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august 14, 2000. You know that old saying, "I'm at sixes and sevens"? Used to describe a harried state of mind? Right now I'm not at sixes and sevens. I'm so stressed that I'm at twelves and fourteens. Which is better than last night, when I was at 62 s and 72 s.
Last night my parents and I had what I hope will be known as The Last Really Big Fight. It started out badly: while I was in the city for the weekend, my parents had reorganized the entire seating plan to suit their notion of family honour. Among other things, one of the Boy's friends was sent to the back by himself, and the 3 year old Flower Child was seated at the head table (a full room away from her mother). I considered these to be problems - why couldn't we seat people according to human need rather than according to who was born in some shitty flyspeck Italian village half a century ago? (As you can see, I'm having a few issues with my ethnic heritage these days.) My mom was tired and a bit cranky from all the unaccustomed vodka she had just consumed that afternoon. I was very hungover and over-tired. And my dad operates on a fuse that requires expensive scientific equipment to even detect.
Which is all to say, we started screaming at each other in short order. I stomped off to my room while my mother tried to command my return. "I AM TWENTY FOUR YEARS OLD!!" I screamed without pausing my flight, "AND I WILL NOT BE ORDERED BACK INTO A ROOM!!"
There was a lot of crying after that, and a lot of confused musing running though my fevered brain that I've decided not to record for posterity. It's that adolescent sort of garbage that we've all written ourselves, right? "When will they treat me like a real human being? I, too, deserve to be loved..." Blah blah blah. In a week, I'll be living with someone who will leave me alone when I ask him, someone who has always treated me as an equal and never as a child. My parents aren't bad people, they're just a bit slow in unlearning old patterns of thought.
This being so, I spent the entire night in my room. Oh well. I'm be leaving it soon enough.
* * *
The weekend was not, as forecasted, a bust. Friday was a bit of a quiet time, but a nice one. Stacy found me at the Tequila Bookworm, and we exchanged gifts. I've been worried about her lately: suddenly she had no phone, no known address and no comforting explanation. Unfortunately, I hemmed & hawed for the first 20 minutes, just getting used to the conversation...and by the time I was ready to cross examine, Dav had arrived.
(Although, he didn't arrive nearly quickly enough. When I was waiting for others, a person with bright blue hair passed by, smiled enthusiastically & waved. I thought to myself, "who knows I'm here? Is that Dav?" It was Sheila. How embarrassing. It just goes to show how stupid this wedding has rendered me.)
We spent the night talking about Dav's upcoming comic, the Satan character in The Powerpuff Girls, and the various miscellaneous bits & pieces that keep us amused. I won't go into detail, but the distance to Tijuana was mentioned, along with DNA computers, nose hair and urinals. Fortunately, not in conjunction with each other.
On Saturday, the day of my scheduled bachelorette party, I moseyed on down to Hernando's Hideaway to meet my SILTBies* for a fine mexican meal. I was considerably over-dressed for the occasion, as I've been suffering a reaction to anticipated Nova Scotia culture shock. In other words, I was in full "hoochie mama" mode, as Pixie terms it. Dinner was a co-ed affair and very funny. Then Stacy, Pixie & I piled into a cab, leaving my poor mono-afflicted maid of honour home to rest.
I know how pathetic I am. I know that I should be able to find another club as good as the Savage Garden. But that discovery lies in the future, and we bowed to the inevitable. 2 beers a piece and we started talking about the attractiveness of our brothers. Jesse sat down with us & was charmingly bothered by our undiluted femaley attractiveness. "At some point, I had a crush on all three of you!" I don't believe it about myself, really, but it was still a nice thing to say.
More boys showed up. I drank enough to reach the "obnoxiously frank" stage of intoxication, telling Dirk in no uncertain terms what I thought of the girl he's been chasing for years. At some point, we decided to go to the peelers. Not a male strip club - beefcake, how boring. No, we'd be edgy young girls & get a lap dance at the most famous strip club in Toronto: The Brass Rail.
What a bad idea.
I've never been in a strip club before. It was fun for about 30 seconds. Then I started getting depressed. The girls were zombie-vacant & their fake breasts jutted out of their chests like horrible experiments performed by sadistic doctors. The men were beyond flip description. The faces of my friends looked strained, as if we were having fun at gunpoint. After about 20 minutes trying to catch someone's eye, I finally flagged down the first girl that passed by. Holding a 20, I politely asked for a lap dance. "I don't do girls or couples," she said in a quiet Australian voice. "No offense."
It was at this point that my depression became something a little more active.
I've been insulted by lots of people. I'd venture to say that I've been insulted by some of the best. But I will not be insulted by a stripper who prefers grimy old men to someone as pretty as she. "We're leaving," I ordered the table. And leave we did.
Outside the club we shuffled from foot to foot, unwilling to part on such a note. I found myself compulsively licking my teeth, as if I was about to take a chunk out of someone. My way of compromise, I spat on the steps and we disappeared into the night.
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