Last night I got on a bus with 13 other teachers, various snacks and a tonne of booze. Destination: Niagara Falls. Purpose of visit: Ladies Night. It was completely unlike me; I was way out of my comfort zone, not to mention wearing a low-cut grey dress and a push-up bra. And yet I had a brilliant time.

Poppy came over to my house early, and we chatted while I did some last-minute tidying that I hadn't done because I was busy recovering from Drunken Knitting. Poppy is such a great friend that she immediately joined in, and between the two of us we had the place sparkling within a half-hour. So completely awesome. Then it was time to put on my owl dress…which wasn't zipping properly…and led to the last minute substitution of the grey dress. So instead of being quirky and childlike, I was busting out of this slinky grey thing. Shit happens, I suppose.

Trixie came to the door when I was in my underwear, so I rushed down to let her in with a dress held over my front. Good thing we take yoga together, and the sight of my granny panties is a familiar one. We quickly primped and prepped and the three of us stepped out the door with our potluck goodies, taking my wedding boa for good luck.

Our cocktail hour was kind of rapacious, as none of us had eaten supper and we fell on the dips and snacks like wolves on the fold. There's nothing quite like a room full of beautiful, ravenous women set loose on a buffet. It's humbling. We also started the night's drinking in earnest, me with Orangina and rum and the others with more grown up drinks. What can I say; Preacher has ruined me for more sophisticated mixed drinks.

By the time the party bus pulled up, we were more than ready to be let loose. The ride to the falls was marked by laughing, dancing & drinking. We made good use of the pole, let me tell you. This was my first real surprise of the night, that I would have so much fun lurching down the highway, dancing and giggling and getting down in a 3" wide aisle. Reminded me of the C*8 improvised punk dance floor, in the best possible way. When you gots to dance, you gots to dance.

Trixie wouldn't let me take my knitting into the casino, so spent a profoundly bored 45 minutes staring at people who looked like they just came from Arby's for a brief stop at the slots. It ain't no fun to be wearing a tight evening dress when you're in a crowd that could be at the mall. Things picked up when we got into the nightclub, which was packed tighter than a rubber brick. I can't even imagine what it would have been like back when they let us smoke indoors; we were asses to elbows (thanks, b-girl!) and I grew desensitised to strangers brushing up on me at all times. In 2 ½ hours of dancing, I didn't recognize a single song, and was tremendously amused to be the only one in the crowd not singing along. I made this comment to a stranger, and he was incredulous. "How can you not know this song?" Because I live under a rock, buddy. Or, more accurately, because I live under a shifting yarn stash. It muffles the sound of your popular music.

I spent a goodly chunk of the night talking to some tall guy in a sweater who kept telling me how innocent I looked. I liked hanging out with him, but I was absolutely blunt. "I'm a single mom. I'm a cynical goth. I'm on a bus with 13 other women. I'm not getting picked up tonight. I like talking to you, but if you want to go find some other girl, I won't be upset." He stuck around for awhile, his arm around my waist, and we yelled minimal conversation in each other's ear. At one point he said that he wanted to kiss me, so I let him. Why? Because he was sweet, and because it wasn't going anywhere, and because I didn't really want to know his name or for him to know mine, and because it was Ladies Night. There was no making out, just a few random kisses, and then he went away.

I heard about it on the way back. "Who were you making out with?" "Nobody," I said, and kept eating chips. That's just as true as anything else I could say.

oh, what a night!

Considering that I saw Blake for a grand total of 4 hours today, it was a pretty damn fine Mother's Day. When the Boy dropped him off for church, Blake held out a five dollar bill. "Happy Mother's Day!" he beamed.

I looked at the Boy and smirked. "You are a class act."

"It's for the spring concert ticket!" he protested, but the damage was done. Highly amusing.

Pixie and Scout dropped him off for supper, waking me from a long nap of doom in the late afternoon. I didn't know that they were coming over, and I was really glad to see them. The Boy has been stiff and uncomfortable this past week, so I'm just as happy to see two friendly faces, especially since I haven't seen Pixie since last summer and I haven't seen Scout since she came by to move over a load of the Boy's stuff.

I'm glad to know that I still have sisters, even if I may not have a husband.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, dancing, family, outfits, outings, the boy

What have I been up to?

