tavie.com

The swelling of my sinuses is surpassed only by the swelling of my heart at my brief but triumphant return to Mint Manor for two days while my parents are in Baltimore. It's my treat for getting all packed up for Sweden early.

Speaking of Sweden, Fitta better start returning emails and/or phone calls, because if I'm left standing alone at the airport in Stockholm on Wednesday I will cry and make Americans look bad.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:12 AM | shower me with attention

Friday, June 14, 2002

My favourite thing about Missy Pardilla's blog is that it truly is something that my sister and I can enjoy together.

I was reading this one and doing that thing where you're laughing just sort of helplessly because there is no physical way to make yourself stop.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:56 PM | shower me with attention

I'm not the great communicator I used to be?

Nope. I don't know how you did it, but you somehow have managed to surpass the great communicator you used to be, becoming some sort of uber-communicator, great beyond the reaches of ordinary scales of measuring the effectiveness of communication.

Blither, blither. I had a dream about you last night. Rather, your mother. I was at your house (only it wasn't your house, looked more like my house) and your mother sat me down in front of a large tv and said, "I'm going to teach you [something in Japanese]". She then put a tape in a VCR and, puzzled, I turned to the screen to see a karaoke video of some song about adultery and prostitution. I clapped my hands in delight and began straining to learn the words, as in the next room you got geared up to go to a soccer match.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:50 PM | shower me with attention

I really, really love this Nick at Nite commercial for Cheers. It's a clip I'd never seen before (never been a huge Cheers watcher) of Carla going, "If the Brady Bunch crashes in the Andes, who's gonna eat who first?" Woody says, "They'd probably eat the maid first, 'cause she ain't kin."

'Cause she ain't kin.

As if I'm not laughing enough at that, Cliff then says, "Yah, but if they were smart, before they killed her they'd
ask her how best to prepare herself."

This commercial came on the other night at Mint Manor and the three of us fell over each other laughing.

Well... it's funny when they say it.

Sorry I ruined that commercial for you.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 2:48 AM | shower me with attention

Thursday, June 13, 2002

Not much happening just now. Can't stand to sit here too long, got through emails only to have more pile up. Low Effexor level in my blood due to my underestimating my Mint Manor supply, and now back home and trying to adjust, taking long time. Dizzy long time. Makes for lots of couch-laying and tv-watching.

I'm not ignoring your emails, I will get to them. Keep as new, keep as new...

Why are you in Tavie's head? 3:05 PM | shower me with attention

Wednesday, June 12, 2002

Too much giggling.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 10:12 AM | shower me with attention

Yesterday was so hectic that Texas Steph's birthday was not properly acknowledged. This is a grave error that is deeply regretted by the management, who loves the birthday girl dearly and hopes that she celebrated it to the fullest extent of the law, and beyond.

I'm back home for the first time in almost a week. I miss Heterosexual Lifemate terribly already, although the air-conditioning here is indeed refreshing. (God shuts a door, opens a window-- or, in this case, shuts the window tightly and cranks the cooling system up as high as it will go.)

Put my Kitling on her bus about an hour ago. I'll see her in a week and a half but we're spoiled puppies and still whined and puled at having to part.

Yesterday we went to the beach and I swam in the sea for the first time since, I don't know, that Disney Cruise a few years ago, I suppose. It was everything a day at the beach could be. Warm, freezing, warm, sandy, breezy, salty. I was sucking the ocean out of my hair for hours and nearly humming with contentment. Felt good. Felt gooooooood.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 9:58 AM | shower me with attention

A third anniversary, also a date of triple signifance.

Twelfth of June, a gibbous moon...
It's Scott Thompson's 43rd birthday.
Three years ago today I first met the goils. Well, the core group of people that would eventually crystallize into the entity now known as The Goils first came together, at a screening of The Wrong Guy. Lives were changed.

A goodly day to celebrate.

Sadly, it is also the day that Kitana and I leave Mint Manor, Kit to prepare to go to the city of Berlin, me to go home for a week before Journey to Alhambra. I mean, er, Swedish Paradise. Heh heh.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:09 AM | shower me with attention

Tuesday, June 11, 2002

There is never much time for blogging and other internet activities when there are goils about, but there are certain occasions that require documentation, and today was one of them: my babies, my idols, my heroes, my pals Goose and Matt graduated high school. I cried like the crybaby that I am. I welled up at the following:

My first glimpse of Goose in her gown, looking so grown-up and so gorgeous.

Daoud's speech. I'm embarrassed about this-- I mean, I was openly weeping at his speech. But only slightly. (The much-celebrated Single Tear actually trickled in for a brief but sticky cameo. Yeah, well, glow-in-the-dark stars, man. They just rule, okay?)

Matt's entrance.

Matt's mother's incomprehensible but obviously impassioned speech.

Joanna's speech. Yeah, I know. And I don't even know that guy from Adam.

The chorus singing together for the last time.

The speech about "lifers", kids who had been going to the school for 13 years or more.

The kids exiting the meetinghouse; Matt and Daoud linking elbows as they marched out together.

So my vicarious living through them has been successful, because I found myself completely caught up in the coopted emotion of the day.

Gina wrote a nice description of it:

One part of [the commencement speaker/principal's] story stuck in my mind though, he was talking about a bridge collapse that happened back in the eighties. As the bridge went down and cars went with it, one man was able to stop at the very edge and get out of his car to warn the others approaching. He tried to stop the next on coming car, but the man in the passenger seat flipped him off and then the car drove on, right over the edge and into the river. In that last moment of his life he will be remembered for the hateful message that he sent.

He advised the students to live their lives as if any gesture, action or word could be their last, and what they'll remembered for. After Matt completed his gorgeous, perfect reading, he winked (at someone in the audience or at the audience in general, it wasn't clear). It was subtle and unexpected and perfectly Matt. It was so very much his Summing Gesture.

I would remiss if I didn't add that Goose's speech was not only the best speech I've ever heard at a graduation (and perhaps at any occasion, formal or not), but it was the best-received speech to boot. Yes, I brought the applause-o-metre, and she clearly won, and got the most genuine laughs. (And not only from the fan club.) Only Matt rivaled her in the excellence of delivery, which leads me to wonder exactly why she is not somehow touring the continent for enormous wads of cash, imparting her deep-voiced wit to paying audiences. It was a serious surprise, as Goose prides herself on her awkwardness and tendency to mumble. She'd be good on the radio.

Yeah, so. Sure, graduations make me wistful and poke at self-inflicted wounds that will never have a chance to properly close, but the overwhelming feelings were maternal/sororital/fan-girly pride. Oh, and sweat. Fucking hot up there in the rafters.

Why are you in Tavie's head? 1:29 AM | shower me with attention