rabbits and dancing

I had in mind to go work out this morning. Shake up the country club, not to make a pun. But I'm immersed in a very weird dream where I'm in a hotel room with someone I'm married to. I realize we are married but I don't really know him. (It's a DREAM, for heaven's sake.)

A maid comes and goes. The guy is foreign and confident. Apparently we are doing some kind of secret mission. (Yes, I never dream of secret missions. It's weird.)

Then the guy is a little wimpy...sort of begging a maid to take care of his laundry which includes a tablecloth.Then the guy and a companion don jump suits and pretend to be in some kind of trouble thus drawing out a super hero who is maybe not a hero. That part is unclear. What is clear is that once they have achieved their goal, they immediately take off the jump suits, revealing the suits underneath. They do this with a sort of 'ah ha I fooled you'flourish. Then the guy (my fake husband for the episode, I guess...hmm maybe it's a performance in a dream) gives me a package. Inside are credit cards. He gives me a wad of money, too. Then the other guy gives a woman a package. She asks if it is that 'nice soap.' Nope, I tell her, confident she got a wad of money and some stolen credit cards, too, although I've never seen her until this moment.

Well, I said it was weird. (Yes, you did. But, so far, you haven't mention rabbits or dancing. Why do you do that? Why have a title that doesn't go with the text?)

So, I wake up but FFP and I agree to snooze a little more and then it's a little later than my usual wake up. I've gotten very lazy about it and a little lazier today. So I don't go to the club. Like I don't every day.

So, yeah.

Finally, I'm up, getting showered up, brushing and flossing my teeth. I always turn on the little black and white TV in the bathroom. This is the one where I saw one tower of the WTC spewing smoke, looking insignificant on the tiny B&W screen. The TV says, "Here's the traffic."

"This is Austin," the traffic person begins. Um. Yeah? Who else's traffic would it make sense to hear?

"So sometimes things are a little weird. We have a slowdown on IH35 from here to here," she says, the screen showing a map with two arrows on south IH35. "Because there is someone dressed as a rabbit dancing on the Stassney bridge."

It isn't going to be an ordinary day, is it? Probably not. (But see, I'm not out of the bathroom and rabbits are dancing.)

Yeah, I was thinking last night as I flipped channels on the TV and flipped through newspapers with endless views on Enron, Arthur Andersen and Global Crossing. What was I thinking? That other people are out at SXSW venues, hearing weird music, getting something new in their lives, doing their thing, meeting people, acting like they like Corona beer or the latest mixed drink I don't know the name of. Old people like me are almost afraid to go out into this vibrant mass.

Well, hey ho. We did see one movie in the SXSW line-up and even asked the director questions. And we even ventured to a location in east Austin to do it. And tonight we will, um, see the ballet. A friend said he wasn't going because he "doesn't like Stravinsky." I hope that I'm going to get to the point that I can be that discriminating and know before I go that I won't like some music, this time around anyway. (I have made this discrimination about most rap/house/nuovo rock noise.) Besides there are several other pieces. One is a Balanchine with George Gershwin. (I'm no ballet expert but I think this means that people are channeling a dead man to tell the dancers how to move.) Three of the pieces (including the Stranvinsky) are choreographed by locals so they will be interesting in the way that discovering a 'new punk garage house newer age' whatever band is to the other folks in town.

And Saturday night, we will be in the Four Seasons. There will be elegantly turned out folks. Gays, lesbians, people from the arts community, friends of ours who like a party, politicians. Us, too. I'll wear a tuxedo myself. A sea of black tie will float through the Four Seasons bar, itself stuffed with muscical artistic wannabes and genuine deal-makers where 'pierced-tongue rock' is being discovered and signed. It's really a pretty clever time to have a fund raiser. Everyone is crowding the clubs, the TexMex joints, Four Seasons bar, barbeque places, good restaurants and bad. So...just rent the ballroom and have your fundraiser. The penguin-suited couples, some same sex, some with their own tattoos hidden, turn their heads to look at PIBs (people in black) with odd colors of hair cut in every more creative ways and obvious tattoos and piercings who bought their threads at a vintage store. The gays and Lesbians who can afford this party have $50 haircuts and lucrative day jobs. Mostly. Everyone nods, and goes on. Because, as the traffic gal said, "this is Austin." Anyway, that's my vision of the weekend. We'll see.

So...that's how my weekend starts. Friday morning, me thinking about my entertainment, how staid I've become, what the rest of the town is doing. And the dancing rabbit, of course.

Oh, and in the shower I imagined how a product could be used to build bold new applications for our customers. But, then, it is probably just dreaming. Some of my dreaming of that ilk has resulted in products or features. If not 'bold new applications'.