A little crafting

a little socializing with the knitsibs and knitsiblettes

and a little belly dance costuming for my troupe, with a great deal of help from the cool Family Studies Teacher, who does this to her horse's mane. Five minutes after this photo was taken, I was cutting the Manos del Uruguay yarn out of my hair. Cut about an inch out of my hair as well. D'oh.

meme via notanartist

What we have here is the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing’s users. As in, they sit on the shelf to make you look smart or well-rounded. Bold the ones you've read, underline the ones you read for school, italicize the ones you started but didn't finish.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Anna Karenina Crime and Punishment Catch-22 One Hundred Years of Solitude Wuthering Heights The Silmarillion Life of Pi : a novel The Name of the Rose Don Quixote Moby Dick Ulysses Madame Bovary The Odyssey Pride and Prejudice Jane Eyre The Tale of Two Cities The Brothers Karamazov Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies War and Peace Vanity Fair The Time Traveler’s Wife The Iliad Emma The Blind Assassin The Kite Runner Mrs. Dalloway Great Expectations American Gods A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius Atlas Shrugged Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books Memoirs of a Geisha Middlesex Quicksilver Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West The Canterbury Tales The Historian : a novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Love in the Time of Cholera Brave New World The Fountainhead Foucault’s Pendulum Middlemarch Frankenstein The Count of Monte Cristo Dracula A Clockwork Orange Anansi Boys The Once and Future King The Grapes of Wrath The Poisonwood Bible : a novel 1984 Angels & Demons The Inferno (and Purgatory and Paradise) The Satanic Verses Sense and Sensibility The Picture of Dorian Gray Mansfield Park One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest To the Lighthouse Tess of the D’Urbervilles Oliver Twist Gulliver’s Travels Les Misérables The Corrections The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time Dune The Prince The Sound and the Fury Angela’s Ashes : a memoir The God of Small Things A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present Cryptonomicon Neverwhere A Confederacy of Dunces A Short History of Nearly Everything Dubliners The Unbearable Lightness of Being Beloved Slaughterhouse-five The Scarlet Letter Eats, Shoots & Leaves The Mists of Avalon Oryx and Crake : a novel Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed Cloud Atlas The Confusion Lolita Persuasion Northanger Abbey The Catcher in the Rye On the Road The Hunchback of Notre Dame Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values The Aeneid Watership Down Gravity’s Rainbow The Hobbit In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences White Teeth Treasure Island David Copperfield The Three Musketeers

Labels: crochet, dancing, friends, outfits, silly

Today my peace accord with the spiders came to an abrupt end. I walked into the bathroom this morning and felt a filament brush my face. It's my hair, I thought frantically, but it wasn't my hair. That's it, sisters. It is on.

I kept count: I squished 12 in my bathroom alone. I left the ones in the hall alone, because I can't reach them and they don't bother me as much. I figure the one spider left in the bathroom can stretch out and enjoy herself. I'm pretty sure they don't dig competition.

Today after school I picked up my mom and went to a boutique to get fitted for the church fashion show. This is the first time I have been volunteered as a model, and my mother is discovering how much she wanted to be a beauty pageant mum. (Actually, she's just helping me with the zippers and picking outfits. Not Gypsy at all.)

I tried on clothes for two hours. Two hours of elegant pants, clingy tops, and brightly-patterned blazers. By the end of it I was longing for my Owl Dress…but at least we found some good clothes, and when I walk down the catwalk I won't look like a little girl let loose in her grandmother's closet. And no, you can't come see me. That is a promise.

This weekend I was supposed to finish my report cards, so being me, I was entirely domestic on Saturday as I recovered from my cold and entirely social on Sunday as I celebrated Sandi Purl's upcoming baby. The report cards were finished after 8 p.m. on Sunday, and I had to cheat to get the last class done. Fixed it this morning, and no one was the wiser. (Except Mason, who I was compelled to warn before I went to sleep. 'If I drop dead,' I wrote, 'all of the comments on one class are exactly the same. Pass it off as a glitch. Wait, I'll be dead. Who cares?')

Tomorrow: the power of Sandi's dandy shower, plus pictures that will make you want to eat Fenner with a spoon. And no more rhyming. That's another promise.

Labels: bat masterson, church, house rich, outfits, outings

I've been taking quite a few classes this month, trying to whip myself into shape no doubt. Besides the twice-weekly belly dance sessions, I took a photography course last Sunday and a hyperbolic crochet course this afternoon.

