InThane's InThanity

Need to start writing new blog entries in Word or something, writing up a nice long post then closing the browser window really sucks.

More when I have more time.

Oh yes, I may actually start blogging again. Scary, huh?

http://www.savoyswingjam.com

This is what I am dedicating the next couple months of my life to.  Not because I'll be competing - because I'm helping to organize it.

Yes, it is made of 100% pure awesome.

In honor of our outgoing president, Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream have announced a new flavor called "Walnuts of Mass Destruction".

Don't worry if you have nut allergies, though, since there are no walnuts in the ice cream.

So a certain fellow dancer of mine has realized that with her lifestyle, she just can't keep her kitties any more. Guess who decided to adopt both of them?

Pics should be up when they actually move in, which is in about two weeks. It's a brother/sister pair that I've met already. The sister is a total snugglepuss, while the brother is pretty shy. My guess is that with as cold as it's going to get in my apartment over the winter, he'll "warm" to me very quickly...

...from Capitol Hill.

Yeah, no shit.

I just got the call from my brother.  My grandfather finally passed away this morning.  Given the condition he was in these past few days, it is a mercy.

He was born in 1919 to Irish immigrants, with ten brothers and sisters.  His father died when he was 10, leaving the family alone during the great depression.  He was a hard worker, industrious, and bought the family farm from his mother in his early twenties.  He married in his early twenties, and had four daughters over the years.  The second daughter was my mother.

Growing up, I remember a man who was firm, hardworking, but always had a kind smile and a laugh for us kids, a man with a good heart and a huge farm.  I remember riding on his tractor, tromping through the woods behind his house, and seeing that mischievous twinkle in his eye as he pulled some prank on my grandmother - he was always imbued with the trickster spirit, right up until the end when he'd pretend he had his hearing aid turned off as grandma would ask him something.  In spirit, I'd say he had a lot in common with Dad from "Calvin and Hobbes" - always telling tall stories to us grandkids and passing them off as truth.  Up until last month, he and my grandmother would go dancing at least twice a week - maybe he couldn't move like he used to, but he still tried, and that is something which I will insist upon in my future relationships.

Every Thanksgiving, there would be a huge family get-together.  Like all large families, such get-togethers would be barely restrained chaos, but he'd just sit there at the table soaking up all the love that would come through it, and we never begrudged him his moment of patriarchy.  Well, I think my mom did slightly, but she's something of a rebel in that way.

He had a very serious side, as well.  Politically, we never saw eye to eye, but he never disrespected me for disagreeing with him as long as I was able to back up my ideas with solid facts and well-reasoned argument.  He taught me much about respect and understanding the views of others.  

He is survived by his wife of sixty-odd years, his older sister, his four granddaughters, nine grandchildren and four great grandchildren.

Goodbye, grandpa - they broke the mold when they made you.

Worked all day, went to dinner with my brother and some friends, then went to see the Pork-Filled Players' production of "Lard and Order".  Fucking HILARIOUS, and wrong in so many deliciously offensive ways.

True fact: Nobody who came to dinner with me went to the show afterwards, but two more friends showed up at the play, and we were all amused.

I started taking some private lessons from one of Seattle's better Lindy Hoppers.  We're focusing mainly on technique, since that's the fundamental

1. Keepin' the beat is very important.  I need to do a better job of that.  Bounce up and down to the 8 count pulse, even if your steps are not completely in sync with the beat - for example 3-and-4.
   
2. 4-5 jockeys to build harmony and beat before the swingout.  (A Jockey step is (1L)rock (2R)step (3L)step (5R)tap (7R)step, done in place for leads.  Follows reverse the feet used for the step.)
3. Keep position until 2-and on the Lindy Circle (unless there's a reason not to - but that goes without saying for almost every move in Lindy Hop, I'm discovering.  Dances with rules that are made to be broken are so much fun!)
4. Emphasize the 4 and 6 beats on the Lindy Circle - it gives direction changes to the follow, without which she's just traveling on instinct.
   
