city life

This past weekend I my friends Anne and Damien invited me out to Fire Island with them. We stayed with Damien's sister who lives in Watch Hill working for the New York Parks Department helping to protect and maintain Fire Island's environment. It was a wonderful trip, not just because it's so much fun being out on the beach while drinking great cocktails, but also because it's immensely freeing. And I mean that in the gayest way possible.

Fire Island consists of several sections, not all of them gay, as is what I thought before I went. Watch Hill is not a particularly gay area but on Sunday morning we walked to the Pines, which is very affluent and very gay. We went to watch the Invasion of the Pines which happens every 4th of July weekend where a whole slew of drag queens board a ferry at Cherry Grove (a more rambunctious area of Fire Island) then disembark at the Pines, thus "invading" it. It has to do with the Pines being full of snotty wealthy gay men or something. Anyway, that's not really the point of my story. This next part isn't either but just let me say that walking six miles on the beach sucks ass. No wait, that's not so bad. What really sucks is walking six miles, standing for 30 minutes then turning around and walking six miles back. It fucking blows to walk for longs distances on sand. By the time we were half way back no one was talking. We were all mentally and physically exhausted.

Back to being gay. Here's the thing. I walked around wearing a sarong and carrying my parasol and the only comments I got were, "Nice parasol." "Wow, I need one of those." "I like your umbrella." (Don't worry, I corrected him.) My point is, no one fucking cared what I was wearing or carrying! And I could look at guys if I wanted to without the fear of their being straight or offended or whatever. I found myself thinking, so this is what it would be like to live in a gay male world. And it was an incredibly freeing experience. It wasn't until I was on the train back to Manhattan that I began thinking about how I often dismiss being gay as an insignificant part of my being but that simply being gay adds a constant low level amount of anxiety to my daily life. And it's exhausting. It's difficult to recognize until it suddenly disappears. Now the Pines provides me with a different level of anxiety since so many of the men there are incredibly attractive and built and I get self-conscious and blah blah blah but I don't have to worry about this integral part of my being. To keep that sense of freedom while being in a predominantly straight city I felt like I would have to adopt a combative attitude. I'll wear what I want and be who I am! But I don't think I have the energy or the desire to greet each day with a "fuck you! I don't give a shit if you're staring at me!" It helped me understand the attraction of gay "communities" (ugh, that dirty c word), where you won't be judged for being gay. I try to convince myself that in 2010 who's judging anyone for being gay, it's doesn't matter anymore, but that's not true. It does matter. And it might not be the most down-trodden minority but it's a minority nonetheless. And since I'm not eager to move down to Chelsea maybe I will have to start being more bold in who I am. Shedding fear will need to become a daily ritual.

dance lately

Parfait and I visited a friend of his last night whose entire apartment is filled with her art. She even keeps small pieces in her oven. I liked a lot of her work and thought she was exciting as well. She so clearly loves what she does and gets lost in her tiny apartment for days intensely working on some project. I got a little jealous and sad because, though it was nice to see that dedication it reminded me that I don't have much passion in my own life right now. I'm not really sure what I'm interested in artistically and that frustrates me.

I definitely appreciated the performance opportunity I had last April. I was in a dance piece that my friend Anne choreographed. It was part of a self-produced concert that five choreographers put together. I think Anne is pretty talented and wish she would get her act together and start creating more but I'm pretty sure she'd say the same thing about me so who am I to criticize? Anyway, here's the piece. It's starts out black for about 15 seconds so don't worry if you don't see anything. (Anne is the woman behind me to the right.)

nursery rhymes

I went to my old job today (because I teach a Pilates mat class there but the class wasn't for a few hours so I went grocery shopping but I bought perishables and I needed a fridge and a bowl in which to eat recently purchased granola) and we started talking about the old 'liar' rhyme for some reason. Erica offered her version of

Liar liar pants on fire
Went to bed on a telephone wire

No one had ever heard of that one before. I used to say 'hang them on a telephone wire' as in, your firey pants but I came up with a new adult version I'll be using from now on

Liar liar pants on fire
Burn to death on a funeral pyre

It has a certain force that I like.

Just came home with Parfait and his friend from seeing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. A terrible book becomes a terrible movie. I was tempted to leave them and sneak into another movie until that awfulness was over but, you know, I'm not one to be that rude.

attention to details

I just ran (literally) up to Inwood to open a Pilates studio and sub a 10 o'clock class only to discover, after waiting 10 minutes for my seemingly late clients, that the class isn't actually until 11 o'clock. I had to teach a client downtown this morning at 7AM which, in my mind, gave me just enough time to get home, shower, and take off to the Inwood studio. I of course was late getting out the door after my shower but luckily a train was waiting when I went down in the subway. Silly me, to think that a waiting train is a blessing. It kept waiting. And then it waited at the next stop. And then suddenly discontinued service at the next stop, the station right before where I needed to get off. In my semi-haste to leave my apartment I left my phone behind and, having no idea what time it was, ran 15 pavement pounding, chest wrenching blocks to the studio, carrying my bag and my full (of fruit) tiffin. It was awful. Thankfully, I can now sit back and watch some cartoons while I wait for the actual class to begin, which is probably what I would have done at home anyway. And eat my fruit.

a good idea

This is pretty funny, mostly, and clever for a commercial. And look, her frustrating business is knitting! I would go to her store.

goodbye, little molar

Okay, I just tried to write a whole blog entry about my day today but it kept getting more and more boring. Here's the skinny:

the pain of that abscess started to come back (as I would told it probably would)
I'm saving as much money as I can so I can go to Alexander Technique school within the next 3 years
I don't have dental insurance
root canals are expensive
I got my upper right back molar extracted, it was invasive
they wouldn't let me keep the tooth, even though I asked extra nicely
there is now a gaping hole in the back of my mouth
I was told to take ibuprofen, no prescription pain killers offered

Here's a little interaction the surgeon and I had when he first walked in:

Dr. So and So: So what brings you here today?
ipj: I need to get a tooth extracted.
Dr. SaS (looking at my x-rays): Oh, your lower right molar?
ipj: Umm, nooo...my upper right molar.
Dr. SaS: Oh. Really?

He later told me that whoever (my old when-I-had-insurance dentist) did my last two root canals (less than a year ago!) did a very poor job and that I'd have to have one of those molars (the lower right, hence his confusion) extracted as well.

I tried to take a picture of the gaping hole but none of them turned out. Too bad for you, I know you'd like to see my wound.