The photography course was hosted by Jacquie & NotAnArtist, so I immediately felt at home. These two clever ladies put together over two hours of photo phun. My photography has improved a great deal just by following their three important rules:

1. turn off the flash
2. read the manual
3. take tonnes of shots

Some of the nicer ones:

Today's hyperbolic crochet was an exercise in non-Euclidean geometry taught by Miss Sweetiepie Press. I was just in it for the cool shapes, but I also snuck in some math. Go, me!

Yesterday I had the girliest day out ever in the history of the world. Throw in a waxing and the world would have burst with the free-floating estrogen (so it's good that there was no waxing). At 11 I had a hair appointment with Destiny. (Hee! I love pulling out the 10 ½-year-old pseudonyms as if I dropped them yesterday. That one's for you, long-time readers. Er, reader.)

Back to the hair appointment with Destiny. She cut my hair during the semester break in January, and it was the longest, strongest hair cut of my life. It was only last week that I started to think about getting it cut again, and even when I woke up on Saturday I found myself wondering if I had a few more weeks in it. The haircut is that good. But a haircut means girliness, and girliness means girlfriends, and I always need more of that no matter what my hair looks like. Scherezade met me at the salon, where the three of us chatted through the appointment (Destiny is her highschool buddy, after all). Then the two of us set out for what I thought would be a short trip up and down the strip. I failed to realize that when I shop with Scherezade, I shop the hell out of an afternoon.

First we stopped in at Fresh Baked Goods, where I was seduced by a bright pink t-shirt and a blue-and-brown dress. Although I paid for both, one is being custom-made and the second is getting slight alterations to make it perfect. Laura Jean the Knitting Queen pinned me up, and we were able to chat about her designs as I have enough yarn to crochet two of her Cupcake sweaters but lack the courage to cast on. At least I can buy her handiwork with no more courage than a credit card inspires. I'm not sure that the world will survive how cute this dress will make me. We can only pray that I won't find co-ordinating shoes.

After Fresh Baked Goods, Scherezade hustled me into the next store, which sells art and art products. She bought a set of postcards that I later fell in love with to the point that we had to return. But that second stop was well after lunch, which was my first visit to the Red Tea Box. The girliness hiked itself up a couple notches over the April Bento Box Special and the Competition Monkey Picked Oolong tea, not to mention ogling the fabric cakes. (Delish!) Having secured the postcards in my grubby little paws, we then went to Victor Gallery for frames, where I bought 4 identical frames which each cost more than all 8 postcards. (Easy come, easy go…or, as my grandfather might say, I have more money than sense.) We also ducked into Bakka for a quick banter with the saleslady and a hunt for some crappy sf novels recommended by Scherezade's honey.

Our final stop was Mac Fab, where I spent the better part of an hour looking for metal-shank buttons for my coat and some pretty plastic buttons for my dad's birthday present. I also found some awesome fabric for Mason's new apartment, which I shall buy next week, when I return to the block for my new dress. Life is good.

Labels: friends, knit, outfits, outings

Very strange week. The Boy & I reached a turning point on Wednesday, probably because three full therapy sessions equals some invisible tipping point. This was good timing, as I was pretty sure that if the "keeping his distance" trend hadn't ended, I would have gone round the bend. I could actually feel my nerves that day stretched almost to the snapping point. (I probably didn't help the situation by wearing one of my least-teacherly outfits: one of Stacy's black babydoll dresses, my new-old motorcycle jacket, and the Boots. Why does this matter? Because when I'm dressed like a teacher I can focus more clearly on being a teacher. When I'm dressed like myself, I tend to dwell on my personal problems.)

Wednesday evening was also the last of the Summer Knitting Nights; Mason will be starting pre-natal classes with his wife next week, and without someone to herd me out the door I can't be trusted to go home at a reasonable hour. So we both spent almost the whole of the night wrapped in a thick melancholy coating (which for me, surrounded a chewy nougat centre of anxiety about my marriage). How can I best convey my mind-state that night? How about: on the way home I listened to "Slow Hands" by Interpol 6 times in a row.

But that story has a happy ending. Not to worry.

