dance

you can still dance like nobody’s watching because i can’t see from here

Friday, August 17th, 2007

tonight, many of my friends are at sugar hill, a contra dance weekend just outside of bloomington that i attended for four years, and organized for two. it’s one of those things that, when you’re doing it, you can’t imagine not doing it, but i am learning that the worst part about living in portland is that flights in and out are expensive, so i couldn’t make the trip this year.

i’m thinking of everyone, though, and i hope the dance tonight was awesome, the stars were out for nightswimming, and tomorrow shines clear and not too humid. i’ll be there in the future whenever i can.

good saturday after all

Saturday, December 3rd, 2005

i got about 4 hours of sleep last night, but it was my own damn fault. i thought that i might drive to columbus (OH) for winter warmup, which is a great contra dance weekend, and i have since to make it to a contra dance weekend in my graduate career, which is downright embarrassing. david and matece were already going this time so that was promising. and yet, alas, school won out again. i ended up having to schedule a pervasive computing meeting for this morning. we really needed the meeting, and i was glad to make progress because i was getting worried, so what can ya do.

i ended up able to fill another traditional committment this way, at least – the overnight at the uu church bazaar. they have a big art and stuff sale every year as a major fundraiser, and everyone feels better if someone is in the building with all those thousands of dollars of merchandise, so several young adults stay over and run around and make cookies and stuff.
how very wholesome of us, eh?
i got there around 10 or so, and katie and kelly and heather were there. we did this little candle lighting meditation thing that kelly thought up, and talked about how we thought we’d feel older by the time we got to be this age, and shared thoughts on how marriage does or doesn’t fit in to our developing senses of self. it ended up being a pretty honest talk with people i don’t really see that often, and that was nice, even though it probably sounds like sap as a retrospective.
so it goes.
to add more sap, i was a little amazed at how thoroughly transfixed we all were by the candles, and how well they contributed to the mood, despite the fact that i could also acknowledge that we looked like a freaking magazine insert with a title like “5 quick ways to find your center amidst the hustle and bustle of daily life”

what can i say, we humans are some pretty easily suckered machines.

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