An expensive joke:

At lunch on Friday, Andy gave me a $20 bill for his portion of the food and I gave him change. I stuffed the $20 down my shirt for shock value. It worked and we both had a giggle over it.

I forgot that I had done that until tonight, when I went to pay admission for One'O'Clock Jump and was unable to find the $20 I thought I had hidden somewhere in my purse. All of a sudden it all came back to me; I had never remembered to take the money out from my shirt to deposit it into the purse. I don't know when/where the bill fell out, but it's nowhere to be found now.

Had all sorts of plans set up for tonight, and I bailed half-way through.

Made it to practice Tango with Jeff. It was good.

Made it to Balboa practice with Patrick, which was also good, although I started feeling really beat partway through. I especially had trouble not dozing towards the end when we had taken a break from dancing and were just chatting. It didn't help that my bum wisdom tooth was acting up and I had a hell of a toothache. I'm glad I'm getting these suckers taken out on Tuesday.

After Patrick's I really wanted to just go home, but I stopped by One'O'Clock Jump because I miss hearing and dancing to Alex's sets. I didn't stay the whole time because the tooth was still bugging me, I was tired, my leg was starting to hurt again, and I was in a mood, but the music was awesome while I was there.

Meant to hit the blues party after One'O'Clock Jump, but I just couldn't do it. So here I am, home, about to crash. I feel almost guilty, bailing out like this, but it's the way it has to be.

I just sliced into my hand on accident just now, while using a knife to open a package. Not a very deep cut, but every time I do something like that it makes me glad again that I've started up again with health insurance.

I just finished watching Farewell My Concubine. An incredibly strong movie -- glad I finally watched it.

Last night, Mary and I had a bonding night. We ordered pizza together and then we sat around watching West Wing on DVD. It was nice. We hadn't hung out together in quite a while, between her boyfriend and between all the dancing I've been trying to do.

On work days, I have so much trouble dragging myself out of bed, and then on weekends, I have trouble sleeping past 6:00 or 7:00 AM. It figures.

It took an hour and fourty five minutes to get home on the bus today. Glad I had a book with me.

My leg started hurting again on the way home. No dancing tonight.

Throughout most of my life, I have been initially drawn to music through lyrics.

That seems to be changing lately. I've been listening to The Postal Service recently, and I've found that although I am enthralled with the music itself I find nearly all the lyrics to be inane.

Then there's tango and swing music. Much of the music I enjoy dancing to has nothing in the way of lyrics, or if it does, it does not factor heavily into my opinion of the music.

I wonder when that all started changing, and if listening to music so that it might inspire movement -- listening for the sake of dance -- has caused me to listen differently.

I dislike endings. I hate having to let go of things, moving on.

So lately, I've been doing this thing where, when there are only 2-3 chapters left in any given book, I'll put it aside and start another. I think I do that so that I don't have to deal with the book ending.

I've decided that this weekend I am going to finish all the books I've got sitting around in that state.

Will it traumatize me, having to deal with so much closure all at once? Will it be good for me, causing me to come out the other end a better, changed person? We shall see. I will let you know how it goes.

I figured out what I disliked about Tango last night at Madrid 522 -- it reminds me a little of swing at the Pampas room on Friday and Saturday nights. It could potentially be a lot of fun with a group of friends who are also dancers, but it's not a great going-alone venue.

There's a decent article in the nytimes magazine on copyright issues. Good stuff. I wish more people were thinking about these issues.

Minnesota Public Radio recently put an interesting poll out on their web site. You select options for each question that most aptly represent your political view, and then it ranks all the current presidential candidates in order of those that are most closely aligned with your views.

I wasn't surprised to see that it matched me up most closely with Carol Moseley Braun, matching my answers with hers at a ratio of 63.0%. I've liked a number of her positions for some time now; I just wasn't sure that she has a broad enough general appeal right now to be an electable candidate.

I also wasn't surprised that Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich followed close behind at 54.0%. I've liked them both for some time.

I was a little more surprised that John Kerry and John Edwards also matched up at a ratio of 54.0%, but not terribly so. I have always liked at least some stances that each has taken.

No surprise at all that George Bush and I had a 0.0% match-up on our political viewpoints.

