I simply contend that the middle-class ideal which demands that people be affectionate, respectable, honest and content, that they avoid excitements and cultivate serenity is the ideal that appeals to me, it is in short the ideal of affectionate family life, of honorable business methods.
-- Gertrude Stein
Ballroom DanceThursday, October 2, 1997 Yesterday I successfully exchanged the gift I had picked out for my boss, which hadn't worked quite correctly. This Deluxe Travel Companion is so popular, they had to swap my nonfunctioning unit with the smoke alarm/motion sensor part of a display unit. They had no others left! I'll really miss her! She's really smart, direct and funny. She is also good at giving her direct reports that appreciated feeling. Since she has enough logo'd clothing to last her a long time, she arranged things so that I could get the nice pull-over Polartec fleece jacket that would have gone to her. (Another case where contractors aren't allowed, but at least they didn't make a big deal of the great ship gift at the ship party.) And we all know how much I like that Polartec. It's so Seattle! This evening was the second in the series of swing dance classes I signed up for. I like to wear skirts to this kind of thing. They move so nicely! So I was digging around for something to wear and came up with a very nice light-weight sweater, black, beaded in bronzes and purples. I always like things that are that dark iridescence. It's been in the drawer for a while, so I combined it with a print skirt and off I went. The Century Ballroom is in that grey zone, just that distance from my house that I could easily walk, or take the bus. Tonight I was waiting at the bus stop, thinking that I could have walked in the time I was waiting! The bus stop is right in front of some interesting houses, or are they apartments? There are two duplex kind of buildings, one fronting on my street, and one around the corner on the side street. They wouldn't be good for folks that are fanatical about privacy, but they are entertaining for passersby because of the large windows that display each living room. I was interested to see one of the occupants come home. His unit had actually been curtainless for quite a few weeks after he moved in, and I had admired the spare, zen-like atmosphere he had developed there. He seemed like a small, well-dressed young man in a suit. I don't know what I was expecting. Out of what elements do we construct these imaginary ideas about people? This duplex complex [x xstacy!] features in my fantasies as a cohousing or group living compound for my friends and I. I especially like the way the two units on the side street have developed the front yards as a nice courtyard, with tiny white lights all over the trees and shrubs. I always walk that way when walking home from the film festival in June. Dance class was great! People are starting to relax and have a good time. We rotate partners throughout the class, which is always a good idea. I danced with one leader (a woman) who had had surgery on her arm that day. Now that is dedication! So she lead one-handed, which was a challenge for her and us at our beginning level, but good practice. When I left and walked down to the bus stop to go home, I noticed that the used record store was dark, with two men standing in the doorway. I glanced inside and saw that they were showing a movie inside, so I peeked to see a jazz trumpeter in a smokey room on the screen. There was a poster on the inside of the window, "Presented by Dennis Nyback" with details about the movie. One of the men spoke to me, "We're showing archival blues footage. Five dollars, or whatever you want to pay." I looked, and it was Dennis himself! He didn't remember me, but he's been showing old movies around town for a long time. He had a storefront theater in 1992, and he and his wife put together a benefit showing of work and labor-related movies for us when we were on strike from a legal publishing firm at that time. We chatted for a few minutes, then I went on. Seattle is a small town!
Our old friend Carl gave me a few tips on this month's redesign, and I got several notes from non-CSS enabled browser users about text bleeding over the dark portion of the background, so I made some tweaks. Ah, the perils of web design when presentation suggestions are just that, suggestions. But that's the web, and that's why we love it so. Any webTV users or readers who use a palmtop device to read the web, send me mail and tell me how this looks!
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