Tuesday night at the Jam Cellar must have been a little lead-heavy, because I got out on the floor and got asked to dance almost every song. There were a lot of newbies and a few pretty decent people in from out of town, plus Chance and Swifty, who both fall in the category of Completely Awesome.
I ended have a lot of nice but generally unremarkable dances during the time I was out on the floor and not hiding in the side room squeezing some extremely sweaty practice time in. One Very Nice Guy in particular, though, did something during our dance that just drives me insane. Now, in an attempt to take the edge off of the cattiness that will follow, I feel the need to point out that most of the dance was pleasant, he has a swingout that is better than many, and he seems to be a competent lead in general.
However, during the dance he attempted to lead what I can only assume must be a simple move, but I had absolutely no clue what he was on about. None. Even after it must have became clear to him that I just did not understand what he was trying to lead, he just kept trying to lead the same thing, in the exact same way, for multiple 8s, with me awkwardly stepping back and forth in weird semi-closed position without even the small blessing of a little breathing room so I could just vamp on the music a little until the Mystery Move was over. Afterwards, I thought "Gee, that was awkward. Glad it's over."
Then he did it again.
Same 'move' (I think...hard to tell when you don't know what it's supposed to be), same awkwardness, same me being extremely confused. I believe there may even have been a third and a fourth attempt, but at that point I was just too flabbergasted to count.
I don't claim to be the best dancer in the world. Hell, most of the time I'll play the modesty card and claim that I'm not actually all that good. But I have been dancing regularly for 9 years now, and I've become--at the very least--a solidly competent follow who can work her way through just about anything if it's lead clearly. I give newbies the benefit of the doubt by guessing what they're trying to lead and helping myself through it a smidge to keep the dance moving nicely when necessary. (Debating whether or not that's the right thing to do is something for another post, but most of the time, I find it makes everyone's night more pleasant.)
So if I don't get it at least enough to fake my way through, especially after multiple phrases, you're not fucking leading it right.
I don't mind when someone is trying out a new move, and the timing is a bit off the first time, so they do it again later in the dance. I do this with moves and styling all the time. But to have something be so completely incomprehensible, to the point where I can't even figure out what the move is supposed to be, and then to keep doing it over and over again? No bueno. It's uncomfortable for me, and it must be uncomfortable for the lead, so why continue?
None of the explanations I can come up with are very nice. Either he assumed that he had led it correctly and that I was dense, so he repeated it for my benefit, he was trying to correct his lead so that he could lead it in the future, or he just didn't notice that there was anything wrong. I think the last one is the saddest of the possibilities, and the first the most insulting to me, but whatever the reason, I hope I don't have to deal with this situation again any time in the near future.
Wednesday, July 30
Sunday, July 27
Well, it's Sunday night, so I guess I'm allowed to do the weekend wrap-up now.
DJ's been out of town since Wednesday, and I think this is the longest we've been apart since shortly after we started dating. I've always rather liked living alone, but it's weird to be in an apartment by yourself that you're used to sharing with someone. Luckily, I had plenty of activities planned, so I haven't really spent all that much time at home except for Wednesday night and most of today.
Thursday I had a hair appointment right after work, which took even longer than usual because we were experimenting with the shade of the blond and we had to tone it twice before we got the color we wanted. We also changed the location of the accent color a little bit, and it makes a surprisingly big difference. As usual, I had a great time hanging out with Bryan while he worked on making me extra-fierce, which is a plus when you spend 3 hours at a stretch in the salon. Afterwards I met up with Jason and Sandy for delicious Indian food at Jyoti in Adams Morgan and they came over and drank wine with me for a while.
Friday was an uneventful day at work, then home for a light workout, food and shower before heading out again to meet some work friends at Sequoia. I really hate that place (overpriced, overcrowded, and inconvenient to everywhere I hang out) but I was overruled by the yuppie work friends. The only saving grace was that it was a particularly nice night to be chilling outside on a patio by the river, and a few people who I don't get to see very often were out. After a while, several people walked up to M Street to grab a late dinner, but I headed towards more the familiar waters of the Black Cat for the Soulfuck dance party and was pleased to see Arnold working the point when I got there. He's a nice guy and a good bartender, plus it helps to have someone who knows you working at a place that gets as crowded as the Cat. A decent crew ended up showing up (minus Jason, who passed out while he was trying to get ready :P ) and we did a little dancing and a little booty shaking, and then I caught a ride home from Amber around 2:30.
