memoir: date night in Cambridge, pt. 1

diff --git a/content/drafts/agreeing-with-stalin-in-ways-that-exhibit-generally-rationalist-principles.md b/content/drafts/agreeing-with-stalin-in-ways-that-exhibit-generally-rationalist-principles.md
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--- a/content/drafts/agreeing-with-stalin-in-ways-that-exhibit-generally-rationalist-principles.md
+++ b/content/drafts/agreeing-with-stalin-in-ways-that-exhibit-generally-rationalist-principles.md
@@ -793,22 +793,51 @@ What's _not_ fine is selective argumentation while claiming "confidence in [your
 
 ------
 
-[TODO: Boston–New York visit
+In September 2021, I took a trip to the east coast to see my sister and new baby niece in Cambridge and some friends in New York, and otherwise to work on blog posts from my hotel room. (You've seen one American city, you've seen them all, I reasoned, _modulo_ a different ratio of Dunkin' Donuts to Starbucks.)
 
- * worked on "Challenges" and my Charles Murray review from Boston
+The thought occured to me that while I was on vacation anyway, it might be nice to see an escort (which I had only done once before, in March 2016). I browsed around the "Boston" section on _eros.com_. Under the "ebony" subsection[^ebony], I found a profile that I liked on the basis of photographs and a professional-seeming website. I'll call her "Crystal" (which was not the name she used, and the name she used was also surely not her real name). The "consideration" page on her website listed three hours at $1500, and four hours for $2000. I filled out the booking form requesting a three-hour engagement.
+
+[^ebony]: I don't know why they say "ebony" instead of "black". Porn sites do this, too. Seems problematic to have an ethnic term that only gets used in sexualized contexts?
+
+"Crystal" didn't get back to me within several days, and I resigned myself to the implied rejection. (I already felt morally ambiguous about filling out the form; I certainly wasn't about to _shop around_.) But then on 4:37 _p.m._ on the day before my flight left, she got back to me asking if I was still interested in connecting, explaining that there had been a problem with her spam filter (Subject: "Hello! My apologies For The Late Reply"). I rushed to the bank just before it closed to withdraw $2000 cash that would have been harder to get at on my trip, between ATM withdrawal limits and the lack of Wells Fargo branches in Massachusetts.
+
+She suggested switching to texts to get around the spam issue, and I texted her a photo of my ID and a link to my LinkedIn profile to confirm my identity (or gentlemanliness). She asked, "Would you like to go on a dinner date, four hours, 2,000."[^no-dollar-sign] (Already feeling morally ambiguous, I certainly wasn't going to complain about getting _upsold_.)[^upsold] I eagerly agreed, and suggested an Indian restaurant a half-mile walk from my hotel.
+
+[^no-dollar-sign]: I appreciated the absence of a dollar sign in front of the figure. Feels less crass.
+
+[^upsold]: But I had mentioned the $2000 bank withdrawal in my email, so it made sense that that figure was more salient to her than the fact that my form submission from weeks earlier had said three hours.
+
+[TODO paid date cont'd— 
+
+I didn't get any writing done the day of our date. 
+
+my review of Charles Murray's _Facing Reality: Two Truths About Race in America_
+
+I requested housekeeping service for my hotel room (which had been suspended by default)
+
+texted mom and sis that I had other plans
+
+mom later insisted that I tell sister about my plans; I said that the safety concern was only for women
+
+"Mom thinks there's a safety rationale for telling someone my plans, which I think is retarded, but specifically, it's a casual dinner date at [restaurant name] ([address]) with a woman I met online (no reply expected; there's nothing useful for you to do with this information and this message is just to appease Mom)"
+
+She was very late (scheduled for 4; then moved to 4:30; then "I'm here / Just valeting my car" at 5:04)
+
+we went to an Indian restaurant and then to my hotel
+
+It was nice. 
 
- * saw an escort, who I found in the "ebony" section of eros.com
- * who I'll call ... (which wasn't the name she used, and the name she used was surely not her real name)
- * she finally got back to me just in time for me to go to the bank and get cash, there not being Wells Fargo branches on the east coast (speaking of decisions my father made for me when I was four years old)
- * she was very late; we went to an Indian restaurant and then to my hotel
  * an opportunity to talk to someone who I wouldn't ordinarily otherwise (messaging someone like her on match.com would have felt fake, paying for her time felt more "honest")
  * I explained AGP to her
  * I didn't let her/have her touch my penis (that seemed "unethical" according to my own sense of ethics, though I'm not super-confident that my "ethics" didn't make things weirder for her); I just wanted to touch
+ * I think it would have been _more_ creepy, if I tried to convince her that I was "actually" a woman in some unspecified metaphysical sense
  * I wasn't coming; she said that for $2K, I definitely deserved to get off
  * she said I could have her breasts, they were heavy
  * my comment about how I wished I could have a photograph, but that it would be rude to ask; she said "No", and I wanted to clarify that I didn't ask, I said I wished I _could_ ask—but, you see, her culture didn't support that level of indirection; the claim that I wasn't asking, would seem dishonest
  * I didn't tell her about the Charles Murray book review I was writing
+]
 
+[ TODO— New York
  * met my NRx Twitter mutual, wore my Quillette shirt
  * he had been banned from Slate Star Codex "for no reason"
  * he offered to buy me a drink, I said I didn't drink, but he insisted that being drunk was the ritual for how men establish trust, so I had a glass and a half of wine