So, tonight I found out that I like greek olives. At least, drenched in greek salad dressing, along with lettuce and tomato, I like greek olives. It's a start [laughs]. So, tonight was going to be interesting because I needed a ride. Vanessa, before I could ask for a ride to tango, invited me to a screening of Paradise Now at one of Houston's art film theaters, the Angelika (sp?). This sounded great, and I emailed Amy to inform her that I would not be able to take her to tango, and didn't even know if I would be going to tango if she went on her own. Then I went off to get Charles for wednesday night dance class. It was a very slow evening, mostly due to many people skipping class to watch the astros defeat the cardinals and secure a place in their first ever world series. And, I wasn't sure I wanted to go anyway, and when I got there, I realized it was definately not where I wanted to be. Cassie and Michelle had a good time talking, and Kristy, Charles and Naomi had a good time playing pool. Kat was there for a short period, and Drew never showed (I found out today that he fell asleep waiting for a load of laundry in the dryer, despite his intention to come to dance class). People started leaving, and I intended to as well, but I was convinced to consider going somewhere else, by dropping the car off at home and then getting a ride from Naomi (with Kristy and Charles) to wherever we wanted to go. Well, at 10:30pm, we decided to go to the beach. Despite my fears that I would be a drag, I ended up having to be the designated driver back; Naomi had a bottle of sangria and Charles and Kristy split a 12 pack of bud (eww). And the trip went really well. I love riding on boats (ferries), and I love waves at night, and I love moonlight and cold wind, and good conversations with good people, and being salty and sandy and tired wasn't too bad because of the trade-off of all those other things. So I ended up being cheered, and we all had a good time. I slept in, and woke up to get on the computer and talk to people, including Grace (yay!). Then Vanessa called, and she had decided that the movie screening was too much of a hassle, especially since she was either going out to dinner with a friend (and probably myself and the friend's girlfriend) or with her mom (which would not include me, unless I wanted to try to keep up with their fairly fluent french). She called again later to inform me that she was going to do dinner with her mother. Before I got around to calling Amy for a ride to tango, Vanessa called back saying she was in a bad mood, canceled dinner with her mom, and was going to dinner with me, and then tango. I jumped in the shower, and she picked me up, and we went out for greek food. I gave Amy a call, since if she wanted to come to dinner with us, she could come to tango with us, but I didn't get a hold of her. She called while we were at the restaurant, but that's downtown so [shrugs] nothing to be done. We split a greek platter sampler, with greek salads and some bread that Vanessa says is usually better...it appeared to have been cooked long enough to rise and fall and bake a little more, so too thin and crispy. It still tasted great, and the salad was good, and I liked the food on the sampler, especially the green beans, which tasted as though they'd been sitting in meatball juice and were super excellent. Blah blah, then we went to tango, which was fairly dead. A few people showed up, and I tried out my new jazz shoes, and they work really well. I'm going to have to get used to stepping differently, but otherwise I was getting great connections with the floor and pretty good connections with my dance partners (Vanessa and Joy). I was invited to several things this weekend by Susana, but my work schedule and my not having a car for social things will make it almost impossible to go to anything. [laughs and shrugs] I really like hanging out with Vanessa. She got degrees in business admin and french, is a private teacher for french and english (though she hates it), travels a lot, is a converted Catholic and has considered being a nun (except for the whole following orders thing), and she represents a slice of humanity that isn't currently represented in my close friends. Oh, and Miles is going to give me info about a dance festival in Austin in November that I'm supposed to go to. Irina invited me to it last summer, but I don't have info about it. Life goes on, life keeps changing and surprising me, people keep surprising me in good and bad ways, and I keep disappointing myself and yet keeping hope. Same old, same old. Au revoir, until again, blogger.