5. Break it down to the basic steps themselves rather than the movement first - once you have the basic steps memorized, it gets much easier.
6. Keep your feet under the center of your weight, even when moving side to side.  Otherwise, you end up off balance.
   

I know this won't make sense to most of you, but I'm writing this to keep my head on it.

The highly random ex-Quorumite mandylicious has tagged me - albeit by tagging anybody who happened to read her little missive this morning - to tell all y'all seven random facts about myself that others might not know.  Thus, it begins.

1. I have never been so drunk as to have a hangover.  This despite consuming something like eight whiskey shots in a two hour period.
1a. This probably has something to do with my Irish heritage.

2. I am afraid of water.  When I was fifteen minutes old, a nurse tripped and spilled the half-melted ice chip bucket on me, and my guess is that this traumatic first experience with water has flavored me ever since.
2a. I was the best swimmer on the 7th grade swim team, bar none.  I still get somewhat anxiety ridden around water, but it's like I just don't care that I'm anxiety ridden.  I imagine this is what people who do heroic things are like - it's not that they don't have fear, it's just that they kind of put it aside until they have a chance to deal with it at a nonthreatening point in their lives.

3. Many men cannot admit that they are gay because they are afraid of what people around them will say.  I could not admit until last year that I really enjoy looking at beautiful women, because I was afraid of what people around me would say.
3a. My definition of beauty tends to exclude things like supermodels and overly primped-up Hollywood starlets.  I just don't get it, folks.  Lindsey Lohan is NOT remotely hot.
3b. #3 does not extend to porn, at least what I've seen of it.  It could be the kind of porn valued in our country, but I just can't get into it.  It's too damn campy, and the people involved don't look remotely attractive to me for the most part.

4. Some people find God through religion; I have found God on the dance floor.  Unfortunately, learning to dance has not done wonders for my dating life - in fact, in some ways it has destroyed it.  I still wouldn't give it up for anything.

5. I looked fucking AWESOME on Sunday.  I'm slowly turning into someone with fashion sense.  Now if I could just find a way not to sweat to death whenever the weather is over 70...

6. Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" makes me want to go pick up an axe, jump on a longboat, and raid costal villages.
6a. "Whole Lot of Love" is the most awesome song by Led Zeppelin ever.  Or possibly "Kashmir".  Maybe "Battle of Evermore".
6b. I heard Led Zeppelin's "When the Levee Breaks" for the first time one week before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.  Immediately after it hit, I heard an instrumental version playing on NPR between stories about the survivors.  I wonder how many other people recognized the song.

7. When I was three, I thought that the blinking airplane warning light on the University of Washington medical building was Rudolph's nose.  It may not have been the medical building - I'd have to go back and get a line of sight from McMann hall.  I'm pretty certain in retrospect that's what it was.

So TAG, you're all it.

Last night I went dancing.

For those not in the know, I injured my knee back in April.  Although I've occasionally danced since then (and in fact, I danced for three days straight in late May without any adverse side effects, only to be laid low two days later due to poor shoe choice) it's pretty much been danceless for me.  My physical therapist gave me conditional approval to go dancing on Monday.  Conditional means "don't do anything crazy."

Last night, I pitched in at an Intro to Lindy Hop class.

It was awesome.

When IT says, "No, you can't install a wireless router in your office" that means "No, you can't install a wireless router in your office" not "Yes, go ahead and buy one at Costco, hook it up to a random port, and start broadcasting DHCP leases to the entire network, causing dozens of people to lose their network access, man-weeks of lost productivity, and pissing off the entire IT staff."

I wish people spoke the same English I did.

Warning: The following video has been determined to be tasteless.  At the same time, it has a certain charm to it - perhaps a hint of Pythonesque madness?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcbazH6aE2g

http://www.vimeo.com/clip:173714

So, after a knee injury that keeps getting aggravated (could it have something to do with dancing on it for four days straight?  Hmm?) I finally talked my doctor into letting me see a physical therapist.  Okay, I didn't really talk her into it - it was more "hey, this knee keeps getting reinjured" "okay, PT for you boy!"