The next night I headed down to the city again for a clandestine knitting brainstorming party. I had originally meant to drop Mason at the bottom of Spadina, but I got so distracted by our conversation that I ended up driving him to the Annex, and then being in the unlovely position of squeezing my way across the city in the middle of rush hour. I felt like a bit of food in Elvis' digestive system in the last part of his life. Ugh.

I was a full hour late for the party, and had to be emotionally propped up by Michelle's offer of butter tarts and herbal tea. But the party was good, and my go to hell attitude actually unfettered my imagination thus my suggestions were perhaps more creative than they might have been otherwise, and there was lovely swag, and then there were rather excellent burgers afterward with Michelle and the redoubtable Rachel H. So that was wonderful.

Going home and trying to kill myself marking two sets of tests when I wanted to be asleep? Not Wonderful. Hearing the next morning that one of the next tests has been put off? Lovely. Having those fucking tests sitting in my bag upstairs at this moment STILL UNMARKED? Not Lovely. But my problem entirely.

Now I'm off to prepare for the weekend's events. I've already been involved in a large-scale pie-making operation, and the next 24 hours promise knitting! Dancing! Art! And a charity walk in my club clothes!! Because I am HardCore. Dig it.

P.S. There's still time to donate. If you like the thought of me with a walloping art hangover walking 10K in the Boots and knitting at the same time…well, maybe you want to drop a few dollars in the plate. There will be pictures. Just saying.

Labels: angst, bat masterson, friends, knit, outfits, outings

This morning I got up before seven so that I could make pancakes. Something about pancakes always fills my day with sunshine. So I did, and then when we were glutted with sweet gluteny love, I got dressed & took Blake to the supermarket. The Boy had been shopping yesterday, but there's a superior calibre of lunch meat to be found at a market farther away, so I went out in search of deli for lunches this coming week. As I wheeled around with a grumpy, snotty Blake, I noticed that most of my fellow patrons seemed to be wearing the shirts they slept in. I shouldn't complain; I should feel lucky that so many people remembered to wear pants. I am so overdressed, I thought.

After church, Blake & I got on our bike and headed over to the 6th anniversary celebration of our next-door neighbour's tabernacle. This was completely new to me, but it seemed like the kind of risk that it would be good for me to take. The Boy stayed home, felled by some weird creeping crud, but I was wearing a swingy skirt and my motorcycle boots and feeling good. When we walked in, I realized that I was one of the only people not wearing traditional African dress. All around me, women in dazzling robes were adorned with fantastic fabric origami crowns. I am so underdressed, I thought.

Other excellent things about today in no particular order:

The quality of afternoon sunlight when I'm hanging up clothes. Blake falling asleep on my lap as I knit. Lying on the uncomfortable hardwood floor with Blake before church and listening intently to the first 5 songs off the B-52's album. Riding my bike in motorcycle boots and a swingy skirt, with Blake in the front wearing a hockey helmet. The Boy holding my hand in church. Fresh bagels for lunch. A nap in the sun.

This is what keeps me going: the fact that there are such beautiful, glowing patches of happiness in my life.

Labels: blake, outfits, the boy

Mason: "I really want to knit this [secret sweater for my wife] at home."

Me: "You could always tell her it's for me."

Mason: "Yeah, that might…wait."

Me: "Hee! Sorry. That wasn't very nice."

The Very Odd Situation between me & Mason (i.e. the one with his wife that fears my intentions, while my conduct has been blameless) developed a new wrinkle last night when I continued to attend the Lettuce Knit stitch n' bitch with him, despite the resumption of the school year. I always quit my weekday commitments when summer ends because I know myself too well to trust myself to leave at an appropriate hour when there's socializin'. (And delicious suppers, and ice cream with waffles and, well, beer.) This is why I never-never-never go to the Dance Cave during the school year, because who wants an English teacher who assigns silent reading for the period while she falls asleep on the desk? Well, maybe more of you than I credit, but my bosses don't want that and I don't want the bank to take my house for non-payment.

But I went out last night. Because I figure that if Mason's proven resolve to leave at 8 p.m. and thus make his wife happy can be extended to me, I can keep going out. Plus, my parents sweetened the deal immeasurably by offering to take Blake for the night on Wednesdays. So after work I'll do yoga for an hour & find the inner peace I so lack, and then blow off that inner peace with burritos, ice cream, waffles & beer, and then go home and go to bed without having to read anyone stories. I am so lucky.

