To propagate an oxymoron, I'm feeling insanely bleh right now. It's Sunday, I've got a huge amount of marking ahead of me and I'll be damned if I don't want to just go back to bed. I don't even want to write about my weekend - I just want to sleep and eat and forget it all.
Did I mention that I'm also insanely pre-menstrual? That, at least, isn't an oxymoron.
On Friday I spent a very, very long time in Hogsboro, listening to my colleagues talk about their sex lives (or lack thereof). It was one of those deadly, fascinating conversations that's like a car wreck: you really don't want to know, but you can't bear to turn away. I had very little to say, being the only one at the table in a relationship. This was lonely in its own way.
After I tore myself away, I went home, met up with the Boy and we started off in search of a ceilidh. Unfortunately, I had really screwed up - I had assumed that it would be at Dora Keogh, where the last one was...when really it was across town. This wouldn't've been a big deal if I hadn't told three or four people (including Teresa) to meet me at Dora Keogh. We ended up sitting in Dora for an hour and a half, completely missing the ceilidh. Not one of the people I invited actually showed up, either.
I'm really not sure when we decided to cut our losses and go to the Zen Lounge. Ugh. I am so done with that place. I'm tired of hearing the same 20 turgid songs that are complete crap but happen to be popular at the moment. I'm tired of watching the Boy dance to Eminem. I'm tired of a dancefloor so crowded that my feet are stepped on, my legs are drenched in beer and I am continually on the watch for flailing cigarettes. And I'm tired of the fact that the more we go, the deeper we get drawn into the interminable chick drama that seems to reign supreme there. I'm too old and too sober to try to make conversation with a group of people who are getting so drunk every weekend that they're injuring themselves in incidents they don't even remember the next day.
Not everyone is like that. The people we speak to the most aren't like that. But in trying to expand the network, I'm running into a lot of things that I just don't understand anymore. I'm really, really old I suppose.
Well, that was my little Zen rant. I suppose that it's much like the Rock - I'll keep going as long as there are people there who interest me, even if they're vastly outnumbered by people I'd rather not be around.
On Saturday we mooched around the house, made a really heavy meal of tortellini in 2 sauces, and got ready for St. Jack & co's "Malanka: Old World New Year's Party" (moustaches mandatory). He and his wacky housemates had put together a night that included a piņata labelled "HAVE A SHIT HOT HARVEST", a yurt, a goat costume, one rendition of a Ukrainian folksong, a broadsheet entitled "The New Yurt Times" and a moustache tax continually enforced. I have never in my life seen so many people crammed into an Annex house - in a twist on B's memorable phrase, we were packed asses to moustaches. I have also never been to a party that contained so many people I didn't know. In the first stage of the party when the house was only about half full, the Boy & would walk from room to room, looking for someone we knew and braving the silent stares of the moustachioed faces as they turned to mark our passage. It was beyond surreal.
The two of us went completely boba for the occasion - I wore my black peasant blouse and a paisley skirt with boots, a blue kerchief and a faint but frighteningly realistic eyeliner moustache. The Boy looked like a Russian teen, dressed as he was in a shirt, gold vest, and 5-day's growth (read: bad teen 'stache). The two of us wore garlic around our necks, tied thrice with red string. People asked about the garlic, but I had no answers - something swam up out of blood memory and it just seemed like the right thing to do.
(I'm still wearing my clove. I made the Boy wear it to bed, and I made him put it back on when I found out that he'd put it aside while I slept this morning. He's humouring me kindly.)
Tonnes of old friends turned up, from Dot and Brit Boy to Fast Eddie and Tym:J to Ophelia and Lady Godiva to St. Stephen and his alarming genuine waxed moustache. I found that although I enjoyed speaking to various folks, I was often at a loss for what to say. There were just so many people I didn't know, and I seemed to be one of the few women who made an effort to dress authentically (read: frumpily). This, combined with the all-too-real moustache and the fact that I have very little good to say about my life right now, made me smile reassuringly for long stretches of time. I think I was most comfortable with Dot, because she reads this journal from time to time and I know I don't have to hide anything from her.
I also spent a sizable chunk of time with Ophelia and Lady Godiva, who went to extraordinary lengths to make me feel included and fun (taking my picture, inviting me to the funk couch, playing with the garlic). Alas, I was so achey and uncomfortable that I think I came across as a really boring moron. I was most emotionally invested in my felt shark, which I had grabbed from the piņata wreckage after St. Jack in a goat costume led the charge and beat the thing to death. I was a little too close to the ritual murder, and a stick caught me on the thigh, leaving a nasty welt that showed through my black tights. I think I was the only casualty of the party, although it was extremely raucous, and occasionally degenerated into wrestling and smacking-with-ladles.
