Thoughts and Distractions

Something's wrong with Tigger

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:43:15 GMT

I just got a call from K. Something's wrong with Tigger, my 17 year old baby kitty. She's always been a cranky old lady so I worry that it'll be hard to tell when she's not well. K noticed that Tigger was drooling in her sleep and also this afternoon. She's not a drooler. And when K went to wipe her mouth she noticed an area at her lip like a skinned knee or an infection and she screamed when K tried to open her mouth. She's not as vocal as usual. She is drinking water, so that's good. K's going to see if she eats when the automatic kibble feeder goes off this evening.
We have an appointment with the vet but that's not until Thursday morning. If it seems to get worse or she's not eating we'll take her into an emergency vet. Hope it won't cost too much - as money's tight.
I'm worrying and stressing, while several thousand miles away in London. :( I'm just so glad that K's there.
Any animal experts out there there an opinion?
Do send her some good vibes.

here are photos of our three kids

Tigger on her favorite spot

Tigger and the elusive Yoshi

King David at 5 month and King David at 10 month in the same basket

King David, first week at home and already claiming the laptop and lap. Tigger is not amused.

Yoshi shares her room and her sun with King David

Photo bits from Buenos Aires

Mon, 12 May 2008 23:07:59 GMT

Here are photos that didn't quite fit into my travel report a couple of weeks back.

[Door of Buenos Aires]

[Architectural Features]

What does this one say?

[Butcher & Grocer]

[Trail made by ants at the park. They're really amazing engineers!]

Happy Mother's Day to all the...

Sun, 11 May 2008 12:51:18 GMT

beautiful moms out there
wonderful grans out there
to the moms and grans that are no longer with us
to the nanas and great nannies too
to all the women without kids who have great maternal instincts
to all the men out there who've been great moms
to all the moms who adopted and fostered kids - big cheer!
to all the humans who became moms to animal kids
to all the moms that drive us CRAZY!
to the moms that accepted and loved their kids for being misfits/queer/HIV positive/(fill in the blank)
to all the moms who said "sure you can" when the world said "no, you can't"
to all the moms that had to give up their babies
to all the moms that would have been, that weren't allowed to grieve for a lost baby or abortion
to all the moms who helped to keep women's choice free
to all the moms who have and are fighting get the government to wake up and stop killing our kids in wars, incarceration, and fell through the cracks of the system
to the moms who pulled them selves and their kids out of really bad situations
to all the moms who read to their kids
to all the moms who actually listen
to the neighbors moms that gave kids safe harbor when their own homes weren't safe
even to the moms who don't speak to some of us any more.

You may not be my mom, but Happy Mothers' Day

Land in London and then a day in Paris

Sat, 10 May 2008 13:17:37 GMT

crazy travel...

After nearly 10 hours in flight I land in London on Thursday at 8am. During the flight I didn't sleep at all as I was working on a column and an interview with deadlines looming over me.
At my secret hide-away I slept fitfully for 4 hours. Long flights eastwards is a real killer on the body, for anybody, if you don't get to sleep on the flight. Got myself ready for the class and trip to Paris and headed to my class at Coco De Mer where I taught the class on Sensual Flogging. Great group of students!

[Accolades and Irritation: Last year I did a salon on JoyStick Secrets: How to Please a Man, especially for the women from Harper's Bazaar UK. I flew in from Amsterdam where I was teaching there. I just saw the article and they did a lovely write up, but never once mentioned my name. I'm just the 'teacher who flew in from Amsterdam'. they mention all my cute little trade mark names for hand jobs and blow jobs, but not my name. why? sigh]

After class, over to Kumi's flat to sleep another whole 4 hours. Up at 4am to get a car at 430am to get to the train station for EuroStar. Nice smooth ride to Paris. Kumi slept - she didn't get too far on her web updates. LOL.
Off to the flat where we're crashing... Lovely quiet place in the outskirts of Paris.

I spent the day at the Centre Pompidou at the exhibition on art and faith... then to the Men's Art Gallery to see the special exhibition on Tagame Gengoro at the Art Men Paris gallery. Got to spend a couple of hours with the gallery owner.
(more on this later with photos.)

Cheap delish dinner at a kebob place. I thought I saw drunk guys in confrontation on the street. Turns out it may have been a disabled guy being robbed. sigh.

Drinks with Kumi and the Nuit Elastique fetish club night at the local rocker club, a very cool place called Les Furieux. I was so tired and jet lagged I was falling asleep at the table. lol

back to crash pad. nice long bath reading manga. Slept for 12 hours.

more later. Kumi needs her computer back for updates.

ciao!

Safe in London

Thu, 08 May 2008 10:34:57 GMT

tired.
smooth thru immigration / customs.
Long n expensive taxi ride.
Unpacked.
nap now...
class tonight.
I hope that I have a demo bottom.

off to Paris tomorrow.
Signing and tiny demo Saturday night with Kumi

My May Newsletter: Classes(SF, London UK, Paris FR, Chicago) etc

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:32:17 GMT

This is a copy of my newsletter that just went out. If you'd like to get this directly go to http://www.planetmidori.com/html/news.html

MIDORI'S NEWSLETTER April 30, 2008
1. A Season of Gratitude
2. Be My Hero! My California Adventure
3. Looking for Bunny Stuff & Bunny Outfit
4. May classes/events (SF, London UK, Paris FR, Chicago)
5. June preview (LA, San Jose, Toronto)
6. New columns, new venues
7. Hang out with me! My on-line haunts

= = =

1. A SEASON OF GRATITUDE

Another busy month is about to wrap up for me – leading into more adventures in May. All in all, my April can be summed up as “gratitude for amazing experiences and quality people.”

Last Friday was the San Francisco Bang 4 The Buck women’s party, raising funds for AIDS Lifecycle. Nearly 200 women and transfolk got wild and debauched having good clean fun as we raised $2044 for critically needed HIV services. I am grateful for all the people and companies that joined in to make this possible.
We’ll be doing this again next year, in Seattle and San Francisco, so don’t miss the fun!

I’m also grateful for, and admittedly nervous about, my birthday bash this coming Friday. We’re taking over Beach Blanket Babylon on Friday, May 2nd to celebrate my 42nd birthday.
My gratitude goes to all those who fill my life with joy and friendship.
It goes to all my HIV positive friends living and gone – to all those who value a year, a month, a week, a day and each moment in a life well lived.
And my gratitude goes out to all those who will come out to help celebrate! (There are still a few tickets available – so find something fun to wear and come on out! Of course, all the proceeds from the tickets will go to AIDS LifeCycle. www.planetmidori.com/bbb )

Travel – I’m always grateful for travel, especially when it's the rare 100% vacation travel. With the current weak US dollar, I was happily surprised to see how far the $ went in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sharing Buenos Aires, a gorgeous city, with my fabulous travel companions really made the travel special. It’s just a remarkable treasure when you find people you can travel well with. I highly recommend Buenos Aires and look forward to returning. I wrote extensively about the food and other adventures in my blog entry, for those who are interested.

Wishing you peace, pleasure and joy!

Relevant Links:
http://www.aidslifecycle.org/8081
http://fd-midori.livejournal.com/258396.html
http://www.bang4thebuckorg
http://www.planetmidori.com/bbb
http://fd-midori.livejournal.com/2008/03/29/

Midori
= = =

2. BE MY HERO! MY CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE

From May 31st through June 7th I’ll be on the road with AIDS LifeCyle.
I know, you’ve heard me talk about this a lot before – and as you know it’s something that’s near and dear to me.

For a week I spend my life in service to a greater cause and in service to the cycling efforts of others to accomplish their difficult journey. Over 3000 people gather for a 7-day bicycle trip of 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I laugh and cry more in this one week than I do in a year. All the funds raised will go to critically needed HIV services. Did you know that sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV is on the rise among the young? There’s still suffering, denial and there’s still no cure.

