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Night Life
Sunday, July 19, 1998 Friday I annoyed someone online, and went out to a journaler-recommended restaurant.
The swing scene has grown so much in Seattle, that there were three different places for dancing Saturday night. I don't know if I like that! Even if there are enough customers to support so many venues, it makes it difficult to find my dance buddies, since we usually don't prearrange our meetings. Last night was the first night at something new they are trying at the Meany Hotel in the University District. They'll be having a swing band for dancing on a monthly basis for at least the next two months. I wanted to check this out! I wore my short red dress, pearl drop earrings, and white tights. Since a vintage clothing contest was part of the evening, I saw people arriving dressed in old evening gowns. I like to dress up, but I prefer to wear something that I know I'll be able to dance in and be comfortable. I sat down in the deco-style lobby and put on my dancing shoes (I don't like to wear them in the street) and entered the ballroom in time for the lesson. I hadn't quite realized that the dance was being cross-promoted with a local singles commercial enterprise, Events and Adventures. This meant that there was a huge chunk of the crowd that not only didn't know how to dance (I don't mind that) but really were there to chat each other up! Other problems I saw: the traffic patterns caused by the entrance to the room dumping right into the middle of the dance floor forced people to walk in between the dancers. The room was also rather small considering the number of people there. I had a few philosophical disagreements with the folks from the Savoy Swing Club who were doing the pre-dance lesson, and body mikes for them would have been a good idea as well, but they did a pretty good job under difficult circumstances. Then the John Holte Radio Rhythm Combo (not the Orchestra, which is larger) started playing, and I started looking around to see who I could dance with. My buddy Doug and I had discussed whether it would be better to go to the Ballard Eagles lodge later, and it soon seemed like this would be a good idea. I did find a few good partners, though. I was especially pleased that I got the chance to dance with Hal. He's a former dance classmate, but he hasn't been in the last few sessions (too busy!), and I always enjoy dancing with him. There's a great feeling of relaxation and trust there! The most entertaining part of this early portion of the evening: just as I was walking from the ballroom to the lobby, a woman approached me. "Are you Anita?" she asked. I admitted as much, and she revealed herself as a reader of this journal! I've forgotten if she said how she found the page (Maybe from the swing-seattle-chat mailing list?) but I think this is the first time someone has delurked to me in person, when I haven't known them in any other context. (I don't count Debbie Schwarz, since she is a longtime sf fan and Vanguard member though I didn't know her.) This reader prefers that I not name her at this time (she said it would be too much like begging to be mentioned on this page!) so I'll just refer to her as D----. Hi, D---! She and I, and a friend of hers, discussed aspects of the Seattle scene, and gossiped about various folks.
If I'm going to be club-hopping (not something I want to be doing), I'd rather that the clubs were closer together than Ballard and the University District. But the drive didn't take too long, and I was soon at the Ballard Eagles Lodge. This time there was no nonsense about our having the option to join the lodge. We had to fill out the application form (fee waived) to go in the door. It did seem to be quite a bit smokier (yuck!) than last time, but there was more room on the dance floor. I talked with some people who had also come from the Meany. They said that I had left at the right time, since they had started with a lot of fashion shows, and other activities that were not dancing, shortly after I left. I danced with some new partners, and some that I've danced with before. I was really pleased to see Dan Ross come in; we danced a bunch! And by then it was late and there was all the room we needed. He and some other folks had been at the third swing event held this evening: a band had been playing for dancing down on the Pier. He said it was great there! Oh, well, there will be other nights.
We had the second edition of our RC Art Cars Cacophony event today. A good day for it in Fremont; not too hot! There's just something that amuses me about running the cars around and having them seemingly take on a life of their own, when the controllers interfere with each other. After the event, I walked around the Sunday Market there and got some new earrings. Many of the pairs I have are too long and dangly for dancing, so I got three pairs that are just one single bead hanging below the earlobe. That's enough to have some motion and sparkle, without flying out of my ears on the turns, or interfering otherwise with dancing.
I wore one of the new pairs of earrings tonight at the Showbox, a pair that are dark-irridescent crystals. I drove downtown and parked on the far side of the Pike Place Market, across the street from the park there. I keep switching between thinking it's better to drive (convenient, but sometimes hard to park downtown even on Sunday night) and thinking it's better to ride the bus (I have a pass, but buses don't run often on Sunday). Tonight was "Caberet" night, which meant that dancing was interspersed with an Argentinian Tango demo, and a tap dance performance by Dave Atkinson and another dancer. I appreciate the efforts put forth by these folks, but I wonder why the management or promoters think these distractions are necessary? I'd much rather keep the music going and keep dancing! One amusing thing tonight: I saw across the dance floor that my buddy Sterling had arrived. I looked around for him a few minutes later, and couldn't see him. Then I realized that he was standing on the steps right in front of me, his back to me, or so I thought! I tapped this man on the shoulder, and when he turned around, of course it was someone complete different! It was a much shorter man in a similar hat, and the fact that he was lower on the stairs than I was had disguised the height discrepancy. "Oh, I'm sorry! I though you were someone else!" But I said yes when he asked me to dance (or did I ask him?) but it turned out that he didn't know how. Ah, well... I had been a bit dubious about the walk back to my car, through the empty Market, but I didn't see anyone scary.
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