We went out dancing Friday night. There are lots of events the week before Halloween, so the lindy scene tends to be even more of a party than it usually is. Folks are dressed up in costumes that make them sweat half to death while they dance. Really good dancers turn out after months of no-showing. Late in the evening, two instructors with whom I am unfamiliar performed a Halloweeny number, and I later heard the female instructor chatting with a compatriot on the dance floor. She was smiling, her eyes were huge, she had her arms and hands flexed, palms up (how you’d look if you lifted a heavy bag of Halloween candy up in front of your face and shook it). She was saying:

I’m so used to teaching Ballroom! But this music!…It’s just…so…so…

I’m sure she loves ballroom dancing, but I’m also sure that, at that moment, she realized that ballrooming at its best is no lindy party.

Every month or so, a lindy buddy asks when I am going to try ____________________ (fill in the blank: salsa, blues dancing, tango, ballroom, west coast swing). Depending on my mood, I make a sour face and say either “Never” or “When pigs fly.” I bet they’re fun dances, but the thing they all have in common is the music. That is, none of them are danced to 30′s and 40′s big band swing jazz. It’s the happiest darn music I’ve ever met, and if I ever meet a happier, I’ll start doing its dance too.

If I had waited until tomorrow, it would’ve been six months since my last blog update. Nathan’s been dead-listing people, and I find I don’t like being dead-listed. I want to have a most definitely living and vital presence on the internet. I want to leave a cyber legacy (ironic remark. still don’t have that sarcasm emoticon).

Six months passing doesn’t change some things, like not having a lot to say when sitting down to write a blog. Maybe the process of whittling all the interesting (or deadly dull) facts about life down to one sentence on FB is a great way to lose the desire to say more about what’s going on in life and thought. Or maybe my life just isn’t that fascinating.

Blogging on MRI used to be a combination of two things: Little slices of life, and theological ponderings. I started blogging in grad school, a time when there was always plenty of academic rigor to promote bloggy thought, and plenty of stress to motivate an outlet.

Two years ago, I graduated.

Life got easier (and better…much much much better).

Instead of dense academic texts, I read all the James Bond novels. Instead of SITTING (every day, all the time, at a truly Olympic level), I started dancing.

If you (and by you, I mean Nathan. Hi!) know me well enough to be reading this, then the dancing business (understatement alert) doesn’t come as news to you. (On the contrary, you are likely to be presently muttering something to yourself like, “What, you dance?” with not a little bit of ironic tone in your sotto voce remarks). Funnily enough, it still comes as news to me. I’ve spent my whole life in school, and my abilities are almost exclusively limited to the scholastic. I write, read, think, therapize, analyze, etc. I can’t cook or sing or garden or play an instrument or paint or manufacture my own smoked bologna or do ANYTHING fun. Except play Trivial Pursuit. You want me on your team.

Even though I’ve been dancing for two years, I still can’t believe I do it. I’ve never tried anything like this before, much less been any good at it. There are about five (possibly really boring) blogs to be done about what dancing has done for me, but in short it has been a blessing. And a blessing is a thing which has a habit of never ceasing to feel new and surprising and exciting. Blessed are the lindy hoppers, for they shall inherit kick-ass good times, late nights resulting in swing hangovers, and a lot of stinking joy.

Sorry about the kick-ass bit. But it really is kick-assy.

I may have talked about this before, but if I can’t remember, chances are neither can you. I am indebted to The Blarg’s recent post for generating my thoughts as stated below.

Freedom. I believe it can be conceived of in two primary ways. Firstly, there is “freedom from.” We may conceive of freedom as the state of being free from a variety of perceived encumbrances: commitment, responsibility, rules, limits, norms, morality. Secondly, there is “freedom for.” In this manner, “encumbrances,” such as commitment, limitations, etc., are seen as an opportunity to focus our energies on being completely and unreservedly free for devotion to a beloved object, be it God, a spouse, friend, or calling. I consider it no accident that the word “love” crept into that last definition. Love, when defined not as a fleeting feeling or attraction but instead as an act of lasting commitment, must be freedom for…devotion to the beloved, commitment to vows, sacrifice of self, and denial of those things which compete with love for the beloved. Love driven by “freedom from” will eventually find commitment a burden and, as indeed it is, a limitation, and the desire to be free from the beloved eventually asserts itself and commitments dissolve in favor of freedom for whatever the almighty self desires.

