Hanging out at the Boy's mother's house right now; happy as a kipper on a cracker. New Year's Eve was very very tiring, and the Boy seems to have developed a cold from 2 nights spent in a dusty cold basement. He's in the city right now with Exodus, doing things that they can only do together. No, I'm not exactly sure what those things are, but the mysteries of friendship should remain just that: mysteries.
We got to Dirk & Tymothi:J's house on New Year's Eve in the late afternoon, just early enough to see Dirk vacuuming and Tym cooking angrily (there are issues there that are not mine to publish). I initially made a few attempts to cheer Tym up, but he was having none of it so I retreated to the living room with my beer. I know that mood from the inside; seeing it from the outside gave me a flash of sympathy for the Boy. Ow.
I had trucked up my wedding dress a few days earlier with the intention of prancing about during dinner all princessed up. I never get to wear the dress, of course, and it's a hell of a nice garment to leave mouldering in the closet. And of course, the friends I have were equally excited about seeing me wear the dress on New Year's Eve (in lieu of seeing Pixie in her wedding dress on Christmas Eve, I suppose.) I've always been a costume sort of gal, and often when I'm out on the town much of my mood is shaped by what I'm wearing at the time. Wearing a wedding dress is like that, only more so. I immediately felt happy, graceful, beautiful, loved, and all of the other good stuff that I had just attributed to getting married. (What do you know: it was the dress all along.)
Of course, me being me, it wasn't as polished as it might have been. I found myself fading into my outfit piece by piece as the night went on: first the dress, then my black & white striped stockings, then my white wedding shoes, then my mother's tiara, then black gloves. I didn't even put on makeup until we were about to leave for the club and I never did curl my hair. But as people kept lavishing compliments on me, I suppose that I felt too secure in my good looks to bother with cosmetics.
I like when that happens.
People drifted into the living room as the afternoon turned into evening. And because my mind works in terms of clothing, the first thing I want to tell you is what people wore. Kandyraver Kat was there in a dress coloured diva red; Fast Eddie showed up clad in his Fast Eddieness; Stacy brought her brand new silver PVC ballgown to debut for us all; Scherezade wore a black feather boa & her new black corset that's a twin to my own (but soon had to change into her red hoodie because she couldn't sit down or eat); Palaver came down in a tux; his Beetlejuice suit became the Boy's New Year's outfit. Exodus & Scout were very casually dressed, but I soon convinced Scout to don the ME t-shirt (which had not been laundered and still reeked of Gardensmell from Saturday...but she didn't mind).
It's been so long since I was at a house party that I want to itemize it all; break it into little packets of experience and wrap those packets in words to prevent spoilage. That's impossible, really. So here are the highlights: Stacy laughing when she saw the stripey stockings hidden under my voluminous wedding gown. Seeing the Boy in Palaver's father's old RCMP tunic (I've never appreciated the sight of a man in uniform before - especially a man with longish floppy hair in a uniform.) Scout bringing pickles to the party. Tymothi:J serving an endless parade of food from the kitchen and everyone eating until our outfits were strained to capacity. The Boy asking me to throw a chunk of pickled herring into his mouth...doing it before I had much time to think about it...and our ensuing amazement that a) he actually caught it in his mouth and b) made seal-like clapping motions afterwards. The collective in-drawn breath when Scherezade showed us how the corset fit. Fast Eddie expressing amazement and gratitude that he was at a party where someone could throw a polka on the stereo and start dancing without anyone else batting an eyelash. Making Caution tape sashes for everyone before we left the house from a roll of the stuff I liberated out of my brother's riot-causing stash. (Tym:J: "Do you think I need a sash, Amoret?" "Do members of the public need to be warned about you?" Unanimous agreement of room.)
When it was time to go to the Dance Cave, I changed out of the wedding dress and into my one-size-fits-all dark green velvet diva dress (as Exodus pointed out, the colour is so close to black that it might as well be called "technically green"). I was surprised when people commented on it; I've worn it to the Fireball and two weddings so I assumed that everyone important had seen me wearing it. Another aspect of my wardrobe-related tunnel vision, I guess. (Much like the part of my personality that assumes someone would want excessive details about my New Year's Eve outfit.) I had intended the whole Caution tape sash thing to be ironic; here's the anti-beauty queen ha ha ha. But somehow or other there was so much honest joy floating around that I ended up feeling like a real New Year's Eve Princess - one of two, Stacy being the silver-clad tiara'd ying to my green-clad tiara'd yang.
The Dance Cave was absolutely fucking packed, which I really should've expected but somehow didn't. It had its incredibly annoying aspects - the dance floor was one shimmering mass of drunken people and my feet were stomped on much more than I approved of. By the time "California Über Alles" came on, I was more than happy to use the punk rock to make a bit of space around myself. But of course, as soon as the flow of punk dried up, the crush reformed and I was back to the mild annoyance of dancing in someone's personal space. I had a really good time, though - all my favourite people were out dancing with me, I was under the stereo system of my favourite dj, and I was a princess. To put it mildly, there was absolutely nothing wrong with any of that.
* * *
The next day we saw Lord of the Rings (gah!) and had a fight about Nic. This is complicated. I had been trying to arrange a brief rendezvous with Nic before the show that began life as a plan to see the movie and meet him for dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. (Me: "How do we tell Dirk that we're going to a vegetarian restaurant?" Stacy: "We'll take him to a hot dog cart first.")
When we arrived at the theatre we found that the afternoon show was sold out, so we decided to eat and then see the movie. Of course, we had promised to meet Nic for dinner and he was still in Brampton. Trust me, you don't want to try asking a group of 7 very hungry, tired & hungover people to wait 2 hours for a meal, especially when you're just as cranky. Dirk & I started arguing about Nic's whole involvement in the evening, with Dirk taking the position that I was bending myself into a pretzel for someone who didn't appear to be terribly grateful and me thinking that I was just being reasonable and fair to go to great lengths for my only biological sibling. I still don't know who was right and who was just cranky; all I know is that I started thinking about the way Nic treats me and my family...and having started thinking in that direction, my opinion of Nic revised itself downwards.
Lord of the Rings, however, was more than worth the crankiness & angst preceding it. I won't go as far as Dirk & say that it's the best movie ever produced, but it's certainly one of the most engaging stories I've ever seen on the screen. There's nothing more I can say: if you love it than you know already, and if you had a mediocre reaction to it I can never explain it.
* * *
Yesterday was long & rather subtle. Not pointless exactly, but the point kind of meandered and left a lot to be desired. We spent a lovely slow morning hanging out in Dirk's bedroom (yes, this is when I let the Boy hog-tie me with Dirk's bootlaces but I swear that it was done out of curiosity. No, really.) My dad picked the Boy & I up at the subway station and we all drove out to see my aunt/matriarch. Nothing much to say about that except that the Boy managed to grab us 3 jars of home-made tomato sauce for to stretch our student budget through the next few months. I'm excited.
During this visit, the Boy found out that his mother's been missing us lots - so we decided to spend the night at her house instead of going back to my parents'. Which pretty much brings us to today, gentle reader. Today, the day that I was allowed to lie on the couch and read Ender's Game in my pyjamas. Today, the day that I have been allowed to gorge myself at the audiovisual trough known as A&E.
Don't let the lack of glitz fool you: today has been a good day.
* * *
2 years ago today: i wore the same dress
