The more life i have, the less time I have in which to record it. I guess it all started on Friday, when I went to hear SLB read from her MFA thesis. Afterwards, we all went out to get trashed at a pseudo-Mexican saloon. More and more of my life is being spent in places with margarita menus. This does not mean I have any better sense of why it was that anybody would want to drink a mango margarita.
At a certain point in the evening, SLB turned to me and asked, "Are you drunk enough?", which is never a good question. It wasn't too bad, though, since all she was going to tell me was that my car got towed. She'd borrowed it, you see. Luckily, I've paid the insurance on it this quarter, so it just needed picking up at an incredibly convenient place in Cambridge. SLB and I spent Saturday together, moping about the city, going out for dinner, picking up the car. I felt a little illish after gorging myself on saag paneer (see here) and just wanted to go home. But instead (sigh) SLB dragged me over to her boyfriend and girlfriend's house to get ready to go out to M*nR*y. I grumbled a little bit, sulked on the futon for a while, felt unshowered and tummily upset, and counted the seconds. SLB needed help putting on a tie. MB, who is irreproachably cool, whipped up a fabulous leather-dyke outfit in less time than it takes most people to change their socks. But JK took a geological age getting his drag on and I felt my grouchy pants rising in me. At this point there was very little chance of actually getting home to shower, shave, and change (even if I were to cut corners on eye-makeup) and still get to the club at an unreasonable hour. I was slowly turning into a very frustrated monkey.
So when I actually tumbled into my front door, the cupcakes, the music (Praetorius!?!), the assembled multitude (actually, just EN and ShW), the fact that they were shouting, "Surprise!" took rather a while to sink in.Beat. Beat. Beat.
My peeps had actually succeeded at throwing me a surprise party. This is no small feat, since the last time somebody attempted this, four years ago, I managed to miss the subtle hint that I should show up somewhere at a particular time: I was dragged, late, to my own birthday party, thanks only to DP, my roommate, who was not above tearing me bodily from an all-campus showing of Trainspotting. To this day, I have never seen the end of that film, and can't really think of a better d�nouement than DP bellowing, "GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE. IT'S A SURPRISE PARTY."
It was a nice chill party--small turnout (certain of my friends notably absent, which means they probably weren't invited, alas. Eventually, there will be hell to pay for this, but I'm too happy at the moment to bother.)--and the theme was relatively tame: come as your sexual fantasy. Hence the leather-dyke gear, the drag, the drag, the drag... People were supposed to bring a present relating to their costume: several books of various media, the St�r�o Total CD (enfin!), and a magenta vibrating dildo. I say chill, but I mean chilly-chill-chill: I trod dangerously near to being disappointed about this, until I realized that I'm actually less fond of dramatic parties in practice (although the theory of them makes me weak in the knees). Moreover I'm not exactly the kind of guy who inspires whipping oneself into a frenzy. Besides, a lot of my closest friends, including my music colleagues, are too respectable to invite to the Queer World for nail-polish martinis and a quick tongue-bath.
So, thus sated, I drank a great deal of the Beaujolais nouveau. I had a cupcake with "PY" on it. (MB had "BIRTH") We danced to the Smiths, of course. When the snow started, we moved outside for a snowball fight. It was consumately utter.
During the course of the evening arose the next exciting question: should I move to the veggie co-op in the beautiful old house in Arlington? Not that I don't adore the Queer World (my current digs, and my digs of more than two years now), but it might be time to live with cats, SLB, ED, LT, and a solarium. This is happening very quickly: though I have been wanting some kind of change for some time now, it's not like me to act quickly on these sorts of decisions. There's still some time, though. I went to see it the other day, and the other kids put down their deposit. The lease-signing is tomorrow, although I am excused from making a full commitment for a few days. The place was phenomenally beautiful in the snow. So is ED. It strikes me as potentially dangerous to move in with SLB and ED. But I have become reckless, finally, and it's doing me no end of good. Nothing ventured, nothing lost, as SLB said of my virginity.
My aged P.s are coming up from P*ttsb*rgh tomorrow to collect their car and spend holiday-related time with me (given that I didn't think I'd be home for the actual day). I hope I can persuade them to visit the house in Arlington, since when the subject was broached with them, they got their traditional anxiety about new things. New things are intensely threatening to them, and a sure sign of ill-health and impending disaster. My mother told me that I would never be independent or happy without having stability, where stability is code for a life-sentence. It would be much more pleasant for me if my parents were better informed about the ways in which I live my life. On the other hand, I have never had the sadistic strength of personality it would take to explain polyamory to life-long homophobic, radically anti-sex Republicans. [This is not strictly true, actually. My parents are not so much against sex as unfamiliar with it. And of course anything unfamiliar is threatening and wrong. I'm sure if somebody forced them to have it they'd quite enjoy it and talk about it at dinner parties like the rest of us.] I am technically out to my parents, who nevertheless seem to switch off completely when the subject comes up, as if I'd started reciting Horace to them. They are confused by the number of people with whom I appear to have extraordinarily close relationships, since neither of them forms friendships or is particularly social. In fact, whatever little social success I can number in my life I owe entirely to an ability to examine what my parents customarily do and do the precise opposite.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN BY FRIDAY:- I will listen to a great deal of Christmas music, which I finally have an excuse to do, now. This includes the great Joel Cohen/Boston Camerata discs, a disc of Elizabethan Christmas anthems, and, practically on repeat, Corelli's Concerto Grosso "fatto per la notte di Natale".
- I will turn twenty-four (tomorrow). This begins my middle twenties. I do not yet have a "life". I shall have to acquire one by the end of the week. As luck would have it, though, that's just what's happening.
- I will decide (or not) to move.
- I will find out about a job I applied for. It is a long shot and I shall not be prepared emotionally if it is not offered to me.
- I will spend a lot of time with my parents.
- I will not get laid. But you're used to that.
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Current music: Grosser Herr und Starker K�nig from the Weihnachtsoratorium.About to watch: Hush, a particularly fine Buffy episode.
Current food: Thinking about the fried tofu and longevity noodles I had for lunch today. I might have to be gettin' more of that shit, yo.