Another Fireball lies in ashes.

What a good weekend. It missed greatness by mere inches, and that only because I slept so little & spent so much. Gather round all ye that would know...the tales of...

The weekend started with a little celebratory drinking at Ein-stein's. I was pretty surprised that the Boy & I managed to go out at all...we were both operating on miniscule amounts of sleep, and a Friday night nap seemed heavenly. But we managed to drag our sorry asses down to the bar and consequently had a funky good time. That is, until the jukebox started spewing out Oasis and the frat boys at the next table were singing along just a little too loud...and a little too seriously. I mean...maybe...you're gonna be the one that saves me...'cause after all...never mind.

For such a large group, we managed mobility rather well, taking ourselves down to the Garden in time for a blistering techno set that left me sweating, breathing fire & seeing visions. Okay, maybe not that last part...but I could've sworn that the naked strobe-lighted figures painted on the walls were moving. But that's probably just oxygen deprivation. For most of the kids - Fast Eddie, Kandyraver Kat and even St. Jack - this was an inaugural visit to the Garden, and I was pleased that there were plenty of PVC-clad babes (not to mention the odd guy in a top hat & cape) to provide pleasing visuals to accompany more than okay music. Did my heart good.

The pre-Fireball party was held at St. S & the Boy's place this year, a fact surprising considering that they just moved in a week ago...and even more surprising when you note the fact that the living room & kitchen held a computer and that's all at noon on Friday. And that the boys were taking turns eating cereal out of a pot...spreading margarine with a pocket knife...keeping the space heaters off everywhere but the bedrooms...surviving on no-name macaroni & cheese...etc. By 7 p.m. there was shimmery candle light, jazz in the air, a kitchen table full of food, cupboards full of dishes and enough seats for half the party (even if a few hunkered down on milk crates). By 8 p.m. there were almost 20 people dressed to the nines: chatting, mixing, laughing, eating & drinking. It was a smashing success, but more than that, it was an enormous amount of effort paying off. Most everybody came looking excellent and quite a few came with food & wine. One girl brought flowers from her day job. Another brought meat pies. All showed up in excellent spirits. It was so...civilized. So nice that any description falls short. My favourite kind of parties.

The Fireball itself almost suffered in comparison - too many security personnel, too much space to wander through, too many bad songs and too many pushy people. Yet the beautiful people were out in force (read: the friends I've fallen out of touch with), and that was more than worth the price of admission. The meeting that touched me the most deeply was with Cranly; despite or perhaps because of the ambiguous state of our friendship, he actually sought me out to talk about the wedding. He'd had the news broken to him in a rather strange way: Jenni mentioned that St. S just moved in with [Amoret's] fiancé. He seemed very deeply freaked out by the news, like he was looking for a way to respond that would make sense now. It's one thing to congratulate a close and well-loved friend...it's another thing to ignore or snigger over news about a girl that you no longer speak to...but how do you bridge a gap of months that neither of us fully understand? I can only speak for myself here, but when I think of Cranly I feel wariness mixed with nostalgic love mixed with a small cavity of hurt feelings and a helluva lot of confusion over our parting. They don't make Hallmark cards for that.

All things considered, I think he did quite well. He found me & congratulated me without maintaining useless distance or getting overly-familiar. His face kept twisting, as if he had something inside that was too big to get out his mouth. I wanted to grab him & convince him that it was alright. This marriage is right, even if it freaks out most of my friends. And although from his perspective it's blown up out of nowhere, it's not sudden or rash or bad. I'm going to be better than alright. That doesn't make our relationship any less complicated, but I feel that if I could make him as sure as I am, I could lessen his confusion about me just a little bit.

I still miss him, you see. I hate that so many memories of goodness were cut off with the loss of Cranly & Ophelia. Speaking of which, I even thought that the special of Fireball might be enough to make things more okay between us...but life isn't a Charlie Brown special. Unfortunately.

Other than that, I spent a lot of time finding & losing old friends & current fellows. All of the folk I haven't seen in months seemed to know about the wedding, but nobody could tell me where they heard it from. I guess I should expect that my constant online outpouring - plus a loosely connected network of acquaintances - would result in widespread knowledge of my activities. But it's still a bit of a shock when St. Jack insists that he knows my stories before I've half begun telling 'em. And it's also weird when St. Pete introduced a new girlfriend to me with the line: "she keeps an online journal, you know."

Essentially the Fireball was too much noise with too little surprise in the faces of old friends...and not enough chairs. The only marked improvement was that the Boy stayed by my side...something he couldn't quite manage last year. Even my outfit wasn't that spectacular...blue evening gown avec sassy scarf, with the usual crimson bouffant hairdo. I looked nice, but I always look nice for Fireball. Elegance is starting to bore me now that I know I can do it. Perhaps next year will be the PVC & fishnets year. At least my feet won't hurt.

Every once in awhile I would catch a glimmer of the magic and smile...but mostly I just looked for a glass of diet coke and a place to sit.

(Ed. Note - this year it took 4 1/2 hours and 170 dollars to get out of the hair salon alive. Moral: get a price in advance, don't underestimate the stylist when she says it's going to be expensive, don't book on a Saturday when everyone's trying to see 3 clients at once, and don't ever let the stylist bully you into getting your hair cut when you'd rather not. That's $30 you could spend on colourful throw pillows, babe.)

Today was a pretty hilarious after-party...a great many people came back to the apartment to hang out, and they ended up talking all night long. By noon, the surviving 10 of us were eating left-over hors d'ouvers, drinking water & laughing hysterically at the world. As we trekked out to get breakfast, many were still in bedraggled formal wear. My bouffant do was half demolished, half enlarged. We looked like unsuccessful rock stars after a night of trademark hellraising. It felt like highschool. It felt so very good.

"I love you guys. [pause] Ah, screw you guys."
- guess