This weekend I rekindled an old flame, swing dancing. I’d been catching myself tapping my foot whenever I heard a swing tune, and had been meaning to dig out the suede shoes. On Friday night a fifteen-piece orchestra from Cambridge came to play at the Plaza Theatre, and it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.

Watching the dancers jitterbugging on the floor, the moves seemed familiar but I couldn’t remember their names, or the signals the leader would give me to initiate them, or how indeed to execute them. Likewise, those faces I had danced with so often were all familiar, but their names were gone.

I sat there trying to remember how to get out of a tandem Charleston, when to my horror someone asked me to dance. However my body remembered everything, and it was uncanny how it unconsciously responded to my partner’s signals. Mind you, thank God I wasn’t leading, cause my head still had no idea what my body was doing. It was like being possessed, in a rapturous way.

I sat back down ecstatic and out of breath. By the end of the night I was left with another forgotten but familiar feeling, that of walking out onto the street tired, dishevelled and sweaty at the wee hours.

It is said that whatever we learn (with our brains) is vulnerable to interference by subsequent events. This is why if you learn something, then sleep for eight hours, you’ll remember it better than if you had spent the intervening hours awake.

I wonder how much my mind’s incessant chattering, worrying, planning, imagining and wondering about details keeps me from retaining anything important, not to mention keeps from just doing rather than analyzing. Meanwhile, my kind muscles are happy to just sit, run, mouseclick, type and catch the odd frisbee. Once again I find myself wishing I could get my inner voice to just shut up and go with the flow.

Okay, fine, I’ll own up to it. I work in video games. I had to say it because something amazing just happened, and well, I gotta blog this.

My boss told me this morning to prepare a demo of the two games I’m currently producing, because someone was coming to take a look at them (I thought it was some investor or something). Who doesn’t walk in the door but M. NET!!!

For those of you who don’t know, he used to be Le Grand Talbot on Musique Plus. Now he does a show on video games.

Anyway I gotta go clean my desk…

Update: He just asked me to be on the show!

Another cutie from the inbox:

“Cher #FirstName #LastName,

Nous vous écrivons en tant que client privilégié d’Air Canada”

(messages edited for brevity)

“Light Speed Chick,

Found your blog the other day. I wanted to tell you the series of strange events that led me to the site.

I work as a sys admin and get lots of calls for assistance with printers and whatnot. The other day one of the receptionists called me up and said there was something wrong with her printer. I decided to unplug it and take it off the floor from under the desk and put it on to the desk for a closer look. Unplugged the power and network jacks and went to pick it up. Under the printer was a long slice of carrot. ‘How did that get there?’ I wondered.

Well, with the printer on the desk I took a look in the top paper feeder of the printer. At first look I thought it was a big red jellybean in the feeder. After picking it up I realized it was a tomato.

I just turned around and looked the receptionist. She told me she had dropped her salad and the tomato must have fallen in. Hilarity ensued.

I decided to search for rabbit images on the net and print one to her printer. About halfway down on the first Google results page for ‘rabbit’ was a picture of a person dressed up for a Halloween party. It was from your site. I spent a good portion of the rest of the day reading your blog. Great site.

Flawed Karma”

“Hi Lightspeedchick,

I like your site, and Comet is very cute. My dog’s name is Comet too. I found your site when I was looking for a picture of a rabbit for him. There’s a picture of his mother on the wall next to his food bowl, and I thought he’d like a picture of a rabbit too.

Dale”

A little while ago Blork and Martine asked us to blog about the monkeys on our backs, the things we’ve been putting off.

Today I realized that the thing I keep meaning to do, but keep putting off, is to blog about the things I keep meaning to do, but keep putting off.

Last Christmas I visited lightspeedgranny (well, I guess it’s soundspeedgranny now) in her new home, for the first time. She lives in a bungalow in the country with seven other elderly ladies. They pay people to clean the house and cook their meals, and several times a week they go out to play bingo, or visit something. The rest of the time they tell jokes and play cards.

And I thought, you know, that’s not a bad life. If I can live out my older days playing games and hanging out with friends, I’ll be happy.

This weekend I came close. Friday I got a haircut, took Comet for a long walk, played with the Eye Toy T got me, went to see Spider-Man 2.

Saturday, played a video game, then went rollerblading with friends, then went to a birthday party. Sunday, went to a friend’s cottage where we pedaloed and got Comet accustomed to swimming. In the evening we rented a movie.

Someone once told me that true happiness comes not from achieving great lofty goals, but rather from filling your days with a multitude of little happy moments. Like lightspeedgranny does.

This weekend, I found out the hard way that the dogs get their period. I’m not kidding. And I say the hard way, because Comet shares my bed.

The most bizarre part of the experience was going online late at night to get more information about this phenomenon. That was truly humbling. Here I was, flashbacking to Bali, the sick and crusty dog capital of the world, where horribly mangy wild pooches walk the streets everywhere. I was trying to understand what’s happening, if it’s normal, if she’s sick, if I have to take her to the vet, if I have to avoid taking her outside, if it’s an early sign of fatal heartworm disease etc, and all I could find were sites trying to sell me feminine hygiene products for canines. You heard me.

In my foggy state of mind, I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that this was happening, much less that it was normal enough that someone had actually invented doggie diapers for this specific purpose. And I thought following a lower lifeform around with a plastic bag was bad.

This is when having a veterinarian friend is handy. I called him on my appropriately-red telephone:

“Well, she’s… uh, bleeding.”
- BLEEDING?
- Yeah, out her…
- Ah, she’s bleeding out of her (whistles). [Don’t you hate it when doctors use their jargon?]
- Yeah. And you know when you used to say “the plot thickens, la plotte épaissit”?
- Ah yes. Well, that’s normal, she’s just in heat.
- Yeah. Ok. Great. So, can we, uh, make it stop?
- Yeah, just bring her in this weekend and we’ll fix her.

Well what do you know. My baby’s all growns up. Still it’s a good thing she isn’t a cat. When Lynne’s cat went into heat and drove her insane with the horny meowing, Matt’s advice was to simply indulge the kitty with a Q-tip. Apparently that would cause ovulation and shut her up for a few days. No, really.