I hope that some of you will be my hero and sponsor my participation as a roadie on this crazy event. Every bit counts, even the equivalent of a cup of coffee.

If any of you out there have names of loved ones you’ve lost to HIV/AIDS/ARC, I’ll be happy to wear their names on my roadie jersey. Just let me know and I’ll take a part of your love on the ride with me! I will take their name and memory with me to the candle light vigil on edge of the Pacific.

http://www.aidslifecycle.org/8081

Love and light

Midori

= = =

3. LOOKING FOR BUNNY STUFF & BUNNY OUTFIT

Speaking of AIDS LifeCycle…
My roadie job is that of a Sweep Van team. We drive along the cyclists to help with safety. Our van’s theme is Bunny Love.
So I’m looking for cute bunny stuff, and especially a bunny outfit that would fit me! Send them my way!

(Also good: Hello Kitty and octopus items. I know, it’s weird. I’m Japanese - I can’t help it.)

= = =

4. UPCOMING CLASSES / EVENTS (Detail always available at http://www.PlanetMidori.com)

SAN FRANCISCO
~ 5/1 – 5/4 Presenting at International Ms. Leather Weekend. http://www.imsl.org/

~ Fri 5/2 My Birthday Party at Beach Blanket Babylon http://www.PlanetMidori.com/bbb

~ Tue 5/6 “Art of Feminine Dominance” at Good Vibrations on Polk Street. http://www.GoodVibes.com 415.345.0400

LONDON, UK
A series of sensual Salons at the luxurious Coco De Mer boutique, located at 23 Monmouth Street, London, WC2H 9DD. tel. 0207 836 8882. Pre-registration highly encouraged. http://www.coco-de-mer.co.uk/
~ Thr 5/8 “Secrets of Sensual Whipping”
~ Sun 5/11 “Erotic Japanese Rope Bondage – Hands-on”
~ Mon 5/12 “JoyStick Secrets: How to Pleasure Him”
~ Tue 5/13 “Lesbian Sex Secrets: How to Pleasure Her”
~ Wed 5/14 “JoyStick Secrets: How to Pleasure Him”

PARIS, FRANCE
~ Sat 5/10 A book signing at Demonia Boutique. http://www.demonia.com
~ Sat 5/10 Appearance and performance with Kumi at the fetish party, La Nuit Elastique

CHICAGO
Classes locally while attending International Mr. Leather contest.

~ Wed 5/21 “Wrapped for Pleasure: Sex Bondage” at G Boutique. http://www.boutiqueg.com/ 2131 N Damen Ave Chicago, IL 60647. Tel. 773.235.1234

~ Thr 5/22 “JoyStick Secrets: How to Pleasure Your Man” at The Pleasure Chest. http://www.thepleasurechest.com/ 3436 North Lincoln Avenue Chicago, IL 60657. Tel. 773.525.7151

~ Sun 5/25 “Hands-on Japanese Rope Bondage” at Early 2 Bed. http://www.early2bed.com 5232 N. Sheridan Rd, Chicago IL 60640. Tel 773.271.1219

= = =

5. JUNE PREVIEW

ALONG THE CALIFORNIA COAST
~ 5/31 – 6/7 AIDS LifeCycle ride

LOS ANGELES
~ Sun 6/8 Erotica LA. Presenting 2 classes for The Pleasure Chest.
1:35 p.m. - 2:15 p.m. “Back Door Betty: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Anal Sex”
3:30 p.m. - 4:20 p.m “Live the Fantasy: Erotic Role Play for Couples”
More info at: http://www.erotica-la.com/

LOS ANGELES class series at Coco De Mer. Coco De Mer. Tel. 1.310.652.0311. Address: 8618 Melrose Ave, West Hollywood, CA 90069 http://www.cocodemerusa.com (The site is hard to navigate. You might just want to call them.)
~ JoyStick Secrets
~ Japanese Bondage
~ Sex Toys for Couples (and Singles too!)

SAN JOSE
~ Sat 6/17 “Predicament Bondage” at Edges. http://www.edges.biz/

TORONTO
~ Sat 6/21 2 classes for DEVIANToronto http://deviantoronto.ca

Series of classes at Come As You Are, that sexy sweet boutique! Seats go fast so sign up early! http://www.comeasyouare.com/ Address: 701 Queen St W, Toronto Ontario, Canada M6J 1E6. Tel. 416.504.7934 or toll-free 1.877.858.3160
~ Sun 6/22 “Pussy Purring Pleasures”
~ Mon 6/23 “Hands-on Rope Bondage”
~ Tue 6/24 “JoyStick Secrets: How to Pleasure a Man”
~ Wed 6/25 “Hands-on Sensual Flogging”

= = =

6. NEW COLUMNS, NEW VENUES

For those of you who enjoyed my monthly column on ErosZine.com for the past three years, I have sad news for you. The site has discontinued new columns. They are, however, keeping my old columns in the archives with photos. I really enjoyed my writings for them and the editorial freedom, so I hope you’ll enjoy the archives as well.
http://eros-zine.com/erosbits.htm?filter=Diva's+Debauchery

In the mean time I continue to write for various other publications.

~ Men’s Health magazine in UK features me as their monthly sex advisor and problem solver in “Ask Midori”.

~ http://www.SocialKink.com has me as their featured blog columnist. This month I wrote about “Your Dirty Mind and World Peace“”. Last month I wrote “Suitcase Dungeon: The Traveling Kinkster?” Next month I’ll tackle the topic of “Dominant or Just a Jerk?”

~ My monthly column in http://www.Bondage.com often gives me a chance to engage in educational smut fiction to include medical play, electrical play, and upcoming episodes on role play and the single tail!
= = =

6. HANG OUT WITH ME!

Come and hang out with me at my various on-line haunts! I run two really good sexuality discussion groups, plus blogs and MySpace as well. They're all listed at www.PlanetMidori.com

http://midori.tribe.net
http://www.KinkWire.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/divamidori
http://fd-midori.livejournal.com
http://www.myspace.com/fd_midori

= = =

Laura Antoniou in SF. April 29 - May 4

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:46:32 GMT

Laura Antoniou storms through San Francisco, offering both new classes and discussions and old favorites. Check her out at these fine venues!

April 29th
Laura appears at the Center for Sex and Culture with a new workshop:
"Tell Me What You Want, What You Really Really Want."
Description: Often, when we try to tell our partners what we like or want, those words are filtered through things like expectations, projection, fear, shame and verbal shortcuts. Expand your creativity and verbal skills beyond I like flogging or anything you want through an interactive game and exercise. Learn how creative communication and courageous risk-taking can make your relationship and play more intimate, satisfying and fun. Communicate fantasies in a way that will inspire reality; say what you mean, and mean what you say and make it seductive.
For information on cost and time of event, visit the Center for Sex & Culture, www.sexandculture.org <http://www.sexandculture.org/>

<http://www.sexandculture.org/>

<http://www.sexandculture.org/> April 30
Laura presents her most popular class, "The Way of It: Establishing and Maintaining a Protocol" at The Citadel. The event takes place from 8-10 p.m. (doors open at 7:30) and the cost is $20. http://www.sfcitadel.org/ <http://www.sfcitadel.org/> for more information.

