had some extra time to pack and get to Penn early. I’m also off all of next week and have many things planned with lots of people, so I’ll report on those next time.

Tori Tori Tori!

Sometimes it's hard being an activist, especially if you don't have a natural temperament for it.

Case in point: On Monday I was in the subway on my way to Poly Cocktails and it was a crowded rush-hour train. I was already running late because of a brush fire in the Meadowlands delayed trains by an hour. As we passed it by, a plume of flame about 30 feet high was burning right beside the track. Crazy.

Anyway, a woman was talking with a group of friends and leaning up against the pole in the subway car and holding onto it with her arm bent behind her back. Even a transplanted New Yorker like me knows this is a big no-no in NYC subway etiquette - it hogs the pole and keeps other people from grasping it comfortably. When one woman had to fully extend her arm above her head to hold the pole, I decided to take out my earbuds and say something.

Me: Excuse me, you might not be aware of this, but by leaning against the pole, you're causing this woman behind you to have to reach way up to hold the pole.

Her: (glances behind at the arm above her head) Oh, I'm holding the pole with my hand here, behind my back.

Me: Yes, but you're leaning against the pole and keeping other people from using it.

Her: Oh. It was more comfortable.

She continued to hold the pole the same way, but put about an inch between her hair and body and the pole, so it didn't make much difference. They got off at the next stop. I can't believe how inconsiderate and self-centered some people can be. But I'm glad that I said something, even though I wasn't the one directly affected.

Tuesday night I met up with Lori for dinner and the Tori Amos concert at the Beacon - it's the first concert I've seen since The Gloaming in June, and my first time back to the Beacon since that awesome Pet Shop Boys concert last year.

I'm not a huge fan of Tori's, but what I realized is that my favorite of her albums (The Beekeeper) is not a favorite among her core fans like Lori. And that's because The Beekeeper is the album I grew up with five or six years ago. I've heard her other albums (American Doll Posse, Scarlet's Walk, From the Choirgirl Hotel, and Under the Pink) and there are some songs that have stuck with me, but taken as a whole, I'm still a fan of The Beekeeper the most. I did buy a vinyl copy of her newest, Unrepentant Geraldines, along with a set of buttons from the merch stand. The women sitting next to us couldn't believe they still made vinyl records - they were amazed to see a real record, and impressed that I (still) owned a turntable!

As for the performance, I greatly admired her artistry as a seasoned performer, and the crowd was over-the-top in love with her. I thought it was kind of distracting, all the hollering over the music. Her music isn't heavy metal - it deserves to be listened to without interruptions. I'm afraid the highlight for me were her covers of George Michael's "Faith" and Chris Issak's "Wicked Game" (mashed up with "Blue Jeans" by Lana Del Ray) that she performed in the "Lizard Lounge" portion of the setlist. Still, I had a nice time with my dear friend, and we're going to try and plan something for the week I'm off work at the end of the month.

Katie's music mix #2

On Sunday I had some one-on-one time with Katie B for the first time in about four months. She got really sick for about three weeks over the summer which kept her from coming to my birthday celebrations, so it was wonderful to see her and catch up on things.

I made her a new mix CD, mostly of songs that I've played for her at my apartment over the past eight months, plus some other things that I've been listening to lately. It's the second mix I've made for her ("Katie's music mix" - Nov. 12, 2013).

Here's the track listing and a few thoughts about each one below.

1. Black is the Colour – Cara Dillon
2. Peel Me A Grape – Diana Krall
3. When Can I See You Again? – Owl City
4. Sleeps With Butterflies – Tori Amos
5. Pass In Time – Beth Orton
6. Dark In My Imagination – of Verona
7. Lightning Song – Anathema
8. This Girl’s in Love With You (live) – Ella Fitzgerald
9. Lovesong for a Vampire – Annie Lennox
10. Kryptonite – 3 Doors Down
11. Song 44 – The Gloaming
12. The Raven That Refused to Sing – Steven Wilson
13. Settling – Tara MacLean
14. The Rose – Amanda McBroom & Lincoln Mayorga
15. A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square – Harry Connick, Jr.
16. The Nearness of You – Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

1. I showed Katie this song from a DVD performance called "The Redcastle Sessions" where Dillon performs in a beautiful space with her band in Ireland. The song was originally made famous by Nina Simone, but where Simone changed the pronouns to male, Dillon performs it with female pronouns.

2. This song is from Krall's splendid "Love Scenes" album, which I have on SACD, a high-resolution audiophile digital format. Katie and I listened to the entire album together the night we saw our first Shotz together and after watching "Treasure of the Sierra Madre," and this is my favorite track. In fact, if you read my Amazon review of the album, it references that night.

3. Other than being from the soundtrack of my favorite Disney movie since Beauty and the Beast, the lyrics pretty much speak for themselves. I did quote this song once upon saying goodnight to her.

4. I played this song in our hotel room at Wicked Faire - it's from one of my all-time favorite albums, "The Beekeeper," and I'm going to see Tori in concert next week with Lori, so I'm excited about that!

5. The ambling waltz "Pass In Time" shares the advice the singer's mom gave on her deathbed. This duet with jazz singer Terry Callier spotlights Orton's cracked and pleading voice, calling Billie Holiday to mind.

6. I actually found this song for free on iTunes, and it's dark and pounding rhythm just made me think of Florence + the Machine's "Heavy In Your Arms" that Katie liked on my last mix.

7. Here's another song from Anathema's "Weather Systems" that showcases Lee Douglas' pure and sincere vocals. I have to say, I don't like their newest album, "Distant Satellites," quite as much.

8. I first found this four-song EP album "Sunshine of Your Love" untold years ago at Half-Price Books in Houston, and I've loved this song ever since. Lady Ella gives a powerful live performance, filled with dynamic emotion and precise jazz notes, backed by a full orchestra.

