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2003-03-09 - 1:40 a.m.

Peaks, Valleys, and Lindy Hop Madness

Well, it's been peaks and valleys for the last couple of days, there kiddies.

Thursday Rudy seduced me away from going to rehearsal (where I really wasn't absolutely needed, anyway) with the lure of video games and beer. I'm weak, what can I say. Turns out I probably should have gone, because the opening of the show was postponed by a day. I imagine that the scene leading up to that decision was messy and I love a good soap opera.

Friday I had stomach troubles. I spent the first half of the day feeling just terrible, and I think I napped on the floor of the bathroom for like an hour or so, because I was afraid that if I crawled back to bed, I might not make it back to the toilet in time. That's probably already more information than you need.

Let me just take a moment to throw in this aside. I know people who can vomit and not really be bothered by it. In college eRoommate was well-known for his early-evening puke that would make him feel better, and ready to keep partying. Me, if I puke, that's pretty much all she wrote. I hate it like nobody's business, and for some reason, it seems to wipe me out. I generally need to go lie down for a while.

Anyway, Friday night was just the Usual Suspects out for some dinner. We meant to go catch one of the shows at CowPlace, but we got too comfy, and then around 10 we all decided we were old and lame, and went home to bed.

Today, I got up and went to Tai Chi, which I'm continuing to love. I also discovered that two people in the class are acquainted with people (different people) from a place I used to work. Very small world-y and bordering on the surreal. One of them, a very nice old lady, seems to have taken on my unemployment as a challenge. She's all about connections and useful suggestions. Proving once again, it's always who you know.

This afternoon I went over to CandyBarMan and RedQueenGirl's place to finally see their newborn. He's almost a month old, and I hadn't yet seen him.

Here's the thing with me and babies. I don't think they get to their completely absolutely guaranteed to be adorable phase until two or three months. Younger than that, they can be adorable, or they can be generally kinda weird. Which really has nothing to do with how they'll look later. It's just that really young babies sometimes are just a bit odd to my eyes. Maybe I'm all callous and evil here, but I'm just saying.

But you shouldn't think I'm afraid of babies. eRoomate will hold a baby like it's a crate of nitroglycerine smeared with feces. He wants to get it away from him, but he doesn't dare move. I love babies, and I love holding babies, and I've often held onto them while they're fussing and carrying on way past the point that most non-relatives would. I think my digression meter is going into the red.

RedQueenGirl's sister Stu was out visiting from San Francisco. She and I pal around some, and she knows that I have done some tiny bit of swing dancing in the past. So she dragged me out to some big swing dancing event that she'd gotten wind of. It was pretty crazy. There were probably a couple of hundred people there. And they could all swing dance like crazy.

Me, I took lessons a few years ago, and can't really remember shit. I have a repertoire of like five moves. I figured I'd dance a few dances with Stu and then sit out the rest of the night. What I didn't figure on was that there were tons (and I mean tons) more women than men there. A guy standing by the side of the dance floor (especially one as devastatingly handsome as me (snicker)) is roughly equivalent to a raw steak thrown into the lions cage. With no effort on my part, I danced with three different women. I explained to all of them that I really couldn't dance, and I guess their thinking went along the lines of "better to suffer through one dance with a potential goober than stand around all night". Two of them were very nice. One of them was a bit impatient. I tried, at least I tried.

Eventually, Rudy showed up. I'd lured him out with tales of good ratios and attractive women. (I think my exact words were "Dude, the beautiful babies are here, and they need a guy to dance with.") He was all confidence and swagger until he got there. Then he danced one dance with Stu (who I figured would be someone safe to get warmed up with) and looked around the place at all the incredible dancers, and lost his nerve. Before he could start getting accosted (and before I got embarrassed any more) we retired to the upper floor, and just watched.

There was some great dancing, including a Jack and Jill contest that blew me away. We talked a lot about the ways that different people danced, and the different styles that were apparent to even our untrained eyes. At one point I said "Dude, the old guy with the bad comb-over sure brought his A game." I'm often far less witty than I think I am.

In the end, it was a good evening. I'm feeling motivated to go take some more dance classes. Because people were generally nice. And there were indeed some beautiful babies out. And if I knew I could dance, well then, it's a great low-stress way to meet people. I mean, it's meeting a bunch of women, without it being that "I only wanna get into your pants" meet-market kind of feel. So we'll see.

Anyway, it's late, and there's tomorrow to be thinking of. Nighty-night kirderoonies.

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