May 1
Laura starts off the month at the Center for Sex and Culture, presenting
"Too Kinky for Words: Playing Way Off The Edge."
Description: Everyone loves to claim they play on the edge, or their style of being kinky is somehow greater than the average pervert. Yet even among the uber-kinky, there are those of us who have fantasies - or play styles - which seem to be beyond what is considered "acceptable." Is your kink really "OK"? How can you tell? Are there boundaries to fantasies? Should there be? Should we/can we own our most unmentionable ones? How do you share fantasies with a partner if they make you uncomfortable?
This workshop is more of a guided discussion group on the process of identifying, naming, sharing and potentially enacting our scariest fantasies. It's not about being outrageous to shock others - it's about fear of community mores, worries about personal responsibility, shameful eroticism and secret joys.
Participants must come prepared to write down a fantasy or playstyle (anonymously, if they wish) and turn it in to the presenter.
For information on cost and time of event, visit the Center for Sex & Culture, www.sexandculture.org <http://www.sexandculture.org/>

<http://www.sexandculture.org/>

May 2
Special “Marketplace Maven” Event at Femina Potens, 2199 Market Street from 6-7:30.
This is your chance to sit down with the author of the Marketplace series and dish the dirt. Get all the inside scoop: how the series was developed, the characters created, the storyline expanded. Ask *anything* from background details to future plans; share your own feelings about the way things have gone and where you think they will, should and shouldn't go next. Get a look at the Marketplace Codex and timeline, and review the sometimes hilarious suggestions fans have made for the mythical movie. Then hear an excerpt from the upcoming book. And maybe win a signed and numbered first edition of one of the books!
Tickets are available in advance at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/31263 <http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/31263> . For more information, visit feminapotens.com

May 3
Laura returns to the Citadel with a new workshop: "Tops Are From Gor, Bottoms Are From Roissy."
Description: We frequently draw our relationship models from fictional universes, forgetting that those universes don’t always work the same way. What happens when concepts like “master,” “slave,” and “service” are filtered through the Marketplace, Gor, Roissy, or other fictional universes? Laura will help separate fantasy from reality, discuss effective communication of roles, and explore how to borrow from fiction honestly while we craft our relationship styles. There’s good stuff in our fiction as well as bad – be prepared to laugh at the unrealistic expectations, smile at fond memories of our dearest inspirations, and grimace at how we can turn something we did as a lark for a few years into a colossal waste of time.
The event takes place from 2-5 p.m., with doors opening at 1:30. Cost is $30. Visit http://www.sfcitadel.org/ <http://www.sfcitadel.org/> for more information.

May 4
Laura proudly offers the keynote address at International Ms. Leather. Enjoy a weekend with leatherwomen and those who love them. For registration and information, visit www.imsl.org <http://www.imsl.org/>

<http://www.imsl.org/>

May 4
Laura returns to the Center for Sex and Culture, to present "Revenge of the Middle-Aged Guard."
Description: Youve been there; youve done that. So why do things seem so much more complicated now? If you remember when my space meant where you took a hot date after dinner, links were for chains and poly was followed by ester you may be feeling your age a bit. Laura sure is; her bed time bears a suspicious resemblance to the time she used to go out to SM clubs. This round table is designed for those who arent ready for old fart status and arent sure if theyre want to be added to a Facebook friends list, either. Limited kvetching allowed, but more designed to discuss what our experiences have taught us and what we want to do to enhance our personal and community relations. No one under 32 allowed! Go to a dang TNG meeting or have a mocha soy latte with a shot of mango and text your BFF on how unfair the world is.
For information on cost and time of event, visit the Center for Sex & Culture, www.sexandculture.org <http://www.sexandculture.org/>

<http://www.sexandculture.org/>

<http://www.sexandculture.org/>

<http://www.sexandculture.org/>

Plan your next roadtrip with MapQuest.com <http://www.mapquest.com/?ncid=mpqmap00030000000004> : America's #1 Mapping Site.

Help celebrate my birthday! Special AIDS LifeCycle evening at Beach Blanket Babylon. May 2nd

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:41:11 GMT

(Come celebrate my birthday with me!)

Official blurb
= = =

An Evening of Glamour, Gayety and Celebration of Life
Midori's Birthday Bash at Beach Blanket Babylon - Fundraiser for AIDS LifeCycle and the SF AIDS Foundation
When: May 2nd, 2008, Curtains at 9:30pm
Where: Club Fugazi, 678 Green Street, San Francisco, CA 94133 US

Tickets available ONLY through:
http://www.PlanetMidori.com/bbb

A fancy, festive, uniquely San Francisco cabaret experience! The City's favorite sexpert and columnist, along with her partner Kelly B., want to blow the birthday-blues away with you and a big party.

The main floor's been reserved to celebrate life! Hostess will be none other than the glamorous Miss Ginger Brewlay from Los Angeles. A fantastic theatrical treat for everyone. (It's the later show with a bar so it is 21+)

100% of the evening's proceeds will go to AIDS LifeCycle and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

Dressing up encouraged! Cycle gear, costumes, nice dinner theater threads, drag kings, drag queens, etc!

Tickets available ONLY through:
http://www.PlanetMidori.com/bbb

Front cabaret seats $58 Rear cabaret seats $50

Please feel free to share this invite with your friends and network! More the merrier!

(Special treats from the San Francisco Chocolate Factory at the door!)

WoooHoo! Awesome Bang 4 The Buck SF!!!

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:38:39 GMT

Yowza! What an amazing night! I think it keeps getting better every year.
This past Friday was the fourth year of Bang4TheBuck women's party in SF.

Some stats...

190+ women and transfolk got wild and wicked (Lots of new faces too!) filled the The Citadel
37 amazing volunteers helped to make the evening fabulous. Couldn't do this with out you! (We hope you enjoyed the volunteer thank-you bags.)
$ raised for AIDS LifeCycle = $2044 !!!!

Chocolates provided by San Francisco Chocolate Factory
3 big tables of raffle goodies, sex toys, books, fashion from , Good Vibrations, Stockroom, Stormy Leather, Social Kink, Master Andre's Flogger, ID Lube, Twisted Monk.

The Center for Sex & Culture provided the stage and stripper pole.

The awesome Bang crew!!! OMG, what an amazing team. Each year the team works, through out the year, to make the the party in Seattle and SF possible. It's all donated time and efforts and creative thinking - to make doing-good a hot thing.

Miss Indigo Blue, the sparkling goddess of burlesque taught an giggly fun class... and than MC-ed the Strip-O-Rama. OMG, the last lap dance delivered by her on a happy, blushing volunteer boi, that was fun, funny and even raised a lot of dough.
Lydia McLane in her sultry outfit was the tally mistress for the Strip-O-Rama and the goddess of raffle...
Lee, our beloved handi-butch, seemed to be everywhere, getting everything to work and assemble smoothly
Kelly B - volunteer coordinator and head of Operations - she's my ying to my yang. My ideas would fly off like pretty butterflies without her.
In fact, my ideas wouldn't even pupate if it weren't for Miss Indigo Blue, Lydia, Lee and Kelly.... and the tireless volunteers... and the rockin' partying folks! Each of you make all the work worth it!
I really get a high from creating this event with all of you.

Thank you thank you thank you

Doing the world a good turn can be fun and sexy!

King David update - 10 months old

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:50:00 GMT

In his kitty bassinet next to my desk. It's a large African market basket.
He's nearly 10 month old. About 24 inches from nose to base of tail. Aproximately 12 lbs. He's taller at the shoulder and hip than both the full grown girls. What exactly is in his bloodline?

So far he's been doing well with the harness and leash for walking in the back patio area. He's mastered "Up David" pose of grabbing my hand and standing on his hind legs. He's even done it for Miss Indigo. He's gotten used to walking through the "hoop" - a badminton racket gutted of it's strings. I need to find a bigger hoop to have him jump through. Any ideas? Something about 2 feet in diameter would be good.
I got him a white and blue doggie sailor shirt. He got used to it after a while. It's cute on him. I'll get a photo for you King David fans.
The other cats glare at him with disdain.

Been a way a bit - An exciting week ahead!