It's not a perfect survey. It doesn't account for situations where no one candidate's stance matches up with your stance on an issue -- stances outside of those taken by candidates are not represented. There was no stance that I agreed with for education or for health insurance programs, for instance -- for each I had to choose the option I was least unhappy with, rather than tje one that I agreed with. It's not that I don't have opinions, it's that the allotted answers did not adequately represent any stances that matched mine.

It's still an interesting survey, however.

If you're not much of a survey person and would rather just see the stances that the candidates have taken on each item, you can check out a breakdown of all the candidates' positions.

There's also a page of cumulative results for everyone that has taken the survey. Of all those people, most have matched up best with Kucinich (63%) with Howard Dean coming in at a distant second (32%). I wonder, actually, why Kucinich hasn't gotten more press and been more universally popular throughout this nomination process.

Mexico City Subway has started lending out books to riders. Cool beans.

The program is supposed to help cut crime, although there are critics. "Now we'll have an equal number of delinquents, but well-educated," said one.

Apparently Tokyo has borrowing libraries at Subway stations, as well, although they implemented the program to "foster a sense of community".

I wish we had library stations in our Subways. I wish we had a Subway at all. I miss fast, reliable mass transit.

On the bright side, my leg is feeling much better this morning.

Dance tunes get so stuck in my head when they play on the radio as I'm driving around.

Baby when I'm fallin' asleep, I think about you
Do you think about me?
Tell me if you wanna get close - close to the fire, closer to me.

I could be your morning star
if only we could have one night alone
Sick of sitting by myself, waiting by the telephone

Ooh, let me be
the one you call
when you go down
Boy, I'll pick you up and give you the love
You give me the life in the full moonlight
Don't you wanna give me tonight?

- from Morning Star by Cooler Kids

With all the exciting activities I planned for tonight, I forgot to plan time for dinner. Now I'm too tired to dig up much in the way of food. Bullocks.

Being hurt is no fun. I hope my leg will feel better in the morning.

It turns out that I hurt one or more of the muscles in my right leg that help me balance and stabilize when my weight is on the other leg. So actually, even though the hurt is on the right side, it hurts most when I am using my left leg. And especially when I am running, jumping, spinning -- walking, even at a brisk pace, does not hurt.

The Lindy music tonight was awesome, and there was so much energy in the room. It made me want to dance! But dancing hurt. I danced a bit, despite that. It's so hard, being in an environment with music that speaks to you, partners you're crazy about, and great energy in the room, and having to sit out. I am not good at sitting out in those circumstances.

Tango didn't hurt. But the music didn't speak to me, and there wasn't really anyone I wanted to dance with. I met a man named Peyverv or something like that -- very friendly. He was quite nice, but our dances were awkward and physically uncomfortable, despite dancing a good number of them. Perhaps we will connect better with time.

So, anyhow, I'm glad I stopped over at the Russian Center. I could have done without the Tango dance, maybe, but I'm sure it was somehow good for me.

I'm so glad I don't smoke anymore. The Madrid 522 wasn't even that smokey, and it still drives me nuts that I can smell it now on my clothes.

It's strange -- aesthetically, I like smoking. I find smoking in movies seems to be very sensual. Visually, I find it erotic. It excites me. But the moment I encounter it in real life, when the smell is a part of it as well, I am turned off. I can't see it the same way when I must smell it as well.

Oops. I accidentally took a wrong turn trying to get to the Georgetown fields and ended up in Tukwila.

Fortunately, I budgeted myself enough travel time that I still got there before the game started.

Unfortunately, I hurt my leg just a few points into the game and couldn't play again the rest of the night. I hate when that happens.

A man walking the length of Britain naked to promote public nudity finally reached his destination Thursday, after spending most of his seven-month odyssey behind bars following complaints from the public. Talk about perseverence in the face of adversity.

I feel like my body is a tool, and these last several weeks I have been oiling the gears and sharpening the edges. Not only have I been improving the condition of my body, but I have also been improving my expertise in manipulating it. Each day I feel that I am able to get a little more out of it.