I managed to drag myself out of bed around 11 on Saturday morning. I was definitely not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but a big mug of french press and homemade breakfast burritos with a side of tots went a long way towards putting me in a state to carry out the day's plans. Sandy was out of town this weekend, too, so Jason and I had made plans to run some errands together before we knocked out the rest of our choreography and hit a party over at Shereen's. We briefly debated skipping all of the aforementioned activities and catching a Chinatown bus up to NYC to see the Cangelosi Cards, but common sense won the day, and we stuck with the original plan.
I metroed up to Mount Pleasant and we completed the Ikea run. I had 5 or 6 pretty inexpensive things on my list, and ended up with $121 worth of stuff. Such is the blue and yellow box's insidious evil. On the plus side, we now have a whole bunch of the large wine glasses that we like, so we have plenty of backups for when DJ starts breaking them at his usual alarming rate.
Dance practice was next. First order of business was the fresh trick we've been working on for a while now. It's still getting better every time we work on it, and this time was the best yet despite me nearly punching Jason in the junk--twice. We'd been having some luck with the beginning for a while, but the end had eluded us. With a couple of tweaks, the end started flowing a lot better, and I'm confident that we'll have it pulled together for the Jam Cellar showcase on the 12th. We also finished up our choreography, and I think it's going to be a pretty sweet little routine. Now we just have to hope that there are going to be other people performing, otherwise it will will literally be the One-Minute Showcase (aka The Meg and Jason Show).
We then cleaned up, grabbed some food and gelato (mmmmm...gelato), then headed over to the party at Shereen's. It was nice to see her and Mike and Clare (her roommates) again, but it was a weird crowd and we didn't really end up mingling much. When we did, it was with the super queeny guy who just would not be convinced that there was absolutely nothing going on between me and Jason (funny at first...less funny 2 hours later), or the weird Scottish guy who was trying to convince us that Edinburgh is "the sticks". *snort* At around 2:30 Mike's little uber-'mo came down and told us that we had to leave, which was weird, but then Clare showed back up and was like "Fuck that guy! You guys should all stay!" So we hung out for a while longer, and finally started stumbling home around 4:15. I didn't feel like trying to catch a cab in Columbia Heights at that hour (near impossible), so I took J up on his offer of the futon and a ride home in the morning when he went out to Alexandria to teach.
I got home around noon today and have spent most of the day puttering around, putting away the stuff I got at Ikea yesterday, and generally recovering from the excitement of the previous 2 days.
Phew. I think I got tired again just writing about my weekend.
DJ's been out of town since Wednesday, and I think this is the longest we've been apart since shortly after we started dating. I've always rather liked living alone, but it's weird to be in an apartment by yourself that you're used to sharing with someone. Luckily, I had plenty of activities planned, so I haven't really spent all that much time at home except for Wednesday night and most of today.
Thursday I had a hair appointment right after work, which took even longer than usual because we were experimenting with the shade of the blond and we had to tone it twice before we got the color we wanted. We also changed the location of the accent color a little bit, and it makes a surprisingly big difference. As usual, I had a great time hanging out with Bryan while he worked on making me extra-fierce, which is a plus when you spend 3 hours at a stretch in the salon. Afterwards I met up with Jason and Sandy for delicious Indian food at Jyoti in Adams Morgan and they came over and drank wine with me for a while.
Friday was an uneventful day at work, then home for a light workout, food and shower before heading out again to meet some work friends at Sequoia. I really hate that place (overpriced, overcrowded, and inconvenient to everywhere I hang out) but I was overruled by the yuppie work friends. The only saving grace was that it was a particularly nice night to be chilling outside on a patio by the river, and a few people who I don't get to see very often were out. After a while, several people walked up to M Street to grab a late dinner, but I headed towards more the familiar waters of the Black Cat for the Soulfuck dance party and was pleased to see Arnold working the point when I got there. He's a nice guy and a good bartender, plus it helps to have someone who knows you working at a place that gets as crowded as the Cat. A decent crew ended up showing up (minus Jason, who passed out while he was trying to get ready :P ) and we did a little dancing and a little booty shaking, and then I caught a ride home from Amber around 2:30.
