~Thursday~ I continue to notice house ads on the bus, and this morning four out of the five (on the city) bus were house ads—two (of the same) ads for a temporary detour coming up for the 7C route, and two (of the same ad) for an upcoming public hearing about proposed fare policy changes.
Logorrhea boarded the bus at her stop, and mercifully, slept (or at least closed her eyes with her head leaned against the wall near her) during her entire ride.
I spent close to two hours working with my manager this morning on an annual survey that our organization has to do regarding Information Technology. I’ll be taking over this survey when she retires sometime in the next year.
We canceled our 1.5-hour weekly team working meeting this afternoon, as we didn’t really have anything to work on as a group. That’s one thing I appreciate about my manager—she’s not into meeting just for meeting’s sake.
I met with my financial advisor, Nathan Grooms, this afternoon during which time we mostly addressed my “cash crunch” situation of the last several months. We put some plans in motion to remedy that.
My friend Jen and I went shag dancing at TJ’s Night Life club in North Raleigh, arriving between 7 and 7:30. We got there in time to take advantage of a free dinner, since we have to pay 13 bucks to get in as non-members.
Right after we sat at a table, this woman came up to us and said, “It’s fine that you’re sitting here, but I just want to warn you that we’re going to join you shortly.” Evidently, the personal fan sitting on the table was hers.
When she returned with “Tom,” we learned way more than we could ever have wanted to know about them, about shagging, and about how love can “blossom” between two people. Some of the things we learned:
- They met here shagging about a year-and-a-half ago.
- She started back up dancing about two years ago after taking care of her parents until they died. (This is not unlike Joanne’s story of a few weeks ago.)
- Tom’s previous wife is deceased, and he’d met her where they both worked.
- Jackie just returned from a family wedding to which Tom wasn’t invited, and where she shag danced with a young nephew. “That kid’s gonna be some dancer,” she said. “He’s probably gay,” I thought.
- While she was away, Tom danced Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, at various places including TJ’s, and shag-dancing places in Greensboro and Smithfield.
- We (Jen and I) simply must go to Myrtle Beach some time for their four annual SOS dances. “The two big ones are in the spring and the fall,” Jackie informed us. “You’ll see half the people in this room there,” Tom promised, not considering that that might very well be a reason not to go.
- Jackie is getting ready to take lessons again with a younger member of her family—her niece, a cousin, something like that.
- Sam, the instructor of our recent lessons, usually shows up here between 9:00 and 9:30. (Note: He never did show up. Neither did he the last time we were there.)
Jackie and Tom seemed quite intent on making a couple out of Jen and me. (This is not unlike what the bartender did the last time we came here. That must be part of the heterosexual agenda. Trying to recruit me into the lifestyle, so to speak.)
Snippets of the conversation at one point went something like this:
“What brought you out here tonight?” Jackie asked.
Jen offered, “We recently took shag lessons and we’re out to practice our dancing.”
And after some exchanges about where we took the lessons, “So how long have you two been together?” Jackie inquired.
At this point, I started kicking Jen under the table and enjoyed watching her try not to laugh. “Oh, we’re just friends,” we may have both answered at the same time or on top of each other—so to speak.
“Well, it’s nice to start out as friends. You never know what can develop,” Jackie offered.
We both laughed, and I said, “Actually, we work together,” and then added, “And we were in grad school together, too.”
To which Tom offered, “Well, I have found that two people who work together can have a very happy relationship.”
For about three seconds I contemplated this retort: “Well, I have found that two people who have the same sexual orientation have the best chance of a happy relationship.”
I never did come out to these two oblivious people. I mean I even had a wedding band on. I guess they were all out of clue train tickets at the We’d Rather Not Know station when they tried to buy some.
I had fun dancing, and as Jen put it in her Thursday’s 365Photo for the day, “We’re not the super-suave dancing queens that heat up the floor, but we do have a good time.” I had a great time.
At about 9:40, I waited outside in front of the building until Jen got in her car, and then I changed into shorts and tennis shoes behind the club standing between my opened driver and back passenger doors. I finished right as a couple walked up and by me to get to their car.
I met Alex at Flex for Trailer Park Prize Night, where we caught up. Always a ton of laughs with Alex, and tonight was no exception.
I left right after the show started at 12:30.