No posts last week. We've both gotten busier--Kate at her full-time temp job, and me, inspired by her, to get back to the lab and interpreting sub-bottom data again (the layer cake stuff I successfully turned her on with last fall). Despite our financial situation not improving yet, it's past time I ditched the self-pity and began working on things that matter, even though I'm not currently earning an income. Stalled out is not a good way to live, whatever the circumstances. For a little while, okay, but a timeout shouldn't last the entire game (so to speak). So...timeout over.We're nearing completion on the sale of the NH dock, which will help immensely, though it certainly doesn't solve all of our short-term problems. Much more promisingly, as encouraged by Katie's brother-in-law Len, I blitzed a bunch of stimulus-act contractors with my resume, and I have an interview with one this coming Friday. If that turns into even a few months' gig I'll owe Len a gigantic debt of gratitude. Those two things, along with Katie's job and our applying for short-term mortgage relief, give me some measure of hope. Feeling unable to provide for us, and needing to rely on the good graces of a creditor because I can't pay, is humbling to the point of anger. But if we close this week and I find work with this company, then even though I'll need to leave town for work, I'll feel again like I'm doing my end of the job for this family.
Despite all that, Katie and I manage to have good times. She remains a budding hoops fan, just as despondent as I am that the Orlando Magic have choked away their best chances and the Lakers will win the championship. We haven't gone out dancing since New Year's, and Saturday while doing our pool-hot tub (legs only for her, Cori! Katie's being very safe)-sunbathing routine, a neighbor reminded us of the evening's Waterfire. For those of you who don't know (that is to say,
everyone from outside of Rhode Island), Waterfire is a summertime (rarely, for holidays, during 
colder weather) street party in the middle of Providence, where buoys with baskets of burning wood line the centers of the rivers flowing through the city. Music is piped into speakers which line the quaysides, and vendors of food, drinks and kids' amusements line the sidewalks for many streets around. The effect is like a combined street fair, campfire, Druid celebration and European carnival (particularly when you see the mimes, and the gondolas which ply the river). It's a lot of fun, but 
easy to overdo (especially as it's held every two weeks). The crowds along the river can be difficult to put up with too. About once a month a plaza near the river is partly covered with a dance floor and stage, and there is dancing. Usually one type of dance is featured. Last night was salsa, but at other times 
it's swing, Argentine tango, or foxtrot-waltz (lumped into one as "ballroom"). There's a lesson to start, mostly for beginners, and then live music for about four hours, and at some point a performance by high-level dancers (sometimes amateur, sometimes pro). The range of people who go is pretty big--beginners just dropping by, interested beginners looking to learn (which describes Kate), intermediate dance lovers (which describes me), and especially, for dances with folk origins like salsa and Argentine, lifelong dancers who have almost hypnotic style. I have kind of a love-hate relationship with ballroom dancing. I do love it, almost equally to singing, but the competitive aspect of ballroom repulses me. I can be competitve too, and I want to be the sharpest guy out there, but the vanity and disdain for your competition which are so endemic to the sport, and which I start to take on, are things I simply don't want in my life. Every time I see a dancer who gives off that sense I react viscerally against it--as Kate can now attest.
I think of ballroom, or paired dance in general, in terms of three basic ideas: a joyful, almost goofy celebration of life and everything in it, with all the various feelings the music induces; an exercise in precision, coordination and sensitivity; and a relationship between a man and a 
woman (including a courtesy not unlike that of a martial artist for an opponent). All the latin dances are very sexual and aggressive, and each has a different mood. They share 4/4 time, with a jazz influence of stronger 2 and 4 beats: one-TWO-three-FOUR; but latin drumming is some of the most complicated and hypnotic on earth, and those beats can be artfully covered. Bolero and rumba, the slowest, are almost ominous, with each partner stalking the other. The seduction is already well underway. Cha-cha, slightly faster, with its triple step thrown in between the 4 and 1 beats, is flirtatious in tone, highly charged but the woman seems to reject him during certain steps (or he her). Where rumba and bolero are very serious, cha is playful. Mambo-salsa (virtually the same dance) is faster still, almost adolescent in its gaiety and speed. It's the most purely joyful of all the latin dances--with the possible exception of samba, which is so different it deserves its own paragraph.
