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Scottish Country Dance
Dec. 6th, 2011 04:59 pmI don't seem to have ever actually written this story down before, although I tell abridged versions of it relatively often. So here, have the explanation of how I started Scottish Country Dance.
My first semester of college (fall 2007) was a pretty great time. I was making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and spending a lot of time just wandering around and exploring the world. You don't know what freedom is until you've moved six hundred miles away from home.
One of the people I was spending a fair amount of time with was my friend MagusMarc. He and I had met about three years prior, at Origins, chatted online for a while, lost track of each other, and remet at Balticon '06. From there, we were talking regularly and became pretty good online friends. When I moved to Boston, it turned out that he lived just about a mile away from Lesley. He was my only local geeky friend, and one of my only adult friends, and in general a nice alternative for when the college kids got too immature or mainstream for me.
As it got towards Thanksgiving, my computer was starting to act up a little bit. I assumed nothing too bad was going on, and when Mr Belm picked me up (I stayed the night after Thanksgiving at his place) he offered to run some computerwizardy on Seren1 for me. The computer proved to be more a challenge than he could endure, and so I left it with him on Sunday --he let me borrow his clamshell2 so I'd have a computer for school, and agreed to take Seren off to the mac store.
On Monday, I was out and about with some college friends, when I received the phone call from Dave. Seren's hard drive had self-destructed There was no chance of getting _anything_ off it, and the drive would just have to be replaced.
I was devastated.
I had gotten the laptop at the end of August. I'd been using it exclusively for three straight months, and everything, everything, was gone. All my photos, all my bookmarks, all my college work, all my writing, and most importantly, Behind the Walls version 2.0. My diary.
Since we were in the area, I politely excused myself from Dominik and the twins. I walked to Marc's house, and knocked on the door. "Distract me?" I whimpered, recalling other times when he'd been good enough to give me comfort.
"Well, I'm going dancing soon." he replied, and that made perfect sense to me. I went along with him, to Scottish Country Dance, and had a good enough time of things (despite having the worst possible shoes). And that might have been it. Except.
On Wednesday or so, I got my computer back with a shiny new hard drive, and a surprise external drive (early Christmas gift). I named her Vera Serenfreude, based on Dan and Tho's suggestions. She is a wonderful wonderful beast, and even if she's getting old and cranky, thank god she's managed to get old.
The following weekend, I went home to Maryland. There were several goals for this visit --surprise mom, surprise Veronica, go see Rocky Horror and the LRHS play3. There was also one major thing that happened that hadn't been planned --I broke up with kSatyr, who I had been dating for about ten months at the time.
BtW 2.1, 2December2007
So Monday I was back in town4. and I again show up at Marc's. I tell him what had happened, and I ask. "Distract me?"
From then, it was a tradition. I danced three weeks of December, went home on break, and came back and danced every week after. I kept dancing even after Marc stopped being able to make it, even after he moved away. I've dragged as many friends as I could (and Tricia and Jesse both _stayed_, at least for a little while!) and don't intend to stop. Due to Scottish, I've found two partners, gone to one con, and eaten slices from *way* too many cakes.
It's been four years now. It's one of the things I enjoy most in the world. And while I hate that the impetus had to be a tragedy, because those tragedies led me to dancing, they were absolutely worth it, every bit5.
Cheers.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: "Don't you mean Vera?" Keep reading.
2: one of these. I still want one _so bad_. Such a comfortable laptop!
3: Unfortunately the only one I made after I had graduated LRHS. I feel bad about that.
4: And my arrival back in Boston is a different strong memory --the first time my heart ever sang out that I was Home.
5: There are parts of the story that I never tell, but that you might know anyways. SCD, and everything and everyone I've gotten from it? Yeah. Yeah, they're worth that too. Every. Single. Fucking. Bit.
(Apologies to anyone who saw this twice --it didn't want to crosspost)
My first semester of college (fall 2007) was a pretty great time. I was making new friends, reconnecting with old ones, and spending a lot of time just wandering around and exploring the world. You don't know what freedom is until you've moved six hundred miles away from home.
One of the people I was spending a fair amount of time with was my friend MagusMarc. He and I had met about three years prior, at Origins, chatted online for a while, lost track of each other, and remet at Balticon '06. From there, we were talking regularly and became pretty good online friends. When I moved to Boston, it turned out that he lived just about a mile away from Lesley. He was my only local geeky friend, and one of my only adult friends, and in general a nice alternative for when the college kids got too immature or mainstream for me.
As it got towards Thanksgiving, my computer was starting to act up a little bit. I assumed nothing too bad was going on, and when Mr Belm picked me up (I stayed the night after Thanksgiving at his place) he offered to run some computerwizardy on Seren1 for me. The computer proved to be more a challenge than he could endure, and so I left it with him on Sunday --he let me borrow his clamshell2 so I'd have a computer for school, and agreed to take Seren off to the mac store.
On Monday, I was out and about with some college friends, when I received the phone call from Dave. Seren's hard drive had self-destructed There was no chance of getting _anything_ off it, and the drive would just have to be replaced.
I was devastated.
I had gotten the laptop at the end of August. I'd been using it exclusively for three straight months, and everything, everything, was gone. All my photos, all my bookmarks, all my college work, all my writing, and most importantly, Behind the Walls version 2.0. My diary.
Since we were in the area, I politely excused myself from Dominik and the twins. I walked to Marc's house, and knocked on the door. "Distract me?" I whimpered, recalling other times when he'd been good enough to give me comfort.
"Well, I'm going dancing soon." he replied, and that made perfect sense to me. I went along with him, to Scottish Country Dance, and had a good enough time of things (despite having the worst possible shoes). And that might have been it. Except.
On Wednesday or so, I got my computer back with a shiny new hard drive, and a surprise external drive (early Christmas gift). I named her Vera Serenfreude, based on Dan and Tho's suggestions. She is a wonderful wonderful beast, and even if she's getting old and cranky, thank god she's managed to get old.
The following weekend, I went home to Maryland. There were several goals for this visit --surprise mom, surprise Veronica, go see Rocky Horror and the LRHS play3. There was also one major thing that happened that hadn't been planned --I broke up with kSatyr, who I had been dating for about ten months at the time.
From noon Sautrday to noon Sunday I spent equal numbers of hours crying and sleeping.
I believe the actual number is something like "three"
BtW 2.1, 2December2007
So Monday I was back in town4. and I again show up at Marc's. I tell him what had happened, and I ask. "Distract me?"
From then, it was a tradition. I danced three weeks of December, went home on break, and came back and danced every week after. I kept dancing even after Marc stopped being able to make it, even after he moved away. I've dragged as many friends as I could (and Tricia and Jesse both _stayed_, at least for a little while!) and don't intend to stop. Due to Scottish, I've found two partners, gone to one con, and eaten slices from *way* too many cakes.
It's been four years now. It's one of the things I enjoy most in the world. And while I hate that the impetus had to be a tragedy, because those tragedies led me to dancing, they were absolutely worth it, every bit5.
Cheers.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: "Don't you mean Vera?" Keep reading.
2: one of these. I still want one _so bad_. Such a comfortable laptop!
3: Unfortunately the only one I made after I had graduated LRHS. I feel bad about that.
4: And my arrival back in Boston is a different strong memory --the first time my heart ever sang out that I was Home.
5: There are parts of the story that I never tell, but that you might know anyways. SCD, and everything and everyone I've gotten from it? Yeah. Yeah, they're worth that too. Every. Single. Fucking. Bit.
(Apologies to anyone who saw this twice --it didn't want to crosspost)
