BDSM unit (1 of 4): Trip.

So for my class’s BDSM unit I led an optional field trip to the local BDSM museum, a box-y former synagogue with the museum’s acronym painted up high and 2 flags of a boot’s silhouette beside each door.

Like dungeons, the one of which I’ve been to in the city has its initials beside a buzzer but no other outward marking, the museum must deliberately keep a low profile... 

Someone I was talking to post-visit said they used to live four blocks away and shopped at the grocery market right across the street, and they always wondered what that place was.

Plus, they have a buzzer on the door, so every visitor has to buzz in, so they can keep out minors easily.

Anyhow, the balding goateed leather daddy who’s the museum director greeted our class in a tanktop and little leather vest and then led us in to the auditorium, a small theater space left over from the group that had owned the building after the synagogue and before the museum. 

On all sides were murals from an old leather bar downtown, of biker men in chaps and leather pants and enormous hardons showing down their legs, and occasionally one of them in chains.

There, he told everyone about the history of the collection and the groups that fed into it, and asked for questions.  My students had a couple, but then since they’re all in their very early 20s and probably have little idea about the gravity of the AIDS crisis, I raised my hand and was like, “And how did the AIDS crisis affect everything?”.

“Well,” he was like, “Because the mortality rate was so high, a lot of groups were devastated, so people drew together more, and there was more unity.”

Then, not looking you directly in the eye like he always did, he added, “But, fisting parties used to be one big can of Crisco in the middle of a room, and everyone would keep double-dipping all the time.  That doesn’t happen so much anymore.”

At that, I could see out of the corner of my eye my one redhead’s head visibly snap back in shock.

Art student comment: Computer savviness.

So, the art school has this great printing lab and I had to go get my journal article turned into offprint-looking things to send out to different professors.

After showing the file to the (pleasant) (young) (like 20 or 21 year-old) (white) (female) student at the counter, I found out that I didn't have the file set up in quite the right way.

Since I confessed that I didn't know the graphics program that well, she sat down with me and very helpfully showed me the adjustments that I needed to do to get everything into a printable state, which I was then able to do over the next 15 minutes by myself, once she showed me the steps.

"Thank you so much for that," I was like, after I finalized my order.  "I just don't know technology that well, and I get frustrated very easily."

"Oh, no worries," she was like.  "My mom is the same way!"

Addendum: That night out.

That night out with the glowsticks was pretty awesome...

Basically, after I taught my class, I had been barhopping downtown, and since Monday is industry night, I ended up at this dead Latin-themed bar at like 10pm...

And the bartender told me that the clubspace downstairs (from which clubby bass music was blasting) was having in industry night "March Madness"-type finals competition between bartenders where they had to sell the most drinks in a given period of time, and I should go down and check it out...

I wandered down the stairs then, turned the hallway, and walked into a black-walled small room crammed with like 70 offshift bartenders from downtown's hottest bars, all dressed up and dancing up on leather couches while 2 women (both white, one dark-haired with a kind face and the other blonde and kind of shallow) were racing around a big stainless steel table area making one cocktail after another for the huge masses of people.

I talked with someone and they said you had to get chips, and at that point I noticed a guy dressed up like a referee in the corner of the room over by the DJ, and I went and got a $12 chip from him so I could get a specialty cocktail.

I waited for the bartender with the kind face, and after she was done pouring shots and then 2 cocktails for me, she said really quick,"What'll you have?", and I was like, "Something with gin that's savory," and she was like, "Okay," and immediately set to work, making me some kind of herb-gin cocktail that was quite good, as I tossed the chip into a fishbowl full of them that was positioned on her side of the counter next to a giant bowl overflowing with fruit, mostly oranges and lemons with part of the zest already taken off on many of them.

I chit-chatted with a lot of people, and a few who were from the bar where the girl who made my drink was from said that if I ever came by on the nights that they worked there, they'd take care of me.

