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

Today was a good day.

Chris and Natasha (who was pulling an all-dayer) came into town to have lunch with me at Great India (the best Indian food you’ve ever had, and if you like Indian at all, quite possibly the best *food* you’ve ever had). Natasha’s birthday is this weekend — yay ! Fun !

Then I made myself Mexican for dinner with supplies I’d gathered Sunday (the apartment, which continues to smell “funny” — I think it’s whatever the landlord used to steam-clean the carpets — now smells “funny”+Mexican). In my exuberance, I got a little carried away with the chili powder (plus I haven’t found the measuring utensils), so there was a good endorphin rush to be had off dinner (will be cutting it with more beans and cheese until the leftovers are gone).

Then after dance class… Beverley asked me to join her troupe !!!! Eeeeeeeee !!! They’re doing tribal & they think I’m “a natural” or something ! Hee ! And all those years of playing “I went to Pennsic” with Bad Raqs has apparently made me quite good at following people out of the corner of my eye. Heh.

And then, I asked Beverley how she felt about men dancing (’cause Stephen is looking forward to a new group to terroriz– I mean entertain), and she said she’s actively *looking* for men to recruit ! She’s got all kinds of funky fusion ideas and she wants men to play with. Yay ! May have to break the idea gently to the rest of the class, but Beverley’s all over it.

And then, after class, I went out drumming ! The guy at the Kwanzaa shop on Courtenay Place told me about the Full Moon Drum Jam at Zebos at the top of Cuba street, and tonight was the full moon, so I brought my drum to class and went up to Zebos after. It was cool ! Zebos (which is apparently a sort of student bar usually, with bands and stuff) has this big courtyard out back, with trees and colored lights and flaming braziers, and tonight it was full of drummers — mostly African drummers, from dredlocked students to ageing hippies, but a few people like me banging away on dumbek, plus a scattering of girls swinging flaming poi balls, or long polynesian batons (also on fire. Some guys, too, with the batons).

It took me a little while to settle in — I started with a little bit of zilling, actually — but eventually I screwed up my courage enough to take a chair in the circle and start banging away with my new drum between my knees, African style (yes, I bought myself the drum I was coveting. It positively sings). Luckily, the guy sitting next to me, Michael, thought I was cute and chatted me up — we introverts need extraverts to make us feel welcome, really (must remember to return the karma and be nice to a nervous-looking newbie next time I go to something like this). The place really filled up as it got later — loads of drummers and a lot of people just hanging around and grooving. A passle of long-haired blonde guys with beards tried the “I’m an extra in the movies” line on me. Hah ! “You and my housemate, and just about every male Kiwi’s brother’s cousin, mate !” Hee.

So I hung out, I drummed, I chatted, I watched fire swing in pretty patterns around pretty college girls. On the way out, an older guy stopped to ask about my drum — it was Glen, the guy who’s organizing the Hossam Ramzy gig. He recognized the drum because it was one of two he’d special ordered to try out himself. He bought my drum’s sister, and offered to help me tune it (mine, that is) and maybe give me a lesson or two. Kewl ! He also reassured me that Ramzy wasn’t some fire-breathing prima donna, all fussy about people’s drums. It’s just that this is a seminar aimed at beginners, and he’d had bad experiences with those in the past when students had shown up with “decorative”, not really playable drums. I promised to talk up the seminar in class, since I think a lot of people have been scared away (I know Chris and I were !).

So now it’s really late, although not as late as I was expecting it to be when I was walking home, but Yay ! I had a good day !