Reading

Modern Western

So, I don't think I have a time note for the last time I was at Tech Squares. I know it was pre-2020, I think Austin and I went to two Easthills together, which probably would've been 2018 and 2019. I don't think we were regularly going to class when we did the latter of those. So yeah, it's been about eight years since I've been going remotely regularly, but Eric saw me at NEFFA and was all "so I'm running the class this semester and we haven't had a grand march in ages, I'd love to have them again".

It was a nice evening and I'm glad I went! I also think I'm gonna be pretty happy to go to tech squares twice a year for graduation and not any more often than that.

I'm thrilled that this random first-time-in-nearly-a-decade for me happened to coincide with Tenest's first-time-in-over-a-decade. Both of us have the calls still there, but it was fun to support each other through the squares, and do a little necessary flailing.

It was _really_ interesting to see what I did and didn't remember. I had dug out ~my~ graduation folder, with each week's call lists still dutifully tucked in order in there. (Somewhere I still have a little sticky note reading "you are perfect* *in attendance and other ways", from my own class folder). I didn't like. Fully read and internalize every single call, but I skimmed the names of all of them and tried to see what that triggered.

One of the things I really like about Squares is the patter of callbacks and call-actions, back and forth with Ted. "Spin the Top?!" we say, in increasingly histrionic tones, and he blithely replies "yeah, that's what I said, right?". Snap on trade by, toot-toot for track two, zoom is 02134, and it's oppa dixie style. I was _thrilled_ to hear someone say "like bunnies!" for a couples circulate, but I think I'm the only one who still has deeply locked-in spoonerisms for all the other circulations. JB gave me a hug after one of the tips, and said thank you for being someone else to chant "reduce, reuse" after a recycle.

(and I got exactly once where I was courtesy turning with a person I actually knew well enough to finish the callback for Chain Down the Line. Everyone present knew "catch me, turn me!" but only once could I actually add out loud "chain me down". That turns out to be a fun one!)

I like it so much because it helps ground the calls real well, keeps them in my memory. The fact that I was running at probably 80% accurate after eight years of not dancing is pretty damn good! And it's worth noting that my 80% at dance continues to be a lot stronger than average.

But I don't love that squares still doesn't feel like _dancing_ to me. I'm charmed by a new-to-me callback for one of the weird swoopy calls - "it flows!". Because that call does flow! All the calls flow! Ted especially makes the movements all flow into each other because he's very good at what he does! Now why doesn't the dance floor feel like they're doing that?

Some of it is the need of the floor to compound the challenges. Do the calls faster, weirder, harder. I would love Weave the Ring as a figure, if it weren't inevitably limping sideways to the beat. I don't mind making things more complicated, until they inevitably seem to remove some of the _dance_ from the dance form. Successfully snapswitching can be great fun, but what if it is interrupting your flow, or making you forget where you're going and who you've become?

I understand what I'm getting into when I go to the MIT activity, it's very smart hotshot college students who have always been The Best at everything they've ever done. I am extremely familiar with this batch of people, and am sometimes one myself.

But gosh, that's not exactly what social dancing is _for_. If you are so into the mega-complex puzzle versions of the thing that you can't find pleasure or joy in the simple version instead, that's...a way to do things. But it's not the way _I_ want to do things.

Give me hexes and snap switching, but also give me a solid singing tip and the space to move in. Do hard things badly, but also _do simple things well_.

See you in the fall for the next graduation, maybe!

~Sor
MOOP!

Entry tags:

dance,
scd

To quote the Morris Dancers...

But the critical thing is that _I like SCD again._

This has been happening ever since I started my class, but this was maybe the first time since 2020 that I was _looking forward_ to attending Cambridge Class.

I still think there are large swaths of my hobby that don't love me back, but gee golly, the more my cohort grows, the more likely I'll be facing a partner who I can make eyes at across the set when the MC says "we're going to be using the role terms 'tartans' and 'rainbows'" and then eight bars in tells us to dance a ladies' chain. Callahan was right, shared pain *is* halved, and more importantly, pain *can* be transumuted into joy, if you have the right batch of people to share the schadenfreude with.

(Is it still schadenfreude if it's your own pain? I guess?)

It's also really nice that the dances that have been coming to class recently have had excellent flow and been beautiful to dance. It's making me think a lot about my own teaching, and what and how to emphasize things to get that as well. How do I make people shut up and focus on the flow, which would cut the number of unnecessary questions down _significantly_.

I'm excited for upcoming Mondays, and I'm excited to put together a program for my class party and keep running that, and I'm excited for Pinewoods (both work weekend in a couple weeks and ESCape, but I'm also _excited for Scottish Sessions_! I have been quietly tolerant of Scots for a couple years now (ever since the ill-fated applause year), but I am so excited to be _excited_ for camp!

I've had a zine series idea for a while: queers are stealing your hobby. Do an issue on bellringing, on ham radio, on morris, on pub sings. And absolutely this. On Scottish Country Dance. Because we are and it's great! And I think it's entirely plausible that some of the less conservative old guard will start to realize that the tradeoff for them dancing with us weirdos who are on the "wrong" side of the set all the time is getting to dance with people who are pretty practiced at being quick-thinking from anywhere in the set and able to keep the dance flowing a lot better.

It turns out that when you don't have to actually worry about adhering to an extremely strict enforced binary, there's a lot more space to just do interesting things! (this is not a metaphor.) ((this is _definitely_ a metaphor))

~Sor
MOOP!

