Something Spooky Going On

Sorry for the delay in getting my latest addition to the blog posted. I ran into a little bout with laryngitis and I've been sick in bed since Sunday night so I haven't had a chance to do anything but cough up flem and sleep. I don't feel much better today – but well enough to get to work and, therefore, well enough to tap out a few words about the weekend's dancing.

As you know, we went to the Indiana Paranormal Convention masquerade ball on Saturday night. The event was a bit hit and miss: when we first saw an advertisement for the ball it was supposed to be in a hotel ballroom, and then it was in the Danville 4H Fairground Convention Center, but when we arrived it turned out to be scheduled for the small animals barn. Yes, I said barn. A genuine, fairground, pole barn with a stage at one end and a bar set up at the other – oh, and a concrete floor.

I'd like to take a moment to talk about the connotations of words. When you hear the world 'masquerade' what comes to your mind? I imagine that scene from Labyrinth where Jereth dances with Sarah, you know: elaborate costumes, dancing, and all that entails. There's a certain cache involved when you use the word masquerade. You have a high bar to clear and you've got to put a lot of effort into getting over it. What we attended at the Paranormal Convention is more like a costume party (and kind of a dud of one at that). Costume parties are a lot less formal. You're talking a few friends, a bowl of chips, some dip, and masks or tossed-together costumes. Nothing too elaborate.

Kelly and I dressed down, just kind of weird t-shirts, nothing more, so we expected to maybe be the slobs of the night. To be honest we hoped our dancing would carry us through – if we danced well enough maybe people would cut us slack on the costumes. Come on, can you imagine doing serious swing dancing while dressed as Marie Antoinette?

Well, I knew we were in trouble when I saw that we'd be dancing in the Small Animals barn. Nothing about seeing that phrase outside your dance venue is good. We got inside and found that we'd be dancing on concrete. No problem, it'd curtail our dancing a little and there'd be no nice sliding about but we still could dance. We found a table in the middle of the room near the dance floor and waited for the guests to start showing up. We waited…and waited…and waited some more.

I think in the end there may have been thirty people in the venue. Some of them had serious costumes. I saw several Phantoms of the Opera and a couple of Victorian or Edwardian ladies. There was a gorilla but no Bigfoot (how disappointing). It took a while to realize that the roadies who were setting up the stage actually were the opening band. I think the realization kicked in when I realized they were warming up with Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water". They weren't bad but they were LOUD. Note to anyone who's going to play the small animal barn at the Danville 4H Fairground: you don't need to go to 11 on your amps. Seven will work just fine.

I'm not shy about dancing. I'm not the fool who starts dancing in Wal-Mart when I hear the muzak version of a tune I know but if there's one other couple out on the dance floor I'm willing to get out there (and sometimes I'm willing to be the first if we're at an event that's specifically dance related). It took at least thirty minutes before anyone started dancing and even then it was the fair organizers doing the white-boy shuffle. That was enough to get us on the floor, though. I think we did several WCS's and a couple ECS's before we leaked out of the venue under a full moon.

I might have encountered a rogue rhinovirus but I didn't see any UFOs. Dang.