The Rout Continues

Don't be fooled by the picture.

I'm writing this upstairs at the Empire Dine and Dance, sitting in a comfy barber chair that rotates way too easily for a man recovering from the day I've had.

The Black Russian sitting next to me isn't helping - or is helping too much.

Here we are, it's dance night at the Empire with Party More (Ian and Chris both from the Orchard) getting ready to DJ music from the 80's and music written last week that sounds just like the 80's.

Applets are starting to stream in and it looks like there may be a more diverse crowd than last week.

For myself I'm recovering from new shoes and their effect on my right heel - namely it hurts from wearing a really comfortable pair of shoes for too long during the first week of ownership.

Outside it feels comfortably cool - not the biting cold we've had the last few days.  The streets are clearing off, the snow piles are starting to shift and settle.  Large pools of water are forming everywhere, more water than ice.  It's still tough on shoes, though.  The damp has an effect and folks carry backpacks or bags obviously stuffed with extra shoes.

Business-people in sensible suits and skirts sport off-white sneakers under their long coats.

For myself I'm in the strange but apocryphal position between a rock and a hard place.  I've got two pieces of music on my plate - mutually exclusive, different structures, different keys and implied forms.

Both seem to make sense and like some kind of strange musical meange a trois  they don't seem to mind their apparent proximity to each other  - and to me.  Right now they seem willing to share and will probably continue to do so until some simple issue brings out their hidden, irrational agendas and they fight for dominance.

Until then I seem perfectly able to keep both pieces separate in my head, giving each just enough attention to develop as ideas until one suddenly leaps to the fore and gets finished first.

I'm getting another Black Russian.

There is a larger crowd than last week.  Solitary women dance, there's a much, much older man - older than me and much less put together - in a baseball cap (RedSox, I think) a bulging t-shirt and a jean jacket, jeans and ragged boots.  He tries to dance, kind of just outside the sphere of one of the girls.  They're neither one the best dancer in the world.

I suppose this is really not my scene - socially, directly.  But it's fun to watch folks watch and maybe someone will really dance.  

The older man has left.  Trying to steal crumbs of what - youth?  hipness?  sex? crumbs from a feast that is serving nothing but Jello.  

Not worth the effort.

So - with my own batteries recharged, in some strange, Terpsichorean way - or recharged by two indifferently mixed Black Russians (remember, this is the home of the Worst Irish Coffee in the World)  I think I'll head home and catch up on news, much as I like this funk vibe.

Meanwhile, outside, the roofs drip and the rout of February thaw continues.