scary bunny weekend

I survived the weekend deathmarches across the length and width of both Manhattan and New Jersey. I think I lost several pounds in the process. I probably would have burned the same amount of calories staying home, as the power was out for one cold night in the 'hood while I was away.

Stephen and Rex were the loveliest hosts ever, and they have the best toilet paper and shower head in their bathroom of anyone in Harlem. They have nice bathroom towels too.

I met lots of friendly and interesting characters on my trip:

New York is always a good visit, and I took advantage of all the shopping options and bought some new shoes for work:

Lovely shoe and scary bunny photo by David.

I like the vibe in New York, especially when you go out to the gay bars. Maybe I'm biased by an overly positive feeling as a visitor, but it seems much easier to talk to and meet guys there. It also doesn't hurt that Stephen is a bit of a social blue morpho iridescent butterfly, and he gives special attention to introduce disparate groups of people. You don't always get that in DC, as despite our high levels of education, a lot of guys seem socially retarded in DC. (Tip - as I guess I have to spell it out: don't assume everyone knows everyone else. Introduce me to your friends.)

I suppose there is the possibility that my friends don't want to introduce me to other people in DC. And maybe the New York bitches are friendly simply because they're total whores, but I guess I'd rather be chatty with a friendly whore than an icy Puritan or frigid autistic, as the DC bitches can be. I think I'm on to something here...the DC bitches are that way because they're all autistic. It's the only explanation. The more likely possibility is that the politics and policy industries in this city attracts an already socially inept group of wonks and acedemics. Perhaps we simply suffer from a high concentration of socially handicapped people. Still, I'll just assume they're all autistic, that way I can pity them rather than be angry at them for being socially retarded.

So anyway, when your friends don't introduce you to other people, you have to depend on the less convenient method of going up to people and saying hello to them. But you can't do that in DC because people seem to think your next step is to propose marriage, because guys in DC seem terrified that you've come up to them to speak to them. It's very frustrating. So then you both spend the evening with your disparate groups of friends having to look at each other from across the bar. You can even spend an entire evening within a group of friends looking at another guy and never be introduced. So then the only acceptable method of communication is to send desperate messages at 2am on Manhunt. How sad. Anyway, the majority of the DC bitches need to relax when I come up to say hi to you cuz I'm not going to bite your neck or something. Over the course of my fun weekend in NYC socializing, nobody got married, bit or hurt, and we all had a good time. It was very refreshing to simply be able to meet and chat with people verbally.

Oh, and the NYC bitches don't obsessively, impulsively pull out handheld electronic devices every five minutes either. That's clearly an obnoxious DC thing that is very socially retarded. When the NYC bitches go out to bars, they're hard at work drinking or dancing. I did not see a single glowing electronic device interface on the dance floor this weekend. Also very refreshing.

As charming as they are, those NYC boys do love to walk. Walk, walk, walk - everywhere all the time. They're crazy about walking, often for no reason. Sometimes they walk randomly in circles. On the eve of Blowoff, we deathmarched to some place that was like two hours from the metro station in Brooklyn to get to the venue. I think by the time we got there we were somewhere in the state of Maine. All on foot. We stopped for two meals along the way. And naturally they were practically at running pace to the venue. But when we finally got there it a lot of fun. Many of the usual crew were there, including Ruphus. I noticed he had clipped his chest fur (I notice these things) so I said to him, "Every time someone clips or shaves their chest, a little part of me dies inside." He responded, "Then you must be dead inside," and I said, "Yeah, I am."