History makes sense of weekends.

On Saturday, we went to La Petit Triangle, my first time there. They sat us in the unfinished second half, which was a French garret, stacks of chairs and open wine bottles. We sat in the corner, drank coffee, then wine, then crepes. We sat for two hours looking out the blinds at the snow. Red wine was spilled on the tablecloth. Food trickery was railed against, toxic effects of echinacea (e china sea) and company operating systems discussed. St. Patricks stood immovable across the street, pretending to be a cathedral.

Then we went to a party. A pinata was killed, eventually, after a crisis of where to hang the condemned which almost ended in the demise of a ceiling fan. I met a group of people who taught at a Quaker boarding school, and spent their summers traveling to abandoned beaches on other continents. Early on in the evening, we smelled something burning, but couldn't find it amidst the clutter of salsa and bottles and candles. Later, I wondered how I got ash on myself. Later still, I noticed the entire side of my clutch was burnt to a crisp. Car accidents and trips to Peru were dissected. Boys tried to do flips in the living room, and several people fell down. Blinds and curtains were pulled down. One of the Quakers got yelled at to behave on the front porch. More red wine was spilled on a girl's baby blue dress. We were the first to show up, and the last to leave, the survivors slowly abandoning the wreckage to the front room, where a guy played a song on the piano and we stumbled into the snow to get ourselves home into safe clean beds. Other people may have woken up in more compromising positions that morning. I heard the sink was found torn away from the wall. We made sure to blow out the candles before leaving.

And then last night, back to civilization in the form of a living room and a baby, chili and the Superbowl. The Saints came marching in. The ads sucked. The Who proved that no one in America knows Who they are anymore, except as the maker of CSI theme songs, though it made me want to watch Tommy again. Corporate America won nothing. I went to bed tossing and turning, with a swollen ankle and too much coffee in my system, things not even a warm back against me could solve. The last thing I heard before trying to fall asleep was the History Channel telling me that nuns used to slit their noses, in order to be too unattractive to rape, hence the saying "cut off your nose to spite your face". History is a dirty thing. This morning, I met up with Jere at Starbucks, and he told me about the girl taped to the toilet, who didn't know how to chew, and would instead hold the food in her mouth until it dissolved enough to swallow. The present is a dirty thing as well.