beowabbit

Since last weekend (Circus weekend!), I’ve been busy.

You might need to click this twice; I do, on two different browsers:

Monday was the regular Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci’s. Unfortunately plumtreeblossom couldn’t make it because of rehearsal. It was quite fun, with a bunch of cool new people!
Tuesday I had dinner with xmelancholia near (my) work; she introduced me to a new-to-me restaurant, Mulan. I loved their chicken in chili sauce. More importantly, I loved the opportunity to catch up with xmelancholia. She rocks, and I hadn’t seen her in a while.
Wednesday I usually get together with cathijosephine for dinner, but she was out of town for a funeral (my sympathies to buxom_bey, whose relative’s funeral it was), so plumtreeblossom and I went over to hang out with surrealestate, DD, and little J, and we had a blast. Love that little baby! (Actually, love all of them!)
Thursday I got together with teratomarty, who works near me. Among the impetuses (impetusses? impeti?) for getting together were some biological specimens (small animals, mostly arthropods) in jars that I had aquired, and wanted to pass along to him. I had enjoyed the food at Mulan so much on Tuesday that I suggested we go there again. Had a great time.
Friday morning in the shower I heard that the annual sheepshearing festival at Gore Place was going to be Saturday. Oops! plumtreeblossom and I love that event, and had tried unsuccessfully a month or so ago to figure out when it was. We ended up shuffling some plans around so we could go.
Friday night I drove to the airport to pick up bedfull_o_books, who was arriving at Logan after a very very long series of flights from Beirut. Got to hear about her fabulous visit to Lebanon and Egypt with r_ness, and she brought me some Lebanese coffee with cardamom which I look forward to making.
Saturday I slept really late (needed to; the flight was delayed, and I was sleep-deprived anyway to start with), so we were late to the sheepshearing festival, but we got there in time to enjoy epic fair noms, stroll among the vendors (and make some impulse purchases), and see the border collie demo (border collies managing sheep and goats). I had foolishly forgotten to bring my good camera, but I got a few photos on my phone which I may get around to posting eventually. Afterwards, we had dinner at Blue Ribbon Barbeque in Arlington, which I’d never been to before (although I’ve had it catered at work a few times). The brisket was quite good. (The sausage was good too, but, contrary to the menu’s assertion, it was not at all spicy.)
Today, after sleeping in (which we both needed) and breakfast at The Broken Yolk, I came home to Quincy for a very productive afternoon of yardwork and working on the house. I completed three of my four painting projects; just have a final coat on the office door left to do. I didn’t get as much cleaning done as I’d like, but I got lots of work done on the yard and I have the pleasant aches of a productive day of physical labour.

So, busy and happy (and as always, epically in love with my honeywuzzle).

plumtreeblossom and I (and

docorion and many other people we know) were quoted extensively in a great story on polyamory in today’s Boston Globe magazine. The print edition has photos of me and

docorion as well as the photo of Alan and Michelle that’s on the online edition. The online version (linked above) has a video that

docorion and Alan (W.) and Michelle were interviewed for which is, if possible, even better than the article — at any rate, I think it does a great job of presenting polyamory effectively to non-poly people in a way that lets the warmth of the relationships and lives described shine through. I am really pleased about how it all turned out.

PS: Alan M. discusses the article at his blog Poly in the Media, and Kamela reviews it favorably in her Boston Open Relationships Examiner column.

Hi! Just wanted to remind anyone interested about tomorrow’s Poly Boston dinner at the Alewife Bertucci’s.

plumtreeblossom and I will be there!

Of possible interest to some of you:

mono_poly and its associated Yahoo! group, intended as a support group for monogamous partners in open relationships (but open to poly folks, too). Some of the links on the community’s profile page are interesting, too.

Among other wonderful things I did this weekend, I marched with

plumtreeblossom in the Obama-supporters contingent in the Pride parade. I took lots of pictures. And a generous person marching with us took a couple of me and

plumtreeblossom:

I’m eventually going to upload a whole bunch of them to Flickr, but for now, here’s a representative sample.

After the Pride march, we hung out with the delightful

surrealestate at the festival and wandered around and collected swag and ate festival food. We also sat at the Poly Boston table for a while.