9. I wrote a bit about this song in a previous post - "Songs of Annie Lennox" - April 15, 2014

10. When we were at Wicked Faire waiting for Voltaire to perform, this song came on the PA and everyone in the room started singing along. It was one of those cool moments, like what happens at a rock concert, when everybody is in sync.

11. Sung in Gaelic, this is the first track from The Gloaming's self-titled CD that I saw performed in concert earlier this year. The song is so named because the lyrics come from a 500-year-old poem that was titled Number 44. Here's a Livestream of the concert (I'm in the front row on the right, wearing a polka-dot top) and it's the second song on the concert, at 23:19 timecode.

12. The story of this song is based on a fairy tale about a man asking a raven to bring his dead sister back to life. This is also one of the best-sounding DVD-Audio surround recordings I've ever heard, and Wilson is one of the industry's leading engineers in multi-channel sound.

13. This is an old song that Tara introduced me to on one of her old mixes, and I just thought it felt appropriate here.

14. Sung by the original songwriter McBroom and made famous by Bette Midler on the soundtrack of the movie of the same name, "The Rose" is from McBroom's album "Growing Up in Hollywood Town," one of my Sheffield Lab audiophile CDs that I played for Katie once.

15. This album, "We Are in Love," has been one of my sonic references since I used to sell stereos at Circuit City. The recording is so clean and lifelike; through a good system it sounds incredibly realistic. The song itself is an old one, and one that I fell in love with when it was used in an obscure 1986 movie called "Every Time We Say Goodbye," starring a very young Tom Hanks.

16. I wrote about this song in another recent post - "Songs and stories" - March 26, 2014

Coney Island

I've been meaning to visit Coney Island for years for basically two reasons. 

Reason #1 was to pay homage to the original Nathan's hot dog stand on the corner of Surf and Stillwell, the subject of numerous hot dog shows and my personal favorite brand in the grocery store for many years. I used to make them in a skillet with Wolf brand no-beans chili (seemingly only available in the South - I have to order it by the case from Amazon if I want it now), shredded cheddar and diced white onions.

Reason #2 was being inspired by Kacey's Coney Island Playwright Competition that she raised money for a few years ago. I think I pledged about $100 at one of the fundraising events at Papacookie. She made it sound like such a magical place, full of mystery and adventure. Since it's a direct subway ride from TSMC, there's really no excuse for it to have taken this long to visit.

So when my friends Chris and Bruce came in this past weekend from Harrisburg for a visit to celebrate my birthday and Bruce said he wanted to sample the most authentic New York style pizza, I saw a chance to cross a few things off my bucket list. Puck was also in town, so the four of us went out Sunday to visit the fabled playground on the shore.

I was surprised how close everything is to the train station - the famous original Nathan's is only one block from the station. In retrospect, we probably could have skipped breakfast before the 50 minute subway ride out there, because we didn't have much appetite for more than one dog apiece. But oh! was that a delicious hot dog! I also got some fried clams and Chris and Bruce ordered fries. But it's great that we got to eat them outside on a beautiful summer day, which also happened to be a day with small crowds (since it had only been a week since the insanity of July 4th).

After our first lunch, we took a walk down the boardwalk, and Chris and Puck indulged their craving for funnel cake.

We turned around and walked the other direction to the parachute tower and walked out to the very end of the fishing pier, where I took some pictures of the shore. Kacey's dad saw them on Facebook and stitched two of the shots together to form this beautiful panorama that is now my desktop background at work and cover photo on Facebook. I like it better than any of the postcards I saw for sale, but then why wouldn't I?

We stopped in the Coney Island Museum and were pleasantly surprised by the experience. We were the only visitors for most of the time we were there, and there was a guide named Jay who told us lots of stories about the history of the area and the ride and attractions that were on exhibit. It was especially interesting to me because I have been reading "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen, which takes place in a Depression-era train circus, and I just finished the book today. It was a really worthwhile visit and once again, I marveled at how uncrowded it was that day. Truly, I might make this an annual thing on my birthday weekend.

After the museum we went to fulfill Bruce's desire for authentic New York style pizza by visiting Totonno, the oldest continuously operating pizza parlor in New York, for our second lunch. It was actually very reasonably priced, with a large pizza being only $18 and we got half cheese, half pepperoni. It didn't quite have the same impact for me as Frank Pepe's that Puck and I visited last year in New Haven ("9th birthday" - July 16, 2013) but it was a good pizza. Plus the walls of Totonno are lined with all sorts of interesting news articles and memorabilia, so it was a nice atmosphere as well.

On the way back to the train station we stopped at an Asian bakery for some dessert cakes and bubble tea, which hit the spot and once again, we were the only patrons in the dining room, which was nice. All my needless fretting about Coney Island crowds was for naught. So this is the secret to visiting Coney Island - go right after the big holiday weekend.

Here's a picture of the handstamp from the museum - it's a hot dog mermaid - just to remember this beautiful day of food, fair weather and friends.

July 4th and High Line anniversary

I had a really memorable Fourth of July weekend, although I really didn't do too much. Puck came through the city on Wednesday night and stayed over, which was a rare treat. Thursday night I didn't get an early dismissal, but I had plenty of work to keep me busy.

Friday I made one of my bourbon bread puddings for a party in Bushwick that Liz invited me and Victoria to, a gathering of former theater friends and professional chefs. Their apartment was on the fourth floor of a building that seemed to lean a little to the left, but needless to say, the food was amazing - homemade pastrami carved off the bone; pulled pork, mango and cilantro tacos; grits with bacon and cheese; corn on the cob with a cheese and mayonnaise spread; raw oysters; and barbecued lamb ribs with yogurt sauce and mint. Plus, Liz made a mixed berry pie to go with my bread pudding for dessert.

The roof was set up with lights and a sound system, along with the barbecue pit and a beer keg. I had what they called an orange crush - fresh squeezed orange juice, orange flavored vodka and Sprite. The three of us kept diluting our drinks with Sprite since they were made with so much vodka - I pretty much drank one and half of them all night (Victoria didn't want to finish hers so I helped her out).

