Contra yay

Contradancing last night was wonderful. Neil is away for a conference until Wednesday, which initially had us squabbling and stressed out and me freaking over the fact that my old skirts don't fit ... but movement, laughter, and friendly people are pretty much a cure for anything, and whatever angst I had had evaporated by the end of the night. We went out for a diner and enjoyed conversation with a group of the regular contra dancers afterwards, and they're some of the nicest people, really.

I wish I could go to the contra all the time. And, bonus note, I noticed that I was far less winded at this contra than at the two I'd been to before... I think the aerobic effects of the Wii fit are starting to kick in!

Vampirical

It seems lately that with Buffy, the Twilight phenomenon, and other recent writing hits, the vampire-myth is on a sort of cultural ascension.

Hence, an amusing video mocking the whole thing:

Once You Go Bat... (embedded below)

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The rise of vampire-lust makes sense, of course -- who doesn't have a bit of being attracted to danger? Also, every vampire story I've ever read has built in the idea that vampires have social norms and/or a sense of honor that prevents them from wiping out the whole of the human population. And honor (or a more evolved social sense) + danger = attractive.

(Backtracking a little, I do realize that there are novels where the rest of vampire society is less honorable, but the hero is the vampire with the sense of honor, standing up for we human underdogs. (Clearly. Because of course the environmentalists, vegans, and activists in our society who stand up for the cows, the mistreated, and the environment are often looked at as heroes in their day to day lives... except that they're not. I'm thinking of "fiction." In "fiction," we're allowed to pretend that vampire society is a more evolved society than the society we humans currently have.))

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But secretly, incidentally, I always rooted for Team Jacob... Edward always was a little moody, and erm, werewolfies are cuter.