Other wonderful things I did this weekend were go to the annual Beginning of Summer party where we didn’t stay very long (we were tired from Pride) but I got to see lots of wonderful people and I took some pictures of firespinners which you all should pester me to post, have yummy breakfast at the Burren with

plumtreeblossom, and help

darxus and

cathijosephine pack for the move to

darxus’ new place.

I would be much more eloquent about all this if I weren’t so tired. But it was all wonderful.

Huge thanks to

sunspiral and

roozle (and a bunch of volunteers) for a wonderful party, to David W. and the other people who organized the Obama contingent to march (they were very well organized!), to

plumtreeblossom for a wonderful weekend and especially for letting me know there was an Obama contingent to march with, and to

alan7388 for doing a fabulous job putting together the Poly Boston table at the festival. And to

darxus for pizza, and to

cathijosephine for deciding it should be pineapple-and-bacon. And to

surrealestate just for being

surrealestate.

plumtreeblossom and I will be marching in the annual GLBTQFFAORTFMOMGBBQ Pride Parade tomorrow! There’s no Poly Boston group marching this year (although there will be a Poly Boston table at the festival afterwards, thanks to the unparalleled — unparalleled by me, at any rate! — gumption and efforts of

alan7388. So I will be marching with the Obama supporters, which I’m thrilled to be doing anyway. Then we’ll be hanging out at the Poly Boston table at the festival before going to

plumtreeblossom’s place to catch our breath and change for a pool party. Whee!

Happy Pride, everybody!

PS — Governor Deval Patrick’s daughter recently came out as lesbian. He’s always been a strong, strong supporter of same-sex marriage, and I’m sure that made it easier for her. The two of them will be marching together in the parade. He’s also strong supporter of Barack Obama (who sadly doesn’t support same-sex marriage, although he supports civil unions and supports states being left alone to decide the issue for themselves). A few years ago (after the fateful DNC speech, but before he was seriously working towards a presidential candidacy) I saw Obama in person when he introduced Patrick while Patrick was running for governor. I was very proud to contribute to Patrick’s campaign and to vote for him, and I was thrilled when he won, and I’m very proud to contribute to Obama’s campaign and to vote for him, and I sure hope to be thrilled when he wins.

Another lovely weekend with

plumtreeblossom. On Saturday we went to a sheepshearing festival¹ in Waltham with

teratomarty and

trouble4hire (big thanks to them for posting about it!) and had a lovely time. It was great hanging out with them, and great doing country-fair things within easy reach of Boston. (I drove, but the festival venue is bus-accessible.) While there, we bumped into

mrpet and,

lady_anemone. Anyway, after the festival, which was huge amounts of fun, the six of us wandered Moody Street and then had yummy tapas for dinner before

plumtreeblossom and I went back to my house, where we watched the first two-thirds of Lust, Caution.

On Sunday, we went to a Poly Boston dim sum organized by a wonderful person whose LJ name, if he has one, I don't know. We had a wonderful, wonderful time. Thanks so much to the organizer!

Last night was the monthly Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci's (the first one in a while

plumtreeblossom's been able to make it to, because of theater commitments), and tonight

plumtreeblossom,

cathijosephine, and I get to go see Eddie Izzard perform! Life is incredibly full and fun.

And this coming weekend

plumtreeblossom and I are finally making a trip to New York City.

Whee!

¹ Sadly, the venue has already taken down the web page about it. If you are luckier than usual, I will eventually get around to posting some pictures, though. Because, you know, you all appreciated the Topsfield Fair pictures and the pictures of our trip to DC to meet

bcat1 and

spacechicken so much.²
² That I haven’t posted yet. Those pictures.

(Cross-posted from

polyboston for the benefit of Boston-area poly-friendly people who might show up if I give you the extra nudge. :-)

Hi! Just wanted to remind folks about tomorrow’s monthly Poly Boston dinner at the Alewife Bertucci’s. Details are on the calendar, but the short of it is: 7:00pm at the Alewife Bertucci’s, and it would be nice if you could RSVP so I know how big a table to get us. (Commenting here is fine.) See folks there!

In case anyone cares, I plan on being at Diesel tonight.

Just a reminder of tomorrow’s Poly Boston dinner tomorrow at 7 at the Alewife Bertucci’s. Details are on the calendar. If you’re planning on going, it would be nice if you could RSVP by email or comment here, although that’s not required.

[Cross-posted to

polyboston.]

Being social, anyway.

