I'm waiting for mobile broadband to load a map at the intersection of Pearl & Liberty (in Pittsburgh, PA) so I can figure out how to get back to Meadville; I want to pick up chocolate milk and enjoy that throughout Easter, though that's a gamble on the market house being open. Good food and a walkabout downtown sounds just about right for a Sunday morning.
Went dancing. I'm always shy in a new place, waiting a few rounds before walking up to someone and asking for a dance, but once I get into it it's pretty good. There were a few great leads, too. I like dancing with really active, strong leads that fling you around and leave you breathless, but even more than that I appreciate leads who connect - I don't know the right words for it, but it's the subtle ability to reach out and pull you back right at that moment, a sense of timing and listening and making sure you're there.
After the swing dance, the handful of people left moved into a smaller room across the hall for blues. It was a music classroom that had been emptied out; posters of instruments and the colors in Spanish plastered the walls, and the entire thing was lit by an open door, an exit sign, and the DJ's laptop. Room was dark, music was thick, there were only about 4-5 couples on the floor at any given time because there were only about a dozen people in the room.
Tonight was a good night for me. I was able to turn the logical chattering part of my brain off and actually be a responsive follow, even during increasingly tricky lindy maneuvers. Blues, though, went really well. Blues is not a dance for people who want to avoid physical contact - which is why I started learning it in the first place. Touch-phobia exposure therapy. And now I actually enjoy it; it's amazing how a tiny shift in pressure on your shoulder blade can tell you exactly where to spin, and... I'm doing a poor job of description, but the ability to breathe together with another person is ridiculously crazy cool. I even got to do dips. With multiple leads. It was a good night for dancing.
I may just give up on the online maps now and just blindly try to find the highway. I mean, how bad can it be?