Hello there, internets! It's been a while. Things happen, y'know, things other than writing become priority when you're not a serious blogger. Enough excuses, though, I need to tell you about one of the most entirely enjoyable times I've had recently!

I got the chance to go to Philly (a city I haven't been to in 4 years) and go to Hot Mess, a fast lindy hop and charleston event featuring Joanna Lucero, Karen Turman, Reuel Reis, and Adam Boehmer (who was unfortunately sidelined at the last minute), as well as music by the Loose Marbles and Glenn Crytzer's Syncopators--some of whom looked suspiciously like Marbles :)

So, of course I jumped at the chance, and made my plans, with the addition of the Monday after the event to hang out in Philly and teach/DJ at Powerhouse Blues, the weekly blues event put on by LaB. Turns out, I ended up catching up on sleep, email, various work-type things and not actually hanging out much on Monday except for with Mike the Girl in her apartment, but it all worked out well enough because I got plenty of social time during the weekend, which is NOT how things usually work out for me! And on top of that, I participated in every class but one (body refused), and had plenty of dances with plenty of new people!

There's too much goodness on the weekend to go over in detail, so I'll just include the highlights:
-Meeting yet another "twin", Meredith
-ALL THE HUGS. And cuddles. And people piles, and general touching that I am comfortable with. This includes my tandem upward dog with Beffs.
-Swinging out like crazy and being so happy with getting to hear the Syncopators.
-Gelato and whatnot with Haggai, Beth, Ben, and Dylan. Good, naturally-flowing, comfortable and diverse conversation!
-Good classes, especially the Jam class (my favorite of the weekend, with Reuel/Joanna's "When You're Smiling" routine not far behind)
-Ridiculous 5 flights of stairs totally being worth it for the excellent late-night dances and meeting more new people
-"NASHVILLE!!!!" and adopted "Nashville"-ians and pelvis and all the silliness that I easily fall into and that is just furthered by me and Beth ever being in the same place at a dance event.
-Public transportation! EFFICIENT PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION! And walking!
-Pretty much everything about Sunday's late-night party, including the mansnatch and Dylan's pancake, impressions, "battles", pancakes with Beffs, swingouts, chilling-outs.
-Mike the Girl-Cat, instant friendliness with so many people, cricket sounds, carmonica  concerts, 2-in-1-seat traveling, silly awkwardness, EVERYTHING. Mark, Nelle, and "woop woop!". Also, Mark. And Nelle. I can't say it enough, EVERYTHING.

It was an A+ time, I would recommend it next year for those of you that didn't get to go this year. Oh yeah, and if you are awesome, you should move to Philly. I'm totally moving to Philly! More on that when it actually happens.