I think I already mentioned that the Poly Boston Bertucci’s dinner was well-attended, fun, and educational.

Tuesday I wasn’t expecting to go to the Diesel since I got to work very late and I had a bunch of stuff to do at home. But I had a successful afternoon at work and came to a natural stopping point around six and decided to go ahead and go to the Diesel since I knew

chienne_folle was going to be there. Had a nice (and somewhat quieter and more sedate than usual) time at the Diesel, followed by a very pleasant dinner with

chienne_folle and

adrian_turtle at Yoshi’s.

And today was The Nightmare Before Christmas 3D with

golux_org,

lycaena,

warlord_mit, and the ever-delectable

plumtreeblossom. Many thanks to

plumtreeblossom for organizing that! This was the first time I’d seen a 3D movie on the big screen, and it was done with polarized filters rather than the traditional 50s-style red-green glasses, so the colours were all bright and vivid. It was tremendous fun! (It was also the first time I’d seen The Nightmare Before Christmas on the big screen at all; I didn’t see it in the theatres when it first came out.)

Now time to tidy my room a bit, throw some food in the crockpot, and sleep.

I’ve had lots of wonderful stuff going on since I posted last, and I’m not going to bother trying to catch up. But I wanted to post about seeing

plumtreeblossom last night, which was lovely. I brought over dinner in my crock pot, a pre-marinated turkey tenderloin which I had cooked according to a recipe

cathijosephine had come up with: cooked for about 5hrs in soy sauce and apple juice, along with lots of quartered small potatoes. I threw in a few spices, too, but I don’t remember exactly what they were. (Pretty sure there was some ginger.) I cooked it on high and it came out amazingly tender, and the potatoes sucked up all the soy-sauce and turkey flavour and were quite yummy themselves. For dessert we had the remainder of a cheesecake

plumtreeblossom had made the last time I was over and it was still yum-m-mee. And we had some red wine (don’t remember what kind). Lovely, lovely dinner.

I stayed over at her place last night, and it was the first time we’d tried that on a “school night”, and also the first time I’d taken my CPAP machine away from home. Success on both counts! I admit, waking up at 6:00am is not exactly something I’d just happen to do on my own, but I didn’t complain, and

plumtreeblossom made me coffee. :-) I’d been worried that without my humidifier in the room (which makes a huge difference) I’d get completely dry the way I did a few times the first week I was using the machine, but

plumtreeblossom has a really pretty lighted ultrasonic humidifier (sort of a cross between a humidifier and a decorative fountain) that she had brought into her room, and it seems to have done the trick.

I’m going to take this opportunity to comment about how much of a difference the CPAP machine has been making. A couple days recently at work I’ve been able to start working on a project in the morning, and just keep working on the same project for the whole day, and not get sidetracked, and not get overwhelmed, and remember what I was working on even when somebody comes in my office and asks me a question. I remember being able to do that! And it’s so good to be able to do it again. The same thing is going on, to a less dramatic because less easily quantifiable degree, in the rest of my life. There are a lot of things (like finishing unpacking) that I’d basically been stalled on for a long time that I’m seeing myself start to make some progress on again. There are all sorts of things — often trivial little things — that I used to think of and think, well, maybe I’ll do that someday if I have the energy, and now I think of them and (sometimes, anyway) I just go ahead and do them, or at least start them. And I’m still absent-minded and spacey sometimes, but my memory (and especially my ability to keep track of things) is clearly much improved. And my alertness and sense that I’m catching what’s going on around me is better. Yay!

Oh, and tonight’s Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci’s was well-attended and full of interesting conversation. (For instance, I learned a lot about the history of Islam, and about particularly flammable radio transmitters.) I think I may make that a monthly thing, since it seems like a venue that works really well.

Current Location: At home in Quincy

Assuming no more surprises, I plan on being at Diesel tonight (probably between 6 and 7).

(1) Here, I told y’all about my incorrect contact-lens prescription, and getting it changed. On Friday, I picked up the new lenses — and they’re even worse than the original prescription! They’re a stronger prescription, and I told the optometrist when I went back to tell him the original prescription was wrong that I thought it was an overcorrection, so now that I realize that I’m not at all surprised that the new one is even worse. I could go back and try to get it adjusted again, but I have no confidence in this guy any more. I could try to get him a prescription for the exact same lenses I used to have (of which I still have a couple pairs, and in fact they’re what I’m wearing now to type this; the only thing that bugs me about them is that they’re very floppy and physically hard to handle). Or I could consider the $300 or so I’ve spent on this so far (lenses and exam) squandered and start over with another optometrist. Grump.

