February 1, 1999.

"The horror! The funky horror!!"

- happy noodle boy

The above quote has absolutely no bearing on the following entry, but I'm tired of waiting for an appropriate time to use it. Such are my anecdote skills...inappropriate perhaps, but damned amusing to me.

Cool graphic scheme this month, huh? It's like we've died and gone to HELL. Little Spider sent me the special Fireball background, and I built the rest of the graphics around it. If you can call four or five labels "graphics." Which I do.

Speaking of Little Spider, some things are going on with her that I want to comment on. You see, her boy The Maxx has this...um, quirk. Specifically, he sometimes gets utterly opposed to doing anything other than hang at the Rock with other high-school veterans. He's not alone in this...my high-school chums' general reluctance to visit me in the city played a large part in our estrangement. At that time it really got under my skin...but now I just kind of shrug it off. I don't actually hate Brampton...I just wish that we didn't have to go to local haunts all the time.

We had planned to go to the Fireball together this year, since by several strange timing quirks, I've been on the outs with Little Spider every February since I entered university. This was gonna be the year, folks, and we were getting so excited. Morgan's coming down, we all bought new dresses, I've accumulated six dates (thus doubling last year's total of three)...and this morning I got the news that Maxx is choosing to go to a local keg party rather than Fireball.

To which I can only say, fine. Fireball is one of things that you should be totally committed to in going and enjoying yourself, not something to Harling* on the way to a kegger. Besides, it'll give LS a chance to come & goth dance with Morgan and myself this Friday, as we could've never convinced Maxx to come down.

(Did I strip most of the value judgements off of this account? I hope so. It's not my place to mediate on the behavior of some one else's boy...and I have no wish to start that kind of ball rolling anyway. Of course, I may have some unexpressed ideas...)

* Harling - the last name of a high school friend who had a bad habit of spending five minutes at parties before taking off. Consequently, to Harling an event is to blow it off with a token appearance.

Today I realized that those unsightly pound and inches I've picked up from last week's ravenous hunger and my general slothfulness are not going to oblige me and magically disappear in time for Fireball. So I went to the gym. And I pedaled. And rowed. And jogged. And did those movements that Nautiluses require of you. By the time I was done, I'd only touched .2 of a pound...and a crash diet is starting to look like a good idea.

Before you object, keep in mind that a crash diet for me is eating salad more than once a month, cutting bacon and perogies from my diet, restricting myself to one cookie at tea, drinking the recommended amount of water for adult humans, etc. It's not very extreme, in other words. And besides, I'll be back to my unhealthy self in no time, just you wait.

"Aw, Lisa, that's a load of rich, creamery butter."

But the biggest news of all is that Agamemnon got ordained last night in an absolutely kick ass service. I was very proud...although we've had our ups and downs, I've managed to be at a few ecclesiastical "firsts" of his career, and I was glad to see it through to today. The Boy was also quite impressed by the whole thing, but was rather flummoxed by the High Anglican rituals, especially the hymns printed without music. He was, however, impressed by the Communion sherry. For my part there wasn't as much culture shock, so I could sit back & enjoy the pageantry.

At the end, we gathered in the hall for those church refreshments that we all know so well...do all church ladies learn certain cabalistic secrets for churning out identical sandwiches? As always, there wasn't enough salmon. The Boy was rather unsympathetic, and responded to my distress with the injunction that I could "eat egg salad like the rest of the peasants." Made stilted conversation with university people that I haven't seen in ages and sympathized over the agonizing silence following the request for objections. Hell, the Boy's only been out with Agamemnon three or four times, but even he had dirt...like the 3 lapdancers working simultaneously on Agamemnon during last Friday's carouse. Me, I'm not talking until the last publisher gets back to me. But he's safely a deacon now, so what does it matter?

bwa ha ha ha.