My girlfriend thinks you're homely (and you're not my type, either)
Not a bad weekend. I am still not back under the iron (I have an abscess, you know!) but I have been out running a few times, and Saturday night enjoyed my very favourite form of cardio, Aerobic Goth Dancing.

It could've been still more aerobic, but unfortunately I dressed for style, not comfort, in a purple satin corset I made myself, and a vintage black satin skirt cut very intricately in spiraling bias panels. The event was a concert by Canadian punk rock dinosaurs Dayglo Abortions and three other bands, followed by Dark Music, at a club some two hours drive from here. I've heard a lot about this club from R., a friend of mine; we've made several tentative plans to drive down, which have always been foiled.

This particular Saturday, however, his friend was the DJ for the music part of the evening, and R. managed to snag us a ride down in the DJ's car.

DJ's car, when it arrived, was driven by DJ's girlfriend, a very-much-younger girl, Russian, in elaborate Gothwear. The drive down was uneventful. When we got to the club, they were between acts, so R. and I went for a stroll down the main street of St. Catharines.

St. C.'s is Club Central. I've not seen the like since I left the Ottawa Valley and my misspent nights of bopping in Le'Ull. Blocks and blocks of street, with nightclubs every second door. And on this particular weekend, they were stuffed to the strobe lights and spilling onto the sidewalk, this being a festival weekend.

As it turned out, we are all, DJ included, a little old for the skull-splitting performances of the Abortions. (Sad, really; they are themselves at least my age. All right, maybe it's sadder to still be screaming adolescent angst and spitting onto the ceiling in one's mid-thirties.) We ended up enjoying most of the concert from the pavement in front of the club. (However, when I was downstairs, I was much in admiration of the small, but lively, moshpit. Had I dressed in my more usual teenage boy nonstyle, I could have been leaping there myself; as it was, though, I'd likely have popped a stay, if not something more vital.)

At any rate, at one point, DJ was talking about his girlfriend (still inside, flirting heavily with the female lead singer of one of the other acts). "She's Russian, so she's very competitive," he said. "So when I said we were picking you up as well, she wanted to know all about you." I expect my right eyebrow did its usual Sardonic Leap at this point.

"I told her you were R.'s date," he went on. "'His girlfriend?' she said. No, I said, his date. 'Oh. Is she pretty?' She's all right, I said. 'But she is a bodybuilder.' I told you -- Russians -- very competitive. 'I am a bodybuilder too,' she said. And I told her, no, you go to the gym twice a week. She looks like she lives there."

"I do, more or less," I said. "The gym's in the basement."

"Exactly. So she says, 'is she your type?' Not really, I said, you're my type. 'Is she my type?' And I said I'm still trying to figure out what your type is. Then we got to your house, and you came out... she looked you up and down, and said, 'She is okay. Not bad. But I am better.'"

I don't remember what I said to this (fortunately, none of the things I was thinking after the initial astounded "Whuhuuuuh?" zoomed through my brain) but it was along the theme of competitiveness, since we then spent some considerable time talking about how it had been variously instilled into us during our respective tender youths.

I'm still a bit stunned. Do people really do this? Set up to judge other people, that sternly, and do the Am-I-Good-Enough comparison test with other women they don't even know?

Yeah, women. I do think this is a girl thing. Sure, men compete too -- but they're bold enough to just whip out their weinies (or their big cars or their six-figure jobs) right there in the open, and everybody measures. It's girls (and I use the term wittingly) who compare in this underhand way.

Poor kid. She's cute enough, mostly because she's very young (much younger than DJ) and pert of figure -- but she's not classically boned, and she is probably not going to age terribly well -- which is going to make this kind of game harder and harder on her as she grows up. I dunno. I've never, really, seriously compared myself physically to other women; I've always taken it as read that most people are prettier than I am. An advantage of growing up homely, perhaps?

Of course, it's rather funny too that DJ would tell me, in so roundabout a fashion, that he thinks I'm a step up from the cat's dinner himself. (What it must be to be irresistable.) On the whole, though, it's probably fortunate that I didn't inform him that he needn't have bothered; I certainly hadn't given any thought to the possibility of ripping his clothes off, either. It's not wise, you know, to offend your only means of transportation when you're two hours from home.

After the noise finished, we ended up dancing for an hour or so, and then going to eat with one of the opening acts, friends of DJ and femme. (The one, indeed, whose lead singer seemed so very much to be the girlfriend's type. Sauce for the goose is not poured over the gander in this case, it would appear.)

Lovely people, but being from the States, they chose safety, and to visit one of the outposts of their fine American chain restaurants (which are all spreading themselves out over Southern Ontario right now like a contagious rash). Perkins, this was, where we had some of the worst food any of us had ever enjoyed, and I the nastiest "French Silk" pie that modern chemistry could concoct.

Home at nearly seven in the morning. I am growing old for this!