ex-drag-queen levels of co-dependency

[raven]

I woke up this morning with a feeling of impending doom. I find it very hard to articulate my feelings of impending doom; they tend to correlate with grey, thick, raw weather, the freezing-cold equivalent of humidity, the ones that hurt your head. And I was pretty sure that, as they say in the glorious suburbs of Liverpool, that something was about to kick off.

The funny thing was, I had the kind of night last night that involved my going to bed at five in the morning, and it was truly delightful. I got through everything on the dreadful to-do list save going to the lecure on the Cold War - I laugh at the Cold War! - and Maria's birthday dinner was just utterly lovely. Two weeks ago jacinthsong was cooking dinner whilst I read my email (yes, yes, we are co-dependent) and she happened to mention giantmicrobes.com, a company devoted to the production of fluffy plush micro-organisms ("1,000,000 times actual size!"). Best thing ever, I swear. I spent a very happy afternoon looking through the various scourges looking for something Maria would like, and eventually settled on Helicobacter pylori (which is incredibly fun to say), E. coli, and HIV. They arrived two days ago, and they are quite possibly the best things in the universe. E. coli has cute little flagellae, H. pylori is yellow and mutely appealing and people seem divided about whether HIV is cute or demonic. I personally plump for the former. But, yes, we went for Thai food and gave them to her afterwards, and Maria was very, very happy. I have never seen anyone so happy to be faced with giant prokaryotes. I love Maria a lot. We also got her a book about knitting, a book about philosophy and a book about murder, and a lot of wool. (I currently live in fear of waking up in the morning to find civilisation as we know it has ended, because Maria has knitted it into a nice scarf.)

And after that we went to Moya, which, as I have said before, is possibly the only Slovakian cocktail bar in the world outside of Slovakia (my personal favourite aspect of the place is the corridor that leads up to the loos is lined with posters encouraging you to visit Bratislava) where I drank a strawberry daquiri the size of my head and proceeded to consciously not fall off my chair and to talk about aesthetics and films and the forty-something base sounds of the Devanagari script and melon liqueur and pie. And sebastienne is made of greatness. I have a blurry memory of maybe possibly perhaps teaching her to say "hippopotamus fucker" in Hindi and still not falling off my chair. Following which, there was cake, and Angels In America, and because it was Maria's twenty-first birthday and we are all grown-ups, we filled condoms with water and threw them out the window. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

(Yes, I am quite drunk right now, why do you ask?)

So as for why I woke up this morning afternoon with a feeling of impending doom, I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the atmosphere in and around the flat, and indicators I could feel of one or another of my flatmates hauling off and killing another one. And walking around the city today did not help; this morning I realised I was out of toothpaste, shower gel, shampoo and indeed clean clothes, and whilst I could quite happily go to Boots and buy more of three of those things, it seemed a little unwise, because I'm pretty sure I was giving off the impression that I'd just today discovered the institution of cleanliness. Which is really, really not true. Really.

But oddly enough, my day improved greatly. I didn't want to have a party tonight, I really didn't. I didn't realise that my flatmates and I are amazing people who had cleaned the place and got in sweets and crisps and alcohol and done new playlists and basically done everything you need to do for a party except, y'know, inviting people. So, well, not a lot of people came. (I think a lot of people we might have invited were at Queer Bop, anyway.) And those who did come got drunk and ate lots and foulds and chiasmata and I sat in a corner and talked about knitting and giant microbes and various other things all night. Eventually jacinthsong appeared, post-Queer-Bop, wearing a rainbow flag and not a lot else, and I had ended up on Maria's bed sleepily drinking elderflower-flavoured-vodka, and there was knitting going on, so we sort of reached that sort of three-in-the-morning mellow place of joy and love.

Sigh. Yes, I am still filled with love. After I'd finished complaining about it always being three in the morning - it is always the small hours of the morning, nowadays - chiasmata jumped up and decided home was in order, so I went downstairs with her and nearly froze to death - it's below zero, and I was barefoot - but it was absolutely worth it, because somehow or other we got to have a discussion I wanted to have with someone, about why I am still racked with guilt about the way I am now, about being "other" (more about which in the morning, when I am not drunk and thus have a greater chance of being coherent) and it was fruitful and sensible and worth my feet freezing off. I got back to my room to find lovely people to warm my feet up and make me watch Doctor Who. (Time Crash is made of love. So much love. Ten secretly loves Five! They both secretly love the Master! It is all made of cracky, beautiful joy!)

