Sunday, March 10th 2002 - Flaming Jubilee
Ah, what a lazy weekend! Friday night both Tim and I were in awful moods - sleepy, grouchy and not feeling like doing much of anything at all. At one point I decided to make dinner, and that was pleasant enough, but really it wasn't a night worth much. Saturday I slept in while Tim went up to Berkeley to read and answer slush. Actually, I got up just after he left and had the house to myself for a bit. Didn't get too much done, then, either. Holly came home, we decided on next week's menu (we're getting a box of organic veggies every week from Planet Organics, and this week we had to do a custom order to avoid the beets and cabbage they wanted to foist off on us - ick!). Grocery shopping, cooking dinner - all that's basically boring to most of you, I'm sure. So, I'll gloss on to Saturday night. Tim and I got dressed up (ok, I got dressed up, and Tim wore what he always does and was appreciative of me) and headed into the City for Bi and For the People, which was one of three events happening at the opening for San Francisco Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Community Center. Whoo! Was it ever fun! First of all, I kept running into people I knew: Greta, Cate and Jack (from Blowfish, even though Jack doesn't work there anymore), Beth and Eric, Cliff, Jen and Swati (people I met orginally through Mary Anne), Charles and Auros (science fiction connection, although Charles also writes really intelligent erotic fiction and nonfiction). The three parties just couldn't stay separate, and the mingling happened between all four floors of the glass-fronted center. The comedian on the second floor was very funny - gay/bi/transgender humor of the sort you wouldn't hear from more mainstream comics; I especially loved his lament that he's attracted to butch dykes because of the way they take care of their partners; it was very funny and very sweet. Annie Sprinkle came on around 11 and did a sort of performance art piece where she helped us figure out what gender we are (noting that natural hermaphrodites were the luckiest of all) that got more and more complicated until we were past all the post-operatives and into the final gender - The Tiny Tims. I guess you had to be there. Then, in honor of Tiny Tim, she did a little dance to both "Tip-toe through the tulips" and "Tiny Bubbles", rubbing tulips over herself and throwing them into the audience and marinating herself in champagne. Her costume was amazing - a large hoop that looked like a bird's nest, strewn with gauze, a white corset and a huge lavendar wig atop it all. Neat to see such a cultural icon in the flesh; she truly was larger than life. (deep breath) There were aerial acrobatics, beautiful men and women hanging from brightly colored cloth in the lobby, doing splits and amazing feats of strength and grace. The finale of that bit was a small Asian person (I couldn't tell if it was a man or woman, even though s/he wore nothing but a small pair of briefs) who pressed zirself up into a handstand on a small step ladder and proceeded to lower zir body into a horizontal position and let go with one hand, so that ze was parallel to the floor, holding zirself up by only one hand. Amazing. It got very crowded, so much so that Tim bolted at one point, leaving me on the fourth floor with my (very drunk) sister. Holly and I wandered around, and finally found the room where I was supposed to read. I gathered up my book and Tim and patiently waited my turn. I was about to go up after Charles got done, but the Porn Clown Haiku stormed the stage. So I went up after they got done. Well, not 5 minutes into my reading (an excerpt from "Heidi" which is in _Skin Deep_) this loud music started up over the speakers in the ceiling. Now, the acoustics were for shit in the room to begin with, and I felt like I was shouting already, but, man, it was hellish to read over that music too. I kept going, at one point lookng up and dancing a few bars to the music, just to acknowledge its mighty presence. I did a pretty good job, considering; many people came up afterwards and gave me compliments ("That was so hot! What was that from? Nice grace under pressure, by the way." "You read very well; I'd like to hear you sometime when you're not competing with music, but you did really well despite that.") I love, love, love reading in front of people. I'm such a theatrical person, and I really love having a script I know somewhat well that I can act out (I stomp my feet and roll my eyes and act coy as appropriate to the story). I can't do anything extemporaneous worth a shit (well, sometimes, but I get much more nervous without a script), but I love a moment on the stage. Ok. I love several moments on the stage. I hate to stop now, but I need to set the table for dinner; Susan's coming over, and we really should use our nice dining room table instead of balancing our plates of lasagne on our knees in front of the TV like we usually do.	Exercise Log: Worked out on Thursday - stretching, 20 min on the precor. Writing log: Oh, pretty much every time I sit still during the week and I'm not at work, I'm writing. Whoo! Halfway done with the "Princess" story and am done with the first scene in the "Crowd" collab with Tim. Current Publications: "How to Suck" reprinted in From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind I'm currently reading: Books on Tape (usually while exercising): Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates by Tom Robbins.
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