s e v e n i s a j o u r n e y

Went to my first local dance class Monday, with Beverley, whom I’d heard good things about from a gal at a shop on Cuba Street. (Beverley’s troupe name is Amerain, incidentally, which I took as a good omen — Hi, Lynne !) Class was, in fact, quite fun — Beverley is upbeat and friendly and seems to know her stuff, and I got good vibes of many of the other women in the class, although I didn’t get much opportunity to interact with them yet, apart from a brief conversation with a Samoan woman by the beautiful name of Tuviata. (Aside: It’s apparently pronounced SAA-moa, not saMOa. And Maori is something more like MOW-ri, not may-OR-i.) This term Beverley’s having sort of theme classes — each class explores a different style. I missed some good ones, it sounds like, but this week was “American Tribal”, coincidentally enough, and some of the moves were similar to the stuff Anne’s been showing us. (I note that I’m still using “us”… *sigh*) Another interesting note was the use of live accompaniment in the form of a guy on a drum machine (I think the drum machine was new — this was the first time they’d tried it out). Beverley would say, “Give us something in a slow 6/8,” and he would oblige; or she’s just start going over moves, and he’d noodle out something that seemed to fit what she was doing. It sounded pretty good, actually, and was very useful for those stretches of class where you just want to go over the moves again and again. She did throw in a tape once or twice, though. Next week is Zar/trance, and the week after that we’re going to do a light “MTV Pop” class, where we learn some Shakira choreography. Hah !

The weather, which last week was clear and kind of chill, warmed up a bit and got cloudy this week. And windy. Monday was a gorgeous evening, if damp, and I was still pretty buzzed after the class (plus I’d had a yummy Mexicanoid dinner followed by yummy chai in an Indian cafe before class, so all in all, things had been going well) so I decided to walk the 20 or so minutes back to the train station, instead of taking the bus across town. It was really quite enjoyable, walking in the damp, warmish wind through the quiet streets. It was only around nine, so there were still people wandering toward restaurants, and there was still traffic in the streets, but not all that much, and it quieted considerably as I shifted closer to the waterfront business district toward the train station. There’s something about wandering a city at night that makes you feel more a part of it — like you’ve gotten to hang out with it out of its day clothes, just padding around in its T-shirt and boxers. Or maybe it’s that with fewer people around, the city has more attention to spare for the ones that have stayed past closing time. I dunno. I’ve been taking an hour in the middle of the day and just walking around, and I think I may be starting to feel at home in Wellington, a bit. Monday night certainly got me closer, anyway.

Speaking of Monday night, the Bestest Buddy award for this week goes to Chris, who got home all tired and sweaty from Kendo just in time to take an embarrased phone call from me, asking him could he pleeeeeeaaaase come pick me up downtown, because my decision to walk to the station had let me miss the train, and the next one wasn’t for another hour. He made sure I’d be more careful next time by playing the country music station (just a show, really, on a mixed access station) all the way home.

Tonight, we went to see the Matrix: Reloaded, which I enjoyed.