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 16:06:06 GMT

Sorry I've been absent a bit.
I just returned from Philadelphia where we had another fab Rope Bondage Dojo (R) Stage 1 weekend with wonderful students. With meetings before and after that, plus travel I just wasn't able to get on line much at all... in fact I'm totally behind on e mail! Yikes!

This week is crazy busy and really exciting for me!

Thursday 4/24 night I have a class on CBT titled "Fun with His Bits!" at Stormy Leather. This link will get you to the online ticket sales. I hope my favorite demo bottom can make it! Stormy is making a special Weenie Wall for me and this class!

Friday night 4/25 is our Bang 4 The Buck, the wild, debauched women's party! www.Bang4TheBuck.org

Also this is the last week or so for the on-line ticket sales to for my Beach Blanket Babylon Birthday Bash on May 2nd. I hope you can make it. Make sure to get tickets in advance or you might be stuck at the door with no tickets available. http://www.PlanetMidori.com/bbb

I'm nervous and excited like I am every year about this. Miss Indigo Blue, one of the Bang Crew members, is already in town. K is here. The sexy Lydia McLane will arrive soon. The volunteer list is filling up. The hottie DJ Davina Suicide is geared up. The goodies for the raffle and prizes are rolling in from the sponsors.
Who's coming?

(OMG, so much to do!)

Hummingbirds have returned

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:10:46 GMT

This past winter we had several nasty windstorms. After that the hummingbirds, the ones that stick around and don't migrate, just disappeared.
By now we should have many buzzing around the feeders... but none - until a couple of weeks ago.
I've seen one coming by.
I hope more will return.

Buenos Aires 4/6

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:20:15 GMT

[Sun 4/6]
Theme: Yes, I’m a tourist.

Realizing that our trip was coming to a rapid close, K and I got up earlier than usual to stroll to the Japanese Garden. They had taken a large corner of the Parque 3 de Febrero and its traditional European style garden and created it into a very traditional, authentically designed Japanese garden. One of the park markers had both the Argentinean national embelam as well as the Japanese Imperial sign on it – which lead me to believe that this was one of those places where the Japanese government sent out a small army of garden artisans, etc. As you know I love gardens, and in particular I get a kick out of visiting Japanese gardens around the world to see how they’re executed. This one was quite lovely. Many of the signs were in Japanese as well as Spanish so I could actually read the signs!

At the back of the park is a large building that serves as the cultural arts center and restaurant. They had an exhibition about the 110 years of Japanese immigration to Buenos Aires explored through photos, magazine and news articles. Interestingly it only went up to the late 30’s. Nothing on what it was like during the War of the Pacific (aka WW2). I’m now curious about the immigration history of Japanese to South America. (I knew that Brazil has a huge Japanese Brazilian population, especially in Sao Paolo, but I didn’t really know much about the Aregentinian migration.)

The restaurant in the cultural center isn’t worth going to. We ate there but found the service as gracious and charming as fast food drive throughs and the food to be pretty bad. The chicken in my chicken bowl was slathered in something that might have been cheap soy sauce at one point that was well on its way to being roof tar. The rice was the wrong kind. At least the green tea was decent. Skip the restaurant.

The park is simply a glorious bit of peace and beauty within the big urban buzz… I was happy that the “Japanese-ness” was executed correct – not in that cultural butchering and Jap-fetishism that passes for love of things Japanese (that seems so offensively prevalent in sectors of the Western kink world today. Ick.)

But I digress…

The Koi – or the ornamental carps so prized in Japanese ponds – were ginormous! They sell fish food packets at the snack stand and the little plant and bonsai shop. We bought several packets and enjoyed the mad feeding frenzy. After a while it starts to look pretty scary.

(Koi Mouth!)

Hours slip by quickly at this party. Do come early or during the week to avoid the throngs of families with small children.

We strolled back the few blocks to the apartment. The walk, emerging from this large urban oasis and than strolling through tree lined streets with elegant apartment buildings reminded me of coming out of Central Park and strolling along the Upper East Side.

The boys were off with Hugo for some shopping trip for another. As we waited for them I began to organize my packing for the trip home.

Once they returned we walked up to the subway station. (I wonder what the locals call it here? Each city has its name for their public transits… Metro, Tube, Subway, T, the El, Muni, Bart, etc.) We’ve been taking the taxis as it was affordable with the four of us but I’d wanted to take the train to see what it was like. The train was cheap, fast, modern and efficient, neither spiffy clean nor filthy, just lived in. The murals in the train stations were gorgeous. I waned to take photos but a security guard told me it wasn’t allowed. Bummer. Please do check out the murals at the various stations.

Just like in New York, it’s disorienting when you pop out of a subway station. Strolled through a commercial area, then through the federal square and gazed at the Casa Rosada The presidential palace, equivalent of the US White House. (The balcony maybe familiar to many as where Evita Peron and General Peron made many speeches from.)

Barricades were still partially up in the park where protesters had been gathering for the last several days protesting agricultural policies.

Spotted a pro President Christina graffiti along the way.

Found a bench with a red rose left on it. Some tribute to the romance of Evita?

Continued walking to the San Telmo Sunday street market. We had thought that we might go to the Gaucho market with folk music and performances and such, but with our limited remaining time we decided it was too far. (Another hour or more by train or half hour by taxi.) We’ll save the Gauhco market for the next trip!

The San Telmo street market is a huge street fair of block after block. Vendors range from a blanket on the pavement to portable stalls to antique dealers, design specialty shops to art galleries. You can shop from low-brow tourist chotchkas to high end art and house designware. If you’re looking for leather goods, such as belts, how hide and such, this is the place to go. The guys had already purchased their big cowhide rug in town, only to discover that they would have saved another 200 pesos or more here. I picked up some cool hand tooled belts for my jeans as well as a magnet for my travel destination magnet collections. (I hate travel crap that collect dust and take up space. But I do like to get small magnets from my favorite travel destinations. They go up on the inside of the metal closet doors, always reminding me of fab experiences.) Bought some other fun things, all within the “cheap” range.

The street foods were delish. Churros vendors walk through the crowd with large baskets full of churros and other yummy fried pastries. Eight pesos for eight huge sugar coated churros, crispy on the ouside and multon on the inside… I had fun continually stuffing Dart’s face with them just to watch him bounce around from a sugar high. A young woman had a basket of home make empanadas – yummy. We’d only gone a few blooks, when we looked up to realize the fair went on further, seemingly endlessly.
We were pooped!

So we walked to this hotel we heard about Hotel Axel that wasn’t far from the fair. It’s a gay hotel but billed as “hetero-friendly” with a bustling Sunday T dance, complete with a roof top pool with a glass bottom that can viewed from the cocktail lounge on the main floor. On the lower deck there’s a pool next to the dance floor and another bar. Along the pool are 4 clear boxes, pool-side showers where Go-Go boys dance bathes in rain-down water and colored lights. (When not a dance party, it’s a sexy as hell pool shower for the guests.) It’s a lot like stepping in to a scene from Queer as Folk – and it could be any beautiful people gay party – Palm Springs, Key West, cruise ship, LA, Barcelona, etc…. Great people watching!

The neighborhood can be a bit on the rough side and dicey. Do be careful as tourists. Out in the streets, we had some guy pretent to be drunk and try to hug us. We’re all city kids so we all totally ducked and dodged him, but we’re sure he would have picked our pockets clean.

(Cool graffiti in the San Telmo alleys)

Taxi back home, shower, dress and catch another taxi to a restaurant called Sucar, owned by the same folks as Bar Uriarte. Very beautiful. Seemed to specialize more in seafood. I had a lovely Octopus tartar that looked like a Moorish title mosaic – beautiful and delicious. Interesting interior architecture. Another catwalk to the bathroom. Here, so many of the restaurants seem to make the process of going to the bathroom as an opportunity to see and be seen. Here a metal grilled elevated catwalk strolled you, mid-air, past the back-lit liquir wall.

