Fireworks Finale.

The power of the pen is scary or liberating, depending on who holds it. I can make you love or hate someone, by framing them in a certain light. I'm ambivalent about how I'm going to portray this character, but I think I'll take some artistic liberty and forget about the past.

Over the past few years I've been meeting and making contact with my little grade 7 clique. The last one, Claire, I never thought I'd come across again. But I found her online, and we met up last night for the fireworks finale. She was a homely, mean-spirited, troubled kid back then, and now she is pretty, successful, and sweet. How this happened I do not know but I'm glad and amazed.

I waited at Burrard station. She was late. I watched as the fireworks-bound crowd streamed by. Where do all those cute guys hide during regular nights? I wonder if everyone is wondering why I'm standing in front of the Hyatt alone? If she doesn't show, will I walk to the beach alone, or go home? Will I be mad if she doesn't show? Probably, but more out of embarassment and self-pity, which are unnecessary, so if she doesn't show I'll make a conscious effort to shrug it off.

Finally she pulled up in the promised yellow cab. She was just as sweet and demure as she had been on the phone. No underlying cattiness under the sweet voice. No more angst. I had forgotten we were watching the 'works from her friend's apartment across from English bay. The friend wasn't answering the buzzer. Other people arrived and said they were going to the same place. I felt underdressed. What a sophisticated crowd.

It turned out they weren't going to the same place. Colleen still wasn't answering her door on floor 22. We knocked on her sister's door, beside her, and then went to the floor below, Steve's. I found it weird yet fun how all of Colleen's neighbours were her friends. On Steve's balcony we asked the neighbours in the next balcony over if they could see anyone on the balcony above us. And could they please ask her to unlock the door.

Colleen greeted us by saying she felt sick and wasn't expecting company. I felt like an intruder, but we stayed and she fed us paralyzers and red wine anyway. Her apartment was *beautifully* decorated. A japanese onion paper divider had each of its little squares decorated with stones, shiny things, photos, magazine cut-outs. Delicate ferns sat on her monitor. Her printer was decorated with stickers and a big round ceramic owl head served as a coat hanger. Two cats hid somewhere. She also had a spice rack and a doorway curtain made of large white translucent O's. When we left, I gave Colleen a hug and she told me I was pretty. I was sort of embarassed. I'm not used to hanging out with girls that much, but I find that they greet with hugs (I hardly hug my friends anymore) and compliment more. They also giggle more. I found I had to fake giggle a bit to keep up.

We hung out at Steve's on floor 21 a bit more. He owns the biggest DVD collection I've ever seen. Then we walked a few blocks to Claire's other friend's, Jamie's. Jamie is a cute, soft-spoken yet mischevious redhead with a more modest, down-to-earth place filled with mountain bike, paper mache masks, and hippie awning over her bed. She told us she kissed a lesbian back at Celebrities because she felt sorry for her.

We set off to Celebrities after the fireworks dust had settled down. Plans changed and we went to Roxy. But plans changed again because Claire forgot her ID. So we went to Speakeasy. We sat around one of the round tables in the middle of the room, perched precariously on barstools. Claire bought us two rounds of Paralyzers. Two guys, friends of Jamie's, stopped by, and I was conscious of just how much attention sitting at that middle table attracts.

It was 2 am and I hadn't planned on how I'd get home. So logically, I decided to crash at Ross's place. I felt a bit bad, because I don't want to use him. I'd already been there the week before. Claire and Jamie actually walked me all the way there, so I invited them up on behalf of Ross. I knew he wouldn't say no to three chicks saying hi (Ross likes girls a lot) even if he had already gone to sleep (which he had). We got up there, and of course, Ross was noticibly quiet, as usual. He can be talkative around the right people, but he has *never* been talkative around new ppl I've brought to his place.

I find it really cute how he's more self-conscious, and puts on more of a show around new, cute girls. His best friend pointed out how he strutted past the girls in the table behind us at a restaurant in Seattle. My suspicions proved correct later on as I soared into bed as soon as he hit the light. "She's cute," he said of Jamie. "I'd bang her." I laughed and mentioned how she'd been hit on all night.

Today, Claire told me that Jamie likes me a lot, and I told Claire both she and her friends are really sweet, and that Ross thinks Jamie is cute and would bang her. LOL! Big mouth I have. So that was my night. I just felt like typing out the full events of a night for once, instead of just summarizing it in this blog.