Kidman Urban Baby Name Inspired by Famous Australian Polyamorist

It's very interesting how celebrities past and present are coming out as or are being discovered to have been polyamorous. (See my post on Amelia Earhart and George Putnam.)

In Nashville on Monday academy award winning actress Nicole Kidman gave birth to a baby girl with her country music megastar husband Keith Urban by her side. They named the baby Sunday Rose Kidman Urban.

This week around the internet there has been a lot of curiosity and speculation about their inspiration for naming the baby Sunday. Apparently Nicole's father says he and his wife suggested the name. "There was a lady named Sunday Reed who was a prominent patron of the arts in Victoria [Australia]," Antony Kidman said. "The name Sunday struck me as being a nice name for a woman, so my wife and I mentioned it."

The patron of the arts in question was Sunday Reed (1905 - 1981). According to the website Gaywired.com, Reed and her husband, John (pictured here with their son, Sweeney), engaged in a long-term menage a trois with artist Sidney Nolan, who came to regard Sunday Reed as his muse. Reed and her husband were also rumored to have had open affairs outside of their marriage with a variety of people.

I found the following quote on another website from a letter from John Reed to Nolan: "Within a year you came to live at Heide, your life and ours were inextricably interwoven in a pattern of complete mutuality and intimacy. Each made his own contribution to the life we all led together, and your paintings were part of your contribution, even though you said Sunday painted them as much as you did."

I'm sure Keith and Nicole didn't choose to name their daughter Sunday because of the poly aspect of her namesake, but it still pleases me enormously to find that yet another public figure of the past led a life not all that much different than my own. I am also a huge fan of (and yes, lust after) both Nicole and Keith. I saw him perform in concert in Baltimore in March, and he is an amazing guitarist and performer. I would have loved to have seen them together there but apparently Nic, as he calls her, wasn't present, though he did dedicate a song to her and said how happy he was to know he was to be a dad. Someone in the audience gave him a Baltimore Ravens onesie, a one piece outfit for babies, and he hung it on his microphone stand for the rest of the concert. I find the obvious love they share to be quite touching, and I'm so glad she found real happiness after having such a heartbreaking experience with the too-arrogant-for-his-own-good Tom Cruise. And it doesn't hurt that they have a home in and their baby was born in Tennessee where I grew up.

What a Week! (Poly-related and otherwise)

This has been a pretty fabulous week for me. Four things happened that made it that way.

Tuesday night my partner Jim's partner, L, stopped by with her partner, J2, who was passing through town on business. I'd never met J2, who lives in western North Carolina, but I'd heard tons about him. So, it was lovely to finally put a face and personality with the name. We extroverts especially love this sort of thing. For the record, L and I are dear friends and family but are not romantically involved. Such is the stuff of a polyamorous intimate network.
(WARNING: I'm a native of east Tennessee, and therefore my blood runs orange - if you have no interest in hearing me rave about the Lady Vols, click here for the rest of the post - even though you'll be missing a GREAT story.)

That same evening the University of Tennessee Lady Vols basketball team beat the Stanford women's team in Tampa to win the national championship for the second year in a row, making it coach Pat Summit's eighth during her tenure at UT. Thanks to Candace Parker's gifted teammates, a win in this game didn't hinge on phenom Parker (middle of the picture below).

Candace played most of the game but was hard pressed to contribute a top notch performance due to a recent shoulder dislocation. Pat Summitt's coaching magic was afoot, and the rest of the team - incredibly accomplished themselves - stepped up and did themselves and Vol fans everywhere proud. 5'2" Shannon "Little Bit" Bobbitt scored 13 points including two three pointers, and Nicky Anosike added 12 points, eight rebounds and six steals.

Fresh off winning her second straight NCAA title, on Wednesday Candace Parker was selected by the Los Angeles Sparks with the first pick in the WNBA draft. (Sorry, I just can't move on with the week without gushing some more about Candace Parker.) Two tourney Most Outstanding Player awards. Two Player of the Year awards. Three-time All-American. Academic All-American of the Year. And a spot on the 2008 Olympic team. Off the court, the savvy 22-year-old has a Madison Avenue smile. Charisma and street cred. A slam-dunk title. A sports-marketing degree coming in May. A supportive family. A fiancé, Shelden Williams, who plays for the Sacramento Kings and an older brother, Anthony, who plays for the Toronto Raptors. Oh, and a spot in People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People.
Whew! Yep, I'm a fan of Candace Parker. OK, raving over.


On Wednesday tall, beautiful, C and I had a lovely dinner at Luna Del Sea in Baltimore followed by the Carrie Underwood Keith Urban concert. Wow, what talent. Underwood is excellent, but Urban just blew me away - he is an incredibly gifted guitar player. It was well worth the $90 cost of a ticket. And of course everyone swooned when Keith dedicated a song to his lovely, lovely, pregnant (and alas, very absent) wife, Nicole Kidman, on whom I've had a crush or years. Now I'm crushing on both of them. Of course, I am a polygirl!

Today Voice of America is broadcasting a piece on the Eldorado, Texas FLDS compound raid in which I have a soundbite. I was contacted Wednesday morning with the interview request. See more on this with a link to the video in my next post.

So how much fun can a polygirl have if a polygirl can have fun??? Lots!