This has been an excellent school opening. The only thing I can compare it to was the year I came back very pregnant, and thus completely untouched by the usual anxiety. There's also the positive influence of my Back To School footwear, pictured below:

For two days I walked through the school a goddess in my own mind. Wearing these boots makes it easy to pretend that I have a scooter and a stylish European boyfriend. And that once this day is over, I will continue our motorcycle tour of Southern Europe. These boots don't really help me with the grasping of the reality, no.

But in case I need a quick dose of the stuff, this is what Blake's Back To School outfit looks like:

I had no idea how filthy a dress shirt could get in 8 hours spent on a wee student's back. It appears the reality will just keep on going, despite my pretensions to fantasy.

Labels: bat masterson, blake, friends, knit, outfits

I had a fantastic day. I got all my anniversary shopping done (wool, glass, card), plus correctly-fitting post-nursing bras, a staple-less stapler, and various toy treats for the Blake. Plus, I got to spend all afternoon with Scherezade, one of my favourite people, and I spent the end of the day chasing a naked Blake through Dufferin Grove Park. Fortunately, that place is always full of so many hippie parents that nobody seemed to care.

Why was he naked? Well, he had an "accident" in the art supply store that left him commando, so when we got to the wading pool, he rushed in and I had no alternative but to strip him of his soaking togs and send him in nude. Then I took off with Scherezade, leaving Cheryl with her two kids and my nudist. Cheryl's so great - she just thinks this kind of thing is funny rather than deeply alarming. We both thought, "what's the worst that could happen?"

While I was gone, a guy came over and asked Cheryl if she was the naked kid's mom. "No, I'm just watching him. His mom took his clothes off and left." When I heard this story later, I was compelled to add, "she sounded pretty high." We laughed.

Turns out that you have to wear clothes in the wading pool and in the play area. Who knew that this wasn't Woodstock, what with all the organic food and bra-less, nursing mothers? Squares.

I have several short videos of Blake chasing his friends through the park, him naked and them clothed. It was good times for all. By the time I managed to pry him away from Cheryl's son K3nt0n and their chasing and singing games, the sun was setting. I returned home with two fresh rotis and all of Blake's clothing quarantined in plastic bags, and I walked in the door completely spent in body and soul.

The bra shopping was top-notch, as per usual. Secrets from Your Sister takes all the hassle out of bras, which is good when you're like me and yo-yo around the sizes with unpredictable force. To give you an example, when I started wearing bras after an 8-year hiatus, it was after the antidepressants had kicked in and I was 20 pounds overweight. Size: 38B, with the possibility of extenders to accommodate my enormous back. Then I got pregnant and gained a cup size. Then I had Blake and started nursing, which started to shrink my back somewhat. Now I'm a full year past nursing, 5 years past my weight gain, and still firmly in need of a bra. What does one do? One goes to SfYS, where you will be accurately measured and waited on by a consummate professional who – irony – is not wearing a bra herself.

My overall experience was enhanced by Blake, who, giving no hint of his later descent into anarchy, sat quietly in a corner with a bottle of apple juice and listened contentedly to the Scissor Sisters album being played over the shop speakers. He was, uncharacteristically, angelic. This may have been because I woke him up from his nap after only 20 minutes of sleep, and he was bone tired…but I'll take it wherever I can get it. Usually I have to enlist my companion to distract/guard him, but even Scherezade's late arrival went unnoticed. He was Just That Good.

We spent the rest of our afternoon buying him little toys. I hardly ever indulge him like that, but I was feeling pretty indulged myself (I will not disclose my underwear bill; it is, like its subject, unmentionable). So he scored some new bath toys and a whale model, plus a new red, white and blue striped ball (a curiously hard-to-find item that he loves with the passion of a collector). Well, he scored 2, but that was because in all the confusion surrounding his "accident" I didn't realize that I had already slipped a ball into my bag for safe keeping, thus I wound up paying for another ball and discovering the first an hour later. The Clueless Shoplifter strikes again. I'm feeling pretty guilty; not only because of what I taught my son but because they let me use the staff bathroom in Blake's hour of need. Bad mom.

