I'm stealing time.
It's saturday. Just barely. It's very early saturday.
Moments ago, it seems, it was very early Friday, my curls barely beginning to stir from their dreams when the phone rang.
I thought it was work, but it was Seb.
On his first day of vacation, awake and prowling my neighbourhood by 9am.
He showed up with croissants and a grin while my brain lumbered into position.
He checked his e-mail while I showered, we had coffee, talked and caught up until noon. Stories of the thursday night bar outing that I missed, all the girls that all the guys were trying their chances with. Guillaume with Annie (who I have yet to meet), Seb with Sophie and the waitress, Francois with Marie, and on and forth.
Apparently Cristal couldn't wait to go until she found out I wasn't.
My heart jerked at that, he knew it would.
And then he stepped back and looked at me, and announced "I don't know what it is you do to men."
"What?"
Seb never talks about that stuff, I'm his asexual best friend.
"This guy and that guy and this other guy, all asking if we were dating or if you were, y'know..."
TO which, he explained, that we show up everywhere together because I'm his "party mentor", but that we're not dating, that I'm quite happily taken, that I'll appreciate their interest as a compliment anyway.
He's getting good, that boy.
By noon-thirty we were lost in some American-style shopping mall, noses pressed against glass cases, gazing down at the displays lining the walkways, tarantulas, peruvian butterflies, gloriously coloured beatles too big to be possible, except that they were.
We stopped off in some chick store, he tried this or that perfume, convinced me to talk to the salesgirl for advice on the facewash I had wanted to buy quickly, and get out.
An hour later, she was still explaining my skin type, why I need this cream and that lotion and this toner and that "milk" thingie.
I managed to escape with just the facewash, and one cream.
With all those fancy things in it, protection from pollution, free radicals, SPF, thingamagucky that.
Fifty bucks for a bottle of cream.
I figured now was the time to try it, now that my cash levels are relatively comefortable.
Next stop, a slew of travel agencies. Really, it was the order of the day.
Finally, I'm taking a KLM flight that's stopping in Amsterdam for four hours so that I can have lunch with Jon who's been griping that I never visit, before landing in Montreal.
The day before the last operetta.
My parents are away that weekend.
I paid for the damned plane ticket, it ought to make for more even arguing grounds with them. They respect money. *sigh*
By the time they'll be back in town, Seb will be joining me there, things will get interesting.
But I'm not going to worry about that now.
And last Monday when something was bugging me?
It was my mum's birthday. In the rush of things, I entirely forgot...
...my dad called in a grey fury just as I was changing shoes to head out to the "Sound-Tcheque".
The jazz bar the kids have been inviting me to since last month sometime.
At the Czech/Slovak community center.
Where I met Daniel, my Czech alter-ego, thick curls down his back, matching inane grin, and stories of how he moved here at the same age I found myself in Canada.
We laughed, drank Czech budweiZer (was that ever weird), clapped at this or that jazz band, and everyone promised that usually the music's better.
A thousand goodbye bises, and we were off for a midnight snack at some strange meat-pie place, and I was crawling up my stairs in a daze.
It's late now, the sun has already risen.
Seb and Sophie and who-knows-else will be here in moments to take me to the hobbie salon, where he promised origami and reduced model stands, a hundred interesting sights.
We leave there in time to head to the Kebekois maple-syrup night, then Seb wants me to pierce his ear, then tomorrow I was going to skip the marathon so that I could VACUUM for the first time this month before Princess arrives, but Cristal said it's her first day off in a while and she NEVER does the Sunday 'thons, but she's doing this one to see me.
Sunday night I have work to catch up on, Monday too, Monday night is a barbecue in the country with Eric and Annie, and six am on Tuesday we're heading to the airport for my princess.
Tuesday night is a raclette party chez moi, Wednesday I leave for Limoges, Friday they pick me up from Limoges to run to Dordogne.
I don't need to sleep, I certainly don't need to breathe.
Just yet.
Because at this pace, before I know it, I'll be crushing my curls against his chest.