Heh. Yah, I'm posting again. I remembered to look at my brother's blog, and he posts at least once a week. I felt guilty. I'm even going to use real paragraph breaks, because I want you to like me. I'm vain and self-serving like that. [laughs] (I'm not. at all.)

So, I alternate between being bored, complacent and angry-bored at work. I need to get out of there. I really do. I think I would cook more often if I didn't do it for a living. [laughs] for a living...for a getting by, let's call it that. I don't really know Amy, because I never work with her, and my friendship with Matt is blossoming under the encouragement of mutual joking/complaining at work, but my friendship with Charles, by far the more important of my co-workers, is suffering. Either he offends me by either seeming to not care or by contributing to the atmosphere of constant insincere insults, or he bores me, or he seems like he's not my friend anymore because I only find out things about his out-of-work life from Matt. [sighs]

On the Grace front, things are going well. I love her dearly, as always. We've been dating for 3 years, 5 months, and 8 or 9 days. I've been thinking about whether the 3.5 year mark is going to be meaningful or not, and regardless, whether I'm doing something for it. Graduation is in two weeks...one week of finals and one week of senior activities. It's very stressful for both of us. Pray for her, that she doesn't have a breakdown and that she passes, and I'll be much obliged. Another reason to get a job: I will be moving toward the future in which we can spend time together and not have a long distance relationship. long distance relationships suck, and I don't recommend anyone to attempt it unless they are well warned of how much it royally sucks ahead of time, and confident enough of the relationship that you'd take a bullet for this person.

On the dancing front, I'm doing argentinian tango now as well. Drew works a lot, and so has less time for western dancing, and doesn't want to spend time doing tango, so I'm doing it with a couple friends. Amy, from church, is my little brother's age, and I will become a lifeteen core member (i.e. assistant youth minister) for her and her age group, which is sort of weird, but there's no weirdness between us, just mellow friendship, so it's working out well. she looks really good dancing, but I'm not sure how her dancing is actually improving, as we haven't done it many times, and she has no background at all. It's been a while since I was trying to learn dance from scratch. Julie, from western dance class, introduced me to it, and she has a daughter Amy's age [laughs]. She wasn't enthusiastic about it, but they get along well, so it's ok. Julie is nice and fun to dance with, but brought a guy her age this past tango night, because it's more comfortable for her than only knowing me. Amy and I are making friends more quickly than she. I also have a new partner, if you want to call her that. her name is Irina, pronounced Arena with a flipped r. yes, russian. Unfortunately, she lives in Clear Lake. her house to my house is 60 miles by my odometer. it takes me an hour to get to thursday dancing, including picking up Amy, and Irina lives another 30-45 minutes from the coffee shop we dance in, in the other direction. She, and most everyone else, is of the opinion that I need to start taking private lessons, if not classes, because of how good I am just learning it on my own by watching and practicing.

I must admit that I'm being sucked into tango. If Grace were here to take lessons with, I would not hesistate at all. As it is, I'd rather save money to see her than improve my dancing without her...mostly. I am a dance-a-holic, and so it is very hard to not move forward as quickly as possible, hard to say, "no I can't come to so and so dance", and hard to say, "I don't want to take lessons". I think Grace may be slightly jealous of Irina on top of that, especially since we became very close friends very quickly. i.e. I went to a party saturday night and didn't come home till sunday after midnight. I was not unfaithful, nor will I be unfaithful, but if Grace became very good friends with someone, and dancing with this someone clicked for her as much as dancing with Irina clicks with me, I would be jealous as well. [sighs] I'm envious of the people in her classes, that can look up and see her. I'm envious of the people that walk past her in the street. I'm envious of everyone who has ever had the opportunity to hear her sing when I haven't, or hold her in a dance class or dance party for but a moment when I haven't. But all of those people are faceless and nameless. I don't know if it's appropriate, but I feel guilty for dancing tango without Grace. Not because I am doing anything that I feel is wrong, but because it is something I am doing without her, that I know she would want to be doing. [laughs] perhaps I'm sentimental, perhaps I'm silly.

But blogger, and all you faceless and nameless readers, I look at my life and I realize its...directionlessness. There is a position in tango, in which the girl has brought her feet together, but is balanced on one, prepared to step on the other, and then she waits. The man may turn her this way or that, shake her slightly, but she does not take a step until she feels the movement of her partner taking a step or leading her to take a step. That is the position I feel in right now. Perhaps I am deluding myself, I know that I am a fool, but I am waiting for the lead that tells me to commit to a step. My greatest fear is moving opposite that of Grace, and losing her for another year or more. And so I sway, embellish, twist, but do not step. [laughs] and perhaps, Grace, too, is waiting for that lead, but while still at school she is committed to another step and is not yet in the position to take another. I know the time is coming when I cannot avoid taking a step. If you are the praying type, pray for me that I take the proper one.