Saw Batman

A few weeks ago I saw the new Batman with a friend at a second-run movie theater.

Because I was teaching a Greek lesson earlier that evening, I had to minimize chit-chat with my one lawyer who's learning Greek, who it's fun to chit-chat with.

"Hey," I was like, "Let's start right in, since I have to be out of here by six-fifteen,  because I'm seeing the new Batman tonight, and I need to run home first since I don't want to be carrying Greek dictionaries around."

"Maybe you should be," he was like.  "They could be useful to block bullets."

FREAKY (2 of 2): Psych experiment.

Wed. I went up to do a paid psych experiment at a university in the city, where they have a lab that does a lot of sexuality stuff.

I was part of a control group, about men who pursue she-males, and I had to wear a mercury-filled rubber band around my c*ck and watch a series of pornographic clips that mostly involved she-male sex in various permutations (a man f*cking a she-male, a she-male f*cking a man, 2 she-males f*cking, a she-male f*cking a woman) as well as a couple other non-she-male clips (2 men f*cking, 2 men swapping head, 2 separate clips of 2 women f*ng*rf*cking).

It took an hour, and I got $50 (I had also filled out a survey of my sexual history earlier, and that took like 20 minutes, and asked how much I got off to she-males, MTF and FTM transsexuals, different straight and gay and lesbian sexual acts, whether I had a thing for sex with mascot costumes, etc.).

Afterwards, I was talking with the grad student, and he said he could see patterns forming in the data, though he hadn't formally analyzed anything yet.

Overall, the men who were into she-males identified as straight and occasionally as bi, and they had the strongest response to the she-male porn.... and then after that, to the lesbian porn, which they didn't expect.

A few also had a much more minor response to the gay porn.

He also said many appear to cross-dress themselves, and so they're looking to expand the study not to men who seek out sex with she-males (who they recruited through Craig's List personal ads), but rather to men cross-dress and may or may not seek out sex with she-males (who are more difficult to recruit, and who they're finding out from word-of-mouth and several salons in the city that cater to them and do makeovers).

FREAKY (1 of 2): Bar count.

This past Tues. I went to the latest sex doc.

Afterwards, I was standing around with my one grad student friend who's into BDSM and this other guy who's into polyamory, and the polyamory guy was like, "Hey, me and [his female primary partner] got engaged."

"That's great!", my one grad student friend who's into BDSM was like.  "Just the two of you?"

"Yeah," he was like.  "We're always the primaries, and anything beyond that isn't going to be formalized."

Afterwards, I went out barhopping with my one grad student friend who's into BDSM, and we hit up like 4 bars.

That night when I got home, I put them into my notebook where I record my bars (which I entitle, "BAR LOG"), and I realized that as of September 11th - i.e., 9/11 - I had been to exactly 911 bars.

Seedy hotel.

The other week on a night of barhopping, I was in this low-class white area near one of the big Polish areas in the city.

To get to this one bar that was inside a liquor store - in face, right through the dirty entranceway with filthy white linoleum and too bright lighting and automatic doors - I had to pass by this one hotel that was in a rundown old building...

As I passed, I could look into the open front window, and there was a forest green carpeting and worn furniture and cheap looking bookshelves with books all over the place along one wall, and a counter at which stood an older gray-haired woman with glasses and an expressionless face just looking with wide unblinking eyes out onto the street.

As I went by, she turned her head to follow me, still never blinking.

Addendum.

I forgot -

I was talking with this one masters student and was asking him how he was doing, and he was like, "I've been reading this biography of Hemingway that I just can't put down!".

Then, he started telling me all about it and how well it was done, and he said that the author had previously written a book called "Seminary: A Search", about his time in a seminary.

I was like, "No shit, look at this!" - and I pulled that book right out of my bag.

Oddly, I had bought it at the same annual used booksale that I got the nun memoir a summer or 2 ago, that started me up on reading nun memoirs.

Pig Roast (3 of 3): Chileans.

The co-hosts of the barbecue were Chileans and they invited some of their Chilean friends, including people who were at different universities 3-4 hours away.

I was uniformly surprised how slobby all the Chileans dressed: dirty t-shirts, loud hawaiian (sp.?) shirts with clashing shorts, stained wifebeaters and baseball caps.  Even the girls dressed kind of dumpy!

I wonder if that's one of those national qualities you pick up on if you're Latino?

...DNC memories...

The last night of the DNC was great.

I was at the student bar, and Joe Biden made me tear up like 3-4 times, and by the time Obama spoke, like half of the bar staff, some random students, and like 4-5 local (African-American) people who live in the neighborhood and 2-3 local (white) people who live in the neighborhood were all at the bar glued to the screen and laughing and clapping and cheering and (in the case of a couple African-American women), shouting, "That's right!".

Afterwards, I talked with 2 local (African-American) women for like ever and me and one of them traded off buying each other rounds of drinks, and one of the bartenders, who's originally from Wisconsin, got me my 3rd whiskey for free, I think out of appreciation for my going up there and volunteering for the recall and now for the general election.

The 1 local (African-American), who's in her 50s and a waitress, began to preach at my black-style about the injustices of the world, and she started tearing in to gangs and wailing the fate of the inner city and how the Army takes up poor young people and kills them and wastes their talent.

"Bring them back here," she was like, "Bring them back here.  Englewood needs them, not Afghanistan."

She made me cry.