When I feel blech...

Sometimes, when I've got the blues or imagine that my life has gotten too humdrum, I go to my dvd collection and pop in Swingtime for a little escapism. I always watch this scene which to me is one of the grandest in classic film history:

Salsa!

Okay, before I post about salsa dancing with Emiko and Mayu last night, here's a picture of what I get to look at every day when I leave my apartment for work. Not only do I get to see this every day, I get to hear it from Monday through Friday at 9:00 am sharp. They are building ugly condos next to my ugly apartment complex to add to the long row of ugly buildings that line the main street of Utsunomiya. I wish they would have converted this empty lot into a garden or a small park.Anyway, on to salsa. Going to a dance club in Utsunomiya on a Thursday night with Mayu and Emiko was a pretty trippy experience - primarily because it reminded me of going to the MMC with Jean and Shannon on Thursday nights in St. Paul - there were odd people dancing about - a really fun, retro 50s/60s/70s/80s band, and salsa dance lessons in between. Here's what the night looked like (in a kind of cool, blurry way):
Emiko and I cutting a rug (as the hipsters say):
Emiko and Mayu whoopin' it up on the dance floor:
Me and Mayu havin' a blast - we got those salsa steps down and added some creative twists of our own - most of which ended in our arms getting all tangled around our heads and necks:
The dance instructor - from Arthur Murray - took down my number and is going to try and get me to take lessons. I may do this if I can get their schedule to work with mine. I want to be ready when I get back to the states and go to Monday Night salsa in Minneapolis with Gayle and her friends.

This last picture is of the slowly decaying jack-o-lantern I made with Kentaro at the party - I think it looks quite nice on my porch with my oya stone lantern, potted basil, and just the briefest (no pun intended) glimpse of my boxer briefs hanging out to dry:

more pics from the evening

Okay, here are more pictures. If you haven't read the blog before this one you may want to do so now and then come back to this one. I left off last post with some promenade demonstrations. This was followed by laughter:



Then Jean decided to do a graceful leap:



Earlier in the evening, a woman (who we nicknamed "The Ho") came over to where we were sitting and dragged me on to the dance floor. We danced for a bit as you can see, then she went to find some richer looking John, I guess - I saw her leave with a different guy 5 minutes later (she didn't have a coat on - is that significant? I'm not sure). Any way, here she is:



Then I danced with Shannon and Jean and gave them my "O" face.



Or maybe I was just shocked at this:



This woman was skankily dancing with this man, yet sported a pink triangle - hmmmm... just what message is she sending?

Yet none of this prepared us for the horror of the evening. Here you first see Shannon and my reaction:



Then, what we were looking at. Jean and Shannon call this woman "EW!" EW! and her man were all over each other.



This is how they ended EVERY dance:


EW! indeed. Thanks for a fun evening everyone!

Simmstraviganza

Had a great time hanging out with Jean last night. I only took pics of the second part of the night so here's a quick rundown:
-Ate pizza at Cossettas
-Had tea at the Tea Garden on Grand
-Drove back to my apartment to pick up my MAC TRUCK:


This truck is so me. Okay, so that's the first half of the evening.
Next, we headed to the Minnesota Music Cafe to hear the Tony Simms Band. We were soon joined by Shannon's mom, Shannon's friends Matt and Rachel, and Shannon herself. What follows is what we witnessed.
Really weird dancing...

And great music by a band drinking far too many shots of Jag.


We called this guy Hoppers because of his odd dance style. Here he comes bounding into a group of dancers:

And here he's trying some new move out:

This is shoeless. I understand from Jean and Shannon that she is a very nice lady, but she doesn't wear shoes when she dances - I wish I could say the same for the couple who danced like they just graduated from the Fred Astaire dance school - the lady of this pair wore (with her too tight jeans) gold high heals with black stockings.

We also didn't get a pic of Tai Chi, so here are some of her moves:

This is Third Wheel, so named because he accosted every dance couple on the floor and talked with them, danced with them, and followed them around:

Here he is busting a move:

I think someone farted here. But who did it?:

Third Wheel knows, but he's not telling:

There was this interesting couple in black who made a point of promenading around the edge of the dance floor, disregarding anyone in their path. We didn't get pics of them either, so Jean and I will demonstrate:


For some reason Blogger is being a poop and not letting me upload any more pictures. I may have to do a second post, cuz there's some good ones left to show.