In Which Kat Loses Her Considerable And Erik-Esque Temper

"Hello, Elymas?"

"Hey, Hiei."

"I'm testing for my jounen level Saturday. Want to come?"

"Sure. Should I bring a gi?"

"Don't give me shittake, Elymas."

This may not make sense to you. It does, however make perfect sense to me and Mac. Put into plain English, it reads thusly.

"Hello, Kat?"

"Hey, Mac."

"I'm testing for my black belt on Saturday. Want to come?"

"Sure. Should I bring a martial arts uniform?"

"Don't give me any absurdity, Kat."

As you may imagine, Mac is speaking Maccish, a language you probably do not understand nor wish to understand. This language is derived from Japanese, the slang from various mangas, and karate terminology. The business about the gi is because I'm kidding with him about how I dropped martial arts three years ago. I still have a gi lying around. And his remark about shittake does not refer to a particular variety of Asian mushroom, as the word shittake usually does, but an inside joke between the two of us. We use the word shittake to mean ridiculousness or silliness.

To make a long story short, I agreed to go to the test. I showed up, and met the girl Mac professes to be his girlfriend, or at the least, his equivalent of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Her name is Emily, and she is Japanese, and she is a knockout. I am a Hollywood girl, and I will always and have always been merciless about looks. By conventional standard of beauty, I can assess someone easily. The thing is, I don't give a broken shard of mirror about how someone looks, and so I judge people harshly, because I know it doesn't matter. Does that not make sense? Oh, good. Well anyway. This Emily kid is gorgeous. Seriously. Prettier than my usual standard of beauty, who would be what Christine looks like from the Leroux novel. (I suppose I'll have to adress the subject of Christines soon, won't I, though? No Opera is complete without an annoyingly ditzy ingenue and Phantom's protoge.)

The black belt test went by interestingly, without incident, except for one girl whom I noticed. Tiny little girl, Asian by the looks of it, and just a bit frightening. She reminded me of. . .well. . .me. We both go to a completely different place when we fight. And that can be scary to others. (Yes, I do fight, or play, if you want to call it that, I am a capoierista, after all.) Her name, apparently, was Skyler. Interesting little kid. Used to be a gymnast.

Mac, as we expected, was the embodiment of brilliance. They then gave him a very large ceremonial sword. Frightening. Also, a bit of a bad idea. I saw Jeff, an old friend of mine and of Mac's, who greeted me with, "Kathlyn! Hey! I missed you! When are we getting married?" I really did not know what to answer him with there, especially as Max was with me and was more than a little disturbed by the prospect.

I then proceeded to attempt to teach Max the pronounciation of various terms from capoiera, my martial art.

"Roda, Max. Say, roda." (Note: It's pronounced hoda.)

"Roda." (He said it roda.)

"Hoda."

"Roda."

"Oy."

"Ay."

And so on. We had dinner at a lovely Italian place, where sexist jokes were told by B.G., Mac's college student brother, Max demonstrated his full ability to be partisan (He did too have "sexual relations" with that woman, Max.) and my apple crumble was stolen and eaten by B.G.. But it was when we got back to Mac's house that the trouble began. No, wait. Allow me to reproduce in full detail a discussion I had with Max.

"Hey, I just realize something."

"What, Max?"

"Both men and women have to sign up for the Democratic party. And anyone signing up has to put down 'D' on the form. So isn't that kind of the best of both worlds, idealogical and aesthetic, if it's a woman?"

I reserve the right to say that Max and Ben have dirty minds. Holy adolescent males, Batman. Moving on. To Mac's house we went. Brady, obviously wanting to show off his skateboard, suggested we go on a walk. I liked that idea, I adore walking at night. Nighttime is the best time. It's cool, and it's quiet, and it's dark, and no one tells you what to do, and in the dark it's easy to pretend that the truth is what it should be. So we're walking, and it's going well at first.

Then we saw some vans. Vans. Not scary, not awful, just vans. And Mac jumped to the conclusion that they were drunk college guys. They weren't drunk. Or in college. The worst thing they did was remark to Brady, "Nice board, Lord of Dogtown," to which Brady replied, "You know it." Oh, well. Max, however, was terrified.

"I don't wanna diiiiie!"

"Shut up. You're not going to die. I can get away with anything, remember?" That would have been me.

A bit later on, Max ceased his ceaseless complaints in order to scream at a fire hydrant whose shadow looked like an alligator. Sadly, I'm not joking.

To make a long story short, we got back to the house after a bit. Brady and I wanted to go on another walk, but Max wanted to sit around in Mac's teahouse for a bit. He dashed off. We waited around for a time, talking to some of Mac's relatives, who had enormous and quite pleasant Lousiana accents, and finally had the bright idea of scaring Max.

Which we did. With great aplomb. You should have seen the look on your face, Max. It was to die for, it really was. But anyway, we got into the teahouse and were sitting about, when Brady suggested, "Let's play Truth or Dare." I was stupid enough to trust that none of my male friends would do anything too embarrasing to me. I was dead wrong. Thank God I left before Max unleashed his horrific scheme!

If computers could convey fury, yours would be jumping up and down and spewing smoke from its speakers, dear reader.

I AM NOT A LOOSE WOMAN, SL-T, OR ANYTHING ELSE THAT A CERTAIN GIRL WHOSE NAME BEGINS WITH T IS! I AM JUST A STUPID, STUPID, STUPID LITTLE PHANTOM WHO ACTUALLY THOUGHT FOR FIFTEEN SECONDS OF HER LIFE THAT SHE COULD TRUST TWO MALES, AND UNFORTUNATELY, UNINTENTIONALLY PROVED BEN RIGHT ABOUT SOMETHING! (I'm not sure which of these I'm more displeased about.) I FOR ONE HOPE THAT YOU ARE THROWN INTO ERIK'S TORTURE ROOM OF MIRRORS AND PUNJABBED WITH A VIOLENT VIGOROUS VENGEANCE!

I remain, gentlemen, your faithful and obedient servant,

J.G.