Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

To reepeat, this entry is not about Wave-Gotik Treffen. It's about two going away parties, both for friends who've fallen in love and are moving across the country to be with their respective sweeties, and the Mercury's 25th anniversary.

Shallow fashion details, one of which is relevant below: violet brocade corset from Dark Garden, violet accessories, black boot licker skirt from Gallery Serpentine, and the Fluevog Atria boots that I got for my fiftieth birthday. Yes, the knee-high boots with the rococo heels. I dropped a lot of money on rideshares yesterday because transit was not happening in those boots, and indeed couldn't happen to one of my destinations.

Party #1: The Purdy Persian roasted a whole piglet, dubbed "Pigcasso", and served it up with many other goodies on the roof of her apartment building. I'm glad I didn't listen to the Florida voice in my head and wore a coat, because it was windy up there. Honestly, I'm kind of glad I had an excuse to go, because a lot of the guests were tech bros or bro-adjacent. I wish the PP all happiness in New York State.

Party #2: R of J&R fame has found his lady love in Pittsburgh, PA. He located his party at a friend's house south of Seattle. Honestly, I had more fun here. Many Burners, and R trying his darndest to give away all his booze because movers don't want to deal with it. (I brought a bag and left with a couple of bottles, even though I'm not much for cocktails.) This one is going to sting, because R, for all his imperfections, has been there for me when I needed him. As I told Tacoma Girl, I'm 65% happy for him, 30% jealous, and 5% worried it won't work out. She expressed a qualitatively similar opinion.

The Mercury 25th Anniversary: Let me tell you how sweet Dancer is: she drove us there, and she brought a camping chair for me to sit in as the line to get into the Mercury stretched down the block. It was quite the sardine scene, on a level with membership drive nights. The difference was that old-timers who I hadn't seen in the Mercury in at least ten years showed up including the ever-dapper Graves and the Empress*. A of A&J fame dressed in silver sparklies because of course she did. Despite stopping by home to drop off the booze and take my boots off briefly, my feet were pretty trashed not long after arrival. I didn't get up much, but that's OK because we really needed a table bitch.

I gotta love it when Dancer asks me, "How flexible are you?" The answer turns out to be, flexible enough to put my boot on your shoulder from a sitting position. I made a spectacle of myself. That, Dreamwidth friends, is what the Mercury is for. It's also for getting flirted with for the second time by a certain lady M.

Oh, the Merc is also for rather strong drinks; Shiny G had something that I could smell from a couple of feet away, possibly poured even stronger than usual because the drink line stretched all the way to the far exit at one point.




*I'm the only one who calls her the Empress. Cyrus, Cyra. Get it?

I had a slightly dull week, followed by a brilliantly overscheduled weekend. (That's sarcasm in case it wasn't clear.) So I'll try to keep this short enough to finish before the Tickler arrives.

On Thursday while out grocery shopping I ran into plantae! I invited her over to the Devil Girl House, after of course warning her about the devil girls on the walls. She came over and... drank nothing because nearly everything I have to drink is either caffeinated or alcoholic. But it was lovely! There have been no more MOOer gatherings since the start of the pandemic; that was where I usually saw her. And then she had some capital-I Issues with her health. But then I moved into her neighborhood! She's one of these people I don't really get, but like a lot anyway.

Friday at 1400: XBB COVID shot.
Friday at 1715: My first hair appointment with razorbits for the first time in twelve weeks. (I was a jeenyus and scheduled my previous appointment during Folsom.)
Friday at 2100: The Mercury withack_yeahright! She had all kinds of info about Treffen – she says to get lodging now, now, now, unfortunately. She also had Burning Man plans which I might even be tempted to join in on. And she had all sorts of juicy tidbits about her trashy ex and his girlfriend. To my surprise and delight, I didn't have too much to drink, introduced her to Lost Lake, and got home on the bus around 0100. I've invited her to the Devil Girl house next month, and we're going to hit Portland together in January. Awesomeness.

Four hours' sleep later, it was time to get sugared a week late – sick kid – then get the balance of my sleep and finish cleaning house.

Whew!

It should be a fabulous evening and brunch (?) with the Tickler. Watch this space.

Dw i'n hoffi caws.

I had a nice long video call with the Tickler on Saturday. We are making plans and I am psyched for it.

