This Weekend

"And when I turned your station on, you were more familiar than that party was."
- Dar Williams, Are You Out There?

This weekend was reasonably full. I certainly saw a lot of different people. On Friday, I had a brief coffee with Cowboy. We talked about different things. For the first time, we talked about why things didn't work out between us, and it actually felt kind of nice. He surprised me by telling me that the idea of me doing Katimavik had plagued him from the day I mentioned it. Back then, my plan wasn't to do Katimavik until after graduation, which would have been two years away from when I told him about it. Additionally, he always seemed to forget things that I told him (for example, I told him Mother Mother was my favourite band on three separate occasions before he stopped telling me he'd never heard of them when I mentioned them), so I didn't even expect him to remember that conversation. It made me feel more than a little guilty for writing off his friendship a few weeks ago. I guess I was just in a bad mood that day. The only thing Cowboy did to annoy me on Friday was when he went with me to Wrecking Ball's work. I had said, "I'm going to go to [store] before I catch the bus to work", by which I meant "I am heading in this direction now, see you later." I shouldn't have assumed he would interpret it that way though, that was unfair of me. So I wasn't mad at him. However, I was quite embarrassed when he started talking to Wrecking Ball about being a "beer connoisseur". He's always been pretentious like that, but I felt as though Wrecking Ball must have spent the whole interaction thinking, "she dated this guy?" and judging me for it. I know that isn't really how it happened, but it sure felt like it at the time.

After work on Friday, I went to Cat's birthday party. I gave her two purple scarves, because she loves purple and scarves. She was very pleased with it. The main event was playing foosball. I played a few rounds, but I preferred watching because I don't think I'm very good. My favourite games were when I was against Cat's dad's roommate, because he had a habit of whipping the ball from his end straight into the other goal, and I was reasonably good at thwarting those shots. Towards the end of the night, I started feeling overwhelmed by how many people around me were strangers, so I went downstairs and joined a small jam session with percussion instruments. At first I just listened, but then I picked up a shaker made from a gourd that had shells tied to it. With one of these, one can produce different sounds by tapping, swishing, or shaking the shells in different ways. I gave each noise I discovered a different name, and then had fun for probably a half an hour keeping my rhythms by saying the noises in my head: "tikka-tikka-swish! tikka-tikka-swish!" or "tik tik-ah TAK, ah-tik tik-ah TAK". I went home with Wrecking Ball, and that night I had a long string of very happy dreams. I remember a decent amount of them, but they were all silly and sappy, so I'm not going to describe them. I will say that I woke up in quite a good mood.

That night, I went over to Jewel's. She has been living with her boyfriend, Synth for a few months. I am pleased to say I was there the night they met, at her birthday party in January. They seem very good together and I am glad. Jewel and I watched Flushed Away and then The Crazies (the remake) and then just talked until Synth came home, at which point we all just went to bed because we were tired. It had been months since we had a sleepover, but it didn't feel like it at all, which I thought was strange but nice. It's good that we can be apart for so long and still be comfortable like that. I think it bodes well for our friendship as we go down our different paths in life. I just wondered, right now, at what age people stop having sleepovers. None of the people in the books I read have sleepovers the way I do with Jewel and Love, but I can't imagine stopping any time soon. That's something to think about I guess.

On Sunday I went to a wedding shower for the cousin of mine that is getting married on New Year's. It was good to see a lot of my family members together like that, because I don't think there will be a Christmas party this year, so this was probably the last time I would see many of them before I go to Katimavik. A cousin of mine did Katimavik back in 2002 or 2003 (I asked her but I forgot which year already!) so everybody already knew what the program is and they were excited to hear about where I'll be going. I am hoping that this year I will get down to visit the family during Wreath Season. Since before I was born, my mom's family has made and sold wreaths in the fall for Christmas. When I was little, my cousins and I used to play around the adults as they worked. But when I was finally old enough to start making wreaths myself, my parents stopped taking us down during wreath season, because my brother had been born. First it was just because he was too young to be around all that commotion with no one specifically watching him, and then it was because of his autism: it's hard to travel at all with him. So these days my mom will drive down by herself for a weekend, but she always picks a weekend that doesn't work for me, for one reason or another. This year, I realised that there is nothing stopping me from just making my own way down. I could go down on a Tuesday and come back on Friday morning in time to work the weekend shifts that are harder to get off. The idea of this excites me and makes me nervous. When I think of Wreath Season, I think of my grandfather. He has been dead for six years now. Everybody else is used to it now, that he won't be there. But I'm going to walk into that garage for the first time since his death, and smell the pine needles and motor oil and that unexplainable smell that I think might just be cold dirt, and he won't be there smiling at me and offering me minty girl guide cookies. It will be tough.