(no subject)

It feels quite beautiful to me that I have a notes file labeled "burn book" which is for jotting down things I want to remember about people to remind myself why they might rub me the wrong way (to remind myself that I have reasons sometimes and not just vibes¹

1: As a contextual note, it might be worth remembering that I lost the entire last three months of my diary of dating my abusive ex, and have had to piece together some of the "was it really that bad?" since then from trauma-touched memories and chatlogs. It was, I know it was, I remember it was, I wish I had more contemporary sources to draw from sometimes. Anyways.

The beautiful part is seeing the sorts of notes I've written most recently. My work bestie's favourite candy. The name of the girl my online friend's been gushing about. One of my DnD friend's favourite animals. The kinds of cliff bar my new friend with the allergies can actually eat.

I like that my burn book, my place to collect small little notes of things I get told or observe and want to remember, is mostly just so kind.

~Sor

Entry tags:

ongoing saga of perfect

Growing up isn't mandatory it's fucking _wonderful_

I had reason to dig up and link to this post while chatting with new-friend Alexander. They then said nice things about me doing things full and colourful even when my brain is being shit and I said NO STOP RUDE because I am good at making friends. Luckily they also speak internet, so they made me this meme in return:

And the thing it's making me think of most, irritatingly, is therapy a couple weeks ago and talking about the ways things aren't working and how I worry my brain was better n years ago, it feels like when I reread all these old posts I was doing so much better mentally.

Except of course in my love life, because like, I was way more struggling with jealousy and security and my role in 2019 and I really haven't had emo about that like that....well, since 2020, probably. Maybe 2021? It's not like my relationships are emo-free, just that like.

And like, okay, I'm worse at my job this year than I have been some years, but I'm also much more experienced and steady in my job just in general. And I've gotten a lot better at the union work side of it, and being loud there. And somewhat better at the comrade-not-cop side of working with the students (gods I love being better able to make relationships with the students, it feels so good.)

And man, one of the things I was rereading recently was all the wordsfile from when I ran Scottish Pinewoods in 2020, which was not *quite* the height of me feeling disconnected from the RSCDS but it was maybe the really sharp start of it, the part where it was really beginning to hit me how much my hobby didn't love me. And wow, all the work I have put into making my own dance class that I can have fun with and drag other people into and hopefully be a good time...that's really good work I've done, that's consistently good work, I'm super proud of that work.

Also like now I am learning how to knit and somehow that's a thing where I can force myself to just say the vulnerable words about it and not just lock up all the imposter-syndrome and rejection-sensitive-dysphoria deep in my heart where no one can see it, and so I've had some really lovely and thoughtful conversations with people who are *much* better at this thing where they just straight up explain the things kindly and happily and don't at all make me feel dumb for it.

And then there's the thing that happened recently, where I was chatting with someone about how I'm not relationship 101 material, that the whole polyamorous-kinky-genderqueer-HSV1+-ADHDnightmarechild thing should really not be your first serious relationship. Those are the parts I put in, the reasons. Long time readers might observe that there's something missing that you might expect from the list of why it's complicated to date me, and it's not that I'm _over_ being sexually abused as a seventeen year old by a man the same age I am now, you never get like, _over_ that, but I have put in enough work to make it a *lot* less relevant to my day-to-day.

...huh.

Okay. Fine.

Maybe I am allowed to accept a compliment on my personal growth once in a while. Don't you dare get all uppity and expect it'll work every time! I can still be crazy as sin, don't you worry!

But it's nice to be able to find evidence that I am growing. It's all I ever wanted. I hope you're growing too. The opposite is stagnation, you deserve better than that. So do I.

~Sor
MOOP!

Giving up

I spent Sunday scrobbling in the dirt, because my friend Apollo had a backyard work party! Another friend there described it as "well, we're really being Tom Sawyered right now" and that was a both charming and accurate way to sum it up. Apollo said "wouldn't it be fun if y'all came over and helped me move rocks and dig up weeds and shovel mulch" and you know what? It super was!

Also there was a fire going pretty much the whole time, and when we pulled especially obnoxious bittersweet or tree-of-heaven out we could go and put it on the fire in triumph and that was very satisfying! After we worked, we ate snacks and sang sad folk songs --it wasn't intentionally, sad, just wound up that way-- and it was a really lovely afternoon all around!

But the thing that's really standing out, was somewhere in the middle of dealing with the tree-of-heaven, after we'd gotten some of the bigger root clusters out but still had plenty to go, I wound up spending like...ten or fifteen minutes just digging increasingly deep and pulling out the rocks from the old rock wall the roots appear to have grown through, and trying to get one of the remaining big pieces out. And I just couldn't do it. I made lots of progress, but the roots were still in there.

So I wandered to Apollo, ready to switch tasks, and said "I give up." "I'm proud of you!" they replied, and when I tried to tease about it, they continued "both for trying and for giving up". That felt. Honestly real good. It feels nice in the way I hope it feels nice when I thank people for saying no to me. It felt nice in a recognition that setting boundaries and taking care of yourself is good. It felt like a kindness, being told that not only was it okay to give up on a frustrating task that wasn't working out, but a point of pride.

I like having the friends I have.

~Sor
MOOP!

Hometown flavour

One of the many charming moments about the like, 90 minutes I stood around post-dance in a little cluster of seven of us, sharing stories and chatting, was when Alexander and Willow, both here from Philly, said something lamenting the lack of Rita's in Massachusetts. "At some point we're going to go on an Adventure to visit the one currently open in like, Walpole" one of them said, and immediately I am grabbing Thrantar with one hand and Alexander with the other and near-shrieking "take us with you!"

The four of us then had to explain what on earth a Ritas is and why it matters so to the three New England natives. We almost managed? Maybe we'll let them join on our Adventure and then they can see what it's like.

~Sor
MOOP!