The apartment is about two or three blocks away from Kacey's old place where Lourdes still lives, across the street from this very pretty building off the J line at the Kosciuszko Street stop.

Our hosts shot off a lot of fireworks, and we could see many other going off all around us from other Brooklyn rooftops. We were too far from the Macy's fireworks show on the East River to see much of it over the buildings, but it was fun to see our own up close. Sometimes the wind was so strong it would blow over the cardboard tube launcher after the fuse was lit, so we had a couple go off on the roof, which was a little more excitement than we bargained for.

Saturday I spent most of the day shopping for dresses for my party this weekend. I was very fortunate to find a nice one at The Rack that will probably be the one I'll wear. It's a Adrianna Papell white wrap dress with a Tiffany-inspired stained glass floral pattern. On Sunday I cleaned the apartment in preparation for Chris and Bruce's visit, and then in the evening I joined Liz and Andrea for dinner and to see Andrea's roommate perform in a one-woman play, "The Other Mozart" about the life of Mozart's older sister.

Monday night I met Kacey up on the High Line to celebrate the three-year anniversary of our first meeting there, which was for me the start of our friendship after our meeting on Easter Sunday in 2011. We've never celebrated this anniversary before, but I had a mind to do it because as the years have gone by, I've come to realize what a milestone this event was in my life.

Meeting Kacey was really the start of creating the intentional family I have around me. Along with Puck and combined with meeting and becoming friends with Piper in February that same year at Wicked Faire, they have become my closest friends, and in the process, led me to meet other people who have also become part of my inner circle and many others who touch my life in all sorts of wonderful ways.

So Kacey and I had a nice long visit of about three-and-a-half hours, walking back and forth from 14th Street to the northern terminus at 33rd Street, talking about our history and the events of the past year. She shared her stories about her trip to Prague and Vienna. We talked quite a bit about our past relationships and created an intimate space by kicking off our shoes and facing each other on a bench in the middle of the trees surrounding the flyover bridge. Sometimes when the circumstances warrant, we can be very intense with each other. Other times it's more relaxed. But we continue to find new things about our friendship that makes it unique and nourishing in our lives.

Winter's Tale

I just finished reading Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale for the second time. It's one of those magical books, like Charles de Lint's The Little Country or Keith Donohue's The Stolen Child, that represent the kind of fanciful work that form the cornerstones of my new life. They are examples of beauty and wonder that Tara's influence instilled in me and continues to guide my path.

So it is with some trepidation that I consider the home video release of the movie version of this much-beloved work, starring Colin Firth and Downton Abbey's Jessica Brown Findlay, along with A Beautiful Mind alums Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly. I missed this movie in theaters last year, partly because I wanted to finish re-reading the book first, and I'm glad I did. This is one of the densest, most evocative books I've ever read, and challenges even my prodigious vocabulary to the limit. So the second reading was much more enjoyable than the first time I slogged through it several years ago.

The movie has gotten really awful reviews from critics, and many negative reviews from viewers as well. Liz told me that the word is that the movie ran out of budget and had to be wrapped up hastily, which might account for plotlines being dropped. For a time, I had despaired that I should even try to watch the movie at all, since I would rather not witness this magical story sullied by a poorly executed adaptation.

However, I've been reading the Amazon product page for the Blu Ray of the movie, and the reviews are surprisingly skewed to the positive, with 57 five-star and 21 four-star reviews to just 16 one-star and 5 two-star reviews. And reading some of the positive reviews, I wonder if this is one of those movies that simply got trampled by a mob mentality of negativity.

For example:

I'm not sure why this movie did so poorly in theaters -- bad release timing? critics who came in expecting one thing and got another? -- but it's far more enjoyable than Rotten Tomatoes might lead one to believe. It was hyped as a romance, which it is, but it's more about the power of love in general across generations and how we don't always get the miracles we want, but we sometimes get miracles nonetheless. The performances are moving and the visuals are beautiful. - Michelle Erica Green


Keep in mind, this film is predominantly about Love. Capital L. Love in the highest sense of the word.
Not only the romance that occurs between the two leading characters.
There's more than meets the eye if you look closer. Nothing is without meaning.

Some films may be read like poetry - the smallest nuance being as vital to the whole
as what's blazing on the surface. This one has "layers" of stories within the story.
Some are obvious: the slips and bends of time, the impact of historic places, crossed destinies,
good versus evil, mystery over certainty, the universal longing for love in a world where death
should not triumph. Other aspects are far more secretive and delicate, better left to
individual interpretation.

A person biased against poetry will miss the treasure of the most exquisite poem.
The fault-finding critic will relentlessly find something to pick apart, be it in movie or book.
The particular audience this movie appeals to, the open-hearted viewer, will find
the light and beauty within ~ no matter what anyone else says or doesn't say. 

A touching, deeply memorable film. - Harmony C. Adkins

In a comment to her original review, Ms. Adkins also writes:

Like any movie, it's not for everyone. Even director Akiva Goldsman, in an interview with Vanity Fair, said 17-year-olds would leave the cinema saying "What was that?" Basically, the more you've lived, the more people you've loved & lost, the more thoughtful your perspective, the deeper your emotional experience of life, the more likely you are to find something meaningful in it. 

So given all this, I've reconsidered avoiding the movie and I'm going to give it a try. I'll invite friends to see it with me because I know I have some friends who feel the same way about such works. I have no illusions that it will be a perfect movie, but given all the negative reviews, I just want to approach it with an open mind and an open heart. I have no expectations, but my hope is that I become one of those five-star reviewers who falls under its spell and becomes so captivated by the movie that they feel the need to contradict its many naysayers.

