Wednesday Night at the Harmony School Gymnasium

Contra-dancers all over the country are the same. The same grey-haired boomers with ponytails and shirts with ponies or lizards or sunsets on them, the same elderly men with small visible injuries tottering around too slow for the cadence, the same eco-friendly young-uns with gypsy skirts and bounce like they're listening to Phish, the same engineer-types who grit their teeth through the dances as though they're planning to socialize if it kills them. I get just as dizzy in Bloomington, though I miss Holman's afterwards with Extreme Television and absurd dialogue. It was nice, though, to find that after two years away, it came back easy as pie. That a man said, "I saw that gentlemen giving you directions, but you don't dance like you needed them!" For some reason tonight everyone asked if I sang or played music. Perhaps it's that the community here is so much smaller that people tend to immerse themselves in all aspects of the scene. I sort of got the feeling people were recruiting me. I never know what to say when anyone asks if I sing. Yes, all the time, in my bathtub, in my car, at karaoke, with friends. But not in a chorus, not out, not anymore. Someday I'll buy that concertina and be the sea-shanty queen. But jeez, I'm getting tired of pipe dreams.