I Am Large, I Contain Multitudes

Last night I attended a "Kinkstarter" fundraiser cabaret for [elided]'s upcoming debut musical Dogboy & Justine. I'm going to miss the production (one weekend only, when I'll be away), but chuckro has been hyping evangelizing it :-) and he and jethrien were performing in the cabaret last night, so I wanted to make sure to go.

It was on the whole a fun night (despite my missing the whole first set, due to getting there late and then not being able to figure out the secret back staircase that led to the event space!). Lots of good performances, including from teddyleevin as well as the above, and it was fun to see mnemex and drcpunk there.

However, it brought home to me one of the same points as did seeing Venus in Fur (which, being David Ives, was lighter and smarter than I walked in expecting, and then also surprisingly complex) with justom this past weekend, which is: that I have built up a certain amount of baggage regarding all things BDSM, a kind of knee-jerk negativity, if you will, based on one or two specific past relationships. I will be glad to say more about that, but now is not the time (and a public entry is not the place ;-) -- so consider this a placeholder.

This past Shabbat morning, August 6th, tremontstshul had a farewell kiddush in my honor.

I got to stand up and say a few words (it was Parshat Dvarim, get it??) -- although I wasn't sure if I felt more like the Israelites about to cross the Jordan (which, as I pointed out, in Italian is il Giordano), or like Moshe admonishing the Israelites by way of a historical overview of their sojourn. But it seemed to go okay.

And there was lox, and real whitefish (lovingly deboned by B"H Model), and black-and-whites.

There were also a couple of nice tribute parodies offered, which I found so delightful that I wanted to record them here for posterity and share with you all. One was written by father-of-hilaritea to the tune of the Major General's song from The Pirates of Penzance:

( I am the very model of egalitarian orthodox... )

Edited To Add, since someone asked: In fact, no, I don't consider myself Orthodox by any stretch. We noted that privately at the time of the dramatic reading. (But it does rhyme so beautifully with "paradox".)

The other was written by la_vie_en_rosie and her spouse, RLS formerly of the Menschen, in the vein of Eishet Chayil (A Woman of Valor), which is a passage from Proverbs traditionally sung on Friday nights to the woman of the household:

( Erica Chayil )

I was absolutely tickled.

A number of other people very dear to me were specially present, and we had lots of singing, and a fair quantity of Scotch, and it was a lovely sendoff. Thanks to all those of you who were there.

(And if you missed it, it looks like I'm still going to be in town after all for the Community Shabbat Dinner on August 19th, so you can sign up for that. There'll probably even still be some Scotch left.)

I've started waking up at 4am again the last couple days; not (principally) from anxiety, more because I probably need to reinstate "no liquids after 9pm", but it is annoying.

Generally, though, in the past day or so I am starting to feel marginally less stressed. (I had dinner tonight -- er, Wednesday night -- with edashevs and mearah, who took one look at me and said "You look great! More relaxed!" Well, yes, although also no...)

+ major work event came off very successfully on Tues night
+ three weeks of prep time to go until the next major work event
+ budgeting issues (which have previously been causing me to lose sleep) on a different large work project are being properly resolved
+ a few promising candidates have come in already for my job opening
+ did grocery shopping for the first time in a month
+ as previously noted, successfully talked to my mom last Sunday about the NYC move
+ only one more weekend to get through without justom
+ fun/exciting stuff coming up the next three weekends
+ planning to use this Saturday night to go see the Longwood Players' production of The Secret Garden (Saturday's their closing show). Anyone want to join me? Or meet for dinner beforehand?

- summer weekends are evaporating rapidly
+ girls' getaway to Maine with jessruth planned for July 7-10

- still need to write my parting remarks for the tremontstshul board, to be read at the elections meeting in my absence (no one's asked me to do this, but it would be nice)
- Honorable Menschen political bullshit still ongoing, though it's calmed slightly of late
+/- total platonic* crush on newest HM tenor, the yeshiva bochur ( * )
- still need to send my niece, who turned 13 (!) yesterday, a b'day present
- still need to work on getting clothes and household stuff purged (jessruth is coming up for the purpose next weekend, but this Saturday is Give Your Stuff Away Day), not to mention do a month's worth of laundry
- nagging relationship anxieties are always magnified at 4am wakeups
- therapy in 2.5 hours, which makes me wonder if I can't get another hour's nap in before the original alarm actually goes off.

ETA, 5:58am: No, apparently no point. *puts coffee on (decaf) and goes to look at this week's Torah reading instead*