For a moment your eyes open and you know

And there was a Full Moon Party and it was good. There were resident lunatics, and they were good. And there was chocolate, and although it is a whore and has been seeing other people, we forgave it in spades last night. All the resident lunatics sans Becca and Emily were there, with Jane as well. It was all good.

It was, too. I was dead last night. Pedar arrived and gave me a brief medical evaluation, which was informative but unhelpful, and at about half five Clare arrived. She propped me up, metaphorically and literally, and we had coffee and sat at the stone table and talked. Clare has the dubious accolade of being the only one of my friends Pedar both recognises immediately and knows by name. So he wandered in, unsubtly asked for coffee, and when I’d given it to him Clare and I sat down and watched Buffy.

Poor Clare (no pun intended). She has to cope with Buffy from Hannah and Colleen and her sister, and I’m another one who’s suddenly addicted. But she watched it happily enough and by the time Hannah arrived, we were both discussing aspects of the plot. Hannah has of course seen every episode. This one was Halloween [sic] (why can’t they spell it right?) and I find myself really wanting to see it again. It was a fun episode, but the stand-out moment can be summarised by my staring at the screen and uttering just one word:

“Ripper?”

Ripper? And this is Ethan Rayne – no weight of shared history and unresolved sexual tension there at all, oh, no – and Sam said that I’ll really enjoy The Dark Age next week (she also gave me Welcome to the Hellmouth/The Harvest on not-quite-legal DVD, but that’s another story) and Hannah and later Colleen concurred. Everyone loves Giles.

Hannah approves of my new interest. Like I said to amchau, I need another fandom like I need a hole in the head, but it’s so fun.

Colleen and Enid arrived next, with Jane following soon after, and we retired to my room and began the communist portion of the evening. I had a confession to make – I lost one of Hannah’s bracelets in Oxford, and I’m really sorry and I officially owe her a bracelet – and she’s hanging on to some of mine. I believe Enid has taken the red and black ones (they’re my favourites of all the ones I have) that Em made for me at Christmas. Enid had gifts for most – Keane’s Hopes and Fears copied for me, Hannah and Colleen, but I gave mine to Clare because I already have it – and Hannah had a gift for Enid’s birthday (which was in March). It was the Finding Nemo version of Frustration, which we couldn’t understand.

Seriously. The game is designed for ages three and up, and it took twenty minutes’ poring over the instructions before we were able to play the damned thing. I couldn’t – I got Clare to do it for me – and in the end we lost. Hannah and Enid (who are fast becoming HannahandEnid) won. Such is life. Jane, who has not suffered one of my little gatherings before, seemed bemused. Actually, there was much bemusement throughout the evening. Hannah claims my room could be a completely different one. It is different from how it used to be, this is true, but I found it hard to understand her reaction. It’s not that different. It is the same room, in the sense that it belongs to me and I live in it. It just has more of me imprinted upon it.

Some things never change, anyway. I’m aware that this description is woefully lacking (possibly less so if and when Enid uploads last night’s batch of pictures) but my computer table is too large for my computer, and consequently there’s a lot of other stuff strewn over it, mostly books. My bedtime reading goes on my bedside table – currently Neil Gaiman’s Sandman: Endless Nights – and fic-research type books go beside the monitor. At the moment, I have some books on archaeology and Egyptian mythology (these are for the severely stalled young!Daniel fic) and Good Omens, and the permanent ones, which are the Oxford English dictionary of idioms and an Oxford Latin dictionary.

I mention all this because while we were sitting on my bed, talking and sharing out chocolate, Enid had picked up the Latin dictionary. She is resident classicist-geek, but I do think our collective interest in Latin, Greek and classical history and literature in general is above-average. If I get into Oxford, I want to take up Latin again. I have the first two years of Cambridge Latin, and I’m pretty sure I can pick it up.

But I digress. There we were, talking idly and probably discussing fandom, when Enid, apropos of nothing and in an extremely thoughtful tone of voice, said:

“Fellatio.”

Cue abandoned hysteria. Enid, bless her, appeared unaware of the chaos that which she had wrought, sitting there with my Latin dictionary. Colleen in particular seemed ready to die laughing. It was so gloriously weird and random. Following which pizza was in order, and we left Colleen and Enid behind to watch Big Brother. I don’t get it, for the record. The pizza was acquired with surprising ease.

I feel oddly scared sometimes – scared that these nights are something that will shortly something we have no time for, or worse, something that has slipped into memory as something we used to do, because time is passing and even last night the topic of university and the future was falling into the conversation with disconcerting rapidity. It has replaced lapsed Catholicism as the topic of choice.

Oh, along with failed relationships.

However, fandom remains. Between them, Jane, Colleen, Hannah and Am-Chau have spoiled me for just about everything Buffy-related, so we decided to just not talk about it with mediocre success. I filled them in on my meeting with Am-Chau, who needs an honorary resident lunatic tag. Actually, Hannah suggests I try bracelet making again. Next time I have some money, I will.

Also, we discussed Wormhole X-treme! and the identity of the half-blood prince. I have to admit I have no idea, but theories abounded. As it’s not Tom Riddle, the only remaining possibilities seem to be Remus and Seamus Finnegan. Neither of which seems all that likely, to be honest.

And to finish, Velvet Goldmine. It’s just slash, that film – all style, no substance, just beautiful fairy boys, glitter and slash. It’s amazing how much like Kurt Cobain Ewan McGregor looks like in it. Having finally watched it all the way through, there was a pause to explain what happened to HannahandEnid, who fell asleep wrapped up in each other in my bed. They refused to relinquish it, so everyone else ended up on the floor, where we spent a troubled night. Colleen and I certainly have issues.

And that is that. The morning after wasn’t as traumatic as I had feared – I’m not really all that tired any more. I’m expecting a collapse at some point, though. We shall see. And Colleen is probably hosting the next party, which will be a Blue Moon party. Always fun.

Gmail

And because I keep forgetting to ask - anyone want a Gmail invite? No promises because I haven't got many, but I ought to ask.