Mischa's Eggplant Saute Recipe

It's been a very nice weekend overall, even though I didn't do much to plan for it. First of all, since so many people have asked me for it, here's my recipe for my Eggplant Saute dip that I made today:

3-4 ribs celery, diced
2 carrots, diced
1/2 large onion, thinly sliced
1 cup cauliflower, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
2 medium eggplants, thickly diced
2 bell peppers, thickly diced (about the size of a quarter)
1/2 cup olive oil
1 lime, juiced
6 oz can tomato paste
3 tablespoons red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1 tablespoon dried oregano
Salt & pepper

1. In a large cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven, heat several tablespoons of olive oil over medium high heat and add vegetables one at a time to keep heat fairly constant. Start with celery and carrots, then peppers and onions, then garlic and cauliflower. Add salt and pepper as you go along to taste. As vegetables reduce, push them to the sides of the skillet and add more oil in the middle before adding eggplant. Add additional oil on top as eggplant cooks.

2. Stir in remaining spices, lime juice and tomato paste and continue to cook until everything is soft and well-blended. Serve on bread, top with Za'atar if available.


Friday night I went straight from Penn Station to the Greene Space to see Irish-American supergroup The Gloaming in concert. It was livecast online and it will be edited for broadcast on New Sounds on WNYC at a future date. But you can see me in the front row in the video, just right of center screen wearing a polka-dot top. It was a terrific concert, and probably the most intimate and hassle-free concert I've ever been to.

Kacey had invited me to a play on Friday night but I couldn't go because of the concert, but we made plans to see a different play on Sunday night. Saturday I went to the movies to use my free guest pass and saw Edge of Tomorrow and Godzilla, and part of The Fault of Our Stars. In the late afternoon Katie M texted me and we tried the Hedwig show lottery together, with no luck. So we went to Schnipper's for dinner and came back to TSMC to watch Shopgirl, a modern romance I've been meaning to show her, since she liked the Before Sunrise trilogy so much. As always we had a wonderfully intimate talk about love and relationships, friendships and subway etiquette.

Sunday I didn't do anything except cook and nap until it was time to meet up with Kacey and Becker for the play, titled "The Feminism of a Soft Merlot (or How the Donkey Got Punched)." I have to say it was the worst play we've ever seen together, and possibly the worst play I've seen in New York, which is surprising considering the talent involved (Diana Oh played one of the leads). The acting was good, but the story was uninteresting and borderline offensive in how it portrayed possessive and territorial monogamous behavior and the lack of agency in its female characters.

However, the evening was not a total waste because we got to hang out together on a walk back to their place, stopping at Trader Joe's and I got to test out a convention for group hugs with them when we said goodnight in front of the IFC Theater: 1) Stand in a circle. 2) Put your left arm up, turn your head to the right. 3) Step forward and embrace to share the love.

Ear candy

I just received a pair of HiFiMan HE-300 home headphones in the mail today, my third major headphone purchase in the last three years. Now I have a Ferrari red leather Phiaton MS-400 set, hooked up to a NuForce uDAC-3 headphone amp for the office, my Bose QC-15 noise cancelling ‘phones for the train, and this set for home. Plus a pair of Altec earbuds for all points in between.

Right out of the box, the HiFi Mans sounded flat and congested, which is the opposite of what a pair of open-backed cans should sound like. Open-backed means that instead of cups that hold all the sound in, these drivers are not sealed around the ear. Sound leaks out, and the effect is similar to speakers in a room where you can hear natural sound in an open environment – the opposite of earbuds. The manual says they need 150 hours of break-in (6 days) so I’m driving them with my Yamaha receiver tuned to the Peter Gabriel station on Pandora. I’m sure they will sound much better after a few days of break-in.

I’ve had headphones since I was little, but I don’t think I’ve ever had three sets of full-size headphones before. It’s mainly a function of circumstances: I work in an open office environment and my primary job is writing, so I need the office set to tune the noise out. I commute by train rather than by car, so the noise-cancelling is a welcome feature. Why don’t I use the Bose in the office? Well, frankly, the Phiatons sound a lot better, especially driven by the NuForce from my laptop. I listen to live concert DVDs all day to help me block out distractions ("Rockin' at work" - Nov. 18, 2011).

The home headphones came from the realization that I can’t get Amazon to stream music over AirPlay to my home receiver. So all the music I can now access with Prime Music I can only play on my mediocre Altec Lansing computer speakers, or via headphones. Since I don’t want to cart my Phiatons back and forth from the office, a set for home made the most sense.

I’m going to date myself a bit here, but I still remember the first set of headphones I fell in love with. I was shopping at a store called Cactus Records and Tapes, a chain of music stores in Houston that now only has one location left, on South Shepherd at Richmond. I used to ride my bicycle to the store to buy records and one day they had a curious box sitting on the counter with a pair of headphones hooked up to it. It was a vertically loading CD player, one of the first ever sold in the US. This was back when there was only one tiny bin of classical music CDs – packaged in cardboard longboxes so they would fit into record bins – in a whole store of records and tapes.

Curiosity piqued, I put on the Koss PRO-4X headphones and pushed play. From a velvety black silence, the London Symphony Orchestra exploded with the first bars of John Williams’ overture to Star Wars. There could be arguably no better introduction to digital music for a young person raised on the acoustic limitations and surface noise of records and tapes. I remember hearing the triangle roll very prominently – I wager if I were to hear the same setup and early digital recording today, it would sound horrible – but that was impressive to my young, untrained ears. I was hooked.

I later convinced my dad, a classical music fan, to buy a Technics CD player for the home stereo – we were one of the first people in our circle of friends to have one. And of course I had to have those Koss headphones as well, with piezo-electric tweeters capable of reproducing from 10 Hz to 40 kHz, far beyond the range of human hearing. This was back in the day when such lofty claims were difficult to enforce.

