I've displayed some pictures here. But here's the scene: a large empty warehouse, dark, techno throbbing beat, with fences all along at different angles, art hanging on them. There's dancers up on catwalks and the cutest young gay guys serving drinks on platters -- all they're wearing is tight little briefs. Big bar in the middle, your ticket gives you unlimited libations. The art is so wide ranging....some of it quite amateurish, some so sophisticated, some absolutely filthy, others abstract and refined. It's a treat to dive in visually. And -oh- there's some aural stimulation as well. There's a big booth on one side where you put on headphones and listen to someone's erotic experience as a performance piece. At the end, you get a little card that explains what was really happening as you listened. It's designed to allow you to experience erotica without visual input, which is not what we usually do. I enjoyed that. I think ASA's young people's group (called Q? or something like that) put that on. There was also live art taking place - three tableaus of models posing, with an artist painting or drawing their likeness on canvas. No pics allowed of that - too bad, cause it was pretty arresting - but one thing did rather irritate me. So the women are nude, right? But the men - nope, they've got their business covered up in a teeny-tiny g-string. This struck me as sexist, but then later I thought, you know it may a legal issue. You know how it is - the authorities are soooooo fearful of women's sexuality. We see a penis and we totally lose control.
I was thinking about how much of my life is not G-rated. As a nurse, and especially as a psych nurse, I am privy to the most personal parts of people, the parts that we hide from everyone else. Things as simple as showing me that rash on your groin that is really bugging you, to talking about the funny uncle that touched you inappropriately and now you keep having nightmares about him. It's so interesting. What I was born to do. I can speculate about why, but the core is that I've felt different than everyone else my whole life and finally, I truly appreciate it and embrace it.
I have more to talk about, I will do that when I get this week done at school. I am so busy my brain hurts and I feel guilty about writing this post but didn't want to wait. I read a super-interesting article about how 8 mentally-ill people in Austin accounted for 2700 ER visits over a span of 6 years. Can you imagine the cost of that? That's no typo -- only EIGHT people. It's incredible and points to a severely broken system. Also, weeks ago I heard on NPR that 1/3 of the people in Who's Who had lied about their military honors. So I thought I would write a bit about both of those topics.....so much there to ponder on. But next time.
Enjoy the pics. (Not you, Dani).
