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september 3, 2001 (continued...)(actually, august 31 - september 3. shh!)
In the afternoon I took off to see my zia, who is pretty ill these days and can't really leave the house. It was an interesting afternoon at the kitchen table with the womenfolk, and I felt some of the old restless feelings of childhood (I'm bored, I want to go and play somewhere else!) as well as the new calmer feelings of adulthood (when she's at the other end of the table, the volume level is perfect!) Mostly we talked about the family and my cousin's new baby girl. I'm feeling a bit behind in the fertility races; my cousin already has two babies and I have nothing but a vague plan to procreate based on how soon the Boy can graduate from university - twice. Grrr. (Scherezade says that I'm obsessed with babies and I only protest for the sake of form.) I had dinner with my parents at Swiss Chalet, because I've been developing an unhealthy obsession with their savoury junk food ever since I moved to a place without a chalet. I was feeling a bit guilty about the fact that this was the first time I'd seen my dad since he dropped me off at Scherezade's house last Saturday (except for 20 minutes late Thursday night when we came in from the theatre at 1 a.m. and he was ironing his clothes in the den.) Unfortunately, he was the big casualty in terms of socialization this weekend. I will mitigate my guilt by reminding myself that he & mom are coming up for Thanksgiving weekend, and he can spend as much time with me as he wants then because there will be nowhere else to go. Halfway through dinner, the Boy called us on the cellphone. He sounded pretty upset. "What's wrong, honey?" I said, trying not to notice the waiter coming with our food. It all tumbled out of him like a depressed gymnast: "I lost my paycheck...and then I was watching Memento and I started to wonder if I'd even had a paycheck...the house is filthy and I've only been here for 2 days...I can't find anything...I need you to come home." I couldn't help it, I started laughing. Soon he joined in. "I think you should get 'don't watch Memento' tattooed on your arm so you don't forget," I said when I had calmed down a bit. "Uh huh," he said sadly. The rest of the dinner was just lovely, once I was off the phone for good. My parents drove me to Morgan's house and I sat around afterwards with an unbelievable kitten belly as she got me up to date with her recent life. Morgan makes me laugh like a crazy person, and soon we were both writhing with hilarity over various unheard anecdotes. By the time Little Spider arrived with her entourage, we were well on our way to a party. Once again, the smoking began, and once again, I was powerless to resist it. I know it's just blatant peer pressure & I know that in theory I'm too smart to be susceptible, but well, smoking is just cool when you get right down to it. I'm blessed in that I can pick it up & put it down when I want, which makes me one of the more annoying people on this earth. And that night I definitely had my switch flipped to social smoker. When the clock struck club o'clock, got dressed in the bathroom, pulled myself out of the fumes and headed off to meet Dirk at the new-to-me Anarchist's Cocktail. I had very specific instructions from the girls: get off at Landsdowne Station and quickly walk on block east. I hate being lost, but I was pretty confident that I could find this club. So of course I left the subway station in the wrong direction. And of course I walked down a long, dark, deserted block without seeing a club. And as I walked down this block, I had a stunning insight: This was the scariest, darkest, meanest street I have ever been on in my life. I thought I was tough. I thought I could handle anything Toronto could throw at me. But Bloor & Lansdowne puts Queen Street Far West to shame. By the time I had walked one block I knew I was candy. Despite the spiked belt, despite the black lipstick, despite the big boots, I was wearing a big virtual sign that said CANDY and EAT ME UP. And I knew that I couldn't walk under the railway bridge one more time. Of course, I came to this dizzying conclusion when all the cabs had mysteriously vanished from the face of the earth. My heart rate soared as I scanned both sides of the street and tried not to panic. When I finally saw a cab, I walked across 2 lanes of oncoming traffic just to get inside. I didn't even mind paying 5 bucks to be taken 2 blocks. All I could think was 'one day your luck will run out.' All I could feel was relief. I was still pretty wound up as I drank a medicinal beer and waited for Dirk to show up. On the way in, 2 guys who were leaving at the same time actually stopped, wheeled around and asked if they could help me with anything. They wore big wolfish grins and I suppose the smell of fear had set them off. I smiled but did not stop. There was nothing to stop for. "Hey baby, wanna get lucky?" By the time Dirk showed up, I hadn't quite begun to enjoy myself, but I conceded that the trick was possible. We danced to such old happy favourites as "Peepshow" and "Let's Go To Bed" before he hauled me into a cab and we left in search of gothic crowds. The second club we visited, Savannah Lounge (which is the first place I saw clubgoths, back when it was called Studio 69), was full of pounding darkwave and empty spaces. So we bowed to the inevitable & took to the old standard, the Savage Garden - even though I had planned