February 5, 1999.

Yesterday was an interesting little day. Like an idiot, I volunteered to do an impromptu presentation of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, even though I've only read a little more than a fifth of the book (it's 1500 pages, for those keeping score at home. Big pages. With little type.) Luckily enough, I tapped into some weird nervous energy late Wednesday night, so I was able to read another hundred pages and create some sort of coherent outline before sleep. Far too few hours later, I was nervously rushing through the same. I can't believe I'm voluntarily training to stand in front of cynical highschoolers for the rest of my professional life. I should have my fucking head examined.

But besides that, it was a relatively good day. One more step class got under my undiminished belt, and I'm starting to feel a bit less self-conscious when I lose my place in the middle of a routine and have to stand still to catch up. This whole step experience is improving my musical sensitivity, though...I'm developing the ability to filter out bad early nineties techno, which is quite the enviable skill I think.

In the evening, we went over to Pixie Stix and Q's house (read: the Boy's sister & her husband) to pick up Q's nuptial kilt, which he'd so graciously offered to lend the Boy for the Fireball. They started chatting about their upcoming living arrangements, and we ended up going for dinner and a show with Pixie Stix. I found myself adopting this weird, gruff personality towards the Boy while we were with his sister...I think it's 'coz she & I are the same age, and we relate as peers rather than sister-of and girl-of. If that makes any sense. But for some reason, this rapport makes me unwilling to show any affection for the Boy...like, I'm tying to impress Pixie Stix and she doesn't act as if her brother's anybody special so I can't. It makes me seem really ornery and mean to the Boy...which I am, just not that frequently.

He-yeah.

So anyway, we ate a fabulous Thai meal, went & saw Wilde, and then came back to my house to chill. It's the second time I've had friends other than the Boy over...there's just never anything going on at my place, and it's too far for most Annex people to visit. Drank tea till one in the morning and went to bed wired as hell. A very good night.

Today is the day Morgan and Little Spider are coming in for our weekend of Fireballin', and I haven't even started cleaning. I really don't want them to see this pit the way it is right now, so pray forgive my untimely absence.

Much later:

How embarrassing. Morgan has cleaned half the house in the hour she's been here. She can't help it; she was raised by a neat-freak, and thus cleans without thinking about it. I suppose it's also a by-product of having a five-year old...your tidying skills become precise and lightning-fast.

The early evening was an absolute nightmare, through no fault of our own. Morgan needed a shirt to wear gothing tonight, but we didn't assemble until after six. Solution: travel to the Eaton's Centre, Toronto's monolith of consumerism. But even this high temple of commerce lacks a variety of clothing in normal-woman sizes, and our few minutes turned into hours of wandering around the mall, hopelessly looking for something a) cool and b) less than a c-note. The ubiquity of little tiny clothing made Morgan incredibly depressed, while Little Spider and I suffered through a dizzying drop in blood-sugar (we should've eaten hours before). We ended up in an expensive "plus" store with crappy service...but at least the motherfucking clothes were attractive and comfortable.

Staggered back on rubbery legs to my newly-clean grotto to dress in our best gothgear. I found my well of creativity dried up...after all, this evening marked my fourth consecutive weekend at the Garden. My stars, what to wear? Little Spider lent me her new PVC pants, and I was in heaven. I seriously want some, but my mom would have an aneurysm - since I haven't had a decent pair of new jeans since highschool, I don't think she'd cotton to the much less practical PVC pair. Morgan wore black fishnets over red tights; the overall effect was that of a New Orleans "fancy lady". Little Spider wore a spiderweb dress (what else?) and long black little girl ribbons on her tiny pigtails. I donned the now traditional sunglasses and too many rings, and we set out to get a quick bite before meeting Dirk at the Garden. (It helps vamps like us to be less kill-crazy if we get in a nibble before going to a goth club...)

And then, well, "drinking and dancing all night long." There were so few people there that our little party could take over half the dance floor with little to no effort. There were so few people, in fact, that I don't have one anecdote about a sleazy attempted pick-up. Not one.

I like that in a night.