(2) Pride was fun, but wet. Very wet. And it was less fun for

cathijosephine, who was staffing the table at the rally on the common while we marched, and who had the shelter break spectacularly and collapse in a gust of wind. It was only prevented from falling her (I understand; I wasn’t there for this) by the quick-thinking cute burly guys in kilts from the Utilikilts booth across the way, who caught it as it fell. And all this happened just as the parade was ending, so (I presume; I didn’t actually hear this from her) before the rally and the booth had had much traffic.

The march itself was fun, though. I was surprised at the size of the crowds watching, given the weather. We handed out almost all the cards I printed, I believe, and a bunch of pamphlets. The signs

cathijosephine and others made looked great. The actual marching contingent was pretty substantial. And I ran into

gishmi1ish! That was a delightful surprise.

Have to go have a hot shower and do some laundry now...

[I started writing this on my phone on the T last Wednesday, and am just getting around to posting it now, so for purposes of the text below “today” means May 24, 2006.]

I just noticed in my Treo calendar that today is the birthday of my first real girlfriend. (I qualified that with “real” because before her, in high school, there was somebody I went out two or three times, shared tender I love yous with, and pined over for a year or so.)

She was, well, not somebody any of you will be able to imagine me dating. She was raised a fundamentalist conservative, and she was a bit homophobic (in the “uncomfortable around” sense). But when she was involved with me, she was in a questioning phase, unsure of the faith, politics, or values she grew up with, and willing at least to consider those I represented.

( Several more paragraphs. )

Karen, wherever you are, I hope you’re happy and I wish you well. I wouldn’t do it over again, but I don’t regret it a bit.

...but today, more of the grump.

My vacation was wonderful! Relaxing, refreshing, invigorating, and therapeutic. (And I picked a good week to miss, since New England had enough rain to produce major flooding while I was gone.)

I came back, underslept due to night flights but happy, did some organizing of my pictures (some of which will hopefully be forthcoming soon), and walked into a couple of crises. One of them was engendered by this dreadful article in the Herald and the unfortunate fallout it generated for the nice people who work at Diesel. I’m happy to say that last I heard (I wasn’t able to go tonight, and got a phone report during the evening), no creepy clueless people actually showed up tonight, but a number of them called the Diesel and threatened to. And it sort of threw a bunch of us into a flurry of damage control and planning.

(Note, by the way, that the tone of the actual quotes in the article does not match the tone of anything around them, including statements generally attributed to the interviewees but not inside quotation marks. I’m really glad I did not get quoted.)

So that was one little crisis.

The other one was at work. On Friday (while I was still on O‘ahu with

sionnagh), an important server died with a hardware failure. So I knew I was coming in first thing on Monday to rebuild it.

Well, “first thing” would have meant not sleeping through my alarm due to jet lag. And for various boring technical reasons, rebuilding the machine was complex and is still not quite done to our satisfaction (and probably won’t be for a while). Anyway, I left work at a reasonable hour yesterday feeling optimistic about finishing this morning, and had a lovely time having tea and catching up with

ragingamazon in Harvard Square and came home to sleep.

Only, more with the jetlag. Around 6:00am I realized if I actually did fall asleep I’d probably sleep through my alarm again, and got up to work on Poly Boston stuff and some other things. So I ended up going in for my second day of server rebuilding with no sleep, and stressed about what tonight’s Diesel social might be like. (Again, it seems to have turned out fine, not that I know from personal experience.) And I was slow at work because of that, and having lots of “Wait, what did I come in this room to do?” experiences. And at the end, I discovered some unpleasant complexity that I needed my boss’s help with, and we had a productive little ad-hoc debugging session together, and finally decided that we’d done all we could do today and most things were working well enough to leave... just about too late to make it worthwhile going to the Diesel (which by this time I knew would have been fun and not work).

OK, none of this sounds tragic, and it’s not, but the thing is that I’ve come home from vacation and I don’t have that relaxed “I’m home in my sanctuary and happy to be back” feeling I usually do. And probably going from warm sunshine to grey chilly drizzle doesn’t help, although I am very glad my new house is a lot drier than my old one.

