Had a fabulous night last night! Went to jadia's birthday dinner — happy birthday, jadia! —, which was delightful, three tables full of happy MITniks make a happy beowabbit.

Then I swung by plumtreeblossom's to pick her up and we went to a fab party at surrealestate's (and sorry for not shouting out to her housemate; I don't know his LJ name). Oh, my, that was amazing. I danced, which never happens. (Well, if you can call what I was doing dancing.) I even danced alone when Rasputin came on. And I snuggled with lots of awesome people, got to reconnect with Dreaming, whom I haven't gotten to see much of since he's been busy with school, got to check out joyeous' lovely tats, and generally had a fabulous time. Oh, and the coconut rum got the 'Wabbit Seal of Approval. Wow, surrealestate throws a wonderful party. (And it was awesome to see her, too!)

Believe it or not, plumtreeblossom and I were too tired when we got home around 4:00am! I must say, it's been a lovely morning.

Dancing was fun, although (1) I got there a bit late, (2) I left at the break, and (3) none of y’all showed up. This was my first time seeing the new space, and I liked it.

That dance is still overwhelmingly mixed-sex couples, but it seems to get a little more genderbent whenever I go. The thing I found most entertaining tonight was two men jointly dancing the following part, joined at the hip, so when there was a swing it would be three men. Their neighbours had to really stretch to turn them under their arms, though. I approve.

Now is sleepytime; Jays are tired.

(1) I am going to NYC the last weekend in February, the 25th and 26th. I am mostly going to be visiting K., but I would love to see other NYC-area peoples. I am probably taking the Fung Wah bus to Chinatown Saturday morning and back Sunday evening. Saturday early afternoon or Sunday late afternoon/early evening would probably be good times to see me. Yay!

(2) Only I could get lost on the way home from the IHOP that’s about ten blocks from my house, and which I’ve been to several times. I’m used to walking from near there, but a couple blocks over. So I was on autopilot, and turned a block too early, and continued on autopilot until I was far away from my house in an unknown direction.

My new boots are starting to get broken in.

(3) However, my feet had better be happy again by tomorrow evening, ’cause I’m going contra dancing at the Thursday Used-To-Be-VFW dance now at Springstep Center in Medford. I haven’t been in a long time, and not since they moved to their new location, but I’m looking forward to it and it will be good for me. Ooh! I just looked at the web page, and the Greenfield dance band is playing! That should be good! Would be lovely to see any of my contra-dancing friends there.

I only got about four or five hours’ sleep last night, so I’m afraid I’m going to skip dancing tonight. Next week, in Jerusalem Cambridge!

I'm not 100% certain of this, but I'm hoping to go contra dancing at the Cambridge VFW tomorrow (Thursday). The dance is from 8:00-11:00. This is a public-service announcement in case anybody else wants to join me.

sionnagh and I went contra dancing last night, at a small dance on a community college campus. It was lots of fun. There was only one contra line, but the dancing was good, the people were very friendly, the callers were great, and the large band (8 players, I believe) was lots of fun. A few of the dancers I chatted with were familiar with the Cambridge VFW dance (and were happy to hear how healthy it seems to be and how much new blood has come in over the past few years), and a couple were familiar with the Concord Scout House dances.

I know I say this every time I go contra dancing, and then I don’t actually do it, but I really need to make more space for contra dancing in my life.

So, animals.

First of all, Honolulu is (according to the screen saver on the airplane on the way here) the 11th-largest city in the United States. It is extremely common to keep chickens here. sionnagh’s new house in Kalihi, which is sort of between downtown and the airport, is across the street from a bunch of chickens. Her and docorion’s old house in Ewa Beach has chickens down at the end of the road. So even in fairly urban Honolulu, morning involves the crowing of roosters. It’s kind of nice, actually.

I had forgotten about the feral cats since the last time I visited. In a parking lot, we noticed a groundskeeper moving a big cage trap, and asked him what it was for, and he told us “street cats”. On the mainland, at least the parts of it I’m familiar with, if you see a cat on the sidewalk or crossing the street, it’s probably a housecat that’s out prowling, or maybe a housecat that got lost or was abandoned by its people. In Hawai‘i, if you see a cat outside it’s a good bet that it’s feral, and that its parents were feral. It’s a little odd; people think of cats as poor little cute pests. (Of course, people do have housecats, too, although dogs seem to be more common.) I have the general sense that more people keep dogs than chickens, but more people keep chickens than cats. (docorion or sionnagh, wanna correct me?)

Nice cholesterol-laden breakfast with docorion this morning — a treat, since for some reason I’d thought he was working the early-morning shift today — and this afternoon sionnagh has organized a games day, the last part of which docorion will probably be back for.

Didn’t get as much sleep last night as previous nights, probably due to too much caffeine yesterday. (Oh, Mountain Dew has caffeine? I was just looking for sugar. Whoops.) But I’m still feeling pretty great.

I am debating between seeing Harry Potter this evening (Fenway 7:05; Assembly Square 8:25 or 8:35, Boston Common 7:15 or 9:20, or Revere 9:25) and going contra dancing. If anybody would like to attempt to influence my decision with offers of company, feel free to use the space below.

Oh, and a happy birthday to slinkr! And in case I don’t post tomorrow, happy early birthday to qlewkr!

So Dreaming and I went contra dancing tonight, and it was excellent! The band was great. The dances were fun and flowed well. And I appreciated some of the cultural changes that seem to have happened at this dance in the years since I went there regularly.

There were a few same-sex couples dancing — just a handful, but significantly more than when I used to dance regularly there, and they were not just because there weren’t enough of one gender at the dance; in at least a couple cases, I got the impression that particular people preferred to dance in same-sex couples. The first person who asked me to dance was a man. There were also a lot of young people, which of course speaks well for the health and long-term viability of the community. And, without knowing much at all about me, one dancer casually referred to her primary, and another one casually referred to the Flea. I think I like the directions that that particular subculture is moving in.

I went contra dancing last night, for probably the first time in two or three years. When I first moved to the Boston area, I danced two or three nights a week, but it’s been a very long time since I’ve danced regularly. I think it's time to fix that.

I had originally planned to go because hawkegirl and cos were going to be there, but they ended up not making it. But I had also made plans with Dreaming to go, and surrealestate ended up coming as well. I had a wonderful time!

This was at the Thursday VFW dance in Cambridge. It was interesting going back there after such a long gap. I think the average age has gone down a bit, although all ages from 8 to 80 were represented. The caller used “ladies” and “gents” when calling, but made it clear as she was walking through the dances that anybody was welcome to play any part, and there were a few same-sex couples, including me and Dreaming for one dance. Yay! I hadn’t gotten to dance with him before. (It was also my first opportunity to dance with surrealestate; in fact, I don’t think she and I had ever been at the same dance before.)

Unfortunately, there were a few dances that weren’t walked through ad nauseam until everybody got them, and which were sufficiently elaborate in terms of people moving around that if not everybody knew exactly where they were supposed to be, the confusion would cascade. But there were also lots of dances that just flowed really well (actually, I think all of them would have flowed really well if all the dancers had them down), and I had lots of fun.

Definitely going back soon.