A wise professor once discoursed on the subject of Adam and Eve’s choice in the garden. They could live at the center, seeking to live within the confines of God’s directives and love, daily choosing not to leave him, not to know firsthand the choice offered by that seemingly wise and tempting fruit tree. Or they could live at the periphery, seeking to push limits and experiment with what life free from the love and direction of God felt like. In the end, they experimented with being free from God. They ate the fruit, they crossed the outer boundary of the garden, and they never returned. They broke faith, and lost a degree of love and closeness with the Creator God which men and women will never again experience in our earthly lifetimes.

Likewise, we daily choose how to use the freedom we possess. Are you freed for something, or seeking to be free from something? Seeking to live as deep inside love as possible, or seeking to experiment with its boundaries?

For Erin and Sarah Shead: I just finished watching North and South and boy was it awesomer than awesome and boy do I need a poster of Richard Armitage. Will he be in the upcoming edition of Teen Beat, do you think?

For Angelo: Where can I get Illy coffee cheaper than at the market? $14 for 8oz. Who am I, Rockefeller?

Cory and Tommy: No TV this Thursday. We go dancing that night before we leave for HS winter camp.

Tommy: Did you eat all those Oreos yourself?

Conversation the first, overheard in the loo…

Girl in the bathroom #1: I wanna go on Thunder Mountain.
Girl in the bathroom #2: What? Magic Mountain?
Girl in the bathroom #1: No Thunder Mountain.
Girl in the bathroom #2: I don’t know that one. Where is it?
Girl in the bathroom #1: Um, Pioneerland.

Conversation the second, overheard on the tram ride back…

Mom (to chubby kid): You’re gonna need a Slurpee on the way home, aren’t you?

First free week and my house is getting cleaner by the moment. It’d be even cleaner if I didn’t drag Paul out dancing three times this week. Mondays at Memories are quite reliably fun lately. You new swing babies should stick around for dancing at 9pm. Only $3. Thursday a few brave souls headed out to Pasadena. Bit of a hit and miss night, but did get to dance with a much loved childhood science icon. Friday night we lazily and eventually headed out to Irvine and danced until 11:30. Smallish crowd, but very fun. Okay folks, back on the horse next week. I know it’s Thanksgiving on Thursday, but Monday and Friday night are business as usual!

On the bright side, I have a brand new computer to type blogs about unemployment on.

1. I am unemployed as of 11/13/09. Yup, that’s Friday the 13th.
2. In a related vein, my swing dancing addiction is still picking up speed, so it’ll be nice to have all those 40 pesky hours of work free to devote to more important endeavors.
3. Does anyone want to start paying me to swing dance? You might, if you knew how much fun I was having. Sort of a charitable thing wherein you could be supporting the increase of joy and crazy-fun in the universe.
4. All the squirrels at my neighborhood parks are hibernating. It’s bumming me out.
5. Not hibernating: a black neighborhood cat that Paul has been feeding which thinks it can use the threat of violent mauling to get whatever it wants from me.
6. Mayonnaise is delicious.
7. Lindy Groove this Thursday?

There are parks on all my routes home. No matter how I try, I cannot help but pass a park on my commute.

Last week, I drove by El Dorado and, according to my usual custom, peeled the old eyeballs for squirrels. Two were playing – or fighting to the death – under a tree, and then another was running on the sidewalk. That’s three squirrels.

I can get excited about a two squirrel day, but THREE? Gosh. It was a good day.

Today, I found a quarter in the hall at work. I won’t stop for a penny, and nickels and dimes aren’t much to judge by, but a found QUARTER day is a good day.

I know what you’re thinking, it’s Monday! Monday is never a good day. But Monday is always dance day, and that’s always good. It’s also Monday after a weekend wherein I shirked all work-related responsibilities, probably for the first time since licensure and boy is that good for me. Squirrels never work. (I don’t count hiding nuts. You can’t get a W2 for that.) And what’s good for a squirrel, is good enough for me.

I’m having it (the best week ever). In no particular order, this week I am having:

-So much fun dancing.
-Job opportunities.
-Good books.
-Good company.
-Good time teaching (and first paycheck).
-Amazing weather.
-An amazing new gray dress.