may 11, 2003. Really good party. All of the regular suspects showed up for the madness, as well as some new-to-Mount-Olympus faces. My grandparents, uncle & aunt were suitably gob-smacked by the baby news, leading to much hilarity and pressure. "So what are you going to do?" my grandmother wheeled on the Boy. I stepped in. "He's just going to give'r. You know, live each day & give'r." An annoyed look passed over her face. "When are you going to quit school to get a job?" "Um, Amoret's going to work. I'm going to finish my degrees." I smiled at him. It's not easy to say that and give the impression that you'll be eating bon bons & reading Sartre while the virtuous mother toils at baby and rat-race simultaneously. For us it was a no-brainer, for others it's a concern. Meh. Like I care that people get upset by our curlicue finances. Stop struggling and enjoy the sack. - jesse's comment on infant clothes, and the unofficial motto of the party Stacy & Jesse arrived early, both stopping over before other important engagements. Stacy promised to squeeze in a few maternity dresses among the 6 impossible things she does every day - welcome news indeed, since I've already grown out of most of my favourite club wear and am staring down the barrel of 7 months in sweat pants. After Stacy left, we were down to just Jesse, the one guest...until Alice arrived. Alice is a girl with whom I went to highschool; she's the cousin of a student from last semester which explains our unlikely meeting in the present. This party was the first chance we had to get together, so we spent quite a bit of time playing catch-up before the next wave arrived. Exodus was followed by Little Spider & Spike, and then it started to be a party again. The Lawyer & his girl showed up, along with Dirk, Death, Opera Sarah & Leo, Vero & Joel & Sister Silver. I got to share the good news again and again, collecting congratulations and approval like stamps. By the time the last person left, we'd achieved another 2 a.m. bash. Does my heart good. The Boy: (sung) "I'm an Englishman in New York." The Lawyer: "He's neither." The big surprise was that the Boy, madly jealous after Noizangel's kareoke birthday, spent the intervening weeks downloading kareoke software and dozens of midis to his laptop. When he was done, he had his own kareoke party ready to go. I was frankly amazed at the variety of midis out there; it truly is a hardcore geek phenomenon of note! And the truth is that most midis are of no poorer quality than the average "real" kareoke backup, so it's not like sound quality was a major deal. We spent a good three hours singing, cheering, hooting, whistling and in all other ways making utter asses of ourselves. Glorious. The Boy: "Lawyer, until now you've thought that kareoke was something that happened to other people." The Lawyer: "I can't, I'm driving." We also had a long name game that, at 12 members, was a trifle unwieldy and tiring. Oh well...it's all about the experimentation. Half the game was newbies, and I much enjoyed their excellent first efforts, as well as the Boy's unbelievably pedantic explanations on why each name was incredibly easy to get if you just used the right clues. He was universally mocked by the crowd, and showed his repentence at the end of the night, claiming that the evening had taught him the true meaning of birthday parties. He is just too clever for his own good sometimes. The words 'porn' and 'brain trust' should never appear in a sentence together, just like the words 'you', 'should do' and 'human beat box.' - me I told The Lawyer about my baby-boy-in-a-dress scheme. As I expected, he was taken aback (and slightly offended). He didn't hit the roof or anything, but this is the same guy who refused to believe a documentary stating that gay and lesbian activity increased during the World Wars because, well, everybody had bigger problems than witch-hunting a few dudes who liked their rub downs. He kept insisting that, 'I couldn't do that,' because 'he'd mind.' I kind of smirked. I'm pretty sure that as long as the milk keeps flowing, Lil' Morrissey won't mind being tricked out in a black leather harness and a long black lead. Which just might be that year's family Christmas Card photo. I think Alice found the party strange but funny. She's a very normal girl - nothing wrong with that, mind - but few of my guests look mundane, and none of them act that way. Death took a while to sink in, and later Alice found me in a quiet corner to ask, "why we called that girl Death." I explained that we met her during a weekend where everybody was calling themselves Lady Darque or Spookerella, and although we had resisted at first, Death is just so sweet and smart and genuine that we could call her a goth nickname without smirking. Dirk, still reeling from C9 in Vegas (bastard), was also darker than is his usual habit - but this is a natural aftereffect of Convergence, and should not be noted particularly. I myself spent the following 2 weeks dressing up in full daytime gear with makeup every time I left the house - and you have to remember that I was living in rural Nova Scotia then, so the effect was pretty ludicrous. I fully expect to do the same thing next year, when we bring the whole caravan to C10 in Chicago (yay maternity leave!) I wander far from the point which was Alice: very normal. My friends: maybe not so much. Little Spider is doing much, much better with the whole pregnancy thing now. When I talked to her last week, she was so taken aback that she could barely speak. Now she's perusing my baby calendar and giggling with delight at the picture of a 5-centimeter baby with a tail. I'm proud of her. Booty Call: Day 65 - Your baby's face now has a human profile and prominent chin. The iris is forming: his/her eyelids will temporarily fuse shut. 4 years ago today: bubbly babyheads