I used the Koss phones until the earpads literally fell off – they weren’t that well-made. I’ve always coveted a pair of Sennheisers, but they were always a little outside of what I wanted to spend at the time. When I was really young, I even played around with a crude wireless headset that used a loop antenna to broadcast an audio signal - meaning I ran hundreds of feet of cable around my house so I could listen to music anywhere within that loop. My brother had a pair of classic AKG 240s that I liked, but I mostly made do with smaller portable headphones in the age of the Walkman, the mp3 player (I bought my first unbranded one in Hong Kong on a family trip) and finally the iPod. I had a string of JVC and Sony headphones (some of which got passed down to Puck to be used up and destroyed) before I finally spent some bucks for the Bose headphones.

The most interesting pair of headphones was in my last full-blown home theater in Houston, a wireless set of off-ear Sonys that used an infrared transmitter decoding a Dolby Digital signal and simulating it using a multi-driver open-air earphone. I had two headsets so two people could watch and listen to movies in surround sound in almost complete silence, yet still hear any interruptions. I also found that one overseas and I can't find anything like it today. I think today's headphone junkies prefer to block out external sounds with fully enclosed earcups.

Although I disdain Bose as a brand (the joke when I used to sell stereos was “No highs, no lows, must be a Bose”) their noise cancellation circuitry in their headphones is impressive. I’ve invited many of my co-workers to try them on, just to see the wide-eyed reaction when they realize how quiet it can be if you eliminate noise, as if you were in a recording studio. And while the fidelity is adequate for casual iPod listening, the actual musical performance is just mediocre. The best feature is that the music comes from that inky black silence afforded by the noise-cancelling, just like my first experience with the compact disc many years ago.

Tony Awards 2014

Friday night I finally got to meet up with my dear friend Agnieszka and meet her boyfriend Mike at their new home in Cranbury. It's a gorgeous historical house with three bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths, but they plan to renovate it into a four bedroom, two-and-a-half bath someday. They've only been in the house for three weeks so it's still a work in progress, but it's already a lovely space with much of Agnieszka's collection of vintage bric-a-brac on display. Even the modern gas range is modeled after an old-fashioned coal-burning unit.

Since I was so late getting back to the city, I stopped by the MMMM and saw Kiwi for a bit before making my way home.

Saturday Liz and I met up for dinner at The Counter to have some made-to-order hamburgers and catch up - it's been nearly a month since she and Josh came over for Her at TSMC. Then we walked down to Urban Stages Theater and saw The Tragedy of Dandelion, my second time to sit through this marvelous three-hour play. We chatted with Joan and Bruce, and with Kacey and Azizi after the show. Liz also knows the playwright, Duncan, whom I met briefly at the PIT once.

Afterwards, Liz and I walked up to TSMC to meet Josh, stopping at a few souvenir shops so Liz could buy some prizes for her Tony Awards viewing party on Sunday. The three of us met up at the apartment and chatted for a while until it was time for them to get home.

Sunday I had a whirlwind day of three events in a row. First was Lori's singing recital on East 87th Street, then I went home directly after to make peanut sesame noodles for Liz's party. I packed up the noodles and went out to Williamsburg for Classic Album Sundays, which was playing The Cure's bestselling album, "Disintegration."

Then I zoomed all the way back up to East 88th Street for the Tony Awards party and got there right in the middle of Hugh Jackman's opening number. Guapo was suitably dressed for the occasion:

Even though I was in a room full of theater nerds, I managed to pick 10 correct winners, second behind the other Michelle (17) and Liz (15), winning me a souvenir shot glass for a prize. Liz also made a tasty shepherd's pie, and there were Oreo cheesecake cupcakes and an assortment of cookies from Smackery's (the bacon maple cookies were my favorite!).

Monday night Piper came over and we had dinner at the Playwright Tavern on 45th and 7th Ave and watched The Blues Brothers at TSMC. She also brought me some household things she was giving away on Facebook, and we also had a nice catchup (it's been about six weeks since our last visit, although we chat online often).

Tonight is my recovery night before Katie B's event on Thursday and meeting up with Angel and Lillian on Friday. I thought I was getting sick yesterday, but it seems to have gone away now, although my allergies are still troublesome. Judging from the noises in the office, I'm not the only one who's suffering though.

Finding courage

Last Tuesday night’s Open Love NY meeting was our best-attended ever, with about 65 people give or take, most of them fans of our speaker. She’s a blogger and contributor to Psychology Today, and she presented a lot of data and research about different relationship styles and the differences between sexes and orientations.

When I opened the meeting on Tuesday, I rattled off the usual privacy and safe space rules, and then I went off-script and rambled a bit on my thoughts about the Memorial Day shooting in UCSB, and how it relates to my passion for the national polyamory movement. I didn't have anything prepared, just an idea that probably came out of my mouth a lot better than it sounded in my head because when I finished I got a nice ovation from the audience. So I resolved to put the ideas down and this post on my public blog is the result. It’s gotten positive reviews on Facebook and it’s slowly spreading its way around the Internet.

Thursday Natalia and I finished up Season Four of Downton Abbey, and it was a marvelous ending, especially compared to the ending of Season Three. We had dinner at Larb Ubol, a Thai restaurant in Hell’s Kitchen, and we ordered a grilled tilapia, which is the first time in years for both of us to eat a whole fish.

Friday night I went with a group of friends to see Cabaret, which Puck has been raving about since they saw it. My friend Beth had four table tickets, so I got Lori and Andrea to buy in to see the show. We met up at a Vietnamese place called Cha Pa's Noodles and Grill around the corner from the theater for a bite, and then rushed over when it started to drizzle. The show was amazing and entertaining (Lori sang “Maybe This Time” from the show, and Cole Porter’s “So In Love” at her last recital I attended), although I felt Michelle Williams was a bit of a weak spot in the cast. Alan Cumming, who played Nightcrawler in X2: X-Men United and was the pansexual emcee of the show, was terrific, as advertised.