Oh, will you look at that, it's five in the morning. Huh. Maybe, possibly, it is time to go to bed. I do babble. Er. One thing my flatmates are perhaps not great at is doing washing-up. Neither am I, really. Cue lots of notes left to each other, stuck above the sink, saying things like "Do the washing-up! Like, now! Love, the Washing-Up Nazi", with swastikas. It is crude but effective.

Yesterday we cleared the back-log. The sink was empty, so was the draining-board. The cupboards were full of fresh, clean kitchenware. Cue this appearing, like magic, above the sink:



It made me very happy.

And now the wind is howling, it took me five tries to get my password right, time for bed.

Comments

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Queer Bop! That's hosted by Wadham, right? (two of my teachers went to Oxford and they love regaling us with tales of crazy parties! How come you didn't go, is it weird?

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

"Weird"? What do you mean?

I didn't go because my flatmates could only have our party last night, and also QB tickets are like gold dust. I did want to go - I had a costume planned and everything.

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Hahaha I just said "weird" because some people feel it is on the extreme side, and was just wondering why u didn't go. It sounds like so much fun!!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

The one thing QB is not is on the extreme side, but that's a rant for another time. I'm hoping that my birthday party this year will have a queer theme, which should be rather good.

[clubhopper15.livejournal.com]

Haha I guess if I get into Oxford I'll find out ;)
Sounds like your party will be fun. We need more queer-themed stuff I reckon

[skipthedemon.livejournal.com]

You know, people *say* they laugh out loud at thing posted on the internet, but your Soviet propoganda kitchen note literally made me laugh out loud. My husband looked at me funny.

(Why yes, I was a history major, and I took History of Soviet Russia as well.)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heeeee! I actually started choking when I saw it. I, too, have an unfortunate susceptibility to Soviet-Russia jokes at the moment, as you can probably tell...

[msilverstar]

Gosh I love your posts. My time at uni was nothing like that but I had a great time and it does kindof come back when I read you.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*blushes* Thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying them.

[hips-lips-tits.livejournal.com]

i wish i'd had half as much fun in college as you are having!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* Occasionally it does get sucky to balance it out, but yes, when it's good, it's very good. :)

[schlagen.livejournal.com]

HAHA. Who is the Russian student? I approve whole-heartedly of their use of laungage skills.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Maria is a medic, but she is Russian. *g* She has many talents.

[insaneizzi.livejournal.com]

Hee, that sign is gorgeous! Hee.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*laughs* I sort of choked when I saw it. So much win.

[chiasmata]

When I've been spending time with you and then read one of your posts, I can hear it in your voice!

Also, I think work needs S. cerevisiae, E. coli and possibly also a leukocyte.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Really? *grins* I like that!

And, hee, more of my friends need to have a background in the biological sciences, so I have an excuse to get more!

[deepbluemermaid.livejournal.com]

I have a desperate, unfulfilled wish to own the giantmicrobes.com version of syphilis and gonorrhea (I could happily live without the real world version!). It would be a great motivating force, having those sitting on my bookshelf as I write my thesis about syphilis and gonorrhea. Yes.

I laughed a lot at the note about doing the dishes. My flat's toilet has a sign on the door condemning 'those leaving excretion uncleaned to the deepest pit of hell' or some such (written by someone with a grasp of imagery, but less of a grasp of English). It certainly made me blink when I first moved in!

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I nearly got the syphillis one! It was so difficult to narrow it down.

And, aha, heee. Random expressive notes ftw.

[foulds.livejournal.com]

yay for happiness :)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

*sticks tongue out* Love you. xx

[shimgray.livejournal.com]

That poster is marvellous in so many ways.

(So are the microbes. There's a big fluffy Anobium punctatum currently guarding one of my bookshelves from, er, Anobium punctatum)

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee, so many ways. It's so great.

And oh, that's wonderful! I think I need to give one to all the librarians I know.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

Heeee. I love your sign. Dishes are kind of a point of contention in our apartment, so I also appreciate that you guys, at least, have a sense of humor about them. :)

Also, I love this post, and that you got to have a night without stress.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I love it too! It's the little bit at the bottom - glory to those who wash the dishes! - that gets me.

I am feeling remarkably unstressed right now. It's three am, so the feeling may pass. *g* How are you doing at home? Relaaaaaxing? I hope so. :)

[pinkdormouse.livejournal.com]

I love your celebratory notice.