One of them also was like, "Isn't this a great excuse to binge drink?"

At that point, that bartender with the kind face's activity slowed, so she pulled out glowsticks and handed them around to everyone - I got a purplish-blue one, that I wore as a bracelet on my right wrist; later, I'd add on a yellow one next to it - and then she hopped up onto the leather couch near the mixing area, raising her hands in a "party on!" motion and being like "WHOOOOOOO!!!!!!" to rally everyone and get them to drink more.

Overall, people were very well-dressed in a hip downtown (but not hipster) sort of way, most notably this young goatteed hispanic guy with big ears that stick out; his glasses had frames like white clouded glass, and his sportscoat was a light- to medium-gray snakeskin.

It was so much fun and my cocktail was so good, I decided to get a 2nd cocktail, and the same bartender was like, "Savory, right?", and she did something with a ton of whiskey and bitters and some other stuff, with an orange peel squeezed around the edge of the glass, that was very tasty - a ton of whiskey, but a unique taste where it just blended with everything but was so strong and powerful that you had to drink it slow to appreciate it.

Right before I left, this security guy from the most major downtown club who I had been talking with - he said they get 3000 people a night on Thurs. - Fri. - Sat. and do $1.5 million in sales a night - said that he dropped $1000 on a bottle of whiskey for his favorite bartender.

That made me wonder if he also sold drugs at that club, on the side.

British stoners.

So I'm also friends with the sister of my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend, and though she's also (half British) and (half Sudanese), they're very night and day.

For one, she's a lot calmer, and also likes to party more, and occasionally I go out for a drink with her and some of her friends.

The last time this happened, somehow her one friend was teasing her about being a stoner, and it turns out that she was a *total* stoner in college.

And, not only that, but the school she went to - some school in London that specializes on Africa and the Middle East - is known to be a total stoner school.

I found that just mind-blowing, first of all that there was such a thing as British stoners, and second of all that there was such a thing as a British stoner school (and one specializing on the former colonies?).

Also, the other week I texted her when I was downtown on a Monday barhopping.

She couldn't make it out because she had to study for some class, but I ended up at the finals of this great industry night bartender competition night where I got hammered and where at one point they handed out glowsticks, about which I texted her.

She replied -

Oh nice!  I love glow sticks!

Then she immediately sent a 2nd text -

I just wish they lasted longer

- to which I texted back something about how if we were getting stoned together, like dude, it's like life, you just said it all.

Dream of a lecture hall auditorium.

The other week, I dreamt that I was in a small, dingy lecture hall auditorium, with folding seats and worn gray carpeting.

There was a small group of people chit-chatting in the back, and I was kneeling on a stair talking to this (white) woman in her mid-30s who I knew that I knew and who was sitting on the edge of the row, and out of nowhere she started talking about her sexlife and blood play, and suddenly I pictured her smearing blood all over her face as part of foreplay, and I wondered why she was choosing to talk about it in front of the group.

Dream of a Dirty Mirror.

I dreamt that I went into my bathroom, and though I had just cleaned the mirror with vinegar and newspaper that day, there were spatters of dirty water all across it.

(The day I had that dream, I had done spring-cleaning in half of my apartment, including to the bathroom and the mirror there.)

Grocery store story: Cashier "Adam".

The other day I popped into a grocery store to get some dark chocolate and cheddar cheese (the one for dessert, the other for grilled cheeses to go with some cabbage soup I had whipped up).

The cashier was this very calm (middle-aged) (thin) (African) woman, and her nametag said "Adam".

When I got up to the front of the line, I asked her if her name was really "Adam".

"Oh yes," she was like, "I am from Gambia, Adam is a unisex name there."

"Cool," I was like.  "Then is your husband Eve?".

She laughed, and was like "No, I am not married!".

"All right," I was like, "Then is your boyfriend Eve?".

And, at that comeback, she laughed even harder.

Africans can have such weird senses of humor, but I appreciate how they laugh at everything.