My car, however -- another tool, per-say -- is in dire need of repair. It needs an oil change, it needs its breaks checked out, it could stand having its windshield-wiper-tick checked out, it needs for the passenger side mirror to be repaired, and it needs repairs done to the front driver side panels that were damaged in Mary's accident. Each day I feel that it falls further into disrepair and handles a little less tightly.

I found out today that my officemate was an IBM brat, too. His father had 25 years, my mother had 23. We both remember days when IBM was so good to its people, and found that we both wanted nothing more, as children, than to grow up and be a part of that ourselves.

Interestingly enough, his father has also seen IBM in court.

What a small world...

Busy night tonight. Carpool over to the west side after work, hit swing class, run home to take care of the dog, head to south Seattle for an ultimate game, rush home and shower, hit what's left of the dance at the Russian Center, then head out to Tango. I think given a choice between super-busy and nothing-to-do, however, I'd choose the former.

For those of you who missed the Popples reference, Popples were a thing of the 80's - small fuzzy creatures who flipped inside out into their pouches to bounce around as a fuzzy balls. The name "Popples" came from the popping sound they made when they sprang back out the ball. There's some more good Popple info in the description of this ebay Popple sale.

I would feel dated by those of you who missed the reference, except that Mary caught it and she's barely 20. So there.

In addition to becoming a masseuse, I want to marry a masseur. Then we can trade off every now and again and make each other extraordinarily happy.

I want to be a masseuse! It's got to be awesome, working a job where your sole purpose is making people feel good.

It would also be so awesome to actually work with my hands. I miss all the artsy-fartsy stuff I used to do -- getting my hands dirty, working things around, being physical and earthy and connected to the elements around me. Massage would meet some of that again.

I am in love with Ben Gibbard. The Postal Service makes me so happy.

Oops -- I've been doing that thing again where I'm so excited about everything else going on that I forget to eat meals.

Woah, coolness -

Maria has a friend who is studying to be a masseuse. In the pursuit of this goal, the friend has to do a certain number of practice hours for various massages.

She was going to do some of those hours on Maria, only the massage table won't fit in Maria's house. So she said if Maria could find a friend willing to share their space, she would give them a massage, too. They had someone else lined up, only that person has gone AWOL, so they contacted me to see if they could do it here. I made sure they were okay with doing it in a place with animals, decided that things would probably fit if I pushed my living room furniture around, and then invited them to come on over. They'll be here soon. I've never had a professional (or pre-professional) massage before - so exciting!

I met the posture-challenge today with mixed success. I did well when I was thinking about it, but whenever I stopped thinking about it I reverted to my old, slouchy ways.

I exchanged my rolly desk chair for one of the straight-backed guest chairs; that seemed to help a bit. Didn't fix the problem though. I still caught myself slouching over in it far too often.

Ah well. Tomorrow I will wage another battle in this war against slouchiness.

Oops. I went to visit Jaimes & Rachel's site today, typing it into the browser by memory, only I accidentally put a .com instead of a .net and hit some questionable content. This in an environment where questionable content is not cool. I hate when that happens.

Today I'm issuing myself a challenge: keep good posture all the day long.

I figure if I can start maintaining good posture at work, at home, when active, when in repose, I will have easier time of maintaining good posture while dancing. Anything to be a better dancer!

These are my initial starter rules:

• Stand up on my own weight. Don't be leaning against every damn wall I come across!


• It is not necessary to slouch down into the bus seat like a Popple trying to turn inside out.


• Do not lock my joints, especially my knees and hips. Use muscle mass to hold my body weight.


• Give up the whole crossing-the-legs thing for a bit. When I cross my legs, it twists my spine up and all my posture goes to pot. This may not be the way it has to work, but it's the way I do it right now. So for now, I'm giving it up, cold turkey.


• Think about breathing. Breathe in deeply. Use my diaphragm. Breathe in - stomach expands, breathe out - stomach deflates.


• Don't slouch, don't slouch, don't slouch! It is possible to sit up with good posture, even when reading my book. Crazy, but true.

I don't think I can remember a day where I maintained posture all day long. I'm a slouch-a-holic. But today, it all changes; it's the start of a new era in Kathydom.

Some days, I need to start the morning with chocolate cake for breakfast.

Not all mornings.

Not even most mornings.

But every once in a while, there's a day that needs that extra kick. Something out of the ordinary and special to start it off on the right foot.

