Afterward, Jarboe and I went to the Power Exchange on a writing date. Admittedly, as we sat in the Video Overload I didn't get work done at all and she only got a little since I did a pretty good job of distracting her. But we made sure it counted. Considering that Jarboe hadn't been there in a few years, it was actually a good night to for us to go, quite busy for a Thursday and with some very pretty alternakids. At least, until one of the boys belched loudly. Why do they always have to do that?

Tonight's our first Creepshow rehearsal with costumes. I'll be in mine, anyway. I may even remember all my lines. And if not, hey, we only open a week from tonight.

Last night, Vash and I went to Cafe Gratitude. I'd been there a few times with Sadie, and Vash had only been once, when the three of us ended up there after Pride Sunday. Vash hadn't been too impressed and all but vowed never to return; when she housesat down the street from it over Labor Day Weekend, she took a certain pride in not going. But she'd been given a gift card, so we gave it another shot last night. What a difference the right dish can make: she wants to go back on her birthday next month.

We sat at the bar, which I had rather foolishly assumed would offer us a little more privacy than the group tables. Instead, a woman sitting nearby talked to us quite a bit. That's okay, though. The first thing she said was: it must be a fresh love. She was referring to our tendency to frequently nuzzle each other. (It's just something we do, together and apart.) We told her that we've actually been together for two years, and she said: that's still pretty fresh. And I suppose it is.

After rehearsal this past Sunday, Erin and I went to Thrift Town and got my costume for the show. Finding clothes in my size for a virginal, slightly frumpy college co-ed from the Fifties is no simple task, but that's why I asked Erin to help me—it's what she does, and we actually found some appropriate garb. And I bet it'll zombify real nice, too.

Will the night last forever?
Stay by my side
'Cause tonight, together
Would be divine
But once it's gone
Your face to hide
Against the sun
The moon
Am I on the other side?
So blind
So long
Goodbye
Goodnight

Alan Sparhawk,
"Will the Night"

She's tall (a few inches shorter than me, roughly Ennui's or Hayley's height, and had modeled when she was younger), thin, between Vash and Collette agewise, longish hair dyed black and bright red, gaunt cheekbones and slightly lined eyes which first bring to mind Susan Sarandon, though after a while I realized she has more of a Lesley Ann Warren thing going on, and that's hotter in a lot of ways, my teenage crush on Sarandon notwithstanding. We brought each other up to speed on who we were, though she had the advantage, her having seen me read twice and as a pony in between and me not having been aware of her existence until Monday morning, and then only speaking to her for a few minutes at the Queer Open Mic on Friday. But I trust my intuition, and I'd like to think I read vibes well, and hers were feeling friendly and inviting. Which isn't to say that I haven't made mistakes (Ryder) or misjudged compatibility (Hayley), but it generally feels like the right thing to do at the time, and that's all I can really work from, being true to myself in the moment. And my truth in this particular moment was saying yes, go there, and it is so very, very rare that a girl who encapsulates so many of my physical fetishes (all attraction is fetish, period) makes the first move.

The euphemism is meeting Perdita. It was coined when Hayley and I were on our first of two dates, and this was the one in which the newly installed squid did not cause my head to split open at the end. We were sitting at at the bar at Divas, me on my second White Russian and Hayley on her third of whatever she was drinking, and we'd gotten onto the subject of cats, and I told her about Perdita, and Hayley had said rather wistfully: i want to meet her. i want to meet perdita. So we'd returned that night to the Black Light District so Hayley could meet Perdita.

So we returned last night to the Black Light District so Ripley could meet Perdita. (Which sounds weird, like I kidnapped the the Borderlands Books cat.) And Perdita was happy to meet Ripley, yowling with that extra crack in her voice when there's someone new, another functioning hand or two to pet her. She gets her affection-starved nature from my side of the family.

Blacklights are pretty much considered the height of dorkiness these days; jokes on Aqua Teen Hunger Force and the American version of The Office have revolved around their resident moronic and socially inept characters using them them, and Lord knows their overuse in the Schumacher Batman movies didn't help. But I don't care. Hell, trannies are still laughingstocks in American media, and if I can get past your my existence being degraded, then how teevee producers think of how I decorate my home becomes exceedingly irrelevant. And I like how people look in them, what it reveals in the skin and eyes, hot it turns them into alien just like me. If I had to analyze it beyond that, I'd trace it back to my first kiss, when I took The Ex into Jonco's blacklight room just to show it to her and she (in her own words) was overwhelmed, and the next thing I knew her hand was on the back of my head and she was kissing me, not a chaste peck but the real thing with penetrative tongue and all. Ever since then, I've liked blacklights. I Pavlov like that.

In addition to the glow it gave the squid, which is constructed partly from blacklight-sensitive tenctacles, Ripley was intrigued by how it brought out the otherwise subtles freckles on my shoulders and especially on my face.

Couch to floor to bed, a well-tested pattern. We clicked, we clicked something fierce, both of our tendencies towards fierceness finding a kindred soul and a kindred flesh in the other. Her sharp bits in my soft parts and (mostly) vice versa, the way her appearance chameleoned when she simply tied her hair back, sometimes looking like the rank stranger she had been a week before and sometimes eerily familiar, the raised skin, scratching and biting and trailing along what little uninked flesh remained on her back and all over her front, leaving mini-nebulae and galactic clusters, her deep/sharp gasps when touched or bitten or twisted just so, the sheer amount of sweat we generated and shared and mixed, and around half past midnight, brief sleep: her cuddlng my leg, murmuring with little tremors passing through her body as she dozed off, not a pieta—I don't know if there's an art term for it—but in terms of imagery rather than sensation it was the moment that sticks with me the most.

I napped as well, and we both jolted awake a little after one. Her staying the night wasn't a practical option on several levels, and for the next few hours we were conscious of the fact we both had to work in the morning and she needed to go home, but we kept at each other all the same, energy levels dipping and then spiking again, the green and purple fog Jonathan sang about beginning to glow, the tenacity that comes with the thrill of discovery, and most of all of impermanence, that this is it, right now, this moment, and every moment comes to an end. and now the longing begins.

By four it was just Perdita and I under the covers, and by seven the giraffe was rampaging upstairs.

I've also been informed that if its overall attendance doesn't pick up, Bad Movie Night is facing cancellation.

5:23pm

According to both Cindy and Charlie, I did not crash and burn last night; they tell me that the audience was, in fact, into it. Maybe it was just the acoustics of the place, but I swear it felt like even the crickets were taking a smoke break. Oh well. Feeling like you're dying builds character either way. Nietzsche and all that.

Having dinner with Ripley tonight. Things remain, things continue.

Since it failed smog and fixing it would be prohibitively expensive, I have state approval to retire my Neon and get a small sum in return towards a new, non-smoggy vehicle. The paperwork arrived yesterday, and I have to do it within ninety days. Given all the additional paperwork and DMV visits which will be required, it means I need to get that new car really damn soon. Which I should do anyway, seeing as how my registration expired a month ago. I just don't want to have to deal with any of this, but I have no choice. Unless I go without a car at all, and, yeah. Not gonna happen.