It's a pleasure to be asked to dine with other people; especially when they are friends I haven't seen in a very, very, very long time. My God! I was ecstatic when I received the phone call that Giselli ( 'Selli for short ) and her new boyfriend were in New York from Sao Paulo and, had gotten hold of a friend of a friend of a friend--blah, blah, blah--which led to her finally contacting me.

Overjoyed, we made plans to meet and after an afternoon full of annoying but necessary errands the day ended rather pleasantly at Via Brasil where I ate feijoda to my heart's content. Josh took the path of least resistance or maybe not, and went with seafood, though occasionally he had the nerve to poke his fork in my plate. ( He actually thought he could be subtle about it--imagine!) Selli and Mauro decided upon some other delicate food.

The entire time as we dined I was amazed at Selli's ease with and articulation in using English. When we first met back in '87 she barely spoke a word of English and I not a word of Portuguese. We worked in an electronics store on 57th and Broadway owned by a Brazilian couple, but because of the nature of the job and as she and I became lunch buddies and thereafter friends, we began teaching each other "our" languages. It was fun.

She bought my son his first baby shoes of the Osh Kosh be Gosh variety after he was born, and we spent a couple of Christmases together with our friends and family before she had to return home to Sao Paulo "for good!" she had said.

I am surprised yet, at how unchanged she seemed after the span of years. It was as if she had never left; as if she had not been daunted by life and experience as I have been. As we all dined and chatted and laughed our friendship seemed to just picked up right where it left off 10 years ago. I remembered how she once thought alcoholism was fashionable, when every Friday night after work she couldn't wait to go have a drink and get drunk just for the fun of it, which actually became more of a bother to everyone than anything else. We laughed about that and Marco, her boyfriend raised his brows suspiciously.

Soon however, dinner was at an end. They both needed to head off to Queens and then will be off for Chicago in a few days. With some difficulty we all bade each other (Selli and I somewhat tearfully) so long, rather than goodbye, after having exchanged all the necessary contact info--email, phones, fax #s' addresses etc. It was a kind of deja vue for me-- a few months ago my roommate and classmate from college returned home to Germany and I remembered going through the same motions of saying tearful goodbyes and such on the day of her departure. When people I really care about move away, it feels as if something leaves me as well; the thought that they are no longer near is somewhat disconcerting. It's just not the same communicating via phone, email etc. and yet, I'd just as soon accept it for the sake of keeping "in touch" and for the sake of instant communication. All in all, I had a great day!

Goodnight.

"For me, this is what the future is all about: the endless quest for understanding how things work and what else is out there. It's the journey, not the arrival that matters. It's the unanswerable question of what it takes to make the perfect world and the perfect life ... It's the constant experiment that counts; never knowing what will turn out right, what will turn out wrong ... Human beings are discoverers, inventors, experimenters, creators, of an unknown and chaotic future. We will go on doing what we have always done: our best to try to understand it all. We will continue to shape the future -- not necessarily the future we want or the future we expect, but the future that will just happen. Whether we like it or not."

Richard Longley

I read somewhere that sex is back in style again which made me wonder why I hadn't noticed that it had gone out of style, what with all the competitive branding of eroticism that is the nerve and pulse of advertising and which testifies to our own individual carnal and erotic natures--call me ignorant if you must, but it's impossible for me to imagine sex ever being out of style; which leads me to mention this site:{ How New York City Transformed Sex in America }, a project investigating "the sexual subcultures of the city's past and present, and explores the means by which they have influenced the development of modern attitudes about sex and sexuality." If you're homoerotically inclined, or if you just like good writing in general, David K's not for the faint of heart { diary } which has links leading to other nooks and crannies on the Web is interesting too.

I found the following letter which I snagged from Dan Savage's { The Onion } rather amusing. "I am dating a Japanese girl who is so into keeping her pubic area hair-free that she actually plucks the hairs out. Previous girlfriends had trimmed a bit off the top, but none plucked themselves hairless! Since we got together, my girlfriend has asked me to do the plucking for her, and I have happily obliged. This has been going on for about five months. Now the tables (or the tweezers) have been turned: She wants to pluck me. I'll admit it: I'm a wimp and I don't want to experience the pain of plucking. She claims that this is unfair, since I pluck her. I've reminded her that she asks me to pluck her, not the other way around. Now she's growing out her bush to spite me, although our sex life remains passionate. I trust your opinion, Dan. Am I being a hypocrite? Plucker Not Pluckee"

Dan's answer: "No, you're not being a hypocrite. Let's say I enjoy being hit in the face with a cream pie during sex. It would be within my rights to ask my boyfriend to indulge me in my passion for pies, and it would be decent of him to do so. But indulging me in my passion does not obligate my boyfriend to submit to being hit with cream pies himself.

So, yes, I believe your girlfriend should allow you to continue plucking her without demanding the same right in return. However! You have come to enjoy plucking your girlfriend, and you prefer your girlfriend plucked. She would prefer you plucked—and your enjoyment of plucking/plucked gives her some leverage. Blackmail is an ugly business, PNP, and I'm afraid your girlfriend has the advantage. To wit: Just because she enjoys being plucked doesn't mean she has to allow you to pluck her. If she wants to remain unplucked so that you will endure a plucking to regain the right to pluck her, well, that's her right."

Elsewhere...Apparently, the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 was cause for concern over at { amazon.com } From the files of { Mouth Organ } comes Dear Prudish : "This is probably beneath me, but on the other hand, if Amazon is going to make people's comments on their merchandise public, then it is open season for me to comment on those comments, yes?

Anyway, the item linked above, assuming it is a stable link, is the Harry Potter Nimbus 2000 racing broom. That's right. It's a toy broomstick, pretty much actual size. You ride it. (There's a picture on the page.)

The toy, of course, does not actually fly - which I'm sure will be a disappointment for some of the more literal-minded kids out there - but at least one Concerned Parent believes that a child might find some unintended uses for the thing.

In a comment entitled "Keep the batteries out!" which I'm quoting in full here because I have no idea how long Amazon will leave it up, this parent (gender unknown, and sadly it could be either one), says:

This toy was #1 on my daughter's Christmas list. So what the heck, although it has no educational value I figured it would be good for imaginative play. It wasn't until after she opened her gift and started playing with it that I realized that the toy may offer a more than sensational experience. The broomstick has cute sound effects and ***VIBRATES*** when they put it between their legs to fly. Come on - what were the creators of this toy thinking? She'll keep playing with the Nimbus 2000, but with the batteries removed.

What were the creators thinking? Probably that children are relatively innocent.

Dear Concerned Parent:

Number one, your kid isn't going to notice. She'll just think it's cool, and by that I mean a non-sexual kind of cool. The vibration probably isn't powerful enough to do anything of the sort anyway.

Number two, if she does manage to get THAT sort of thrill from the vibrating broom, great. She'll have learned something. She won't be zooming around the house stimulating herself, if that's what you're worried about. And if it gives her a head start on learning about her anatomy after bedtime, great.

Number three, lighten up, you fool. People all over the country are laughing at your comment. Or at least I hope they are.