I managed to drag myself out of bed around 11 on Saturday morning. I was definitely not bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, but a big mug of french press and homemade breakfast burritos with a side of tots went a long way towards putting me in a state to carry out the day's plans. Sandy was out of town this weekend, too, so Jason and I had made plans to run some errands together before we knocked out the rest of our choreography and hit a party over at Shereen's. We briefly debated skipping all of the aforementioned activities and catching a Chinatown bus up to NYC to see the Cangelosi Cards, but common sense won the day, and we stuck with the original plan.
I metroed up to Mount Pleasant and we completed the Ikea run. I had 5 or 6 pretty inexpensive things on my list, and ended up with $121 worth of stuff. Such is the blue and yellow box's insidious evil. On the plus side, we now have a whole bunch of the large wine glasses that we like, so we have plenty of backups for when DJ starts breaking them at his usual alarming rate.
Dance practice was next. First order of business was the fresh trick we've been working on for a while now. It's still getting better every time we work on it, and this time was the best yet despite me nearly punching Jason in the junk--twice. We'd been having some luck with the beginning for a while, but the end had eluded us. With a couple of tweaks, the end started flowing a lot better, and I'm confident that we'll have it pulled together for the Jam Cellar showcase on the 12th. We also finished up our choreography, and I think it's going to be a pretty sweet little routine. Now we just have to hope that there are going to be other people performing, otherwise it will will literally be the One-Minute Showcase (aka The Meg and Jason Show).
We then cleaned up, grabbed some food and gelato (mmmmm...gelato), then headed over to the party at Shereen's. It was nice to see her and Mike and Clare (her roommates) again, but it was a weird crowd and we didn't really end up mingling much. When we did, it was with the super queeny guy who just would not be convinced that there was absolutely nothing going on between me and Jason (funny at first...less funny 2 hours later), or the weird Scottish guy who was trying to convince us that Edinburgh is "the sticks". *snort* At around 2:30 Mike's little uber-'mo came down and told us that we had to leave, which was weird, but then Clare showed back up and was like "Fuck that guy! You guys should all stay!" So we hung out for a while longer, and finally started stumbling home around 4:15. I didn't feel like trying to catch a cab in Columbia Heights at that hour (near impossible), so I took J up on his offer of the futon and a ride home in the morning when he went out to Alexandria to teach.
I got home around noon today and have spent most of the day puttering around, putting away the stuff I got at Ikea yesterday, and generally recovering from the excitement of the previous 2 days.
Phew. I think I got tired again just writing about my weekend.
Thursday, July 24
I Welcome My New Google Overlords....
Well, it's not new, really.
I just figured that since I have Gmail and use Google Documents and Video constantly, I have the rest of my life plugged in to Google, so I might as well move my much-neglected blog over here, too. Maybe if it's neatly grouped with everything else I use all the time, I'll actually update it more often. We'll see.
What prompted this?
I was reading through some of my old LJ blog posts while trying to figure out what date DJ's and my dating anniversary should really be on (neither of us remember for sure, so I guess it's not that important), and it was really interesting. Posts about my bike accident, now-ex roommate/friend and certified crazy person, the beginnings of me and DJ, and the period of time not too long after I moved to DC and started hanging with many of the people who I now count among my best friends.
The past couple years haven't been very well-documented, but I'm hoping to change that in the future, and possibly entertain a couple of people along the way.
If anyone besides me is actually reading this, that is.
I just figured that since I have Gmail and use Google Documents and Video constantly, I have the rest of my life plugged in to Google, so I might as well move my much-neglected blog over here, too. Maybe if it's neatly grouped with everything else I use all the time, I'll actually update it more often. We'll see.
What prompted this?
I was reading through some of my old LJ blog posts while trying to figure out what date DJ's and my dating anniversary should really be on (neither of us remember for sure, so I guess it's not that important), and it was really interesting. Posts about my bike accident, now-ex roommate/friend and certified crazy person, the beginnings of me and DJ, and the period of time not too long after I moved to DC and started hanging with many of the people who I now count among my best friends.
The past couple years haven't been very well-documented, but I'm hoping to change that in the future, and possibly entertain a couple of people along the way.
If anyone besides me is actually reading this, that is.
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