Getting Back on the Blogging Tracks

Apparently my time in San Antonio has totally derailed what little blogging momentum I had built up the previous week. Bummer. Until I can build up steam for full-on ramblings, here are some tidbits to hold you over.

Highlight of the San Antonio trip had to be the Book Cart Drill Team competition. Few things hold as much potential for comedy as a group of library workers dressed up in strange costumes, dancing and pushing heavily decorated book carts around to the driving beats of "Staying Alive" or "The Hustle" or "Space Cowboy" or what-have you.

I wish the video camera on my cell phone could have captured the group dressed up like Tina Turner from the "Proud Mary" days, since they were the height of unintentional comedy, with half of them getting into shaking their grove things, and the other half just bouncing around merrily like they were walking beside a float in a parade.

After a few weeks of little exercise -- outside of walking up and down the convention center hauling around luggage -- I finally got back into the embarrassing-myself-on-the-basketball-court routine on Tuesday, at which point I discovered that my body is a sneaky son of a gun; now that I'm outfitted with ankle and knee braces to avoid damaging those body parts further, other parts of my traitorous body have decided to start rebelling. It's a freaking conspiracy of neurotic proportions! And yet, I still played racquetball last night, and plan to embarrass myself on the basketball court yet again this evening. Glutton for punishment, I am; why else would I still be rooming with PigPen?

Due to the influence of relative newcomer Cap'n Bubbles, several of the Singles have started going swing dancing. A local group has lessons twice a month; they basically have the lesson from 8-9, and then just straight up dancing from 9-midnight. I enjoy the lessons, (the last couple of times we've been working on The Lindy Hop)

but don't feel comfortable enough with my meager skills to really enjoy the regular dance portion yet. A couple of girls have told Peanut and me that swing is just all about "making up the moves as you go along"; neither he nor I agree with that statement, and even if we did, making up dance moves isn't necessarily my forte, especially when I'm dancing with a partner who has to somehow follow along with these supposedly improvisational movements. On a related note, I am entranced by the idea of learning The Shag for some reason.


Another reason for my general lack of blogging is that there are multiple things going on in my life that, for one reason or another, I don't feel comfortable blogging about; of course, these things I can't blog about are at the forefront of my brain, and push everything else to the back of the line. And if you're reading this and thinking "Gee, I wonder if he's talking about situation X," well, odds are good that, yes, situation X is mixed in there, along with three or four others. I mention this merely as a sort of pressure relief measure, so that by acknowledging that there are things I can't write about, I might be able to lessen the desire to write about them. Yes, I know how crazy that sounds. It's also my way of preemptively apologizing to those who deal with me in person if I am moody, distracted, and a drag to be around.*

I have yet to write my story for the Write in the Thick of It challenge; I do have the basic story idea in my head, just haven't written it out yet. And, looks like it's going to be another super-hero story; shocking, I know. Actually, it is a little bit of a shock to me since, while many of my SF stories are strongly influenced by my comic obsession, I have written very little in the way of straight-up super-hero stories over the years.



*"Even more so than usual, I mean" he said, trying to head PigPen off at the pass