Over my shoulder

I went to see Antony and the Johnsons tonight, at the Church on Burrard and Nelson. It was packed and there was a long wait before the opening act. I was sitting between my mum and dad, (my dad bought the tickets), and we played a game where I would draw the back of someone's head on a church pamphlet and then my parents would have to find that head in the crowd. The variety of hair styles in the church made it a pretty good game. I'd like to think that I've invented it, and that it might be called Claire Hair.

Antony and the Johnsons were amazing when they finally came on, and the crowd was really receptive, which was nice. The last song they played was a cover of "Candy Says" by the Velvet Underground. If you've ever heard Antony's voice, and hopefully it's somewhere on their site, you can imagine how angelic and strangely fitting that was.

We ran into people we knew. Denise was there. She's the artist who made the enormous piece that hangs in our stairwell. She introduced the student she was with (she's a professor at SFU) as "Julian, who is 25". I laughed at that, and my mother promptly told them that I was 23. She was surprised when I told her that I'm not, actually. But close enough.

A guy came up to us outside the church and turned out to be Eli, one of my preschool-era playmates and the son of my mum's friend Barb. It was strange to see him again. My mother always tells me that he's brilliant and very creative, and I think she's right, but every time I hear his name I see the Jughead crown made of gray felt that he used to wear, and the time he picked up dry dog poo in his bare hands just to fling it at me. I thought he was probably the funniest person in entire the world. Now he's playing Stephen Dedalus in a film about James Joyce. A small film, I think, but still. That's nice.