However, the night was not lacking in star power because after the show Andrea spotted fellow X-Man star Hugh Jackman sitting at the table way in front of us near the stage and getting a stage tour as we all looked on. The night was also not lacking in drama from the audience, because during the quiet breakup scene a HUGE row erupted from the mezzanine as a couple got into a loud, nasty fight and literally screamed at each other all the way out the door without any regard for the performance going on. Andrea looked at me and whispered, “Is this part of the show?” and I shook my head. We all gave kudos to the actors for staying focused and in the scene while this kerfuffle was happening.

Saturday I had my picnic in the park with Illona. We had near-perfect weather and we had a long, relaxed conversation about friends, communities, religion and relationships. We discovered a fancy grocery store going from the park to the subway so I picked up a few things. This is a really good walk to do any evening when the weather is nice. There's even some art sculptures along the way, but they have a tendency to get moved around.

Saturday night Puck came to visit from Boston. I was working at my desk with my earphones on (because of all the sirens outside) when they came in, so they completely startled me and I let out a scream like I’ve never done before! And that is why I don’t watch horror movies. We continued our reading of "Matilda" before bed, and the next morning we went to Ess-a-Bagel for brunch. We came home and watched The Grandmaster before heading up to City Center to meet their family, who was taking them to a performance that afternoon before they head back to Boston. I took a leisurely stroll around Midtown before ending up back home for the rest of the evening.

Monday night was Shotz, but none of the usual crowd could make it. I had to work late, so I’m fortunate not to have made plans for the early show. I went straight from the train station to the theater for the 8:30 pm show – the theme was “It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s SHOTZ!” The conditions were 1) Something is in peril; 2) Someone has a secret identity; and 3) The line “Kapow” must be used.

My favorite for kitsch was the first one, about a pacifist superhero named Azure Mist being betrayed by the police commissioner who wants a more aggressive approach to crime. For laughs, the second play was the funniest, about two zebras, one gay, one lesbian, being asked to breed by their ingratiating zookeeper, who gets his comeuppance from a pair of undercover PETA activists.

The fourth play was an audience participation piece where people were asked to come up and “do something brave” with a cast member. The first pair did a shot of liquor, the second pair exchanged shirts (interestingly, they were both wearing black lace bras), the third pair exchanged a passionate kiss (two women, btw) and the fourth audience member got her face painted green.

The point was that we can all have courage in our daily lives (they all put on crusader masks at the end) and it wasn't lost on me since I feel like such a coward now for not raising my hand. I need to be better at letting art inspire me and not being just an observer all the time.

Love is the ultimate renewable resource

There are many courses of action that have been proposed in the wake of the California shootings and most of them have merit. Gun control, anti-misogyny measures, better mental health care, setting good examples for our sons, men speaking out to support women – the list goes on.

However, in the words of Albert Einstein, “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” By the same token, if patriarchal attitudes are the root of the problem, we can’t expect a patriarchal society to solve it.

Many people see the core issue of Elliot Rodgers’ manifesto, and the reason he decided to act as he did, as being male entitlement to women’s bodies or attentions, which is just one of the more extreme attitudes that can arise with male privilege in our patriarchal society. And therein lies the root of the problem with trying to change prevailing attitudes – we live in a society where men hold the power. And no, not all men are actively subordinating women, but consciously and unconsciously enough do that makes any direct change glacially slow, if not impossible.

To me, however, there is another fundamental issue this tragedy highlights: the idea that love between individuals is a commodity, like gold or pork bellies; something to be gained, held and jealously protected from others who seek to “steal” it from us. That is the basic premise of traditional monogamy – that all our romantic and sexual love must reside within our relationship with one and only one other person. To share that love outside the relationship by definition invalidates it, and all other romantic attachments are viewed as either leading to monogamy or viewed as suspect, if not forbidden entirely. This is the model that most of us grew up with and it works fine for a lot of people. But newer generations of people are starting to see the concept of love as a lifelong, exclusive commitment to one other person for what it is – a choice instead of the rule.

We live in an increasingly resource-constrained world, and in fact, my day job is helping to promote renewable energy, something that I’m paid for and proud to do. I view love as the ultimate renewable resource, as abundant as the sun that powers millions of my company’s solar panels each day. We as human beings are capable of loving more than one person, just the way we can love more than one parent, child or friend. It is only our society that tells us that falling in love with someone means we must not love, nor be able to love, another.

So what if we approached our relationships with the attitude that love is not a scarce commodity, but rather an abundant renewable resource? What if, like ancient Persian and Sanskrit, we had 80 different words to describe the different qualities and valences of communal and erotic feeling, instead of just the single four-letter word available to us now? What if we had titles for people who make up our intentional family besides husband, wife and spouse?

I've spent the last six years of my life figuring out the different dimensions of this idea, and the last four actively crusading for awareness of polyamory and open relationship styles. I truly believe that if we can foster more ways to love each other, this world will be a better place for everybody.

Do I think polyamory is the answer to preventing shooting rampages? Certainly not in the short term. In fact, it may cause women more problems by making the “I have a boyfriend” excuse for deflecting attention a little less effective. But as many people have said, the whole reason that excuse is effective – that men respect each other’s “territory” more than they respect a woman’s own agency to decide for herself – is itself objectionable and a symptom of the greater problem.

My advocacy for polyamory is playing the long game, imagining how the world might be different generations from now. Also, I’m thinking about how we can change things by subverting, rather than directly challenging the patriarchy. Relationship choice is something that every individual has total control over without the need to pass laws or change how others behave outside of their direct interactions with you. You can decide for yourself if you want to change your own concept of love from one of scarcity to one of abundance.

Polyamorous relationships are subversive to the status quo because they force you to examine your own feelings and the motivations behind your behavior toward your partner. They also require constant, honest communication and are based on continually obtaining consent from all parties. So instead of relationships being goal-oriented, poly relationships continuously grow and evolve over time, possibly including a legal marriage, but also possibly including new partners and negotiating relationships that are custom-tailored to each individual situation. In short, polyamory shifts responsibility for personal happiness and fulfillment away from the relationship itself and puts it on each individual, giving everyone their own agency to create whatever relationships they desire.

