So life is more sleeplessness and lots of tango. On Friday, I was going to go to a bible reading group with Ernie, Natalie's fiancé, but I couldn't reach them until it was too late to get there until it was halfway over. So, I had invited Miranda, it being her birthday and all, but we just met at midnight rodeo instead...only to find that a band was playing and we would have to pay $12 each at the door, only to stay for an hour. We passed, went home so she could drop off her car and let me be the DD, went to a bar and got her some shots (the same bar that Drew and I used to taste-test for the upcoming river rafting trip). We then went to tango and had a blast. She's a pretty good dancer, especially for having never done tango. I made a couple of new friends, and got email addresses for a couple people interested in what tango events were happening that weekend; I emailed them when I got home before I went to bed. Several of us (Me, Miranda, Chad, Rachell, and Lara) stayed late hanging out and talking and dancing salsa). Lara took some photos of us, both dancing and in dip poses, and in scandalous poses following a joke line involving sex with chairs. [grins] I know, we're crazy. There was also a little bit of poetry reading, as I wanted to share a particularly awesome Lawrence poem, and I and Miranda read some random things. I can't remember the final timeline, but I got to sleep around 4:45 I believe.

Saturday morning I had work until 5:15, when I ran off (changing into coat and tie) to Ian's Baccalaureate Mass. I saw several of my old teachers and had good chats, as well as running into someone who golfs at my country club. Raph, Mr. Roman and Mrs. Dragoset say hello and congrats. Mrs. Dragoset said, "I knew he was a smart boy," when I said that you had stopped ineffective dating practices and married your best friend. [grins] Anyway, that was nice, but then it was around 8, and I didn't have to be at dancing (a 10 minute max drive away) for another 2 hours. I called a couple people, but Lara answered, so I hung out with her parents while she got ready. We went to tango, and her parents came and watched us dance a little and took photos and left after about 15 minutes. Since Lara only started tango at Christmas when I introduced her to it, and has been at school up until a couple weeks ago, they hadn't seen her dance tango before. Highlights of the 10-2 dance were socializing with Eric, my favorite houston tango teacher, dancing with his partner and fiancé Karen, demo shows by both Argentine teachers in town for the weekend, Ney Melo (with a local partner, Mercy Chen, with his very elegant walking technique that I hear is heavenly to follow), and Pampa and Veloria Cortez (performance artists with lots of crazily flashy moves), and meeting people who dance Valentino Tango, which is something in between argentine tango, american cha-cha, and club salsa. However, neither Lara nor myself felt we had danced enough, so we went back to her house, rearranged the poolhouse, and danced tango to techno remixes and improv piano until about 5:30, at which point we talked until breakfast, then I went home to get ready for work.

So Sunday I'm exhausted and sleep deprived, but I ran into Raph at home in the process of returning from Hawaii and setting forth on the road back to Kansas. I showered and was late to work, but it was ok. Apparently my awesome night of dancing was at the expense of a terrible terrible party in which almost everything went wrong at work. Joe was in a terrible mood, feeling like an axe was over his head for not having prevented it. I left at noon to make it to dance workshops with Pampa and Veloria Cortez. I like Ney Melo a lot, and wanted to learn his style, but I've been getting really wild lately, and I need something to work on that isn't strictly technique. Plus, Lara needed a partner (Ney's rotated around the circle of follows, but Pampa's were partner-recommended classes), and since she'd like to be a tango performer/teacher at some point, this class was the obvious choice. We did learn some nifty moves, like where you lock the girl's feet, lean back with her leaning against you, and then walk around her like the pencil of a compass; also some choreography that uses some foot sweeps I learned a while back but couldn't incorporate properly; also we learned milonga (dance) styling and basic, i.e. that it Isn't just regular tango to a faster beat with sharper and more regular steps. Blah blah, I ran off to church for LifeTeen. Ok, so our group was supposed to plan something to do for kareoke. I thought of a skit at work, but didn't have time to write it, involving "Your mom" jokes that are corny or sweet instead of inappropriate (inspired because a coworker Darrin's dad recently died, and he's very close to his mom, and you can't even make jokes without offending him). When I was telling my group about the plot, they thought of doing Catholic Pickup Lines, so we made up a bunch really quickly, and it went well. The night as a kareoke was a pretty spectacular failure, but it went well enough anyway. I had had two glasses of mountain dew at work to stay awake, and they were wearing off, so I had a couple cups of starbucks coffee (the theme was Coffeehouse Kareoke). I hate caffeine, and considered myself "on drugs" for the next couple hours. I ran off to swing dancing, which I did for about an hour, then Lara drove us to tango. We got there at 11:15, and it supposedly ends at midnight, but the crowd was so good that Mikas kept up the music until almost 12:45. We proceeded to pick up my car from Melody Club and I crashed at Lara's (5 minutes from Melody Club, vs. my house that would have been a 20-25 minute drive). I slept from about 2:30 to 6:30, but it didn't feel like much at all, so I've been totally exhausted at work all day today, and I'm going to crash very shortly for the evening. After all, I want energy for salsa tomorrow and tango wednesday and the guadalupe river trip starting thursday. [grins] I'm having a lot of fun, blogger, more than usual. It's nice to be exhausted from dancing so much. I miss ballroom parties, my freshman and sophomore year, where we would sit around having wine and cheese to ballroom music, getting up now and then to a compelling song. Now, I go dancing where almost everyone has a regular day shift at a job and doesn't break their normal schedule to stay out all night. [laughs and shrugs] I can forgive them, but come on, people! Can't I get some crazy late parties now and then that involve dancing more than alcohol? I have to create them myself, and when Lara moves at the beginning of next month, I'll be left without even having a convenient space for it. [grins] Anyway, my vision is a little fuzzy, so I'm going to stop typing now.