Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

For the first time since much earlier in the pandemic, I had a video call with the Siberian Siren. She had a whole lot to say. Most of the call was her talking, and as anyone who's ever met me in person will attest, that's remarkable.

Her big news? She got married! Yeah, she met a slightly older butch engineer, T, from South America* in the fall of '19, and they basically shut themselves in together as the pandemic destroyed the SS's business. The SS's immigrant Russian parents even approve, as much as they'd ever approve of a woman. The SS seems happier than I've ever seen her. The Siren's sweetie travels a lot for work on short notice, but if anyone can roll with that, it's the SS.

Given the operatic breakups that the Siren has been through, many of which I had a front row seat for, she definitely had it coming. Do I envy her? Yes, but not as much as you or even I would think. Sure, I'd love to have found Ms. Right by now, but for some excellent reasons I haven't made much of an effort for the last sixteen months or so. It isn't as if I expected any other outcome.



*Does the SS have a type? Ooooh yeah.

The Siberian Siren invited me on short notice to a wine & cheese party at her place of business; I hadn't seen her in ages. I didn't get to talk to her much, but she does confirm that her business is good and her love life is crazy, more or less as usual. The partner that I thought she'd recently broken up with was there, and the two of them were acting distinctly not broken up. There's a story in there somewhere, but it didn't seem like the time and place to ask the SS to tell that story. She looked fabulous as always.

The point of this party, as near as I can gather, was to sell art. Fancy building, fancy drinks, hipster people. The art was... not what I was looking for. Kind of anodyne, I thought, but considering that the SS buys art for the properties she rents, that makes good sense from a business perspective. The Siren is nothing if not an excellent businesswoman, which she got one way or another from her mother.

Went to the Siberian Siren's round-numbered birthday shenanigans at Witness last night. She wearing an unusually subdued knee length black dress. She seemed genuinely a little bummed about being "old". Oh please, sweetie, was what I essentially told her. Bonus: I got to meet her brother, who's pretty much exactly as I would have expected, only cuter. I was about to tell him how she & I met, when this happened:

SS: I try to scandalize my brother...
SW: [rubs hands together]
SS: ...as little as possible.
SW: Aww.
SSBro: There are some things about my sister that I don't want to know.
SW: You speak for my sister.

Before the SS had even invited me to her party, though, I'd bought a ticket to see Moby at Neumo's for a KEXP benefit. For those of you who don't know, he was one of the gods of the New York rave scene in the late '80s & '90s, and he's been active ever since despite a couple of bouts with substance abuse.

Moby decided to "go hard", and he brought it in the grandest old school style. I wish there'd been room enough to dance, but you know Moby's going to pack the house. I couldn't see him without squatting from my vantage point in the balcony next to one of the hanging speaker stacks - big love once again to Neumo's sound - but I could tell he was all business behind the decks, another old school tradition of which I approve. Best Moby moment: a sample from Led Zeppelin's "The Immigrant Song", which my Evil Sister hunted down import vinyl of before she turned to, you know, evil.

The crowd? A fair number of people Moby's age (which is roughly my age), but also plenty of younger beardos and even a few sweet young thangs. It was nice to see the whippersnappers appreciating him. Nobody acted like jerks.

Where it got weird was that his set of about 90 minutes was followed by local soul artist Grace Love & the True Loves. Yes, they're fine, but seriously? Did we as a city just dis Moby? Surely not.

Returned to Witness and had a lovely chat with a cute friend of the SS's - who is straight & married. Her hubby was right across the table from us, even. Dammit. Still, it was an excellent evening.

PS: One of my neighbors just invited me over to their place. He's dressed nice, and I'm still in my workout clothes from attempting to move boxes at the old place this afternoon, just minutes after I told cupcake_goth I'd be out dancing with her. If only my dating life were going as well as my G-rated social life.

OK, the long version: for the party that the Siberian Siren is throwing imminently, she wanted the table that her sweetie AJ assembled in a storage space in a building the SS manages. That means the table was six blocks from her swank new place. Okey doke, so last night the SS borrowed an SUV, and secured the services of a gay dude and me.

The table is tall (AJ, who does most of the cooking, is 6'.), heavy, and non-decomposable. The gay dude & I took one look at the table & SUV together and thought, 'Uh oh.' We gave it the old college try, but there was no getting the table into the car. Luckily, it has wheels. Good, solid steel wheels.

Six blocks of pushing, steering, breaking stuff, and giggling later, the SS & I weren't sore, but we were nearly deaf. Those wheels were loud. It's a good thing Capitol Hill residents expect quiet after 2200.

I promised the SS I'd drink all her booze tonight because a) I earned it last night and b) since the Siren doesn't drink much anyway because she's the Worst Russian Ever.

Unrelated music squee: Of Montreal, the whole Skeletal Lamping LP. Oh. Em. Gee!