There’s a reason why many of the leaders in the modern polyamory movement are women. While the idea of polygamy (one man, many women) has been around for a long time and is still practiced in some cultures, the idea of polyandry (one woman, many men) is much less prevalent. So the idea of polyamory (any number of partners of any gender) is the ultimate expression of sexual equality, completing the sexual revolution that started with the advent of birth control by giving women more control over how to satisfy their romantic and sexual desires in an ethical way.

That’s also why it’s easier to sell an idea like polyamory on an individual level – people who struggle with monogamy find the idea appealing, and the divorce rate in this country suggests that it’s a large population. It’s something that’s actionable today, as opposed to, say, changing how you raise your sons or fighting misogyny in general. That’s not to say those things aren’t necessary or important – we need people fighting on all fronts, for short and long term goals, to fully address this problem.

As I often say at the beginning of meetings for Open Love NY, the group I helped to establish in 2009, we are not looking to “turn the world poly,” just as the gay rights movement isn’t trying to turn the world gay (despite what opponents might say). But simply by making open relationships a visible and viable option for everyone, we’re striking a blow against the idea that anyone can “own” another person, or that anyone can “expect” love from another person, whether they are in a relationship or not.

Today, we are still working on making it safe for same-sex couples to love one another, but at least we can see that day approaching. The next step in our society’s diversity evolution is to make it safe for all forms of love between consenting adults. Anyone new to the idea of polyamory will probably question how successful it can be for the general population, and they would be right to do so.

Poly isn’t easy. It takes a lot of work, but at least there is the promise of a more honest and joyful life as an incentive for people to learn about it. And ultimately, I believe that positivity will be a more effective catalyst for change than browbeating and shaming people. If we create more ways for people to find and experience love, then we will be one step closer to a world where we will never again have to witness senseless acts of violence fueled by hatred and disrespect.

Graduation days

It doesn't feel much like it, but I'm at the end of a six-day vacation weekend tonight - I took the last three days of last week off to attend the graduations of Natalia and Puck.

Tuesday night I brought a birthday cake to Katie M's apartment for our women's group meeting - it's the first time I've been there, and it will be the last since she's moving out of there this week. We had a nice group turnout, including two new members. I actually had a full 27 candles on her tiny cake, plus two more for the big 2 and 7 candles - it took about four tries for her to blow them all out.

Wednesday I worked a little in the morning, getting people used to the idea that I wasn't actually working (I don't take many vacation days, so there's an adjustment period) and then headed up to the Beacon Theater with a bouquet of flowers for Natalia's graduation from Columbia University's School of Social Work, where she received her MSW degree.

Afterwards, Kat, Natalia, Melissa, Matt and I went to have an early dinner at Sarabeth's West, a lovely little seafood place near Papacookie on the Upper West Side. I had the prix fixe lobster special, which was a spicy spaghetti served with shrimp and lobster, a Caesar salad and a chocolate tart for dessert.

Thursday I took the train out to Nearing and worked for about an hour before driving Yoshi out to Stony Brook University for possibly the last time (unless Puck wants to take me to a homecoming, but somehow I doubt that will happen). We had lunch at a charming cafe in Port Jefferson, then went back to Cat Mansion to pack some boxes for Puck's move to Boston, where they will be spending the summer at an internship.

In the evening Puck dressed in the cap and gown of a college graduate, adding Phi Beta Kappa cords to signify their membership in that august honor society, and a plastic Dalek adorning their mortarboard for the honors convocation. They received their gold academic stole to signify their summa cum laude status for highest academic honors.

After the ceremony we went to Carrabba's for a late dinner, where we enjoyed the traditional Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream they fly in from Texas every day on a hot apple tart and also with candied pecans.

The next morning we woke up early to attend the Linguistics ceremony with Puck's parents, grandmother, sister Ella and niece Maya. After that, we went to the football stadium for the full graduating class of over 5,000 students. As I sat in the stands, I recalled the exciting finish of one of the first SBU football games I attended versus Brown University ("SBU football, Thriller and Rosh Hashanah" - September 22, 2009). Luckily, the rain held off until after the ceremonies were done, but then it came down like cats and dogs!

We ended up going to a seafood joint called The Steam Room for lunch, a casual place with a view of Long Island Sound at the ferry terminal. I rode that ferry when I visited for Humans vs. Zombies on SBU campus back in 2010 ("HvZ at SBU" - October 18, 2010), one of our more memorable college visits that are now a thing of the past. 

I left after lunch to make my way back to Princeton to drop off Yoshi and take the train home, but since it was early rush hour on a holiday Friday, it took five hours to get there, and then I had to walk a half-hour from Nearing to the train station, so I didn't actually get home until after 11 pm. That was a really long day, but it was nice to be a part of Puck's important rite of passage in a place that has been the scene for a lot of our ups and downs, including our transition into frubbles ("Fourth anniversary" - October 7, 2012).

Saturday I spent the whole day recovering from all the traveling, then met up with Beth to see Kacey and Joan's play, "The Tragedy of Dandelion" that included an talkback afterward. I didn't realize I had met the playwright, Duncan, at the PIT once - he's a good friend of Liz's. Joan's husband Bruce was there doing tech and lighting, and Chelsea showed up too, so we sat together in the front row, and my OLNY competition director/friend Melissa appeared late and sat next to Beth. Revay, a musician I met at the Whimsy party, opened the play, which was very good - the first half was excellent, while the second half was a little less so. But it was a very accomplished play and enjoyable overall, and in fact I'm going to try and see it again with other people before it closes on June 8.