Let’s sing

“I’m too sexy for my cat, too sexy for my cat, what you think about that?
On the cat walk,
On the cat walk,
Yeah”

Snicker.

The food was delish and the place was beautiful, but we didn't find the dining experience as inviting as Bar Uriarte. There, the service was warm and charming and the people dining felt more like regulars. At Sucar it felt more like a place for fancy business dinners by foreign business men. Maybe the drunk, obnoxious German business man who kept slamming his chair into the back of Dart’s chair added to that distracted feel…

But in all it was a lovely meal with our lovely little urban hedonist group!

==

Buenos Aires 4/5

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 18:17:30 GMT

[Sat 4/5]
Theme: Gardens, Art and Food Discoveries

The lovely day in Colonia left me hankering for parks and nature. I looked at the map and realized that the historical botanical garden, Jardín Botánico Carlos Thays de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires is just 4 blocks away, past the Evita Museum. So K and I got up a bit earlier to spend some time in the garden. The night before we had gone but they’d just closed.
I’m glad we went. In the middle of this bustling city, there are some remarkable green spaces and this is one of them. Sr. Thays former mansion is now a community space. You can see his architectural plans, from the 19th century, of the various parks in town there. Very cool.

The park doesn't allow dogs in – which means this is one of the few places in Bs.As. that seems to be free of canine landmines. It was nice to be able to stroll looking up, not down all the time. LOL. The place is also a haven for cats. If you are a cat lover, this is the place to get your cat fix. Someone feeds them and cares for them, as they do look in good condition. We saw some cats healing from obvious professional veterinary surgery. I hope they’re also doing a neutering program. At first I was walking around with a plastic bag from the grocery store with a bottle of water in it. That attracted the cats. I figured out that plastic bags marks one as the “cat lady – food source” so I put the bag away. I hate to get their hopes up.

One Loney Planet BA guidebook mistakenly said that the place reeks of cat poo because it’s full of feral cats. WRONG! It was one of the few places that didn’t smell of poo… and when it did, it was near the adjacent park where dogs were allowed and you could really smell the dog shit. Obviously this was written by someone who hates cats and don’t understand them. Actually the cats here looked far healthier than the ones in the Recoleta cemetery. The cat population also keeps the rodents and pigeons controlled. We didn’t see but one pigeon there. Actually that was like watching a mini version of Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom. The previous evening, as we walked the parameter of the closed parks, we observed that the cats were coming out to hunt and socialize in their colony groups. One large young male had something under its paw. Other cats approached it slowly with their heads down. The tension and feline drama mounted slowly. The young male grabbed its catch in it’s mouth and stalked off to a secluded area on it’s own. He had a very fat pigeon and was having a righteous dinner. Cats lower of lower status hovered for leftovers. Ah a bit of the wild in the urban jungle!

So needless to say the park was free of dog shit, pigeon shit and rats. The areas were divided into themes, French garden, Roman garden, Oriental garden, water garden, cactus and succulents, woodlands, modern and classical sculptures, even an Art Nuevo glass conservatory…

We then strolled, along the other parks, Parque 3 de Febrero, and the Japanese garden and arrived at the Malba , the wonderful museum of Latin American art with an emphasis on contemporary works. We joined up with Gary, Dart and the handsome porteno, Hugo there for an afternoon of art. As a lover of contemporary art, I found the museum delightful! Some people think of it as small, but I think it’s just the right size to allow in-depth appreciation of the work without being over whelmed or feel rushed. A friend had advised that an hour would suffice to see the collection, but I didn’t find that to be true. The museum kindly had reading material in English as well as Portuguese. I think it would be easy to spend 2 to 3 hours just between the art and the lovely little shop. The store carries works from local designers. We later found many of the objects sold at hip twin BA design and garment store called Materia Urbana in the San Telmo district. All very worth visiting if you have a thing for beautiful contemporary design objects, gifts and clothing. The museum is closed on Tuesday, so please keep that in mind. No photos were allowed in the museum, so unfortunately I can’t share the wonderful interior views.

Exteriors of the museum

The café attached to the museum is fantastic! They’re open even when the museum is closed, serving lunch and dinner, I believe, and maybe even breakfast. The menu is lighter than the other fares we’ve been eating – a bit of a relief with our beef baby bellies now. I had a Moroccan lamb sandwich where the pita was baked with whole cumin seeds imbedded. Very yummy. The presentations were artful and playful as well. The desserts are not to be missed. I had a rice pudding with passion fruit sauce. OMG! Hugo had something that looked like the Acropolis made of strawberries with sabayon. The strawberries actually had flavour, unlike the red giant obscenities called strawberries we get in the grocers in the States. We ended up sitting at the long table, down from the where the Argentinean owner and the French chef were having a very animated lunch of their own work. That’s always a good sign.

Across the street to the big new mall. The guys had parked Hugo’s car there so we went through the mall to get to the car. A mall’s a mall. There are a lot of stores that are South American or Argentinean fashion labels that offer tax-free shopping, so for concentrated shopping to update your wardrobe this might be efficient. But it’s still a mall and thus boring to me.

Off to Hugo’s new acquisition – an airy, well lit, charmingly designed two-unit apartment, centrally located for rent to visitors. He’s just acquired it and it’s in the process of kitchen updating, refurbishment, and prettifying. Hugo’s an architect and very design conscious. This is going to be a beautiful pair of apartments. What’s neat is that they can be rented separate or as a large flat. He said he’d let me know when the places are available for rent. I know his rates will be good, so I’ll make sure to pass the info on to anyone who’s interested. I know that we’ll be renting from him when we return. We liked his place much more than the flat we got.

A detail from the stairwell in his building

The tea I had at the museum café was brilliantly delicious. We discovered that a local tea maker that Hugo knows personally blended the tea. I had no idea that Argentina was a big tea producer and consumer. Since the museum didn’t sell that unique blend, we went to the shop, Chez Pauline Maison de The. Yummy! Not only can you buy the leaves and tea paraphernalia, you can sit and have the tea with delicious sweets made by the French chef mentioned earlier.

Here’s the tea I bought. So delightfully fragrant and well balanced.. no sweetening or alterations needed. (will someone translate the Spanish?)

SAINT GERMAIN DES PRES
Té verde Gunpowder y chino tipo congou con menta, durazno, melocotón, uva blanca y flor de girasol
Infusión : 3 a 4 minutos.
Té refrescante gracias a su menta, muy utilizada en Francia para condimentar platos, tanto dulces como salados. Tonos de primavera parisina en su taza de té que se puede disfrutar todo el día.

Off to cocktails at Hugo’s apartment. What a beautiful place! It was like being in a Parisian loft as we looked down the streets and building, gold and pink from the sunset.

Back to the flat – change and meet up with Hugo again to head out to dinner. A restaurant called El Central had gotten rave reviews the last time the guys were here so we called, made a reservation and headed out.

We get there and it’s not there. Instead there’s a restaurant called Ceviche, a modern Peruvian restaurant. We decided to give it a try. I don’t know anything about Peruvian foods. The menu items were so different from Argentinean fare that Hugo had a hard time helping us. What we discovered was that Peruvian food appreciates spice. We also realized that the glorious Argentinean foods, both modern and traditional, are excellently flavoured with herbs and top-notch grass fed meats, they don’t use hot spices at all. In fact the tables don’t usually have peppershakers on them. Hugo told us that many Argentineans think North American foods are too spicy and that black pepper is too strong. Interesting. We realized that all of us, except Hugo, were totally craving for spicy foods. We informed the guy helping us, I think he was the owner, and he lit up with a big grin and brought out a fantastic salsa that was totally well balanced in heat, flavour and texture. Then the vinegar based hot sauce, obviously made in the kitchen, and gave our foods a fab kick. I had a seafood grill dish with a small mound of uniquely flavoured sticky rice. We noticed a lot of Asian influence in the cuisine… Not sure if that was from the Peruvian indigenous influence or the massive Asian immigration influence to South America. We loved the food there. The only thing that didn’t work was the puff pastry with soy sauce dip. We ate out in the back patio, which was also their herb garden. Pots after planer after pots of thyme, rosemary, oregano, chili peppers, mints of many varieties, sage and more. The chef would come out one in a while and pick herbs for cooking, which was really cool to watch. A large cactus was in its full evening bloom with a blossom the size of a softball…

My stomach missed the spice. After showing down on hot, hot food, all my stomach upset went away!