Samba, along with waltz and occasionally Argentine, vies for the top spot in my list of favorites. 
It's a different beat, 2/4, and two measures (or any even number) generally make up one choreographed step. The dance got its start as a street processional dance, and is still to this day. But the street processional was also stylized into a social dance. It's known as Brazilian waltz, because you fit three steps into two beats: ONE...a-TWO...THREE...a-FOUR. Divide the measure into eighths (with each beat being four eighths): the ONE consumes four eighths (the first beat); the "a" takes up one eighth, and the TWO consumes three (together making up the second beat). That kind of foot timing requires a lot of energy and coordination, and it can leave beginners looking like they have springs in their shoes, or like they're trying to shake each other to death. But a coordinated samba...it surges and moves around the floor with the power and grace of a cat chasing its prey, or a sports car hugging curves at high speed. The dance can take on many personalities: dark and aggressive, light and joyous, athletic and exhibitive, tribal and sweaty (I 
like tribal and sweaty). The strength of the drums and the overall melody set the mood. Actually, one of my favorite sambas comes from the soundtrack to George of the Jungle: just a bunch of drums, and a gang of guys singing "OO-ma-WEH." For some reason I love it. (For some reason, I also love Japanese cartoons about futuristic interplanetary bounty hunters, but I don't think the two interests are related.)
I'll talk some other time about the smooth dances like waltz, foxtrot and tango. I'll also write about swing (which is my least favorite. Kind of like saying oatmeal raisin is my least favorite cookie. Cookies are great things, and I'll accept any, but my heart belongs to chocolate, not raisins).
So last night was salsa night at Waterfire, and Katie and I dropped by to see the lesson, which I disdained. She learned the basic step in less than five minutes from me, and in about six dances was doing all kinds of turns and spins, so I felt okay just walking on by and waiting for the band 
to start up. We watched the firestarting processional--somewhat dramatic itself with the firedancer on the lead boat--and went back to the dance floor, where the eight-piece band was live. We did a few ourselves, and Katie got back into the step, moving her hips like a lady should (don't tell her to do the Helen Keller!) and learning the beat. After two or three songs we took a break, went to watch the flames, and then came back. This time we watched, which is a big part of the fun of going dancing: admiring (or disadmiring) other dancers, and picking up bits of style or different moves from the good ones. And there was a range, even among the good dancers: those who did more folk-style salsa, the latinos and latinas, with a lot of clever hand leads and behind-the-back passes; those who just sort of juked, cleverly, to the music; and the ballroom-trained, step-just-so crew.
I saw one such couple who offended me deeply. The man looked like a Marine: muscular, big shoulders, close-cropped hair, wide jaws, fierce expression on his face. The woman, in heels, was slightly taller than he, dark-haired and voluptuous. Technically, they were very good. Every step, every lead, every line was precise, nicely timed, not rushed or violent. (Lots of strong guys wrestle their partners around the floor with varying amounts of force. Not Mr. Marine.) I was a little jealous of his skill, since I'm way out of practice. But the joylessness of his face excited my spite, to the point that I said nothing good about either of them, and condemned them to Katie as boring.
She took personal offense to this, being a beginning dancer who hopes someday to be as skilled as those two clearly were. She took my comment on the dancers as a comment on her. For the 
first time I can remember since we've met, I didn't back down when she protested, but went on slamming the couple, growing impatient with how she connected them with herself. It was, pathetic as it sounds, the closest she and I have come yet to a fight.
That's pretty ridiculous, isn't it?
Part of it was shame that I'm so rusty right now. But part of it was memory of the hypercompetitive jerks I've met in the dance world, people who believe that their desire to be great dancers makes nearly everyone else unfit for their company. That's the kind of thing I term "empty pride", and it's a good way to tick me off. It took me a while--a few more dances, and a glass of beer--to simmer down. I'm still kind of simmering down, I guess. It has me wanting to start practicing again with Katie. Maybe I'll call the studio, see if they'll let us practice while we're not taking lessons...
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