Practice makes perfect

It's been a pretty lazy weekend. Sort of.

Friday, I ushered at the Arena Stage and saw On the Verge or the Geography of Yearning, which was a fairly boring play. The acting, as usual, was good, though one of the three leading actresses had this odd and distracting habit of pursing her lips. I couldn't tell if it was a character tic or the natural resting shape of her mouth, but it certainly did not help me suspend disbelief.

I stayed up very late fiddling with my blog template. I finally got the pull down menus working the way I want—with fonts and colors that match the rest of the page. I am mighty pleased with myself. I have a mania for pull down menus now—should I put all the links into pull downs? Perhaps I have a second career in super low-tech, crappy site design.

Saturday, instead of going to yoga at 9am, I slept until 9:30am. I met Pele for brunch and then we went to see my first National's game of the season. That was good fun. We walked back from the stadium to retrieve her car and stopped at a new coffee shop near Eastern Market. Awful. Pele had an Americano and they managed to screw it up. I had a blended drink that was sweet and watery. Sorry, Port City Java, I'll have to stick with Murky. (But Murky, could you work on the foam? The swirly design is pretty, but the foam is not thick enough--it used to be perfect. Please bring back the old foam.)

After Pele dropped me home, I did a little bike repair. Got my hands dirty but I mostly cleaned up ok.

Then, it was off to meet a friend to see X Men: The Last Stand. I have to say that I liked the movie. It required no thinking at all on my part, something I value very much these days. Was it a good movie? Not really. But it was entertaining—big, pretty and action packed. Expect no character development, a lot of non-bloody violence and overly dramatized moral dilemmas and you should be fine. If you want good dialog, interesting characterizations and understandable sequencing, you should skip it.

I got home at a reasonable hour and I was in bed by 1am. Not too shabby.

Sunday was really lazy. My only plan was to go to a dance in the evening. And I didn't even manage that. Perhaps my relatively busy Saturday wore me out.

I have been working on the story about Stella. It's up to seven pages now. Today, Monday, I called Audrey (in Seattle) and talked to her about the story. She had some good thoughts and I will act on some of her suggestions to make the story live a little more.

I spent a lot of time today getting my computer completely back in shape. Copying, reinstalling, backing up. Etc. Tiresome and tedious, but I'm almost back to where I was before I lost the hard drive. I combined that excitement with coffee drinking, grocery shopping and phone talking.

And VACUUMING. Finally. I didn't do the whole house, but I made a good start.

And rowing practice! It went well.

And, one amusing dating-related incident.

I'm on the bike, riding back from practice. It's around 8:30pm, just on to twilight. I'm halfway home and I'm taking a shortcut through an alley. I cross paths with a tall, good-looking guy. Whom I recognize. Who is he? He recognizes me too—and he even knows my name. "Hey, Jamy, hi."

I stop riding and say, "Hi." Now I know him. He's the guy I met last weekend at the frisbee party.

He reminds me of the name of the bar where we met.

"Right, " I say, "I know. Frank. Hi."

And he gives me a hug—sort of a half hug since I'm on the bike. Why? Not that I mind, I just didn't realize we were so close.

"Do you live around here? I'm just heading to the [nearby bar]."

"I'm on my way back from practice. I live about a mile away."

"I live…right here." He points to the building we just passed.

"We're just getting ready for our regatta. It went really well."

"Your regatta? You sail?"

"No—it's a rowing regatta. But I do sail…"

"Right, I was going to call you about sailing."

"I'm not much of a sailor, but I do know how."

We got to the place where our paths split and I said goodnight. He said, "It's always great to run into you." Which I thought was an odd thing to say.

"Ok! Have fun!" And I sped off.

Now, I still don't think he'll call, and I certainly felt self-conscious seeing him in my nasty Anacostia-wet clothes, sweaty from practice, looking a fright. But I just don't care. Practice leaves me feeling sure and confident, even if I'm sweaty.

And that was a great long weekend.

Grateful for: practice (it makes perfect, right?).
Drop me a line.