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Absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable
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| You know that lindy hop thing I'm obsessed with? Sometimes there are lindy hop competitions. Sometimes I enter them. Sometimes I do alright, in smaller ones.
This weekend, I took 4th place in a bigger one - the open Jack and Jill contest at Lindy on the Rocks in Denver.
In a J&J, you're paired with random partners during the prelims and judged as an individual. In the finals, you're paired with another random partner and judged as a couple. For those of you on Facebook, here's a video of my finals showcase dance.
This was easily the most nervous I've ever been in my life. Some of you are performers, and are used to having every eye in the room watching you. For me, this experience was new, and very stressful. I'm glad I have the videographic evidence, because I don't remember a single moment of it, until the very end where I take my follower's hand and walk off.
I didn't dance *badly* in the finals, but I didn't dance *well*, either. But good or bad, I finally have a decent dance clip to show my family and friends. It only took five years.
This was also my first time making it into a masters track at a national event. I'm very excited about both of these developments, and look forward to proving that neither one was a fluke.
PS - I'm so looking for a new apartment right now.
PPS - I'm so moving to the west coast around winter. ...probably. | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment   |
| | Security: | | | Subject: | pwnd | | Time: | 11:46 am | | Current Mood: |  crushed |
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| Hey, all. I know it's been a while.
Life is still good. Really good.
Dancing a lot. Got a lot better since August. In the middle of Crazy Travel, Year Two. Ft. Lauderdale, Austin, San Diego, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Minneapolis. DC, maybe Houston, maybe Atlanta, and Seattle between now and May.
Broke up with my girlfriend of ~8 months back in early December, but it was for the best. Dated someone for a bit after that, went well. It's amazing how differently things go when you date someone smart and mature.
Work's going well - I'm THIS CLOSE to finishing two big projects, but keep hitting unexpected delays. Some of them are just pains, but others are interesting problems to solve, which I love.
But there's a reason why I'm writing this entry. I just got my ass handed to me by one of the network engineers at the clearinghouse we connect to. He called me out on some basic networking I should have known how to do, and it was really a big kick to the ego.
As a friend of mine recently put it, I've gone from somewhat underconfident to somewhat overconfident over the past several months. I don't think I've ever been truly confident in my abilities, and myself, before now. That makes being taken down a notch hurt a hell of a lot more. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| Sometimes you get an idea in your head for a huge project. You might do prep work, or you might dive right in. But no matter how you plan and no matter the amount of effort you put in, as time goes on the project expands in size. It does so faster than you can complete it.
Then you have a choice. Do you reduce the breadth and depth of your project until you have something you can call "finished"? Or is it so difficult for you to cut your losses that you show the world nothing rather than part of something?
I'm the second kind of person. Do it right or don't do it at all. That's why you haven't seen a LiveJournal entry from me in 7 months. I've tried writing The Big Life Update, but I can never finish it. By the time I've written most of an entry, enough time has passed that I need to rewrite more than half of it.
So, we'll do this quickly, like a band-aid. Only digital. And slower.
Dancing: I've danced in a dozen different cities since my last update. The highlights include: Austin, Ft. Lauderdale, Washington DC, and Denver. I'm still completely obsessed with lindy hop, and I'm approaching my four year anniversary. Never before in my life have I pursued something so actively. Computers, martial arts, science fiction, these are things in my life, and have at times been very large parts of my life, but they have never been my life. Through lindy hop, i have traveled, I have become more physically fit, I have made many dozens of friends across the country, and I have grown as a person. I can no longer define myself without this dance, and that suites me just fine.
Work: My job at the BusBank became less and less satisfying the longer I was there. I didn't feel valued, and I didn't feel challenged. Two months ago, I accepted the position of Director of Technology at Great Point Trading, a trading firm in downtown Chicago. I like my coworkers, my boss is fantastic, the work is both fun and challenging, and I received a huge bump in pay. And hey, my title is Director! How cool is that?
Social: After two and a half years of being single, I began dating a Chicago dancer named Anne in February. She's great and we had a wonderful time together, but after a couple of months I realized that the chemistry wasn't quite there. At the same time, I noticed a spark with another Chicago dancer, Debra. Somehow, major swing scene drama was minimized, and we have been in a very happy relationship since.
I turned 24 two weeks ago. I'm not sure what I've done to earn such good fortune, but I like where I am now so much more than where I was when I turned 23.
I hope you enjoyed 7 months of condensed Aris. I'll try to post here more regularly, but no promises. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Interweb friends! It's been too long! Life got in the way of writing about life.
When we last saw our intrepid hero (ahem), he was getting ready to spend most of a week dancing at Swing Out New Hampshire. It was my first vacation as some kind of adult-like person, and it was the best vacation I've ever had.
Some quick hits:
Being completely cut off from the internet, cell phones, and caffeine(!).
Finding - and drinking - a can of Coke on the last day.
Taking a musicality class with a live band playing for us.
Napping to a live band during another group's musicality class.
Auditioning to move up a level - and making it!
