fun poems from eliot & chaucer. |
april 1, 2001.It's a cliché, but it's a fun one. April is the cruelest month, breeding
Last night was a night of excess. It wasn't hard-drinking Poet-Preacher-Palaver-style madness, but it was definitely something. We went over to the Anti-Stephen's to hang out with Big Sur & Jerry G. and it turned into a curiously disappointing night. There was lots of artificial joy to be had, but I still stopped having fun about 2 hours before we finally left. There was one high point, however. Let me tell you about it... Jerry G. had just finished telling some stories about travelling across the country following Grateful Dead/Phish on various tours, selling grilled cheese and various other foodstuffs to support himself & his honey. I remarked that so many people seemed to think that the students in the education program were all cookie-cutter boring, when really we were very diverse and interesting. Then Big Sur got into this huge stupid tirade about his idea that all the women in the program are either married or plump. I said that I took issue with the word plump, although I was upfront about this being my own area of sensitivity. He went on & on about weight in the most assoholic fashion imaginable while the rest of us tried to convince him that yes, some genetics are involved. Eventually we just went quiet and let him talk himself out. I mean, it's blackly funny that a guy so tall and painfully skinny would be rejecting the heredity theory of body shape, but there you go. When this wrapped up I was really mad. Sulkingly, passive-aggressively mad. I was sitting next to Big Sur on the futon, pointedly and silently looking at a distant spot on the horizon. "You're upset. We've upset Amoret," said the Anti-Stephen, trying to catch my eye. "I'm not upset," I lied. "I would smash a beer can to atone for this," he said. "But I don't have a beer can. Let's see..." He thought for a moment. "I'm going to smash an onion." In the next minute he had fetched a raw onion from the tiny kitchenette and placed it carefully in the middle of the living room floor where we were all sitting. And with no further ado, he smashed it with his fist. Big chunks flew everywhere. We began laughing. "Okay. I'll start talking again," I giggled. "Good," he said. "I bloodied my knuckle on that onion," he added. And then he toasted me. We sat around for hours, talking of various strange things and smoking constantly (and vice versa). At 11:30, Jerry G & the Anti-Stephen left to get cigarettes. The Boy & I were left with the passed out body of Big Sur and the growing realization that we should go home presently if we were to make it to church the next day. But we had been asked to hold down the fort, right? The wanderers were nowhere in sight and we were fading by the second. I made up a kid's story for the Boy that turned out surprisingly charming; I'll post it later this week. More than an hour later, the boys show up. Where were you guys, we asked? "Oh we went to check out the new pub. We had a few pints, talked to some people..." Pause. "Hey Big Sur, you missed a good time." I exploded, a smile on my face (it was funny). "Fuck off. Okay? Fuck off. We've been waiting here, watching Big Sur sleep while you guys go out to drink at the pub? Screw you guys - we're going home." Later the Boy told me that I had said the exact right thing. The nerve, possums. The nerve.
Tonight we had dinner with 2 lovely church families. It was a wonderful mix of chicken pot pie, teacher talk and scripture discussion with lots of other interesting threads woven in and out of the conversation. I felt almost completely at ease, which is rare in such an "adult" setting. Maybe I am growing up. Huh. |
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