Went to the sex doc social hour the other Tuesday.

I went to the sex doc social hour thing a few Tuesdays ago.

(Yeah, it was a while ago, but what can I say, I forgot about it.)

Anyhow, I was due to have drinks with a friend later that night, so I was only able to come for like 45 minutes.

There were like 3 new people, and they were all sitting together: one quiet older fat guy who didn't say too much, this middle-aged balding who thought he was funny and tried to dominate the conversation, and this kind of plump middle-aged woman with auburn hair who had a slightly funky sweater on and cool earrings and looked like she was into poly.

As it turns out, she was finalizing her divorce, and she was into poly.

She also was an artist who did knitting for a living -- "Oh, you're a fabric artist?", I was like, trying to use the lingo, and she corrected me nicely and was like, "No, I'm a textile artist" - and, as it turns out, she frequents knitting groups throughout the city that she learns about online so she can meet new people while she works, and she even knew a doctoral student from my program through the knitting group in my neighborhood.

"They're so much cooler than the knitting group in [the hipster neighborhood]," she was like. "When I say something about being poly, no one bats an eye, but the other week in [the hipster neighborhood], I was telling a story and I wasn't thinking and I started off a story and said it was from my boyfriend's other girlfriend, and everyone looked down at me!

"Bunch of prude-ass yuppies," she was like.

Later, since the original program of the doc series is running out and people are talking about cutting it down to once a month but finding new docs to consider it, the one older (white) guy who used to be a thug in an Italian neighborhood but then became a male nurse and later a sexologist showed me some DVDs that he knew the makers of, so he could get viewing rights easily and we'd have something right away for November.

As it turns out, most were instructional, like "Fire in the Valley" (subject: female genital massage) and something by a guy out of San Francisco on anal massage.

"I've always wanted a massage by him, but I've never gotten one yet!", he was like, affably.

He also had a doc "Petals" about women's relationships to their vulvas, and he had the accompanying pictoral art book that went with it, and he also showed me that.

"He photographed everything in sepia to make it softer and more artistic," he was like.

"That's cool," I was like, "Did he also do some flower-arranging?", and at that he laughed, and told me that no, he didn't, but he had photographed everyone post-orgasm (either coitus or masturbation) so that the petals were at their prime.

How different everything is.

The other week I proctored an exam downtown again. This was the second time I caught the 6:30am-ish commuter train near me and then ended up downtown mid-day, and I was thinking again how different my own neighborhood is at times that I'm not usually out and about in it, let alone downtown - a 6:30am commuter platform in my neighborhood is very different from the neighborhood I usually know, and so is downtown during the day on weekdays.



Anyhow, it must be so hard to know a city fully.

"A good tired".

I ran into one of the Spanish graduate students I know the other week after I had stayed out on a Wednesday (Thursday?) till 3am bar-hopping after martinis with a friend who was visiting town.

Anyhow, the Spanish guy asked me how I was doing, and I said that I was tired, and when he asked why and I told him, he said very affably and matter-of-factly, "There's a good tired and a bad tired, and that's a good tired."

I love how the Spanish approve of partying. It's very endearing, culturally.

Sink.

The other day when they shut water off to deal with water pressure problems since they were booting up the steam heat for winter, my faucet (which was already kind of broken and my landlords weren't fixing it; you had to slam the top down to get it to fully shut off, and even then sometimes it would rip) got royally fucked, and it wouldn't turn on pressure-wise, so I called in the (Croatian) janitor, who's the brother of the wife in the (Croatian) husband-and-wife landlord team who run by building.

As it turns out, the (Croatian) plumber was still there, and he came and scraped some accumulated mineral deposits out of the nozzle of the faucets in my kitchen and bathroom, and told the (Croatian) janitor he should fix my faucet, which he did the next morning.

As it turns out, my faucet now turns on so easily, and I have to use such little force, that I sometimes jerk on it too hard.

Also, I asked the (Croatian) plumber if he was related to anyone. It turns out he wasn't.

Soup.

I had bought some dried kidney beans months ago, and never got around to doing any cooking with them, so I tried making a soup as an experiment. I used all the beans (3lbs. dried), and added in some tomatoes, which stewed in, and some chili powder, and then I chopped up some bunches of green onions, fresh corn kernels off the cob, celery stalks, and carrot sticks in there, and let it boil down for like 3 hours or so.

I then cooled it outside on my window sill, and have kept the pot there, since it's very cold out now and I don't have room in my fridge.

Anyhow, the soup is very good, but since I made too much, I've had one friend over for soup, and sent some home with two others who I had drop by with tupperware. And, those two were vegan and usually eat a lot of vegan processed foods, so I was happy to provide them with good cooking! Both liked it, though one added brown rice, and the other a shitload of pepper.

Forgot.

I forgot -

The morning of that last notable shit I took, I was standing at the sink basin at like 7:30am when I just got up, and I noticed a dark spot on the wall behind the toilet.

It was a large silverfish just sitting there, so I took off my house sandal and smashed it.

Fuck, another silverfish.

Okay - next day after I killed a silverfish on the tile wall behind the toilet, 9pm, a friend comes over for a late dinner since I made too much soup, and I go into the bathroom, and there on the side of the washstand is a very large silverfish, that I take off and smack with my house sandal.

The washstand is white, and it left a smudge I had to wipe off with toilet paper.