When we got to the park, he dug himself into a sand pit and allowed Scherezade & I to forage for an afternoon snack. There's nothing quite like sitting in the shade with one of your oldest and best friends, eating an organic hot dog with your fingers and chasing it with a sun-warm chocolate chip cookie while your son is absorbed into the anarchy of a hippie kid sand pit. I highly recommend it. Of course, as soon as the wading pool entered the picture it all fell apart. But it was awesome while it lasted.

Labels: blake, friends, outfits, outings

I've got a backlog right now, and the farther I get from it the less I want to write about it. So maybe we'll do this the way my kids always want to write: point-from style, bebe!

Friday:

• still grumpy and unsettled and full of confidence-eroding guilt.
• met Poppy & the twinz for a 'romp' in the park; romp was conducted by Blake while I got some twin boy time.
• alone with the Blake for most of the day, and happy.
• dropped him off at Camp Grampa at 5 and headed east for bright lights & excitement.
• continued grumpy streak at Betty's, where I could not get food or drink fast enough.
• knit a very tiny bit; mostly showed and told about my crazy patterns.
• Jendricks effectively boosted my spirits with her funnel/g-string comment, which will not be committed to print
• unintentional shirt twinz abounded! Including me! Good work, Old Navy.
• piled Sophie, Michelle, Nad, Lisa & Jacquie into the Purple Lassitude and prayed that we wouldn't be stopped. But then again, we couldn't be stopped.
• goth primped at Michelle's convenient condo. I pulled out all the classics: the Dress, the Fishnets, and the current pair of 'vogs. Too bad my hair sucked.
• saw Stacy & Death outside; chatted for a half hour until guilt kicked in, then ran upstairs to be with my abandoned knittas.
• hit Savage, danced like stompy fools, laughed at each other and everyone else
• left at midnight and laughed when Michelle gave me the look of perfect disappointment. "Don't give me that look!" I yelled over the band, "I invented that look!"
• drove home, tired but happy.

Saturday

• packed up the car & went to KW
• watched the Boy impress his whole family with the accordion, and watched the accordion become an indispensable part of the campfire sing
• ate way too much layered dip and way too much everything else
• egged two family members into attempting the 6 over 60 cracker challenge; both failed
• let Blake pretty much do what he wanted for most of the afternoon; this entailed running wild with a pack of cousins older than he
• listened to one of the Boy's uncles do an unintentional reinterpretation of "If I Can't Smoke or Swear, I'm Fucked"
• was surprised twice; once when the same uncle turned out to have taken accordion lessons decades ago, and next when a cousin joined me and the accordion on the one verse of "Halleluia" the Boy could be coaxed to play
• held Blake in my arms next to a campfire until he fell asleep
• drove home, tired and happy. We couldn't stay the night because backyard renos have eliminated the fence around the pool, thus taking away the barrier between Blake and the sweet arms of Death. The kid can work dead bolts like a pro; a tent zipper is no barrier. (When I explained this at knitting, Michelle suggested I tether him to the tent. "That way, when he drowns, you can all drown with him!" And we laughed, mostly because everyone else at the table was horrified. It'd make a *great* Smiths song.)

Today I started decluttering and getting myself in order. I also started Blake's "gradual release" swim lessons, by which I mean, total release swim lessons. We've always done swim lessons together, so I picked a class that would work on getting him slowly to the point in which I could go up to the observation deck & knit. Today I took him to the poolside and was summarily dismissed. It was kind of sad – I was in my bathingsuit, still damp from the shower, and completely redundant. No knitting either. So I went upstairs with my parents and watched Blake from afar. I think a 2:1 class ratio is exactly right where he's concerned.

Labels: blake, dancing, friends, knit, outfits, outings

Many things have happened over the past few days, the most important of which is, I suppose, that the Boy & I got the house in spectacular shape for Sunday's après party party. I had expected that everyone would be too tired after eating and swimming & celebrating my uncle's spring wedding to spend more than a token visit at the house, but I was happily surprised. They came for an hour, made themselves at home, ate almost all of the low-fat bean dip, and disappeared on the stroke of six. My dad has been heard to remark that the house looked perfect; so much so that he's started to talk about buying it when we move (a long ways down the road). My mom? Not impressed with this speculation. She does, however, dig the house and that’s all I want.

The avant "party party" party (or, the party) was excellent as well. I got to make an impromptu toast to my uncles, and the rest of my relatives actually shut up for 2 seconds. A blue-eyed miracle.