Dancing with Virginie for 30 seconds during the audition - I don't think I've ever been that nervous!
Being forced to find my triple steps.
Seeing dancers more musical than I could have ever imagined.
Dancing with them.
Eating, sleeping and living lindy hop for four straight days.
It was an amazing experience. I'm really looking forward to doing more camps like this.
Three weeks later, I got to see the other end of the spectrum. Where the dancers at Swing Out New Hampshire were unbelievably musical, the dancers at the Ultimate Lindy Hop Showdown in Minneapolis were unbelievably proficient. The entire weekend was fast, fast, FAST lindy. The first night killed me, I could barely manage a few 150 bpm songs in a row. The second night, I could swing out at 180 without...completely...falling over.
I used to like lindy blues more than faster straight lindy. I now know that Chicago's lazy dancers tricked me - fast lindy is where the party at. It's the difference between a nice stroll in the park and jogging a mile. Lindy blues is pleasant, but fast lindy is so much more satisfying.
A few weeks after that, the Chicago exchange. I had a great time, but it didn't deeply affect me like SONH and ULHS.
*** If you've been skimming past all the dance stuff, this is where things get good. ***
That's it for dancing. Let me tell you about a bunch of paintings I just bought off of someone on Craigslist. Take a look:
They're freakin' huge. Where the heck am I going to put them?
Well, turns out I have the perfect place to put them: IN MY NEW APARTMENT!
I moved! Into the city! Three weeks ago! And I haven't run out of exclamation points! I've got a pair of roommates: one of them is a swing dancer and a god-freak, the other one is a very large black man who could whup you with his pinky toe. And we rock. Come visit us!
Life is hawesome. | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Pluto's like soooo totally NOT a planet anymore.
My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos? | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| empty rooms don't have pictures to talk to.
brickwall views demand uninspired afternoons.
the days are flooding into months.
the nights are staring into centuries.
Work fades to dancing fades to sleeping abruptly becomes work again. I like writing, and I love talking about myself, but there just isn't much to share. I'm so busy living that I don't have much time left for reflecting. For complaining. Because, hey, life ain't too bad.
I've been back in Chicago for just over 12 months. I know where everything is. I go out at least four nights a week. It seems like every weekend some dancer or another throws a party. At work I'm a networking ninja. I've pulled some late nights (staying until midnight then coming back in at 8:30 the next morning), but the work is fun.
My life is as close to balanced as it's ever been. Practica has given me important things to improve on in my dancing. Friends have given me their phone numbers. One of the execs gave me a fist-bump this morning, after my impromptu Command Center presentation to some visiting bigwigs.
9, nine, niiiiiiine, NINE! days until Swing Out New Hampshire. About 50 days until my six month review, where I plan to ask for a 25% bump.
Moving when it gets cold, between Halloween and Thanksgiving. I'm waiting until the review, so I know what my price range will be.
My new Favoritest Picture Of Me, Ever:
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| I have compiled a short list of happy things. Dancing may be involved.
- My Aris Allen dance shoes. I've had these for about a month, and they're fantastic. Leather soles, I didn't know I was missing you until I had you. Plus, they have my name, and as everyone knows, anything Aris is of superior quality and craftsmanship.
- My new baggy dance pants. Okay, I will admit that I bought them at a Hot Topic. Unclean, unclean! But they're the best pants ever. Even if they don't have Aris in the name.
- The digital camera I bought two months ago. And the memory card I finally bought for it. Expect many, many pictures in the near future. Of dancing and dancers, which I'm sure comes as a surprise to you. I'll probably make an account on Flickr to avoid spamming your friends page.
- Dancing at least three times a week.
- Live bands.
- Late night blues parties.
- Less than a month until Swing Out New Hampshire. FOUR DAYS of dancing, and classes, and more dancing, and more classes, and DID I MENTION THE DANCING?
So. I spend my days working and my nights dancing. This city makes it so easy to feed the addiction. Especially during the summer. Lindy hop is like sweet, rhythmically-flavored crack to me. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| Something's been bothering me for a while. An itch. I think I know what it is now.
There are two of me.
One of me works, dances, does stuff, has some friends, and is by most standards a reasonably successful human being. He sprung up out of nowhere a year or two ago, but he's well-adjusted and pretty happy with his life.
One of me is the one who's been here all along. More relaxed, more patient, but still me. He's not around very often because the other me is too busy living life. But when there's a lull, a free evening or weekend with nothing going on, he's there. He's more introverted, more sarcastic, less confident, more angsty. Asking himself the same questions he's always asked. What am I doing with my life? What *should* I be doing with my life?
I like the new me. And for better or for worse, the old me *is* me. What I don't like is that I can't reconcile them. I feel like there's the one and the other, where there should be only Aris. I tried and tried until I found this person inside of me who was capable of being happy, of living my life instead of wasting it. But I don't feel like myself anymore. I put on my Normal Person disguise in the morning, and sometimes it stays on for days.
Maybe this is just growing up. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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Absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable
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