30.11.02 - 2:35 pm

when i listen to the lion and the cobra i imagine the girls in high school that i thought were cooler than me. melanie, who had real docs and black finger nails. the quiet blonde girl that melanie hung out with - what was she thinking? i never knew.

and later, the elusive shannon price. she was only one year older than me but she had pale skin and dyed her hair black. i was in love with her but also hated her. in the span of the time i knew her, i slept in bed with her, went clubbing with her, talked all manner of trash about her, and had her slap me clear across the face in the cafeteria. in front of everyone.

it was one of those relationships that serves to introduce you to yourself.

i spent a good portion of my later high school years in germany. my schoolmates and i attended goth clubs regularly. at 15 and 16. we were allowed to drink there. it didn't seem weird to me at that time, to be only 16 and out in a darkened club surrounded by goths and punks. they would do a strange gothic dance to the cure, something where they all walked with bent knees, in a loose formation, facing the center point of the dance floor. walking towards the center and then walking backwards toward the outside of the dancefloor. i have never seen this occur anywhere else since. i'm not sure what was going on.

it was exciting and great to be able to go out and ask the DJ, in broken german, to please play black flag. BITTE??? i would yell repeatedly. at the glass booth, after sliding a piece of paper listing my request through the slot. black flag, the stooges. i remember they once played the pixies song umass: IT'S EDUCATIONAL!! and i freaked out, stomping and galloping around the mostly empty dance floor.

i wore steel toed combat boots then, bought from the clothing store for soldiers on the military base where i lived. i tucked my tight partially spandex black jeans into them and generally had some sort of baggy shirt on over that. i fancied that i needed the steel toed boots to be safe whilst moshing. some moshing did occur but i must admit i usually stood off to the side and watched my hulking metal boyfriend go at it.

because the internet is great, there is a picture of the outside of the club we went to. this place was our favorite, it's called DER KREUZ and it's in Fulda, Germany. In the photo the sky is gloomy and the road is wet from rain. I promise it was usually like that.

we leaned against this building for hours sometimes, talking in the misty cold dampness. then we would walk home, my metal boyfriend usually some kind of drunk. the walk was long and there were a couple of particularly dark patches. a gypsy encampment we had to avoid, and a shortcut we sometimes ran through because we got so scared it was haunted. germany is an old country.

i had no idea that putting on this sinead o connor album was going to send me into reverie about der kreuz.

um anyway.