Rotate the foodstuffs!

So... CGMC had its first choreography rehearsal today, and it kicked my ass, both physically and mentally.  Physically, just because I've lost the callouses I used to have on my toes from Dance Guild -- I'm feeling hot spots on both big toes.  Also, note to self: bring/wear shorts next time.

The more annoying thing is the mental fatigue.  I feel like I've reverted to 1996.  Back at the beginning of high school, I was completely uncoordinated; choreography for choir shows was an ugly thing set on my body, all gangly and unfluid.  But by the end of high school, even if I wasn't the best dancer ever, I at least looked like I knew what I was doing.  Well, it's been almost nine years since I did any of that.  And I thought I was doing ok, but then we moved to a room with mirrors, and... y'all.  As I said walking to the car, I'm too butch for this shit.  And I feel heavy, and kludgy, and ungraceful.  And it's not helping that I ended dancing a lot tonight right in front of our guy playing Joseph, who is himself a dancer.  And... fuck.  I felt all of 14 again, all "I look a moron in front of the cool kid."  I'm a smart, sexy, hilarious, accomplished man, and yet I felt like zilch.  Fuck this shit.  I'm better than the way I'm feeling.  But right now my streak of perfectionism is really getting to me -- nothing to do for it but just keep trying.  I've mastered my body before, and I can do it again.  I just hope I can do it in the next month and a half.

OK.  So.  For my Cajun class, I have this assignment.  I have to interview a speaker of Cajun French and then transcribe a ~2 minute portion of speech, which will be, ideally, the interviewee talking with a minimum of interruption.  Now, I had thought to get Andrea's dad to be my interviewee, but I was a moron and kept forgetting to ask him about it, and so what with my trip to Alabama on Sunday-Wednesday, it wasn't going to happen, to my great despair.  So I showed up in class yesterday all "whaa my informant went go poof," and Ancelet suggests I just head down to the Bayou Pigeon or to Pierre Part and trawl for Cajuns at the grocery (most of them speak French there).  That's all well and good, and really sounded interesting, except that that involves placing myself in a completely unknown situation, which I try to avoid at all costs.

So, unrelatedly, Marianne had sent me (and others) an email tonight advertising the American Legion Post 38's weekly Cajun dance tonight.  She and Tom had been last night and had a lot of fun.  So I figured I'd go tonight, because they have some free basic Cajun step lessons and $1 beers, plus I like Cajun music.  Well.  During the lesson, I partnered up with a lady, Cathy, who's part of Post 38's dance troupe.  We chatted while going through the practice steps, because I can do a basic waltz or two-step without difficulty, and I mentioned that I was in the Dept. of French Studies at LSU.  So later, during the dance proper, she introduces me to a number of Cajuns, in that sort of "You speak French, here, talk to them!" sort of way.  Long story short, I'm going to talk to Harold Daigle tomorrow here in Baton Rouge, and I don't have to drive down to bufu!  Woohoo!  Also Cathy et al. think I'm the best thing since chipped beef, but that's pretty much par for the course, innit?  I'm adult candy, so damned personable.  Oh, plus, my line dance skills are to be reckoned with.

The group actually abandoned me while I was talking to the Boudreauxs (Boutreauxs?), but that's ok, since they thought I had just left (when in reality I'd been dragged over to the other side of the floor to talk to more Cajuns, heh).  Met up with them at George's under the overpass, then retired to Tom/Marianne's.  I appear to have joined Le Club Pétanque Louisianaise, the pétanque club/league that Tom started, so that's good (for pétanque, read: French bocce).  I had a good night.  Now just to sleep so I can go talk in French tomorrow, woohoo!

BTW: I mentioned the "French problem" in Louisiana yesterday, which I think had unintended Nazi overtones (I blame the Kurlansky book I'm currently reading).  The French problem/question actually refers to the effort to reinvigorate the French language in the state of Louisiana.  This effort has gone through many iterations which I will not bore you with, but suffice it to say that the problem really boils down to an infrastructure problem coupled with a chicken-or-the-egg issue: there are good ideas that haven't the infrastructure support to be implemented, but the ideas are almost necessary to create the needed infrastructure.  Fun times, no Gestapo.