Every once in awhile I get to have a Night; a night of strange experiences and unexpected joys.

Last night I met Scherezade for “dancing.” I built several extensions onto this basic idea. First of all, I couldn’t leave too late if I was to escape the vortex that is Blake’s Extended Bedtime Dance Party. And also, we had to be doing something so that I wouldn’t fall asleep before the club opened (my usual bedtime is 9; clubs rarely get started before 11. This is a Problem.) So I proclaimed a night of amusement in three glittering acts: dinner, movie and dancing. I was proud of my foresight.

As we were going to a club that had been recommended but not tested, I decided to forgo the usual Queen of the Night get up. I’ve done the “only goth in a crowd” thing; it gets old real fast. Instead I wore Scherezade’s hand-me-downs: a red halter top, a black skirt with a big fuzzy red star on the ass (bisected with a lace-up panel), and my own black & red striped tights. It was a very red & black night (I looked a bit like a checkerboard, but a checkerboard without a bra). And despite starting out late and forgetting her birthday present on the dining room table, I was only 5 minutes late for dinner. For me, that’s practically early.

We stuffed ourselves with noodles at Green Mango, and I told her the story of how her skirt had betrayed me. When we were full of peanut oil and happiness, we rolled up to the Varsity for act 2: Little Miss Sunshine. Wow. What a movie. During the climax, the two of us laughed ‘til we cried, and I fell in love with the entire cast. (Especially the teenager, who was so like my lumpen skater students of last year that I felt an immediate urge to ask him a question about character in Twelfth Night.)

What followed was a long period of walking, smoking and waiting. Our club (Neu+ral) was not ready to open until almost 11; we passed the time by wandering around and getting lost. By the time they were ready for us, we were just about ready to throw in the towel altogether. I’m old; I can’t sit on a planter indefinitely while the room is readied. It didn’t help that the conversation had turned depressing, and I felt weighted with the sorrow of my friends. Also: I was friggin’ tired. Once inside, I couldn’t stop yawning. But we had paid cover, and we were going to make good on that, dammit.

The music was Brit pop: fast beats, jangly guitar, upbeat singing, sudden changes in tempo and dynamics. It was fun, but no one was on the dancefloor. I didn’t want to leave until we’d spent at least some time shaking our moneymakers, so we joined the first trickle of dancers. Manic boys skipped around the space, dancing like robots and swing dancers by turns, whirling friends and strangers alike into their frenzy. The girls were cooler, doing a minimal mod twist in concession to the pounding beats. This was exactly what I had hoped to find: new songs in plentiful array that would pull me up, dance me around, and fade the moment a new tune started. I hadn’t realized how bored I was with the old stuff until I spent a night dancing to an oblique set list that everyone around me knew word-for-word. I laughed with their enthusiasm as they jumped around like modded-up grasshoppers and sang lyrics into the smiles of whomever they happened to be facing. By the time we left, the dancefloor had been packed for almost two hours, and people showed no sign of fading. My only unfulfilled desire was that they would refrain from jerking me around about playing “Dare”; play it or refuse but don’t promise me twice, losers!

At the bar, a woman said, “I know you,” and I thought, I doubt it. Turned out that she used to work in Marmalade, and she had sold me my special agent black & white dress. “You have the cutest baby on the planet!” she giggled. Hey! I thought, she does know me. “How is he?”

”He wanted to come, but I told him no. I think he was excited by my red tights.” Because there’s nothing like dressing in a costume if you want your toddler to appreciate you.

All in all it was an excellent night, full of new stuff, laughter, food and the kind of rump-rattling beats that will sustain me until the next Night. (Which should be soon; I gotta get that present to that girl!)

During the day, Blake & I went shopping for Scherezade’s present at the local Chapters, which is inconveniently close to a big ol’ Wal-mart. The demise of the local Fabricland has meant that I don’t have a source for embroidery thread any more, and so every once in awhile I have to swallow my disgust and navigate the aisles of the W-m. Inevitably Blake is with me, and I have to remind him several times that he is not to enjoy his stay here. “We’re in the house of our enemy,” I admonish, “and if your mommy were not so lazy that she was willing to drive 25 minutes for 33 cent thread, we wouldn’t be here.”

We ended up by the yarn, and Blake tried to identify the products. “Cotton yarn.”

”No, sweetie, that’s acrylic. It’s like plastic, only flexible.” But he insisted, so I searched out the cotton to give him a real example. “This is cotton yarn.” It was worsted weight, Delft blue, the kind of yarn that the Boy bought before giving up on knitting. Blake carried it around while he explored, and refused to put it back when I was done.

”We should buy this yarn,” he said firmly.

”And what will you do with it?” I asked, half wondering what he would say and half trying to instil some sort of stash responsibility. He ducked the question, insisting again that we should buy it. “Well, it’s less than two bucks,” I said, weakening in the face of his yarny desire, “and we could buy it for your Daddy. He likes blue.”

”We can buy it for me,” Blake pronounced, and I was swept away in a tide of love. Somehow I have managed to raise a child who wants yarn for no good reason, wants it not for a project or a gift for another knitter, but just wants it for himself. It’s like an airborne virus, this stash desire. I couldn’t be more proud.

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 10/08/2006 02:27:00 p.m.