Another call on Sunday night with Taller Woman. She wants to go for a socially distanced nature walk out in Redmond. I said yes. I mean, why not? And when we were talking of the Pride that didn't happen, I mentioned my longtime ambition of riding bitch as a Dyke on a Bike. Says she, "I have a motorcycle endorsement." All she needs is the bike. I shall look into this. Like Temptress in days of yore, she got excited when she found out I live near a dealership for expensive European motorcycles.

I saw J the Fashionista last night in person at her cousin's place. For the first time since she found out, she didn't cry about R cheating on her. Progress, I think. It's a relief.

Dentist today. There were lots of masks and a temperature check. The hygienist was one I'd never met, and she was weirdly chatty, which is a hell of a thing to be in the middle of a pandemic of respiratory disease.

Driving on I-405 in Bellevue is worse than driving on I-5 in Seattle these days. That kind of reflects the reality on the ground.

I got back a few minutes ago from a long - six and a half hours! - chat with tylik over coffee and eventual eetz because I got hungry. Among the many things I learned from her spicy brains:

1. I worked with her father almost thirty years ago!
2. Unbeknownst to me at the time, he was a monster. I had reason to suspect he was a creep, but not the vile criminal that he was.
3. Large swathes of her and her siblings' childhoods were horror shows. "Fucked up" doesn't begin to cover it.
4. Despite that, and in some respects because of it, tylik has done and is doing all the things successfully.

Which makes me think, first of all, that I'm one lucky beeyotch: I told her the opera story. But second, what have I done with that luck? What am I doing with it now? Those are not comfortable questions for me.

I spent some time yesterday riding FM Bike to gfish's house, a four-mile round trip, where he machined a widget for me. There was sawing, drilling, milling, hammering, and grinding involved. No, that's not dirty, unless you count little bits of metal.

And what was the nature of this widget? Ah, that's why I had to take my bike and not a bus. FM Bike has a basket attached to the handlebars via clamps. It really wants to rotate around the handlebars, which is annoying even in the best of circumstances because when I go over a big bump, my basket may mash my fender into my front tire. And if you want to carry much weight, say a backpack full of water and Burner gear, forget it. I needed a widget that I could slide onto the bolts holding the basket on and underneath the nearly horizontal part of the front fork that attaches the handlebars to the rest of the bike.

The widget is a piece of stainless steel with slots carefully milled in it, with bend in the shape of a shallow V hammered into the middle. All it took was that and two locking nuts and I can now bike my way to happiness. And may I say again how much I love living just down the hill from a hardware store?

You may ask why I didn't get a pannier bag to start with. Here you go:

1. Handlebar baskets are cheaper.
2. You can get things into and out of a handlebar basket without dismounting.
3. I put gnarly fenders on FM Bike before my basket. A pannier wouldn't have fit over the rear fender.
4. Seeing as how FM bike is a hybrid mountain bike, I can't be sure slim fenders or indeed a pannier would have fit her* anyway.

I was once again jealous of gfish's mad machining skillz. I'm rather less jealous of what he's spent on equipment and (barely enough) space to put it all, awesome though his shop is. Much gratitude to him! If he ever needs anything from the trans mafia, he has only to ask.



*If dolls can be girls, so can my bike.

Friday: Shook my booty at a PsyOps night at Substation. As much as I dug the trance music, the dance floor freak in phat pants and a mask, the opaque Holy Mountain beer (?!), and that one dude's hat that glowed in the black lights, I just couldn't handle being out much after midnight on a Friday. I'm getting old, people.

Oh: saw the Lady With an Unbelievable Name (LWUN, or L1). She was cute, stripey, and badass in her handling of handsy Canadians, but I don't plan to make further moves in her direction.

Yesterday: Only Lovers Left Alive with a small group of MOO-related friends. Observations:

• The sound on Blu-Ray discs always drives me batty.
• Tilda Swinton isn't really my type - yeah, I know, take my queer card - but she's surprisingly low-key sexy in this movie.
• The movie is a slice of life, or, I guess, a slice of undeath. If you want action & pace, go elsewhere. Still, I liked the movie because I loved the characters.

