A Sad Day for Salsa

I started the day off very leisurely, waking up at ten. I spent the day re-reading The Fountianhead by Ayn Rand. Some I read in bed, some lying on the couch, sitting at the table, sitting on the floor, sitting on the steps outside sipping iced tea. I finished it tonight, covering about three hundred-odd pages today. Its a great book, but the end feels too ideal, too perfect, like Jurgis at the end of The Jungle. Everything suddenly goes right. It felt out of character for the novel. It's a good inspiration for my portfolio which I will resume this monday.

Tonight we went to our salsa final. It was set up as a competition, with about 500 of her students from the various levels. The room was packed. A group would run on the stage, dance for under two minutes for the judge, then run off the stage as a new group ran on. It was difficult to figure out the timing of each heat so you had to pay close attention as to who was dancing and what they were doing. Sally, Jonathan, and Jen's mom Diane, came to watch us. Sally brought me brownies, which was really nice of her. She also got a few pictures, but I think it was mostly of my back.
I slipped up and recovered partially in the salsa. My rhumba was a mess, I completely forgot our moves. Cha-cha was so bad, I had to stop to get back on time and so nervous I started doing a completely different dance. Mergengue was mercifully last, so we ended that dance without my screwing it up royally.
There are four tiers of competition. We didn't even make it to the second. We went into the audience to find our respective spectators. They made a good show of liking the dances we performed. Ah well. We had practicied for this competition twice, each time for under an hour. Jen had her portfolio to turn in the 15th and I had my final project. We had no time to spend on dancing, so I was extremely grateful that we got full credit for merely participating. I'm just no good at coordinated activity under the spotlight. In cross country you had three miles to show your stuff. In architecture, you have weeks to prepare and think and plan, so that even though you might pass out where you stood, you could still talk coherantly about your project's ideas, spatial organization, and concepts. Am I making excuses for myself? Probably. I'm just glad I got what I did from the class. I disliked almost every class- it was a bad idea to take it at night, and on my most stressful day of the week- but I'm glad it taught me to be confident on the dance floor of the clubs, to really enjoy meringue and bring me closer to Jen.
After we all walked back, Jen's mom took us out to the Country Tavern at Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale. It's a kind of upscale claim jumper, reminded me strongly of other places I'd been, mood lighting, exposed wood, tall dark booths, steaks, expensive seafood dishes, and exemplary service. I ordered an excellent Seafood Pasta with jumbo shrimp, andouille sausage, and scallops in a creamy cajun sause on linguine. I wore what I wore to the competition, black pants, white shirt open at the collar. We ate dessert there, apple cobbler and chocolate torte. When we got back, Jen, Ben, and I went to the crazy house for a party.
The crazy house is rented by five students of design. One dates a twenty-five year old mother, one recently changed his major from architecture to archeology, one only dates black men, one is in my studio, and the fifth became a residential assistant at the dorm were we all used to live. They throw massive parties. There were easily eighty people there and the place was jumping. We left a little around one, when there were more strangers arriving, more people getting drunker, and another keg on the way.
What a day.