to make a big visit the following night. But it's not like I mind, really...I once attended 7 weekends in a row, and it's not like I've never gone twice in one weekend. For the remainder of the night I sat in the back & wrote while Dirk danced happily to the new darkwave stuff that all the kids are into these days. By the end of the night I had written down most of what I needed to say about the Garden and sealed it away in my book. It was a good night, and especially good to be on the floor with Dirk. That weekend Scherezade had offered her bed to me once again, but when we couldn't figure out a way to make it work, Little Spider offered to put me up and I happily accepted. Coincidentally, she lives right across from the Anarchist's Cocktail, so we took the bus back to Bloor & Landsdowne. I should've realized that 3 a.m. on a Friday night is no time to hang around that particular street corner. But we were cocky and I had already forgotten my previous fear, so when I suggested a stop at the Second Cup for water, Dirk happily agreed. It was then that we ran into the local colour, as one might have it. Another way to phrase it is that we were waylaid by a gin-soaked prostitute with no front teeth. Or to be more specific, I was waylaid by a gin-soaked lady of mysterious means who called herself Kat, as she was attracted by the gothic Groovy Girl poking out of the Pink Bag of Justice. For the next 20 minutes, we were treated to a no-holds-barred session of strangeness. She took my hands and "read" me, answering questions loopily and sprinkling in false revelations ("You've met my brother in boot camp in Florida. He's 6 ½ feet tall, acts like Jim Carrey." "Um, I don't think so." "Have you ever been to Florida?" "About 15 years ago." "Boot camp?" "No.") She introduced herself repeatedly as a shaman/witchwoman born in the year of the Dragon (or Tiger, depending). She told me that Dirk was my soulmate, and was not phased by his immediate assertion that I was married to someone else. She held my gaze for long, long periods of time, insisting that I wasn't allowed to talk, that I was to speak to her with my eyes. Other patrons in the Coffee Time yelled out abuse & warnings sporadically, which she would alternately ignore & snarl "I'll handle it!" without letting go of my hands. Near the end of our time together she pulled a ring from her cheaply bejeweled fingers & clamped it on my ear, saying offhandedly, "I could pierce it, but I won't." Finally, she told Dirk to take me home because "the streets would tear me up." Her final instruction was that if I got into trouble I was to make the noise of a cat, and she'd come to save me. Then she turned on her heel, walked unsteadily to the washroom & disappeared from our lives. We bolted. As soon as we cleared the door, I realized that I had no idea where Little Spider lived, nor how I was to get into her apartment. I started shouting her full name in the streets, feeling the shaking begin & knowing that if I didn't get into a safe inside place in a few minutes that I was going to freak right out. Dirk was the only thing that kept me together during this Stanley Kowalski period of urban shouting. Finally LS appeared to whisk me up to her surprisingly nice apartment & show me the soft couch that was to be my bed. I told the story until everyone was tired of hearing it, then walked Dirk to the door. "Goodnight soulmate," I said as we hugged. He smirked. |
Stacy was waiting for me at Tequilla Bookworm. We ate waffles & talked about relationships; it was very girly. When we were done this ritual breakfast consumption, we took off down the street in search of work shoes for Stacy. This search, coincidentally, took us into all the goth outfitters on Queen West, the comic book store, and, well, everywhere else of interest on that stretch of street. This meant that we had to - had to - have many conversations about corsetry, especially when we saw the green & brown patchwork number that would cement the hippiegoth aesthetic I seem to be cultivating. Stacy was a bit upset at having to spend good money on respectable work shoes, so I tried to cheer her up by imagining what individual pairs of shoes said in an office environment, i.e. "I will accept my salary quietly and never rat you out for stealing office supplies," "I have many old relatives who will suddenly die on Fridays or Mondays," or "I will kick your ass. Who wants some?!" We decided that the same pair of shoes would say different things in different environments, which brought a whole new layer of fun to our imaginary Philosophy of Boots. Eventually our carrying-on began to attract attention. I think we were in House of Ill Repute when we crossed the line into spontaneous performance art. We had been talking about bridal corsets & white satin and that kind of thing when Stacy said half-grumpily/half-jokingly, "it doesn't matter because I'll never be married." I swooped across the store to embrace her crouching figure. "Oh Stacy, if I wasn't already married, I'd marry ya. Or have a partnering ceremony or something," I added after a second of thought. We smirked at each other and I turned around to see a host of strangers watching us like a play. It was flattering, almost. After we had sucked most of the fun out of the afternoon, we dragged our sweaty selves back to Stacy's blessedly cool apartment & made like barefoot inanimate objects for awhile. When I could bear to reanimate myself, I made a round of phone calls to people who