I picked up Much Younger Woman last night after she got done shuttling around neuro42, who introduced us and who's just had surgery on his sinuses. I somehow hadn't heard just how bad his condition was; I'm a little loath to detail it here because internet, but let's just say they're the latest in a series of unlikely, unrelated, and serious medical problems that have dogged him since early childhood. I realize there may be people reading this who have reason not to think kindly of him, but damn, the universe has paid him back with interest.

So, no vegan eetz with Much Younger Woman, but we did make it to gfish & R's "Everything But Rocky" movie night to see Zardoz. Sean Connery in a banana hammock! Bewbz! Seventies sci-fi at its Wisconsin-level cheesiest! Bless its earnest little poorly-directed heart. Many yuks were had, some of them quite loud. We vote on which movie we're seeing next, and the list to choose from now stretches well into the dozens.

And yes, it was good to see MYW again. Will I see more of her? She said more than once that she was going to have more time in the future thanks to economic reasons, so maybe? She's a lot of fun.

Shiro's with Funny Lady Wednesday? Fabulous, natch. When we get together we talk, a lot, and then she's late for something like dinner or changing into a costume. I could have gone to the regular monthly poly thing just a couple of blocks away, but I needed the sleep. That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.

Last night? I took the 522 (A new bus route for me!) out to Bothell to have drinks & nibbles with kathrynt. She, if you'll recall, was my voice coach during transition, only much more than that. With her tea, sympathy, and fabulous Stilton cheese, she was one of the two people who helped me the most in my hour of direst need. (The other was, of course, cupcake_goth.) So I keep in touch.

kathrynt's two children are still in the single digits, age-wise. She was pregnant with her younger one while coaching me. Now she's found out he's got some mighty serious ADD. I mean she makes him sound like the Wendling on steroids, with the exception that my son was disruptive in class past a certain age. She's got plenty of parental self-doubt, as did Ex and I, but I think she's doing a whole lot of things right, or as right as it's possible to know under current circumstances. She's probably doing a better job than I did when my son was that age. If anyone can raise her son to self-sufficiency, she's the one. The trouble is, I'm not entirely certain that precondition can be met.

I didn't get home until midnight despite the pretty reasonable bus service. She was kind enough to let me keep warm in her car while waiting for the bus at her end.

It felt weird interleaving tales of Folsom and my birthday with her non-stop parenting. She & I are in such different places in our lives, but I wish I got to see more of her.

I got word from rigel_p that she'd be in town this week. She has family & friends in the area, so she decided to go eclipse viewing with some of them. The esteemed wyvern* is something of a celebrity, especially to people who know her, which means everyone including me wants a piece of her whenever she's here. So I was honored that after a couple of tries she carved out ninety minutes to have ginger beer with me to talk about work, dating, m'boy (She shares one of his mental quirks to a lesser degree, so I consider her advice invaluable), and all kinds of geeky stuff. She says the "'80s rock star" look that I'm wearing right now** suits me.

After seeing her off, I was hungry and found myself surrounded by a preponderance of restaurants on Pike & Pine halfway up the Hill. So I stopped in Kizuki for old school non-instant ramen and a beer. There was a line to get a table, but the food & service are right on. A+ would slurp again. Three of the staff said "Thank you" in Japanese on the way out, and I noticed that only the Asian girl used the (correct in that situation, I believe) perfect tense.

I could have jumped on an 11 and gotten downtown faster, but there was someone cute walking toward me, so I headed for the train. On the way I passed Stumptown Coffee, which has closed at that location. The Elder Goths reading this will remember that as the location of Aurafice, where goffee (i.e. Goth coffee) happened on Wednesday nights early this century and spilled out onto the sidewalk. I found myself wondering, and not for the first time, what it would take to make something like that happen again. The Board is long gone; could the local Goth Facebook groups provide adequate publicity? I'd have to see that to believe it, and it would still need an organizer, I think. We elders*** have things like kids and demanding jobs and big creative projects these days, not to mention residences far from the Hill so we can afford them. No, if anything like that ever happens again, it'll be a younger generation that makes it happen, probably, as much as I'd like to think otherwise.



*Her long-ago MOO character, as mine was a depraved nun.
**SFDs: Purple Bombsheller leggings, black nearly-sleeveless top with my heavy metal belt, Fluevog Truth Alisons, relatively subdued mostly MAC makeup. Yes, I dressed kind of sexy for her. Shaddup.
***I'm a Janey-come-lately to the scene, relatively, but let's face it: I can remember Watergate.