Bang 4 The Buck ticket giveaway at Good Vibes!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 01:34:37 GMT

Good Vibrations the fabulous sex positive shop and their on line magazine are doing something special for Bang4TheBuck.org Women's Party.

Btw they're one of the uber cool sponsors of the party, providing tons of fabulous toys for the raffle.

They're giving away 2 pairs of tickets, that a total of 4 tickets.
The give-away info is at the end of the interview here

Good luck!

The party is on Friday, April 25th at the Citadel in San Francisco.
More info at http://www.bang4thebuck.org

pass it on!

Buenos Aires 4/4

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:37:40 GMT

[Fri 4/4]
(all the photos at the end because there are so many!)

Theme: Colonial Beauty

Up early, again… It’s a hot day here in Buenos Aires. At 8am people were already in tank tops and shorts. This is their fall. It’s beautiful, but we’re glad to be out of the heat this day.

We hope a cab to the ferry terminal. We’re heading to the quaint little townlet of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_del_Sacramento
Yup, another country, and it’s only an hour’s boat ride way from down town Bs. As. It’s the oldest city in the nation of Uruguay, founded in 1860, and it’s now a World Heritage Site.

Here’s one of my favorite travel magazine’s site with an article on the city.
http://www.budgettravel.com/bt-dyn/content/article/2006/10/11/AR2006101101127.html

It took us, tourist gringos, a while to figure out the process. Next time we’ll do things more smoothly… So here’s my advice…

• Book your ferry ticket in advance. http://www.buquebus.com The site has an English page if you don’t read Argentinean Spanish. There’s a fast ferry and a slow ferry. We took the fast one. The price difference between Tourist Class, Special Class and First Class isn’t much after the currency conversion, so I’d opt for the First Class to get the best view. I am not sure if it’s cheaper to buy the tickets in advance, but it would help you to get the seats you want. We should have booked ours in advance.

• Give yourself plenty of time at the ferry terminal on the BA side. You have several lines to stand in. The line to buy the tickets. The line to get the tickets. The line for security where your bag goes through the x ray and you go through the metal detector gate. The line for immigration. If you’re getting your tax back on tax-free shopping, that’s another line. The fancy new ferry terminal on the BA side is still under construction. It might be smoother once they finish building it.

Fanciest public bathroom in a transportation terminal I've ever seen. At the ferry building.

• Tax free shopping refund… see bottom P.P.S.

• The next time we go we’re going to book at least one night at a local hotel. Even though it’s a small town, we would have like to have had more time there. An afternoon wasn’t enough. Make it an excursion from Buenos Aires and slow down to enjoy it. We saw many adorable inns in traditional, historical homes that looked just delightful. We saw glimpses of fragrant flower filled courtyards with hammocks under the wooden roof over hang and dappled sunlit cobblestones, along with some windows open to pretty beds with embroidered linen and vases of flowers.

• When you come back to the ferry terminal at BA don’t wait for the taxi unless you have a lot of luggage. The guy managing the taxis ignored us and the ones who bothered to talk to us quoted us easily twice the actual rate. Walk a few blocks up to the main thoroughfare and catch a Radio Taxi (that’s a licensed cab that runs on a meter) zooming by. It’ll save you from being ripped off by a super rude driver. We walked up and got a regular cab and that was much easier.

• Wear walking shoes and sunshade. Bring plenty of film or memory cards.

• Go during the weekdays to avoid the portenos (people of Buenos Aires) coming over for a weekend retreat.

• The exchange rate is awesome! 100 Uruguay Pesos = 15 Argentine Pesos = 5.03 US$!

It’s a totally different world… It transported me to stories I’d read by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Quiet wide cobble stoned streets lined by tall maples, acacia and other shady trees. Elegant Spanish colonial buildings with simple, graceful lines. Quiet. Clean. Graceful. Relaxing. The shoreline is pretty. The water isn’t inviting to swim in, as it’s clay brown of the River Plate delta. (BA and Colonia are located in the muddy delta, not the Atlantic.) It’s really weird for us coastal types to be on a shore at the edge of a wide body of water and not smell the sea salty breeze… (Why the beaches in Toronto seem so “wrong” to me.) But still the shore was lovely.. I think the absence of tourists, different colored water and the river water smell with the scent of old stones and stucco added to the otherworldly feel of the town.

We reluctantly took the late afternoon ferry back to the mega city of B.A. Colonia was just the change of pace to slow that we needed from the big city of Buenos Aires.

Back to the flat and dressed casually to finally go to Chueca, the very gay dinner, drag show and bar place.

The wine we ordered was bad so we sent it back. The manager wouldn’t take it back so Gary had to have a conversation with him. Bad form. I don’t really remember what I ate there. So I guess it didn't really make an impression on me.

My stomach was still fragile so I think that’s part of the reason why I don’t really remember. The day before I had purchased some herbal stomach soothing tea from Farmacity (Their version of Rite Aid or Walgreens.) That didn’t do much. So I returned and the pharmacist recommended a pill for stomachaches with a pain reliever. That finally relieved the discomfort.

The drag act was funny. Couldn’t understand what she was lip-synching to, but it was funny in a drag horror sort of way. While the words were in Spanish, we totally got it when she performed a spot-on version of Lucy in the Vitameatavegimin skit! OMG!

The bar was full, wall-to-wall, with hot porteno men in trendy clothing. The rooftop bar and lounge area was the elegant and cruisey.

We enjoyed the sites and went home sort of early. The day walking in the breezy sun of Colonia tired us out.

P.S. I can’t remember which day it was, but we bought a small package of very large pale green figs. They were the most delicious figs any of us had ever eaten. It was so rich and juicy that it was oozing droplets of honey like syrup. The flesh was a dark rosy red and intensely flavorful. I enjoy some excellent figs in California but nothing like this…

P.P.S.
When shopping, whenever possible shop at store with the Tax Free Shopping sign. Make sure to have them fill out the documents before you leave the store. Collect all of them and you get your money back at airports and ferry buildings. By saving our paper work and giving ourselves time to take care of this at the ferry building, we got a little extra spending money without the fees that the ATMs extract out of your funds.

Photo of the beautiful Art Deco lighthouse at the Buenos Aires yacht club. We zoomed by it on the ferry.

Sign at a snack shop in Colonia.... hmmm...

A door in a newer home in Colonia, outside of the historical area.

Buenos Aires, reflected in the ferry terminal building.

So much more to see!

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:49:38 GMT

Where I've traveled so far.
(Ok, I also included brief trips to one city in a country but the program paints the whole country as visited...)

Buenos Aires 4/3

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:15:36 GMT

Guess what these images are! (Answers below)
Don't they look sort of, well, naughty?

[Thrs 4/3]

Theme: Spendorphines

We got up early, for us. Although K has been getting up quite early each morning for a little daily peace and quiet. A nice brisk walk to the famed Recoleta Cemetery where we met up with about 15 other tourists for the English language tour. Present were Brits, Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, Americans and a Netherlander.

The cemetery, founded in 1821 on the former gardens of the Franciscans, next to the church, has the most expensive real estate in the whole of Argentina. Gorgeous above and belowground mausoleums house the dead portenos in style. The architectural styles range wildly and beautifully. The theme of gorgeous doors continues even here.

