Dancing fools...

Thursday night's Little Minsky's in the city was a blast. The Debut-Taunts were adorable! Everyone was doing French themed numbers for Bastille Day, and it was too cute. Two girls did reverse-striptease numbers, but with totally different styles. After the show, my friend Michel and I started dancing up a storm. I don't know exactly what we were dancing - some crazy cross between jitterbug, salsa and tango! Wow that was fun! Some girl told us we were the best dancers she'd seen in a long time. She thanked us for dancing. We just laughed, because we were just fooling around like jackasses, but it must have been fun to watch, since it was so much fun for us.

Michel generously offered to give me a ride back over the bridge, but neither of us are city people and it took us a while to get our bearings. Meanwhile, we came across the large deserted parking lot at the Randall Museum. Michel suggested we dance, so we pulled in, turned up the tango music, and stepped out onto the asphalt for my first tango lesson! It took me a little while, but I've got the basic step now. We danced and danced until the cops came by and escorted us off the property.

But that wasn't the end to the dancing tomfoolery! When we finally figured out how to get onto the highway, we got stuck in a detour for over an hour. Luckily we're both pretty mellow and easily entertained by the aggitated drivers around us - people honking and yelling, a cab driver crossing lanes by driving perpendicular to traffic. Humanity is very entertaining. After being stuck at one intersection for several light changes, we turned up the music and tangoed in the street to a chorus of horn honking. It's funny that once we got onto the bridge, there was almost no traffic. Ah, San Francisco!

Thank you, Michel, for the dancing and laughter...

Some flowers bloom in the dark...

I decided to splurge a little and bought a couple of used books on Sunday, some nice, girly fiction. "The Collected Stories of Colette" and "The Shoplifter's Apprentice," stories by Ellen Lesser. They called to me from the shelves, so I took them home. Oh, how I've missed my long baths with good fiction! Why do I treat fiction like an indulgence? Why do I feel that each moment should be spend doing something "useful"? Stories and characters are as necessary as sleep, sometimes more so.

From the time I was 4 until I moved out at 16, I shared a room with my cousin whom we adopted and called my sister. To put it simply, she hated me. I got little consideration and no privacy except during my baths and while my sister was sleeping. I guess my reading was literally escapism - escape into sweet solitude. That is how I learned to love the stillness late at night when you are the only one awake in the house; when even the cars have stopped driving by on the road, leading you to believe the whole world is sleeping. It's even better than in the early morning, with the implicit pressure of the coming day nagging at the back of your mind with everything you should be doing. In the darkness of deep night, the only thing you should be doing is sleeping... and you're not.

It always feels a little naughty to me, staying up like that, like enjoying stolen time. It's not really stolen, of course, because you pay for the lack of sleep the next day. But it's so worth it. Tonight is a good night to stay up. Tonight there is a brooding in my chest - the good kind of brooding, like a hen on a cozy clutch of eggs; or like a seed that has sprouted and is about to stretch it's little stem through the surface of the soil and spread its tightly folded leaves. Yes, I think I can feel the night flowers blooming.

Sweet like candy

A life well lived is a life indulged in like succulent candy, savored like fine wine, and relished as it goes rushing past like the dizzying view from a rollercoaster. Take a big bite. And another. And don't stop eating until you pop.

Yes, it's been an interesting few months. I started on a new developmental path, only to realize that I've been well and firmly on the path for almost 10 years! Which just means I've got a little bit of a headstart on myself, but there's still a lot of room to grow. Room to transform - because that's what it's all about, when it comes down to it. I'm meeting new friends all the time, enjoying the swirling and changing scenery. Loads of new projects in the works, even though I haven't been looking for more projects. I've got so much to do already! It's almost as if it's not up to me, the projects kind of walk up and hold my hand, and there's nothing to do but go with it. Those always end up being the best projects anyway.