Speaking of family, my sister Pixie got married last weekend. She would have pulled it off in complete secrecy, but she drunkenly spilled the beans to Scout (or so the story goes), and Scout immediately bought a plane ticket. Scout has been maid of honour at all but one of her family's recent marriages; no one elopes on her watch.

The groom? We get to meet him next month. I can't say anything nice about him because I wouldn't know him from Adam. He seems to have made Pixie happy, and that's all that matters in the long run.

From the No Good Reason Dept.

Hey look, I actually had a good hair day in 2007:

And this is what I'd look like as drawn by Matt Groening. This picture comes courtesy of a tripple-dog-dare from Alexi. Ha! Ex dares are the most serious, and I never beck down from a dare to begin with.

Labels: family, outfits

Let's all bow our heads and have a moment of silence for the following purged items:

• a shiny silver suit Stacy thrifted for me, one piece at a time. I wore the jacket one memorable night at C*8, and I've been waiting to slim down enough to wear the whole outfit. The painful fact is that even if I lose 20 pounds, giving birth has irrevocably changed my hip shape.
• the turquoise and green dress in which I met Callum Keith Rennie. I threw it in the washing machine last year and shrunk the outer layer. I'm going to hope that some smaller girl thinks that the extra fringe is a design feature.
• the grey cardigan my grandmother gave me in the mid-90's. When everyone else aspired to the frumpy cardigan, I cornered the market.
• the skirt-that-may-as-well-be-a-belt that I inherited from Scherezade and wore to my 28th birthday celebration.
• the velvet tunic I found at Good Will By the Pound in '97. I interviewed the Heads in that goth-figure-skater-gone-wrong outfit.
• the navy blouse that was a staple of my first office wardrobe in '95.
• the denim jumper I bought with Alexi and wore over a series of little t-shirts. Also, the little black t-shirt I bought that day.
• the black and purple dress that made the Lawyer give me a good once-over when he came by to see if I was going to Tea one fall afternoon in '97.
• a number of items I inherited and kept even though they didn't look good on me.

Labels: friends, house rich, nostalgia, outfits

So, following hot on the heels of the pig incident, Mason managed to lose one of my knitting bags yesterday. I had lent it to him last week with the barely-started second kimono because I wanted to hook him on the project (he's not knitting right now; I need to not knit a second kimono right away or I will seriously lose my knit). It’s not a proper knitting bag, rather, it's a baby bag Theresa gave me that's a bit awkward when loaded up with baby stuff, so it lay unused for years until I resuscitated it as a knitting bag. It's made of Nova Scotia tartan and it has no tag, so there was no possibility of replacement.

I wasn't too worked up about it; between the shame-guilt of my unfinished weekend marking and the new house, I don't have many grey cells left over for random sadness. Mason thought I was being overly accommodating (hiding rage, he supposed), but my real response was, "how is this about my house, now?"

Anyway, the bag resurfaced with one of my yoganaut friends and Mason feels better. This is the best thing that's happened to me in two full days; that alone should tell you how crummy my week has been.

Bridesmaidmania was a big corsage of excellent this year. I was afraid that it would be like last year with big gaps in the fun and the conspicuous lack of dancing (until the end). Turns out that was mostly due to the tiara; without it, I had a blast. (I don't look any better, but what can I say. It's been a bad year for my physical appearance: lots of stress-eating and an unbroken string of bad haircuts. Plus, the pimples of my adolescence seem to be returning, one at a time.) Cyn and Mike were the special Bride & Groom this year, and knowing a big chunk of the participants helped me feel comfortable without Dirk.

(Oh, yeah. Dirk bailed on me. He spaced on the date and made alternate plans in another city, leaving me with a week of "should I stay or should I go" type decision-making.)

I also made some new friends, relying on my special combo of hideous dress, brazen conversation, and funky dance moves. Plus, this crowd loves the fact that I'm a teacher and I can surf on that fascination endlessly. It's the kind of event where you can discuss everything under the sun, and then move to a new conversation at will because there's just so damn much going on. Because of the extreme busyness of this weekend, I had asked the Boy to pick me up early; when he did, I was sorry to go.

I didn't, however, leave with my reputation intact:

More photos here.