But I'm not complaining.  In fact, I'm looking forward to it.  As I told my therapist, "There's a bunch of pretty ladies waiting up on Capitol Hill for me to get back to dancing, and I don't want to disappoint them."  So I'm going to do everything he says to do to a T.  There's definitely a touch of swelling on the knee, and he found some spots where the muscles have atrophied.  He also said that I have "amazing" muscle tone in my legs, something that somewhat surprised me given that I haven't really exercised in a couple of months due to the knee injury.

So, hopefully in about a month, I'll be bustin' it out on the floor again - especially nice because I've got a couple new moves from Camp Jitterbug which are sure to start a fight if my dance partner's boyfriend is watching... ;)

Two years ago, if you told me I'd be dancing, I'd laugh in your face.

One year ago, if you told me I'd be organizing an outdoor Lindy Hop jam at the Seattle Center, I would have pulled a muscle laughing and died.

Today, I talked to the head of event coordination at the Seattle Center, and she told me that they had approved my application to run a series of outdoor Swing jam sessions from 1-4pm, Sundays, through this summer. We've got a big open space of concrete, power, and security - all at no charge.

I'm all kinds of stoked.

I went dancing tonight.  I kind of got stood up - I say kind of, because we never really locked down the plans firmly.  It's all cool, especially after meeting James and Jade...

Before each dance, there's a half-houf "how to dance" session for people who've never danced Swing before.  Since they're almost always short leads, I tend to step in and help out - and I'll often pick someone out for special attention afterwards, teach them a few steps, that kind of thing.

Well, tonight the person I picked out happened to be there with her husband.  From what I gathered, they were visiting Seattle for a week from Minnesota, ya sure ya betcha.  It appeared to be a delayed honeymoon, and she had just gotten pregnant recently.  While on the trip, he apparently surprised her by bringing her to the Century, and told her that when they got back, they'd start taking Swing lessons together.

Aww...

So I spent a good chunk of my evening teaching them both a few steps, helping them out with some stuff, even taught James how to dip Jade.  They had a good time, and I got a huge warm fuzzy feeling.

I live for that kind of thing.  I know that in all likelihood I'll never see them again, but it just makes me feel all fuzzy.

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap070425.html

My new desktop background.

*swoon*

I started taking Salsa at Sonny Newman's dance hall about six weeks ago.  After the first three sessions, I hurt my leg, and wasn't able to dance for the next two sessions, although I sat and watched.  Even though my leg isn't completely better, I did dance last night, as it was the last class of the series.  I'm not sure, but I get the feeling they were really impressed with me - both the instructor and the instructor's mom made comments about how I was doing really REALLY good compared to the others, which was even more amazing given that I'd missed out on the two proceeding lessons.  Marcia (my friend who was taking the class with me) seemed quite surprised that I was doing so well as well.

As far as Salsa the dance itself goes, I'm of mixed feelings about it.  The spins are fast and snappy, which is kind of fun, and there's a bit more force behind the leads than in Swing, which is easier for me to handle - I have a problem in Swing where I'm too strong in my leading.  However, the music is hard for me to follow, and I'm not a huge fan of the culture surrounding Salsa.  Too much makeup, too much perfume and cologne, and just in general it's a very alien environment for me.

I'm going this Friday anyways, and I know Gina really wanted me to learn it so she could take me Salsa dancing as well - so I'll probably still do a bit of it.  But for me, it still don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing...

Well, not again, as this is the first time I've had this happen to me.

My left knee feels like it's stuffed full of cotton, or stiff, or swollen, or something.  It's not painful, just stiff and hard to move.  No idea why.  A year ago, I would have stayed off of it for a bit, and not thought twice about it.  Now, I've got something to lose - if something is really wrong with it, then I'd have to give up dancing for a bit.

And I think all y'all know just how much I love to dance...

Doctor's appointment tomorrow, hope it's nothing.