Sunday was Katie M's birthday brunch where I got to meet many of her friends whom she talks about but I've never met - Jasmine, Kiersten, Gabe, and her new roommate Amy. We had brunch at Gracie's Corner and then we went up to the rooftop of Katie's old apartment building, Post Toscano, which boasts sweeping views of Queens and the Upper East Side.

Sunday evening I met up with my friend Angel to attend a queer women's "Meet Your First Kiss" party at the Delancey. We had dinner at Yunnan Kitchen around the corner from the bar, and one of Angel's friends Ronni joined us late. We met up with two more friends, Monica and Elisha at the party. Even though it was great catching up with Angel and her friends are nice, this was so not my thing so I didn't stay very long. It was fun watching Angel make out on camera with a woman she met on the dance floor at the party. There was also a kissing contest and a kissing booth ($3 a kiss) which obviously I didn't partake in.

Anyhoo, I had another quiet day today of laundry and cleaning before going out in the late afternoon to Battery Park City to meet up with Kacey and Becker for dinner at Shake Shack and to watch the next X-Men movie. I was a little disappointed in the movie, but it was lovely to see my friends and stroll outside in the park (I saw Kacey briefly at the Saturday night play, but she was working of course). 

You know what's interesting about this week? I think I've met more people and added more Facebook friends than I can ever remember before in a six-day period. Sometimes I should stretch myself, but I'll always snap back to my introverted form eventually.

The most beautiful thing in the world

I had a beautiful 24 hours with Puck, the closest to a perfect day I've had in several years. Our friends Diana and Ed were celebrating their life commitment Saturday night so I volunteered to make some canapes. Puck was coming into the city with Adele to see Cabaret, starring Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams. Puck and I were also preparing for Sunday’s day-long date they gifted me as a New Year’s present.

Saturday I went down to Chinatown to buy ingredients for Diana's event and Sunday’s dinner. I had decided to make Lincoln Logs for the party, a recipe I’d created for my Oscar Party 2013 (a pun on Spielberg’s Best Picture nominated presidential biopic), which are Chinese sausages and green onions on toothpicks, dipped in hoisin sauce, a plum-based savory Chinese sauce.

Diana and Ed’s party was at the Gemini & Scorpio loft in Brooklyn, a large room with a stage, an outdoor rooftop patio and a playpen about the size of two queen-size beds for cuddling. The program started with some ecstatic dance and then the couple was brought to the center of the room in a tantric position and many of us took turns saying blessings over them and sprinkling them with rose petals. Puck had the honor of the first words; I delivered the penultimate blessing. Mine went something like this:

"Ed and Diana, you both inspire all of us, and your love is an inspiration to the world. And whether you are a scientist, a mystic, or a poet, love is the most important and beautiful thing in the world. Thank you for sharing your love with this community."

There were about 100 people at the celebration, and I really admire what Diana and Ed have done with their community of polys, burners, kinksters, queers, artists, activists and many other groups. Their family and community is so much larger than mine, but I'm happy to be a part of it. I build my community on a much smaller scale, but then I haven't been at it for very long.

After all the blessings there was a series of performance art with storytelling, rapping, singing and poetry reading (including Puck’s performance of their love poem, “They Set Fires”). After that it was DJs and dancing until 4 am, but we left shortly after the performances since we had a big day planned for Sunday.

Sunday we woke up and headed down Broadway to try our luck at the ticket lotteries. We had a plan to try for three different lotteries back to back to back - Kinky Boots, Matilda and If/Then - but we ended up winning at Kinky Boots right off the bat! In fact, they drew every name entered because they had so many lottery tickets ($37 each) available, which is a far cry from the last time we tried the lottery with Perri and Katie B. I guess the show has dwindled in popularity, and it was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, so people probably wanted to be outside. So we didn't need to spend very much time at all drawing lotteries, meaning we could take the rest of the day at a leisurely pace.

While we waited for the show to start, we walked down to 34th Street so I could shop for some white sneakers for summer. After visiting three stores without success, we were headed back up to the Ninth Avenue Food Festival to grab a bite when we found the right pair at a Payless Shoes along the way. It's rather funny thinking back on it, because Kinky Boots is about the underserved niche market of drag queens needing footwear. Finding size 12 and 13 women's shoes in most shoe stores is a quixotic task.

Our seats were partially obstructed view, but they were in the boxes, so they were really good - better than the ones I got for rush tickets when Liz and I went last year. Here's the view we had: 

I think because of the better view, I was much more emotionally engaged this time than the first time I saw the play with Liz. The climactic scenes brought me to tears and I enjoyed everything about the play more, with the exception of the recasting of the role of Lauren, which was played by Annaleigh Ashford to great comedic effect in the original cast.

After the play, we went to the grocery store to get some more ingredients for dinner and we ran into our friend Dave on the street - he's recently moved from Roosevelt Island into his own place in Hell's Kitchen. He says it's hard being an adult, but I guess we all have to get there someday. What are the odds of us running into someone we both know?

After dropping off our groceries, we picked up a few things for a picnic in Central Park. We entered at 92nd Street and found a nice patch of grass near the reservoir, spread out a blanket, had a bite and started taking turns reading Roald Dahl's "Matilda." As the sun started to go down, we walked through the park and got on the subway at 86th Street to head back to TSMC.

Puck made a dinner of lamb and sweet potato curry stew and couscous, and we took turns giving each other massages with lavender oil as the stew simmered on the stove. We had dinner and watched Matthew Bourne's reimagination of Tchaikovsky's ballet Sleeping Beauty (with vampires!) on PBS Great Performances that I've been saving on my DVR. Puck has been taking ballet this semester so it was an opportune time to watch it together.

All in all, this was about the most fun-filled weekend I've had in a long time. Puck had even more excitement than I did, seeing two musical shows in two days with two of their favorite people (I'm presuming). Now I have a quick two-day work week before I take off Wednesday through Tuesday for graduation ceremonies and the Memorial Day holiday!