"Too Many People to Play Uno!"

Indeed we did! We had 15 people at the meetup, which was our largest non-Pride meetup ever. Go us! Highlights included telephone pictionary, which is probably the funniest game I've ever played. Go figure that a lot of our stories involved cats. My horrible memory for conversations persists, but I remember talking about:

• China (it's big)
  
• How to define gray-asexuality or demisexuality
• The fact that the Gay and Lesbian Taskforce didn't want to have a workshop on asexuality at their conference. Sad. A petition will be forthcoming?
• Weird "positive" responses to asexuality, like "You must have so much free time" or "I wish I was asexual".
  
• Good experiences with non-asexual allies

So...yeah. See you in December!

Next Bay Area Meetup--Sunday!

A quick note for local folks, visitors, or the merely curious-- we've got a meetup this Sunday (11/21) in Berkeley. It's at 1pm at a cafe called PIQ. It's at 91 Shattuck Square, which is very close to the downtown BART station. Maybe at the meetup, we'll find out how to pronounce the name of the place. [Insert deranged, novel-based laughter]

A few random observations brought to you by the movie "Singles"

• It's amazing how dated some visuals can get. And somewhat embarrassing to watch. Check out the short/sock/footwear situation on Matt Dillon here, for one:
  

• Related to that, what is more '90s (1992, to be exact) than people talking directly to the camera about their dating issues?
• I think that when you've been in The Wire, you will always be identified by your character from that show. (Prez! And attempting to watch Boardwalk Empire: Omar!)
• Grunge--> Oh yeah, I was supposed to get involved in an electrifying new musical movement...forgot about that. Or, maybe I didn't.
• "This is gonna be my night!" Extreme use of the "magic night" trope.
• Oh God, I'm planning a scene for my NaNoWriMo novel that uses the "magic night" trope. I finally think I understand why people keep using such cliche meet cutes. It's really hard to get two specific strangers to meet each other in fiction.
  
• People in movies don't really have abortions (at least, legal ones), so their pregnancies end in strange ways, like in car crashes.
• I realized that traditional romantic comedies, at least decent ones, all contain strong friendships, families, and/or communities. People have interesting jobs, live in nice places, and know who their neighbors are. The wish-fulfillment isn't just the romance, but the whole world of the story.

Now, back to my regularly scheduled noveling...