were depressingly vague about the possibility of showing up for my last night in town, which was, ultimately, their loss. We walked the short distance to the Coco Peanut with a pleasant air of anticipation: who would deign to show up? Scherezade? Ian? Dav? Even, God love him, Dirk the Constantly Absent? It was a social lottery, and we were playing to win. Or at the very least, break even. We did get 2 people, which made a nice little shape at the table. Scherezade sauntered in the door doing a crossword in pen. And when Saint Stephen arrived, the first words out of his mouth were rather depressed: "you didn't tell me that it was Thai." "So what?" I responded, mystified. "I would've purged before I came," he said absently as he picked up the menu & ordered the all-you-can-eat buffet. (He would ultimately eat but 4 plates before grimly conceding defeat.) And you know, it got worse after that. Somehow the conversation downshifted into "World's Worst Tattoos." Akasha's poorly-photocopied killer whale faded into obscurity when we heard of the man with his band name tattooed on his inner lip & himself tattooed on his back. As Scherezade explained, he's the lead singer for the Mighty Klopeks and he tattooed a picture of himself on his own back. Singing with the band. While girls looked on adoringly. With a banner underneath that said "Sweet Pepper" which is, of course, his band name. Our jaws dropped & we started to giggle. This was the topper & we all knew it. "So Stephen," I said finally. "What would your tattoo of yourself depict?" He thought for a minute. "I guess it would be me pushing through the jungle with a bullwhip." (Dirk later said that a proper tattoo of Saint Stephen would depict him making toast, eating toast or sitting in the dazed afterglow of consumed toast.) After the last plate of food was eaten ("I'll regret this in an hour," St. St. said bitterly as they were cleared away) and the last laugh giggled out, us girls staggered to Stacy's for the traditional pre-clubbing period of utter exhaustion. The only thing that kept us conscious was stubborn determination; the only thing that kept us sentient was the silliest of fashion magazines inexplicably tucked around the apartment; the only thing that kept us hopeful was the blackest of sarcasm directed at the poor airbrushed models. When we could move & think & enjoy life again, we donned the black, took photos & taxied to the Garden. Scherezade was a conscientious objector to our fashion parade, preferring to remain in bellbottoms and a coloured shirt in the darkest of dark rooms. Later she said happily that there was a certain cache in being the most casually dressed woman in the room. Laced into my new corset, I could only imagine such freedom. It was a typically wonderful last night in town. Jesse showed up & completed our tight little group (it's very important to have an even-numbered group in loud environments, because you can always talk to someone without much effort. It's funny how isolating noise can be.) We bounced up & down the dancefloor, totally digging Paul's unusual set of oldies that, like a pair of fairytale shoes, seemed malevolently designed to make us dance to death. He later claimed that he only played such a good set because he hated the crowd, but his misanthropy was our gain. Even the fuck-off song was "Paint it Black." Scherezade was in an incredible humour, as she was much of the time I was visiting, and we spent quite a lot of time just yaking to each other in the back of the club. At one point she started rubbing my head with the kind of attention I can usually only dream about; I started sighing & rolling my eyes & camping it up outrageously so she wouldn't stop. While my eyes were closed I suddenly became aware that there was another hand gently stroking my head. My eyes flew open in alarm to see Jesse smiling at me. I closed my eyes again & blissed out. (Even writing about makes me foolishly happy). When we finally went home to Scherezade's überbed after a last round of meaningful hugs, everything was right with the world. It no longer mattered that Dirk had missed both of my Garden nights or that I could only have 2 weekends at home. It no longer mattered that I was running on tiny increments of sleep and a vast ration of happiness. It was just perfect, just the way it was. I asked my bedmate to set the alarm for a scant 5 hours of sleep & drifted off joyfully. It didn't matter if it had been short. It was enough. | |
That afternoon we hosted a family barbeque so that the clan had a chance to gawk at me before I flew home to roost. I'm embarrassed to say that I spent most of the time talking to Dirk, as this was the first time I'd had a chance to see him since I moved his shit the previous week (and the conversation that day wasn't always stellar, there was a lot of "god this is heavy" rather than cutting wit.) I tried to spend a decent amount of time with various relatives and I think I did okay. Most of them seemed perfectly happy doing their own thing anyway; it's rare that I'm the focus of any family gathering & it's too weird for many. After everyone had gone home, my parents & Dirk & I went to see Moulin Rouge at one of the big ostentatious theatres that have invaded the suburbs like an evil mutant army. Fun! | |
San Francisco, by Celia WhiteAll the burritos, |
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"Oh my God!" she said, weaving through the plastic coffee shop tables. "I thought you had a baby in there!"
