November 26, 1999.

As I was walking down the halls on my way out of the school, one of the boys in the crowd started snarling at me.

"Hey, what's with your clothes? What is that? Some sort of gothic thing?" (For reference, I was wearing a high-waisted crepey-wrinkly dress over solid tights & a baby-t, thick socks and my 8-holes...all black, no design whatsoever.)

I was stunned. Obviously, he thought I was a kid like himself and fair game. So I said something over my should to the effect that I wasn't a student & walked off. Behind me I heard other students clue him in that I was a quasi-authority figure (in a very small way, I suppose).

As I was getting my coat from the staff room, one of the young art teachers walked in. I told her about the kid, as it seemed amusing. "He thinks that's goth," she said, "take him to Studio 69 tomorrow night."

"Oh, I go to the Garden on weekends," I replied without thinking much about it. And from this it developed that she has a friend who dated (dates?) DJ Lazarus, and she used to go see him when he played Sundays. We swapped names for a minute or so, then parted...a terribly thrilling conversation to have in a junior high staff room. I'm positive that the next time we have a chance to get into detail about the whole thing, I'll find out that she's inextricably connected with someone I know or something. The anamatronic midgets will make sure of that.

(ed. note - if you follow the link to lazarus, you'll see a pic of a moody guy in front of a wall of names. that is, in fact, the world war I memorial between hart house & university college...and I'm not sure if that makes him more or less pretentious on the whole. the goth deejay contemplates the horror of war & the smooth silence of death...or maybe he thought it was a neat effect. whatever.)