Well, that was fun!

Always nice to have a fun end to a year (or almost end of a year)...New Year's Eve Eve. :)

I finally made it to another contra dance last night...and perhaps will be making it to more, because I think I've got my friend hooked on it now too. :D I asked my friend Laura if she'd like to go because it seemed like her sort of thing, and I thought she'd probably be pretty good at it. She's part Puerto Rican, so she should have a little more natural rhythm than me, right? :D Well, whether she does or not, she did great and really enjoyed it and wants to go back next week. lol! And she was also the perfect person to take with me, because she knows how to get home from downtown without looking at directions every turn! I know almost every other part of town pretty well, but I get lost downtown, so I'd printed out directions to and from the dance. :p

That is, it was all fun apart from one of the new guys bothering Laura. He had no concept of the etiquette of contra dancing, and didn't seem to grasp that it wasn't a club kind of atmosphere where you just pick up a girl. I didn't realize he was bothering her, and I thought she'd just made a friend awfully fast. If I'd known that I would have helped her out a little...although I did kind of glare at him a couple times anyway because I was finding him annoying. :p But then on the way out, after he'd left, she started complaining. "I wasn't interested in him, and I certainly didn't want his number!!!" etc., etc. He gave her his number right before he left, and I did see her face at that point and realized she wasn't happy with him. I apologized for not helping her out any and asked if she still wanted to go back again. She said she did, but he'd better leave her alone. ;)

But everyone else was nice and we had a great time. And I got spun so many times I still felt like I was spinning when I went to bed last night! :D I wore the skirt I made, and it was totally awesome for dancing! I do need to hem it because I was in danger of stepping on it all night, but other than that it was great. It twirled really well on spins, and at one point one of my partners said "Wow! Did you see that twirl? Your skirt went all the way around and then sort of twisted in reverse!" Yep...it was pretty awesome.

I also decided not to mess with shoes, although I brought my Converse and tape for them. I just danced in my socks, which was about the same slipperiness as the Converse, but I was able to feel the floor better. I did slip and fall once, which was a tiny bit embarrassing, but other than that the socks worked fine, and it kept me from getting blisters. I'm thinking something like ballet slippers would be nice though. Or one of the girls had some flats she found at Target, so I may see if I can find those, because they had a nice wide elastic band on them and looked like they might actually be a style that would stay on my feet.

I've got a few pictures from last night...I told Laura I probably looked awful after dancing, because I was all sweaty and everything. She told me that oh, no! I looked fine! Hmph...I don't know about that, but I guess I didn't look much worse than I usually do in pictures. :p Yes, my earrings are little snowflakes, if you were wondering.








And here's Laura looking cute before the dance :)











So, a fun way to end the year! Then tonight for New Year's Eve, my family and I are going to watch a movie and eat Chinese food. Yum! So I'm looking forward to that too! :) Because I need to stay up late another night.... no, actually I was in bed before midnight last night. :)

I have a year-end-review post hopefully planned for tomorrow, so I'll see you in 2009! (And I apologize for my excessive use of exclamation points.)