At The Gates

My Sir is in NYC this weekend, so as sure as heck I'm loading up the jeep to head up to the Gotham. And... and... quite the busy weekend planned! At 2 pm, there will be the first meeting of the year of my softball team, the Ball Breakers! (Please God, let the Big Apple Softball League come to their senses and knock us down to the D Division where we belong, and not put us through another season in the C Division!) Then, at 5 pm, I'm do for a photo shoot. I've been asked to do a centerfold for Newslink, the publication put out by GMSMA. And tomorrow, before I head home, I hope that Sir and I will be able to make our way up to Central Park to take in Cristo and Jeanne-Claude's Gates.

I've been waiting for the Gates most of my adult life. I've been a huge fan of Cristo's. And the idea of Central Park coming to life in the dead of winter... How cool is that?

And, they're orange. Well, "Saffron," but that's orange.

And orange is my favorite color. I painted an entire needle exchange orange.

When I was Executive Director of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center in NYC, I contended with the relocation of our operation. And appointed myself In Charge of the design committee. As in, I was making all the design decisions. Unilaterally. And if anyone disagreed with it, they had to lump it.

The big decision I made was what color to paint the whole thing. There I was, meeting with our architects, going through paint chips. And I hit upon a Pratt and Lambert color, Salsa. It was this vibrant orange. A deep orange. Beautiful. My architects suggested it could be nice for an accent wall, or brim somewhere. They were a wee bit taken aback when I said that I wanted to paint the whole blessed thing Salsa. "That might be a little overpowering..."

It was a contentious staff meeting, too. Nobody was down with it. "People come here to relax!" That kind of thing. But not Richard. Richard got it. "Fabulous!" he said, "Orange is a healing color."

Orange is a healing color.

It so is.

And, in the hankie code, Orange is also the color used to flag "Anything Anytime Anywhere." The flag of Pig Nation is Orange, Bay-beee!

So I go now to be healed.

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