strike that

small town

Tonight I felt like dancing so – this being the Year of Gusto, and this day so far lacking gusto almost entirely – I went dancing, though I couldn’t think of another soul who would want to go along. Not a soul in a thirty mile radius, at least. I went to the Goodfoot because the crowds there dance and because it is a spatially friendly place to be solo, and because a popular Portland bluegrass band was playing.

And wouldn’t you know it? There was Chief O’Brien.

The room was full but he suggested shimmying up to the front of the crowd where the floor was wooden and all the dancing was happening, where men were stomping their boots and women were gathering up their skirts. The band played for two and a half hours, their own bluegrass songs with banjo interludes of Elton John and Willie Nelson and the Violent Femmes. A girl with two braids swung me around and a guy in an embroidered cowboy shirt asked O’Brien if he could dance with me, and I tried to make eye contact with cowboy shirt’s friend which was perhaps bad form on several levels. But I can’t yet get past the fact that O’Brien reminds me of… well, O’Brien. The boy can dance though. We closed out the bar.

posted by tortaluga @ 3:17 AM