Fire and Ice

I wore one of the most fabulous dresses I have ever owned to a party at Felix's house last night.  It's floor length with a black background covered with art nouveau splashes of bright greens, magentas and purple flowers. It's skin tight and floor-length with a false sash around the hips created by artful ruching and almost kimono-style with a waist-deep plunging neckline.  I had to hem it up 10 cm, but it's perfect now with flat sandals.

It was kind of a strange gathering.  Caspian and I took the train out of Montreal, and it was a lovely ride despite the fact that it is very early spring in eastern Canada, and there is no green apart from lawns, tulip leaves and crocuses.  Traveling straight west is just so beautiful - cute neighborhoods, wild places that are deceptively close to the city, and the river channels to the north have such violent and deep currents that they create deep crashing dimples and waterfalls sucking at the foundations of the bridges.  The St. Lawrence is no lazy river around here.  Whenever I see it, whether it's at the quays or traveling off the island, I'm shocked by how cold and deep and powerful it is.  It is so wide in places that the opposite bank is just a line on the horizon, and always roiling with treacherous undertows.

The only people I knew at this gathering were Felix and his long-time man.  I met his millions of sisters for the first time (he preceded introductions by taking me aside and giving me an adjective like:  "This is M, my angry sister.  That's N, my cool sister.  This is M, my tomboy sister.").  Also present...  Were Felix's long-time previous dance partners.  It was hilariously like meeting a bunch of your boyfriend's ex-girlfriends, and yet completely not like that at all.  They are both over the top, simple people who love to show off.  How different I am.  I watched them dance quite a bit (neither of them are standard dancers) and wonder what Felix thinks of my intense seriousness compared to S and G's flashy, impassioned imprecision.  We are like fire and ice, and I'm the ice.

I was hungover this morning.

In other news, Caspian and I finally glimpsed the Gentleman Jackhammer (as Caspian calls this particular person) today as we were gardening.  GJ is the until recently anonymous fellow who dates our upstairs neighbor, a neurological researcher.

GJ is so nicknamed because M (the neighbor's) bedroom is just above our living room, and when, at unusual hours they, ahem, "have relations," as my elderly OBGYN would say, it sounds like an unimaginative clogging performance.  Poor M.