for the new, for the old, for the time, for the rush, for the balance, for the warm tummy, for the heated dance, for the snow outside, for the right choices, for the metafiction, for the animal cookies, for the goodjob, for the family, for the multitudes of friends, for the collaborations, for the learnings, for the laughing, for the soft sifting, for cameras, for Fuji-cuddles, for colors, for…

ahem. Let’s consider the way I’ve been running around so fast that I’ve hardly had time to articulate the waltz itself.

So much going on, and most of it is wonderfully unexpected, and some of it I barelydared hope for, and some of it is quiet—maybe a little sad sometimes—and some of it is a noisy bulge—luscious like fruitflowing—and here I go.

Wine night has been going smashingly. Not literally, no broken glasses lately, just lots of energy and excitement, a new SAIC journal produced by tw (maybe soon to be at This Site), santa cd-mixes coming up, newmusic, funny stories and tattoos (check out "(…)"), and lots of books and pictures and furniture to snoop over at each new person’s house.

Last Monday, we were all standing around talking about mixed cd’s and I was drunk enough that anything that fell out of my mouth sounded a little silly, so I was just admiring everyone else’s sassy. Not to mention that last week, while perfectly sober, I managed to fall through a door while attempting to illustrate the fact that the door was quite locked. It was locked for the first three thumps of my body, but on the fourth (the magical fourth), I went whump on my butt and then tried to regain my composure with a bunch of folks grinning, teasing, and attempting to not hurt my littlepride. At least I didn’t spill the wine. So, this last time, I knew to be semi-quiet and docile and not make too much of a fool of myself. Instead I just admired this roughly transcribed conversation between m and tw:

M: “I always put Superfreak on my mixes. It’s my signature.”
T: “Oh, I don’t know about that. I’m not sure how I’d react to Superfreak on a mixed CD.”
M: “It’s great. You’d have to dance, because I mix it in perfectly.”
T: “Ah, I see. I wouldn’t be able to help dancing.”

Here’s where tw starts dancing a little. That is, his arm starts dancing.

T: “My body would just take over…”

tw’s arm does a little wave. His hips skitter a little.

T: “while my head would be saying, I don’t quite know what to make of this…”

And tw breaks a little move.

Ah, yes, this is winenight incarnate.

Dancing. I went sashaying about the town last weekend with sp’s sister b. We went to the lovely Excalibur, chockablock full with shimmering knights and lusting dragoons, and the spot was quite wretchedly horrible, but fascinating in its own way, and I ended up having a wonderful time despite, or maybe because of, the cheese.

When I got there, two mc’s were yapping up on the stage, trying to get a few slutty girls from the crowd to come up and give a lap dance. A poor bloke who had to qualify for lapdancing by having not been laid in a long time got the honors. The three woman: an older blonde who seems half-sloshed & half-cracked on something else, a cheerleadery blond chick who managed to whack it like a pony as she shimmied on the fellow, and a large black woman with megaboobs and a rhythm and beat alllllll her own. Of course, the last one won. And after this, I took over the floor (my job, heehee), and was ruthlessly dominating of all the little puppydogs, which included flirting wantonly and then prancing away.

At one point, I had a troop of groovers starting to slide their little paws onto my hips, and I was working it, and the music was working it, and b was working it, and mooshing and gyring and slippywalking and bendying and sliding my fingers along the outside of arms, but hey baby, I’m not into that for too long, and so I slid off the stage down a large man’s bod and into his arms, lipping “that’s the way, uh huh,” and I thought he was going to pass out. I sent him back for b, who got a spin off the stage, and then the three of us, and then some others, and one of the stage-fellows hadn’t gotten enough, and so I had to take his groping little arms and wrap them around a tall sexy fratboy, who didn’t seem too happy about the move, and I like making people embarrassed when they deserve it, and then b and I went downstairs and danced with pool cues and lamented the “out of order” state of the air hockey, and then we dodged out of the place and went to Clarks for a late-night dinner and then I got home at the appropriate time: 5:30am. How time flies.

And then there’s the movies and the plays and the studio-walks and the classes and the bumpings into people on the subway and getting to talk. Mmmmmm.

