Drunken dancing

Friday evening was a disaster of epic proportions. The situation: I was expected to arrive at Brian’s at any time. Brian had to work Saturday, and so couldn’t stay up late, and I was tied to my computer waiting for it to crunch video for a DVD—primarily because that DVD was to be the evening’s entertainment.

Turns out that, while my mammoth tower has more than enough power to deal with the everyday humdrum tasks of life, it still chokes mightily on video processing. (I was horribly, blissfully, ignorant of that shortcoming.)

So there I was, at 11:30 pm, sweating bullets because Brian had turned off his computer while he awaited my arrival and because my thing was going to take a bloody eternity to finish processing… not fun. I eventually had to punt and convert my videos into a format that my powerbook wouldn’t choke on playing, and lug my powerbook over. Yeesh.

Brian was gracious about my extreme tardiness, thankfully.

Saturday was chock-full of hilarity at Barry’s expense. I arrived at the ballroom dance just moments after Janis arrived, and discovered a smaller-than-usual crowd in attendance. (Crowd size wasn’t a real issue, though; there was critical mass, at least.) Not present—or so I thought—was my friend Barry. My misperception was corrected when I headed to the water fountain and saw Barry asleep on a couch in a room connected to the ballroom.

If I had a camera, I’d have been all over that.

I later ran into Barry’s friend Bobby, who informed me that Barry wasn’t just asleep—he was passed out. At that point I remembered the conversation Barry and I had the previous Wednesday, wondering if we’d be better dancers after having a beer or two. I guess he decided to find out.

The answer, in case you weren’t paying attention, is no. Not if you drink enough to pass out, at least.

On the other side of the dance floor was a gal who kept dancing by herself. It struck me as really weird and somewhat off-putting—everybody else who isn’t dancing is a wallflower (or is chatting), and that, it seems, is the behavior I expect—but Janis saw it as the cry for “someone ask me to dance” that it really was. She then encouraged me to ask this gal to dance, and threatened that my “coolness points” would go way down if I didn’t.

She tricked me. I never had any “coolness” points!

I did lose “listening” points by asking Janis to dance to a psychotically fast west coast swing (I suspect it was Daniel Bedingfield’s Gotta Get Thru This [quadrupletime mix]); we were actually generally able to keep up with the music, which was a pleasant surprise. Danced the last waltz with Ae-young, who likes (I don’t mind; it’s fun) to hijack my “cuddle” lead into a neverending string of spins. I was golden until near the end of the song, though, because she kept spinning in a counterclockwise direction—and I can get her to stop spinning in that direction with a well-timed hand on her back. The final spin wound up being clockwise, however—and, as far as I know, there’s no human way to stop a spin in that direction without getting slapped.

Sunday I don’t actually recall much about. Odd. I think it was a giant waste of a day, but I can’t even be sure about that.

Today, at last, was not only bloody warm—it was also humid. Craptacular! Only now is it nice outside; I think I’m going to take my powerbook out on the deck and continue to hack at this “cover letter” I need to finish up. (Yes, I’m slow.) I always end up writing here’s what I’ve done, which implies what I can do for you instead of just here’s what I can do for you. Not a good start.

 

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