Today was a chocolate cake day.

I have so much trouble getting up in the morning these days. I was considering a 5:30 AM daily yoga course, but there's no way I'll be able to do that if I can't drag myself out of bed before 7:30.

So much of my life goes to sleep. I wish I could just take all that time back.

What I want, what drives me, changes incredibly from day to day. Changes even minute to minute.

Things that seemed extraordinarily important just a month ago seem to hardly matter now.

Things that seemed wrong a week ago seem now as if they might be okay.

Things that seemed right just a few days ago now cause me second thoughts.

I feel like I hardly know myself. Because my feelings are not consistent and because I am overly prone to act on feelings, I never know quite how I'll act. I don't know what choices I'll make. I might swear myself to some course of action, but half an hour later I'll suddenly about-face and do the opposite. And somehow, so often when this happens, I feel surprised. Surprised! - at my own chosen course of action!

Crazy, eh?

Why do I do that?

Do I not know what I want? Does this happen because I am living in some weird sort of denial? Do I want things that I feel I should not want, so I then waffle back and forth? Am I just flakey?

I feel like I can't trust myself. If I can't trust myself, how can anyone else trust me?

So many questions. Perhaps with more thought I'll have some sort of insight. Currently, though, I am lost as to why I'm so all over the map lately.

Wrote some more blogs today that I guess shouldn't sit out in public right now. I really need to get on that whole content-protected site idea.

I spaced yesterday afternoon and blew off a balboa practice with Patrick. I'm pretty annoyed with myself. Need to be less flakey.

I'm going to miss The Rice Milk Brothers DJing at Sonny's tomorrow. Bummer.

I feel a bit like Cinderella, living my one-night fairy-tale dream. I'm just waiting for the clock to strike midnight and everything to revert, because certainly blissfulness such as this cannot last.

Man, Kevin's band was on tonight! And when they played danceable numbers, I had some of my best lindy dances in recollection.

Alex picked up some sweet blues skills sometime when I wasn't looking. He's really got that sexy-stomach-lead thing going on right now. So delectable!

I wore the same outfit that I wore to tango last night. Wanted to try it out in a swing environment, see if it worked. Nobody was supposed to notice -- last night was tango, and tonight was going to be all swing dancers. But so many people were there that I wasn't expecting; I saw at least four of the same people. Bullocks! On the bright side, the outfit was great for swing dancing. On the dark side, it all smells like smoke now. The joy of bars.

Tonight, 10:00 pm - Kevin Buster at the Bada Lounge!

I've been meaning to make it out to his gig over there for months, but tonight I'm finally going to get my $#|+ in gear and head on over. If you're into jazz or lindy, come out and join me. Should be good times.

I need to remember not to eat potatoes. Every time I do, I end up feeling all cruddy and achey all the rest of the day.

This morning I thought it might be okay to some of the potatoes that came with my brunch, even though I usually avoid them. Bad idea. I've been sore and out of sorts ever since.

Mental note: don't do that anymore.

Spent the last 20 minutes or so making plans to get the brunch crew together.

For the last several months, I and most of my better friends have made a tradition out of Sunday brunches. We get together either Sunday morning or early afternoon and all head out to eat and hang together. These folk are almost like my family. It's so great to have a moment in time every week that I get to look forward to time spent with them. I feel more connected, more rooted. Happy.

Several people are out of town today so it will be a smaller crew than normal. Should still be good, though.

Usually I do most of the calling around on Sundays, but today those who are coming all called me. That was nice! I love when other people show initiative like that. It's silly, but their taking the time to do something as small as calling me makes me feel so appreciated and cared for. Ironically enough, I'm terrible at showing that sort of initiative myself. Outside of this Sunday morning gig, I have a hard time calling friends and setting things up. I'm working on that and I've gotten better, but it's still a real weak point for me.

Off to get ready.

I just got done watching Boys Don't Cry. Hilary Swank gave an amazing, captivating performance. The film itself, though, was so agonizingly sad. And that it's based on a true story -- I want to believe things like that can't actually happen, that we live in a better world. It's painful to watch. But for all that, it's done so well. It has left quite an imprint on me; will be difficult to forget it any time sooon.