For Thanksgiving food, I decided to stay home and give thanks by eating enchiladas and drinking hot chocolate and trying to get back into the writingrut, but I ended up joining roomie ll to go to the SAIC ballroom dinner, where the school had cooked up a feast for all the international students and folks stuck in town. It was a good move on my part, because I hit turkey rupture rapture and then rolled home with a plate of leftovers, which I picked at for the rest of the day. And I chatted with a few of the internationals that I knew… Romania, Greece, an American fellow who mimicked the sound of a koala (wwwwwwraaaaaaaahhh), which I think qualifies him for international status.

And then there’s the temples (Baha’i) and the library and the emails from lovelylovelylovely folks and the conversations on telephone:

The fam was all moving into their newy new house and carrying the fridge, and washing the fridge, and peeling the potatoes, and dealing with the “tofurky emergency,” and telling me strange stories about diversification, which sis sorta suggested indicate that we are all just tamed monkeys (an interesting thanksgiving conversation), and saying hellow to friends, and getting drunk, and…

al & sp & nm & all seem to be doing exciting things-all related via long phone conversations that made me happy.

And then there are the evenings out and visits to Trader Joes (which included a mean run-in with a bastard parking-lot thief who ticked my friend off until she followed him around in tj’s attempting to guilt him into the run, which eventually worked) and drinks with friends and making omelets and…

My turtle bit the head off his last non-feeder fish. So, I cleaned his aquarium.

And the funny little roly-poly woman on the subway who was sitting on the bench near me, and all of a sudden started muttering, and then shouting about “Speak English!” This originally startled me until I noticed a crew of three short borachitos in black leather coats wandering drunkenly about the station and singing, “P’que todo tienen q’sufriiiiiiir? L’amor, l’amor…” I found them quite pleasantly amusing, but roly-poly woman (It actually took me awhile to determine whether she was a woman. She looked like a truncated version of Fat Albert with a little orange condom-hat on her head. She was carting around two bags, one of which was full of socks and the other of which appeared to have groceries. She wore baggy 80’s tie-stained jeans and black rebocks with her heels sticking out where she hadn’t bothered to put them in all the way, despite the freeeeeeeezing weather. [Which explains the bag of socks]. I finally realized that for sure she was a woman when she said, “how’d you like to get karate chopped by a woman?”) started wanting to fuck something up.

Apparently she had “karate chopped a policeman this very day” and was going to “open a can a’whumpass” on those drunkards singing their suffering-songs. “C’mon over,” she invited, and I looked over to see if the Mexicans were going to oblige. Apparently not. However, they were not oblivious, and raised their voices. But they seemed to be having goodfun with the situation. The ante got upped as their train pulled in to the opposite tunnel, and the woman felt like they needed to take that moment, that very one, to select whether they were going to “flee” or “face her like men, and come get their karate chops.” I wondered for a second if these would be like porkchops. “Why aincha comin over,” she asked, “you all great big pussies?” At this one of the leather coated men took a few steps over and then backed up again, saying, “I ain gonna waste time con una mujer loca.”

Well, they all got their metaphorical chop as roly-woman lifted her middle finger and affirmationally sliced through the air as they climbed onto their train.

Ahhhh, the subway, the subway, the subway. I feel a little rush of “here I am. Here in the city, here in this city, this Chicago, with the echoing burrows and trains and rush and whoosh and breeze before the storm, and wind and heated trains and wait-stations with heat lamps, and people clicking through turnstiles and winging their ways, and folks of all colors and styles and hairstyles and clothes and loud conversations and iPod bopping of heads and homeless shakings and little kids invisible in parka/boots and musicians down at the Washington redline stop, and sleeping folks and wired folks, and me dancing my way (‘cause I can’t help dancing all the time these days)."

And what else is there to mention? the snow, the history riding softer on me as I sort through the time /rush /moment /sweet /crazy /painful /intense /live /flushed moments I wish to claim as I run and rush and dodge and connect and love and smile and everything that I’m feeling these days.

All in all, much to be thankful for, including a mess of things I haven’t had a chance to write about yet.