Labels: bat masterson, dancing, friends, house rich, outfits, outings

So, I had a lie-down and I feel better. I skipped my Diet Coke at lunch; that probably had something to do with my inability to cope with my day.

I totally forgot to mention that my department went out for lunch, stuffed ourselves slothful with Vietnamese food, then my ride went to the bookstore. As soon as we walked in the door, one of my colleagues picked up a book as a joke: "Do you think we should get this for [Employee Leaving Tomorrow]?" I looked at the title: "You Suck." The author: Christopher Moore. The blurb: "C. Thomas Flood…" And then I totally lost my shit and started bouncing up and down in front of my co-workers because IT'S A SEQUEL TO BLOODSUCKING FIENDS. I know what I want for Rocketbride Day.

I have some questions for the universe:

Why is it that everyone I know who got married in 1999 is now divorced/on the way? Why are things going so poorly for the Boy's family on the relationship front, when they're such interesting and good people? Why do people think that this shirt is attractive? Why is Mason so awesome? Why do the people in my family vacillate between stupidly elaborate weddings and secretive clandestine hitchings? Why do my students think they can all get away with writing the same fucking exam? Why didn't anyone tell me about this new Christopher Moore book? Why am I making mad cash for eating food?

"Why can't a mouse eat a streetcar? Why oh why oh why?" – Woody Guthrie

Labels: bat masterson, family, outfits

I had a crummy day at work yesterday. First off, I've lost interest in the semester, it being three days until the exam, so my lessons were boring & largely focused on "work time," which became "chat time." Second, I had to tell the guy next to me to stop making ribald jokes at my expense because I was getting uncomfortable. That is The Last Time I ask him to take me on an off-site errand – he was fine during the errand, but before & after he made a number of comments insinuating that our business was sexual. Blech and double-blech – even though I told them to stop, and they did, I still feel garbagy. Third, the purpose of the errand was to buy samosas for a English department birthday, one that I loused up by forgetting cups, plates & napkins. Go me.

So I was not in a great mood when the Boy & I got ready to go out for the night. (As you may recall, this was the night for the po-mo/porno horror.) Mason called to back out right before we left, Dirk & Exodus & Ex's woman (Levitica – I've decided to refer to them collectively as the Pentateuch – look it up) were looking like sketchy prospects at best, and my PVC pants* were uncomfortable (go figure). I was nearly positive that we'd go to Future Bakery, eat a quiet dinner, chat with Stacy for an hour, then go home.

Need I say that my disappointments were, well, disappointed? For one, Dirk picked up the phone when we were loudly singing along with Frozen Ghost on the highway, and he even promised to put on pants in time for our arrival. I didn't end up eating at FB (which was weird, because me and eating are tight), but we had fun anyway. And then Stacy & the Pentateuch showed up, so that was cool, too. Much laughter, and the eating of schnitzel later, we were ready for the soi-dit porno horror.

I have to say that, Behind the Mask: the rise of Leslie Vernon did not disappoint. Last night was a perfect echo of every reason I had to watch horror when I was a teen, namely:

1. it was what all my friends were doing, which was therefore what I wanted to do
2. thrills n' some tame chills that couldn't quite compare to what my imagination has been conjuring out of the dark since the age of 11
3. voyeuristic explorations of airbrushed teenage sex, which I soaked up as a valuable source of information/inspiration. Hey, when you're 16, it's easier and classier to get away with watching horror rather than porno in your parents' basement.

"Isn't this a little gratuitous?"
"Tay, who's telling this story?"

* Why was I wearing my PVC pants when no club was in sight? A few reasons. When we called Dirk on Thursday, he expressed an interest in – get this - going dancing after the movie. Buddy hasn't made it past 4:30 p.m. this week and he wants to close out the Garden's retro night. But since I'm an "anything can happen and I want to be dressed for it" kind of person, I spent some time at the lunch table musing about the most efficient outfit change before I settled on the pants. They actually make a lot of sense in winter, I just haven't really worn them since my anti-depressant-pro-weight-gain era. Of course, the people at the table began giving me shit for my bad fashion sense, so I got a little stubborn and decided to wear them out no matter where I ended up (even if front of the teevee). I even put in my new contact lenses and slathered on my typical helping of Too Much Dark Makeup to match the mood of the pants. It was fun.

Labels: bat masterson, friends, outfits, outings