April 23, 1999.

This Denver thing seems to be prompting everyone to talk about their highschool years, and how awful the system was. Now, this may come as a surprise to you all, who seem to think that I'm Little Miss Angst most of the time, but I had a pretty good time in highschool. The first two years were not fun. I didn't really have close friends & I read a lot. However this wasn't a big deal to me, as I was never that socially successful. Another chapter in the life of Amoret: Nerd Pariah. I had exactly one best friend worthy of the name before I turned 16. She was wonderful, and I'll hazard a guess that she still is. Despite being one of those Princeton grads. Anyway.

When I turned 16, my entire life changed overnight. It was really that dramatic: on the afternoon of my 16th birthday, some people called to ask me along to the zoo. One of them was Little Spider; you may have seen me refer to the other two as Akasha and Mr. Shoreleave. We became best friends. And for the next 2 years, I was deeply in love with two girls and a guy.

They were into metal, so I was too (I still know all the words to the entirety of "Appetite For Destruction"). They were creative, and I was that all along anyway. We wrote songs, novel outlines & comic books based on ourselves. We drew pictures of a white trash line of Barbies. We read Anne Rice novels and dressed up as vampires every Hallowe'en. We learned instruments and named our band Savage Garden after a phrase of Lestat. We discussed Concrete Blonde and Guns n' Roses and Metallica albums in heretofore unexplored depth. We drove places and cooked and laughed and generally loved the hell out of each other. We made plans to live together in our adulthood. We divided up children's names so that we wouldn't duplicate somebody's choice. We discovered Siren and wore black t-shirts all the bloody time.

In senior year, we pulled apart a bit. Alexi & I fell hard for each other, and I spent a lot of energy in learning how to be a girlfriend. We learned how to drink, and applied ourselves zealously to this study at houseparties. We were by no means the "cool" set, but we had created an enormous base of friends and there was a party at somebody's house every weekend, sometimes twice.

Sure, we fought. We spent hours in the video store, just to decide on one movie. There was passive-aggression enough to keep a battalion of shrinks in expensive underwear for decades. We all had our own personality quirks and insecurities and the normal angst you find in teens. And when you are passionately committed to three people, there are violent flare-ups of temper.

But I still regard it as a golden age in my development. I've never been so creative, so cherished, so amused. It was a glorious time to be alive.

It's everything afterwards that has been the problem.

I can't find anyone right now. I'm trying to go out, but I'm dependent on a bunch of folks returning my calls, and it's just not happening. The Boy is at a lacrosse game tonight (it's the official sport of Canada, you know). Scherezade is probably with her man.

Oh, yeah. Scherezade has a boyfriend. This probably surprises you a lot less than it does me. To explain the point somewhat, I've been friends with the girl since first year. We've spent a lot of time together writing scripts, shopping, watching pointless movies, dancing and generally wasting time (this is certainly the entry for meaningless lists, huh?) And in all of those years, we've had a few disagreements about boys. I don't suppose watching me crash n' burn during the Paris year was much of a commercial for relationship bliss.

In any case, she has remained single - despite being confident, connected, smart, funny, well dressed and built like a brick shit house. This has been one of my minor ongoing frustrations. I don't understand why she's not into the boyfriend thing, she doesn't understand why it's so important to me. Well, that's all changed, because she is smoochily involved with a dreadlocked punk rocker. Watching her with him is like being in one of those alternate dimension episodes of Star Trek...you know intellectually that you're looking at the same girl you watched Strictly Ballroom with 6 times two summers ago, but she's acting so giggly and strange...

Oh well. Good on her. I just hope the infatuation phase is relatively short...mostly because I can't get her to listen to a word I say when he's in the room. And we all know, my primary goal in life is to be adored...

The funeral went pretty well, as these things go. It was a bizarre and macabre end, and the grandkids seemed rather stunned, but for all that it wasn't terribly sad. There's something to be said for the Irish, that's for sure...although one of my uncles raced around taking snaps to be sent to relatives back home who couldn't make it. A trifle unsettling, as was my grandmother's constant refrain that "he wanted to take care of her no matter where she went." Oh, yes, and one small correction: the he in question, the suicide, is my step-grandfather's brother. Not a big deal, really. But I try to be accurate whenever possible.

It was also an excuse to get smashed in the middle of the afternoon at the Legion Hall. My brother says that he's played a punk show there. If there's a non-profit organization building in the area that he hasn't played at, I'm sure it's on the agenda this month. The Boy was there to buoy my spirits, but the general mood was so gentle and quiet that we just talked quietly and tried not to laugh at inappropriate moments. Like at the graveside, when all we could think of was Happy Noodle Boy.

copyright Jhonen Vasquez & Nny

Today is my Dad's 51st birthday. I've been bitching about his loud ties forever, so this year I had the bright idea to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. God, I looked at so many bloody ties yesterday. The post-funeral trip to the mall also included a wardrobe change for the Boy, as he had an interview today and he wanted to look as docile and corporate as possible. This, of course, meant a blue shirt and yellow tie - the corporate uniform of the late nineties. We both experienced some qualms in outfitting him in office weasel mode, but as long as he can think of it as just another costume, his soul should be safe. I think.

It was also fun to do damage to his Bay card. I don't even have a credit rating to destroy, so I live vicariously through him. Oh, what a gold digger I seem, huh? But the Winnie the Pooh pjs were his idea, I swear.