The tour is led by Florenzia. The guys had a tour with them before and loved her quirky local take on things. She showed us around to some highlights and told us part history, part gossip of the city’s families and heritage. Apparently the dead of Argentina are often well traveled. The body of Evita has been moved several times, even body napped and then exchanged in a dead body hostage trade deal with the body of an anti-Peronista president. Etc. I really look forward to another visit of the cemetery to just wonder around. Next time I’m bringing my pro camera and macro lens just for this place.

[Answer to the images at the beginning... one was a tomb. The other is a detail from a sculpture on a tomb.]

Stopped by a café and refueled yummy carnitas empanada and lame coffee and then taxied back to Palermo Viejo. There we shopped like mad for really fantastic fashion. What we discovered was that Made in Argentina goods are really nice quality with great design and local designers are creating totally unique things. The price is great with the exchange rate. Even the local high-end chain shops are worth looking into. Don’t bother with any international brands, as their prices are comparable to the US.

We found a small store that showed one-off women’s clothing created by more than 20 different Argentine designers. The shop was, like so many other shops in that district, converted from a private home. The entry way/courtyard was adorable!

I scored a hand-pained silk skirt in spring shades of pink on silver with a matching 3D long sleeve sleeve T as well as gold tango pumps. At another store picked up a treated, polished white linen coat that will be lovely in New York on a warm spring or fall day.

We found a spa in the heart of the shopping area, called Garden Angels or something like that, that offered fancy sounding facials and massages, so we all decided to get treatments done. I went for the chocotherapy massage. I’m a massage junkie so I feel that I’ve got a lot of good experience to compare it with… My verdict on that place – don’t bother. The massage was nice but nothing special. The room was too cold. The “chocotherapy” was chocolate scented skin stuff that seemed more chemically than beneficial.
I need to find a really great spa experience in Bs.As. for the next trip.

It was great having this fashion advisory team of Dart, Gary and K with me. It was like having my own Queer Eye for Midori show going on.

Back home… we all collapsed in the living room from the frenzied shopping day.

We decided we were experiencing spendorphins and its post effect crash.
I now have cool new teaching, meeting and sexy work clothes for fraction of the price… It’s the best “school clothes” shopping day I’ve ever had.

We dressed and took a cab to the uber-fancy slick restaurant called Casa Cruz.

It’s all dark, slick and beautiful there full of beautiful people. We saw the first North American style butch woman there as the bartender.
I had an amazing drink made of cucumber soaked Absolut vodka with fresh strained honeydew melon and cucumbers. Really delicious.

As my stomach was still fragile I kept it light. I had a lovely grilled octopus dish with truffled potatoes and wilted greens.

After a while, though, we noticed that all the wait staff was very beautiful and very young. As Gary is a highly sought after wedding planner, he’s got an eye for the service and management details. He started to point out the cracks in the glossy surface… that the wait staff aren’t experienced enough, that the table rotation cycles and seat filling wasn’t so good, and that they seemed to be more about the glitz. It’s one of the IT restaurants but his guess is that it might not be there the next time we visit. It was an education about a world I know nothing about. Really fascinating
Still the food was great and evening was superb.

Buenos Aires 4/2

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 14:11:14 GMT

[Wed 4/2]

Theme: Feeling fragile

It was a rough night’s sleep. It was already daylight before I finally threw up and actually fell asleep. A few hours I woke up feeling better but weak.

We went to Palermo Vilejo to Serrano Square and found an old style nice meat on skewer restaurant. I got sick in the restroom again. Didn’t even touch the salad I ordered when I decided that going back and resting at the flat would be a good thing. I had the address written down and Gary walked me to the taxi. I thought I’d just take it easy, maybe work on my e mail and the articles due… but my body said no. I just slept for several hours. The rest of the gang stayed in Palermo and shopped. They returned around 7pm.

They kindly decided to have dinner of empanadas at the flat. Going out to dinner would have been rough.

It seemed like I was doing ok so we took a taxi into the Corrientes district to meet up with Eve and her freinds for seeing a tango class on the old form of it. We get there and discover that the class was cancelled due to a national holiday (Falklands War rememberance day) so we hang out a little at the art co-op café down below.

Still in the Corrientes district, we pile into her friend’s station wagon and head for the mixed ‘gay’ milonga called La Marshall. Milonga is the dance or gathering where people dance Tango. Apparrantly there’s a very complicated set of ritualized social behavior around tango that goes along the gendered lead-follow line. With same sex dancing and lead-follow switching I’m told that the rules are being rewritten. The location was a plain open hall in an upstairs room in a rather dingy alleyway. Once in, the organizers greet you warmly and you find a place to sit at the tables along the perimeter. Eve had reserved a table for us as our party was rather large with our group plus her and her two friends. Earlier in the evening there are lessons for those who’d like to take it. We skipped that this time. The guys had had the lesson during their last trip. Unfortunately their instructor for the group lesson at La Marshall on that occasion wasn’t so good at making novices feel comfortable. I’m sure it just depends on who’s teaching.
K and I had a dance early on, while the dance floor was relatively open and we wouldn’t risk running into people. We managed to do one round and not do too badly for total beginners.

Yup, we danced the tango in Buenos Aires!

It was a just a ton of fun watching people dancing. All sorts of people and all levels of dance abilities.

The place was crowded and lively and swinging… but we all decided to make it an early evening as we had to get up earlier the next day.

(My stomach’s still feeling fragile.)

More doors of Buenos Aires:

We want our Kumi back! LJ petition for my dear friend

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 17:42:45 GMT

I miss Kumi.

While traveling here in B.A. I'm only getting a shred of on-line time so I wasn't clued in on what was going on with KumiMonster's LJ.

(Currently I write my journal off line and then up load it while doing a fast e mail down load. Having one ethernet connection that often goes down, shared between 4 people and our vacation schedule, I've not been on line much.)

blogs/LJ are, in the end, about personal journaling, ergo totally subjective and opinionated. It's just really sad that childish, tantrum-like behavior from someone reading her opinions would result in this. I totally understand that LJ management has to respect abuse reports... but what about when the abuse report system is used abusively by an individual? It's just silly.

I've signed the petition. I hope it helps. You can read about the situation and sign it at this link.

http://community.livejournal.com/kumicorps

Please spread the word.

ok, I have to log off now...

Buenos Aires 4/1

Sun, 06 Apr 2008 00:41:49 GMT

Theme: It just didn’t work for me. Evita + Clowns + Didgeridoo.

Up around the usual time. We strolled a few blocks down to the MALBA Museum – museum of contemporary art. Unfortunately they’re closed on Tuesday. We look forward to it so decided to reschedule it for Saturday. The café there is really good for lunch we hear.

Changing plans we go to the Evita Museum. Yes, that Evita of the “Don’t cry for me, Argentina” fame. Her museum is just 3 blocks from our flat, located in a former hotel that the Perons converted to a women’s shelter as part of their social services drive. Gary and Dart had been to the museum in the past and they observed that the exhibition had shifted in focus. The Argentineans have totally polarized opinions about the Perons, including Evita. Either people (generally in family groups) love them or hate them. Evita in particular is either a saint or a bitch, depending on whom you talk to… As tourists we’re advised that it’s best if we simply don’t bring them up in conversations at all.

Here are my thoughts on the Evita museum… It’s a pretty setting harking back to a by-gone era. Some of her fashion and personal effects on display are beautiful. In terms of a biographical portrait with information on her and Peron’s effects on national history and society, it’s totally underwhelming and full of gaps and critical discourse.

