You know when you play a computer game too long, and when you close your eyes to sleep, you still see the graphics in your head? Little Sims or whatever, running around? Last night I went to sleep with Charleston patterns painted on the insides of my eyelids. Even now, the darkness behind my lashes is populated with teeny little Lindy swingouts.

So what did I do this weekend, besides improve my Lindy, expand my Charleston, and learn a new dance form?

Friday night, I went to a costume swing dance at the GA Tech ballroom, sporting a hastily-thrown-together pirate costume as something I could safely and--more or less--comfortably dance in. I used a recommended trick of putting masking tape on the bottoms of my boots so they'd slide on the dance floor. Unfortunately, masking tape doesn't adhere well to rubber boot soles. But scotch tape does! And masking tape adheres to scotch tape! Here's to creativity! (It worked pretty well, except when I tried to practice on carpeting. Luckily I'd brought extra tape.)

And Saturday night, I reprised the appearance of the 1950s dress, with new accessories, at another dance at Emory. skellington took one look at the glasses and said, "I'm not dancing with you if you wear those." He did, though. :) I'm not sure about the pillbox hat--while it's definitely more dance-friendly than the cartwheel hat I originally wore, it still looks a bit big. I bought buckram and millinery wire recently, to try to make a smaller one. (Tinker, tinker, tinker...) And speaking of big, I think I want to add another tier of tulle to the top and bottom of the crinoline--it's not quite the right shape.

Unfortunately, what with a nap (necessary after a full day of workshops!), dinner, and changing, I didn't actually make it to the dance until after 10. Since the Jack-and-Jill contest was at 10:45, this didn't give me much time for open dancing--I got one or two in, and then sat down to watch the competition.

A Jack-and-Jill is a contest where leads and follows are paired up randomly. This was some top-notch dancing. Now, you'd think it doesn't get much better than the best dancers paired up with more of the best dancers, but you'd be wrong. Because after the J&J, there was some more open dancing (one of which was too fast for me, and two of which were too slow! I missed the blues/jazz workshop), and then there was the jam circle to end all jam circles. There was Lindy, there was Balboa, there was stuff I couldn't even begin to name. There were solo and tandem Charleston combinations, there were drops and spins and leaps and arials, oh my. Just when you thought, no, no, nothing could top that, nothing could possibly be more amazing than that...someone topped it.

And there I stood, on the edge of the magic, with my eyes glowing, clapping and cheering and stomping my feet...and a guy came up to me and shouted, "Hey, come on, you want to go in with me?"

"Oh, no, I'm not nearly that good!"

"It's not about good, it's about feeling it! Come on!"

"Well...Promise you won't throw anything too complicated at me?"

I almost let this guy talk me into the magic circle, but at just that moment--to both my relief and chagrin--the music ended.

The gym at the Decatur rec center was crowded with five or six lines of dancers, at least 10 people deep, all working on the same Charleston combination. It was like watching one of those documentaries on the making of a Broadway musical, or the opening scenes of "A Chorus Line," before the final cuts are made.

That was the beginner class for this morning.

Yours truly wandered down to see what was going on in the intermediate Lindy class--and stayed. Less than two months ago, I started Lindy classes at Emory with Ben Lovelace: basic footwork, swingouts, Lindy circle, and a lead into basic Charleston. This weekend, I learned to put the swivels into my footwork, and added at least three new combinations to my dance vocabulary. I'm no longer a beginning Lindy Hopper. Swing me out, baby.

I'm still a beginner at Charleston, but now I know more than the basic footwork, and I can do a tuck-turn into tandem. Yeah, I know, this will mean nothing to most people reading this, but allow me my little brag--this is the same combination that had me sitting down in frustration in an August Hot Jam workshop. Getting back out of it is slightly trickier, but is more of a burden on my lead than on me, so I'm safe as long as I have a solid lead. Of course, I can't do any of it consistently well, or even reliably get it right every time, but the groundwork is there.

As for Balboa, I'm a raw tyro, but after two hours in the tender care of Bobby and Kate, I can do the basic footwork, break time footwork, a turnout, and a lead into lollies. (Lolly, lolly, lolly, get your dance steps here! Got a lot of jolly lolly dance steps here!)