topical descriptions of life as we knew it


alt-text: i hear smashing glass in my head, ever time i laugh

I awoke a little panicked, aware of a certain dreadful absence of pinging alarm, not quite damning my day job, but coming close to it. The entire morning thing seemed insurmountable. It had been a long, unexpected evening, the sort I am generally familiar with, but never actually had, so all I wanted to do was sleep in. Drinks in a bar, an invitation up, my cue to pass out chastely on half of a hotel bed, that’s how it goes, how it suits my blood. But he was impossibly sweet and it seemed, after an indeterminate sleepy amount of cuddling, that my desire to cling to the familiar had evaporated somewhere, possibly seared from existence by his fiercely protective intellect, and the only path available was towards a new choice.

We went to the Aquarium after dinner later that night, (foreign dishes in a basement, the beginning of my stories, the tragic litany, the darker side of a thousand and one nights), me to crash the party, him with legitimacy, both with an equally sound purpose. Mine was to sneak in, the better to get me into even more later. We split up right away, once it was assured I had successfully bluffed past security, and that was that, I was on my own, a mercenary butterfly released into the opening party of the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

It’s startlingly easy to make fast friends at the beginning of conferences. There are always a few people who’ve been attending since the dawn of time, but the majority of the crowd are strangers thrown together or people who’ve only known each-other tangentially or on-line, so the ground is primed for the sort of introduction that doesn’t generally fly in public, where you simply walk up like a little kid to a friendly looking face and say, “hi!”.

I almost immediately fell in a lovely women, Shauna, a fellow burner from Berkeley I knew I would like, then together, after taking pictures with the sharks, we found Elizabeth, there for CNN, best characterized by her amazing smile, as permanent as the moon. We chatted about the fish and science and wondered about the whale, elusive and grand, sequestered in an area of the aquarium that the conference hadn’t rented. Occasionally I drifted away, encountering new conversations and faces, making mental notes for later, attaching myself here and there, but made sure to keep swinging back to touch base, so as the night progressed, as I fluttered, I forged a little group with which to found a conspiracy.

Eventually we made a feint at sneaking past security to see the whale, but we’d gained mass, our core blossoming as we went into an unwieldy six or seven, too many to slyly saunter into an area we weren’t supposed to go. Then, sadly, after some magic with the otters and the dolphins, it was time to leave, the staff ushering us past the sleeping octopus and the shimmering glass cube of tiny blue fish that look like living streaks of light to a queue in the the parking lot for the hired buses that were shuttling everyone back downtown. I lost my partner in the crush, perhaps because I lingered too long, loitering in a hope to find him, yet I found surprisingly good company in his wake – Alan, Estrella, and Marc, who I first met inside as part of the attempt on the beluga tank. They wanted to walk, but didn’t know the way, so I put aside my concerns regarding my misplaced self as less important than the possibility of an entire lost group and appointed myself their guide.

The walk home was beautiful, if long. Mostly I fell in step with Marc, who I pressed for details about the Ig Nobels and traded stories of odd employment paths, but got on well with Alan, too, who possesses a Patient Zero level of infectious cheer. By the time everyone peeled off for their separate hotels, we’d discussed several adventures, planned a couple more, and all traded business cards, a habit I was to pick up even more as the conference went on. (The trick is to remember later which card goes to which face).

My fellow turned out to be table camping with the rest of his crew at the hotel bar, which I walked through on a whim, hoping to stumble across where he might be, my lack of cell phone again a strangely crippling artifact of the shockingly recent past. I joined them, of course, and was immediately taken with RJ, a clever young man from Waterloo University who was sitting at my end of the table. I spent the rest of the evening pulling ideas from him, chatting about clean energy and the internet, until the table finally dissolved, leaving me and mine to drift upstairs into the sweet oblivion that promises endless wonder but only ever delivers tomorrow.

gives you confidence in doctors, doesn’t it now? reinforcing that people only see what they wish to

Gravity vanished in the pile of feathers that flew out of all of our enthusiastic pillows yesterday. It was lovely. More people were there than I expected would brave the threatening rain, (which didn’t follow through), too many people to attempt reciting names, but special shout out’s to everyone who came to Taff’s after for lemonade and cranberry ginger-ale floats. Adam has done us the joy of putting up pictures and video, (Vicki has some photographs too), and I have made a PillowFight Flashmob Flickrset.

On a related note, in that it also involves hilarity, flashmobs and photography, Patrick‘s picture of Eva and I holding hands has drawn the attention of the academic community.

This is a copy of the letter he received:

“Subject: lesbian zombie wedding.

Hi there

I’m carrying out some research for a book to be published in 2008 by Berg, Oxford. The book is called Fabrics of Desire, and one of the chapters will focus on the selections made of garments for lesbian civil partnerships. I’m interested in the ‘singular iconic and symbolic wedding dress’ and how it gets challenged anew by the possibility of ‘double brides’.

I should let you know that my partner and I celebrated our CP in September 2006, and that my interest is for genuine scholarly research. I would be happy to anonymise any information as necessary.

I noticed that you had some civil partnership images on your flickr pages and I was wondering if you could help me in any way with research for the book.

I would like to contact lesbian couples who would be willing to discuss the significance of the garments they chose, and give me some insight to how they marked their ‘special day’ through their choice of clothes.

It may be also possible that we could discuss using your images in relation to their interview if this seemed like a good idea. I would be most grateful for any help you are willing to give.

If you wish to forward my email onwards to any interested people, please feel free to do so.

I do hope that you will be able to help, and I’m really grateful for any assistance you can give me.

Many thanks

Best wishes

Dr Catherine Harper”

The picture in question, taken at the 2005 VanZombieWalk:

Lesbian Zombie Wedding