I’ll feel a lot better when I’ve gotten more sleep, which I should try to do soon. Probably going to watch a movie first, though.

And I have awesome friends. Yay!

In case anybody’s keeping track, I’m planning on being at Diesel tonight, and maybe even a little early (for me, like 6:30 instead of 7).

Just spent a while on the phone with

eeblet being interviewed for this project, which I really enjoyed. I’m mostly posting this to encourage y’all, those of y’all who are currently in relationships of some stripe, to read that post and maybe do an interview with her.

(She’s pseudonymizing everything, so this is neither your ticket to fame and fortune nor your ticket to an tearful 3AM phone call from your parents.)

“The application Xjournal has unexpectedly quit.” That’s what I got two-thirds of the way through composing my report on the weekend, and I’m just about out of steam, so this version is going to be much shorter.

(Bummer; Xjournal makes lots of LJ-specific HTML a lot easier.)

Friday:: Date with cathijosephine that snowballed into a yummy dinner with docorion, mud_puppy, xmelancholia, and zzbottom. Chicken and veggie kebabs — I always love cathijosephine’s culinary experiments!
Saturday:: Got up insanely early (5:15 — Don, try not to laugh too hard) to go set up the Poly Boston table at the Pride rally. docorion made coffee and cathijosephine made croissants and they are both saints. Oh, and zzbottom came after work (he works nights) to help us set up the canopy before going home; he’s a saint too. Got fitted for a Utilikilt, which I’ve wanted for a while. Went to brunch. Marched and had a lovely time despite the insane, brass-melting, tar-boiling heat. Hung out afterwards. Went home and pretty much collapsed. Oh, props to ghoti72, who played bass in a band at the rally. I didn’t get to see her (even on the big monitor; the crowds were too dense), but I heard her. Yay!
Sunday:: Sunday was mostly about recovering and trying not to bake. In pursuit thereof, docorion and I got air conditioners. Mine is in the guest room now, where it serves Kala (who’s renting from us for a month) and my office (which is adjacent). I figure I don’t really need one in my bedroom, since when I’m there I’m pretty much always in bed, and if you turn it down the waterbed keeps me cool as well as it keeps me warm in winter. But I spend a lot of time in the office.

(And Monday was a highly productive day for

docorion, involving lawn mowing, legal hazardous-waste disposal, and all sorts of other energetic things.)

Now I am a moſt ſleepy wabbit, and it is time for bed. Yes, I know it’s three hours before my normal bedtime, but this weather takes a lot out of one.

This is a Poly Boston event, but those of you who are not on the Poly Boston list are welcome too:

I will be hosting an Eddie Izzard marathon at my (and again

docorion’s) place in Malden on Saturday, 9th April, starting at 1:00pm and going until we run out of videos or energy. (Since

cathijosephine, who is generously contributing videos to the cause, owns almost every Eddie Izzard video ever produced, we will probably run out of energy before videos.)

If you don’t know who Eddie Izzard is, never mind, just come; you won’t be sorry, I promise. Well if you must know, he’s a British stand-up comic with a wardrobe to die for. He sometimes says delightfully British things like “shag” and “bugger” and “NHS”. You can learn about him at http://www.eddieizzard.com/home.izz. There are also thingy-things there.

It is possible, nay, likely, that there will be a take-out order for dinner at some point in the evening.

Please RSVP to me at rsvp@polyboston.org if you think you might be able to come. Let me know if you need directions.

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Another former LJer, now mostly on Facebook

Entries tagged with poly

A busy week in review

I’m famous! And so are plenty of other people we know.

Poly Boston Bertucci’s dinner tomorrow (Monday)

Poly PSA

Obama contingent at Pride 2008, and the rest of my weekend

Pride!

Another lovely weekend, with a side of bees and jam

Poly Boston dinner at Bertucci’s tomorrow (Monday)

PSA: Diesel

Reminder: Poly Boston dinner tomorrow (Monday)

Socialism

Dinner with plumtreeblossom, and CPAP update

Diesel PSA

Optometry grumpiness and wet Pride

no subject

Contentment and grump...

At Diesel tonight

Interview

Oh, grump! (Weekend report, but I lost it the first time)

Sat. 9th April 2005, 1:00pm — Eddie Izzard video marathon in Malden

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