Gary and Dart had been there before. Both this time and last time the walk-through exhibition began with a visually stated question of “Evita Good?” “Evita Bad?” They thought that the last time the museum showed a more even handed treatment, using media of the time, to show both the positive and negative image of Eva Peron. Back then Argentina had just come out of a long period of anti-Peronista government with its first Peronista president in power. Now, into Argentina’s third Peronista presidency term over two presidents (that happen to be married to each other)… the artifacts and media that portrayed Evita in a negative light seem to have been removed.
Coincidence? I think not.

Stopped by a meat and cheese specialty shop and decided to eat a light nosh back at the flat. I noticed a sudden and strong sense of dehydration around that time. (I think this factored into my unfortunate condition later.)

That was a good decision, as shortly after we returned to the apartment, churning ominous clouds filled the sky and thing got dark fast. The wind kicked up out of nowhere, swirling a dust storm, followed immediately by a long and torrential rainstorm, complete with thunder and lightening. It was beautiful from the balcony of the flat, but it wouldn’t have been fun to get caught in it. We watched the street drains back up and flood. Fortunately things cleared, and drained, pretty quickly after that.

Took a taxi to meet up with Eve at a restaurant called the Open Mind Bar where we had a reservation for the restaurant called “Te Matare’ Ramirez” (or “I’ll kill you Ramirez” I was told.) and a dinner theater experience called “Extasis”. Based on the web site and rumor mills we were told that this experience, now in its third week, led you to dinner blindfolded and offered a sensual exploration with sound and taste.

That’s all we knew.

• Spoiler Warning * What fallows is obviously my review and my experience only. If you want to experience this restaurant and be totally surprised, don’t read further.

I think I may have been able to enjoy the experience better, which is to say at all, if I had a better idea of what to expect from the evening. With only the scant bit of information and my cultural backgrounds and personality combined to create possibly one of the worst dining experiences in my life. The evening’s stress and unpleasantness, combined with either a bug I caught or dehydration, contributed to me being violently ill later on.

The entire place is decorated in a dark red velvet décor; something of a cross between David Lynch’s Twin Peaks meets Goth Bordello as interpreted by Viennese artists with a circus fetish. They actually make it work – as long as you don’t have issues with artfully rendered naked fornicating clowns viewed through black tasseled lampshades.

The main floor has a bordello waiting room, connected by a narrow dark hall to a large room with a bar and sexy low and cozy seating.
Those of us waiting for the dinner theater experience are held at the waiting area and given black velvet or velvet and lace blindfolds. We’re told to put the blindfolds on. Then a hand takes my hand and leads me up stairs. I’m passed from hand to hand and then seated. I whisper for my companions and I don’t hear them – but I’m gently hushed by some unknown voice.

This isn’t good.

A bit of background information: As many of you know, I’m born and raised in Japan by a firm German-American grandmother and a brilliant and eccentric feminist mother who was intensely pursuing her career as a scholar. While raised with love and respect, this cultural combination meant that touch was not part of my personal or greater cultural norm. In fact it’s considered deeply inappropriate. For those of you who grew up with hugs and touch may now think that this is indicative of some sort of depravation, but it’s not. It’s not some lack of intimacy but rather a different cultural norm. When I came to the US as a teenager I found the action of hugs, whether from relatives, friends or acquaintances to be highly distressful, tantamount to assault. But knowing that this behavior was the cultural norm to my new home, I learned to get over it and assimilate. Since then I have learned a lot about different greeting rituals. The Dutch kiss cheeks three times, the Germans twice, the English once, and Californians will bear-hugs you but not so in Boston, etc etc. My baseline of what I prefer for touch has relaxed considerably from my Japanese roots, still, I reserve touch for those I’m most emotionally intimate with and am not a really touchy person (at least by California standards.)
Now add to that my sexual coming of age and my erotic education in San Francisco. Whether sex parties or kink or basic pick up, it’s all been about consent, consent, consent. Then my good women-positive, self actualization messages that I internalized meant that my body is mine and mine to decide what to do with, not others.

Oh and I also hate surprises.
Sure, I like little surprises, like a sweet small gift or little acts of kindness. But I hate being excluded from information. Control issues? Yeah.

So now I have strangers touching my hands and guiding me around.
I’m not seated with my dinner companions.
I’m hushed when I speak.
I’m hungry.
I’m handed some odd porcelain object to hold, presumably to enjoy its tactile sensuality, and to keep me busy while others are being seating.
I’m getting bored.
Strange sounds start up. Didgeridoo? Ok. Sound track of someone moaning. Ok.
Then I’m getting wafty cloth things draped across my face and head.
I start to juggle the ceramic object.
A hand takes my hand and gives me something hard and smooth.
I turn it over.
I feel it.
It’s round and flat.
It’s a plate.
From the smear on one side I realize that it had something on it.
Which is now somewhere else.
I reach out and find a table and something splattered on it. It’s squishy and wet.
I pick it up and sniff it.
It’s food.
I stick my tongue out and lick it. I think it’s savory.
I realize that K is nowhere near me and I have her Epi-pen. She’s fatally allergic to oysters. I flip up the blindfold and find Eve sitting across from me. (Why didn’t she say anything when I whispered out for my buddies?)
Looking around I see K on a table across the room. I ask Eve to tell the staff, as she speaks Argentinean Spanish, about K’s dietary limitations.
To their benefit they understand that and happily serve her another menu.
I put my blindfold on and decide to survive the rest of the experience.
The next food item is placed in my hand in what might be a paper cup. I nibble a bit on it and get an overly doughy pasta mouth feel.
I just didn’t want to eat any more.
Something cold and slimy slimes my neck.
Ug.
Fingers on my back, hands on my shoulders, hands on my head and arms. Rubbing.
I want to grab a finger and twisted it into take down hold and break it.
I remind myself that these people are performers and they’re doing a show. I try to put myself in their shoes.
I say out loud
“Note to self: Do not kill the staff.”
More mystery food that I’ve lost my appetite for.
Sounds of smacking and grunting.
Slurping sounds.
Hands pull me up to stand up. My purse falls from my lap to the floor. The hands lead me away from my chair. I trip over my purse handle. I wonder if my purse and its contents will be safe. The hands lead me somewhere. I feel jostled by bodies. The music changes to “Cry Me A River.”
Yippadee doo da.
I’m standing there in an over air-conditioned room, blindfolded, hungry and clueless.
Actually I’m angry.
Someone takes my hand and waist and mutters in Spanish.
“No habla…” I say.
Then they say “Dance”
I just throw up my hands up and say
“Enough. Not for me”
Whip off my blindfold, look around to orient, find my seat and sit down. People are dancing with one another, strangers with strangers I think. K is at least dancing with Gary. I think she’s leading. Dart’s dancing with some woman, who then slips away because she’s a staffer. He stands there for a while looking lost so I go up and whisper “do you want to sit down?” and he lets me lead him.

Summary: I hated it.

Then there’s an announcement on the PA system in Spanish and folks take off their blindfolds. Chuckling ensues. People return to tables and join with their original companions.

The 5 of us review our experiences. Not surprisingly mine was the most violently negative. The others enjoyed it, ranging from a benign “well that was different” to total turn-on. As we’re doing our post experience share, the organizer of the event comes to ask our tourist perspective.

The de-briefing with this director/master-mind was the best part. This is where we discovered how risky and different this production was for the relatively socially conservative Argentineans. That’s totally cool.
But I would have still liked to have known more about what I was getting into.
It’s a good thing I didn’t actually kill anyone.
Because I know I have the skills to do this.

As I come down from feeling totally invaded upon, and the adrenaline level plummets from a place of fight/flight, I start to feel sort of nauseous. This grows into a really bad heartburn and continues through a really terrible night of sleep. I even extract myself out of bed because of all the tossing and turning and go to sleep by myself. Sometime during the night I hurled. Which made me feel better and I actually managed to sleep…

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