elements

I came on DW with the intent to make a deservedly whiny post about how January-depressed I have been, coupled with unemployed-depressed and with some honestly shitty things happening in my communities, and feeling like I was at one of those points where you're just going to break if you can't make yourself cry and get past it, and plus the cat was being a real pest. Then I read my past 2 weeks flist, and now I feel better, and I don't want to whine anymore, so you're all in luck. And, thank you.

There has been some shit. I want to declare war on pancreatic cancer, which in horrible painful ways took two different people I cared about in the past month. One was my best friend's father, and was a year to prepare for, and still sucked like hell, but I've made peace with it. The other was a fellow dancer, and there were only 3 months to prepare, and there are no words for how wrong it is that she's not around anymore. Her death was a total shock to me, just days after I'd found out her prognosis, and I'm still not processing it, even though honestly I was never particularly close to her. I just loved her as a member of my beloved community, someone I'd always enjoyed being around and talking to, and she'd had to miss dance camp for several years because of life stuff, but she was going to go this summer, and now she never will, and that's when I hit the wall of rage. So yeah. I want to declare a war.

There's been some other stuff that's on the mild-suck level, so far, and that I'm mainly handling. Things like that because of the new tier of unemployment I'm on it's taking ages to process so I've had no checks this month, which means I'm a lot more broke than I should be. And that getting switched from COBRA to the MA public option has taken a lot longer than I thought, so I'm in a gap in coverage for the first time ever, which is freaking me out. My dad slipped on the ice and broke his elbow and had to have surgery, and I'm just telling myself, *do not slip* even though I know if I needed the ER it would get covered retroactively eventually.

I do have good things though. My therapist is being awesome and letting me keep seeing her on a "we'll get this paid for when we get it paid for" basis, which is <3. And crschmidt got me a nice fun contract position that's very part-time, which is exactly what I need to be still on UI and have time to be applying to jobs, but also to feel productive and make some cash and have something to say I've been doing workwise again. I hadn't even thought Congress would extend the UI at all, so that too is a good thing, delays notwithstanding. Also, I have a lead to a good resume coach, who has helped a friend start getting actual calls and interviews after her own long drought, so all in all I'm pretty hopeful too.

The other weekend was Golden Festival. I want to tell you about it because people don't really get why, on MLK weekend when there are *two* amazing geek events in Boston (Arisia scifi con and the MIT Mystery Hunt), I shlep to New York. But it's like a slice of camp in the middle of the worst time of the year, and it's everything I needed. Even if I got the con crud after - that's what dancing with 2000-odd people while not sleeping much over a weekend will do.

Golden Fest was in a new venue this year, the unreal, out-of-a-storybook over-the-top awesome cheesy wedding cake of a venue, the Grand Prospect Hall in Brooklyn. (Which, ridiculously, I am now the Foursquare mayor of, which is just a disgrace to Brooklynites.) The hall is AWESOME. The main hall has room for at least 600 or 700 people dancing, plus tables and stuff, and is ringed on the upper levels by balconies from the top 2 floors. And there are several more smaller ballrooms and stuff. The festival had 4 concurrent stages on the main night, Saturday, and it was crazy trying to choose between it all.

David Byrne from the Talking Heads was there, which some of my musician friends realized during but most of us didn't know til after, which is definitely how he wanted it. He blogged about it, and complimented my friends' group Black Sea Hotel, and that was seriously cool. You should definitely read his blog post, because it also has photos of the venue and embedded videos, and gives a real sense of the awesomeness.

Friday night had the feel of a really excellent normal festival. Just one stage, and great energy, but it ended by around 1:30. The friend I was staying with had come along but gotten tired, and I enjoyed being able to *take a still-running subway* back to the Upper East Side, and then to get myself a croissant at a *still open bakery* at 3 am when I got there.

Saturday night had the real feel of camp, the level of epic fun and the degree of crazy lateness. After the festival ended I went with a group of mostly Brooklyn-living musician and dancer friends to a bar that had maybe 5 people before we got there and then maybe 60 after, and they shut off their music and let us play and dance. And then we went down the street to a diner and took over the whole back area. I got back to the UES at 6 am. It was truly awesome.

One random highlight: At one point the Raya brass band, all of whom I'm friends with, had their room so packed they were able to get people crowdsurfing. I'd never seen that at a *folk music* event. I actually didn't end up staying in that room long even though they're an excellent band and I adore them, cos I was still desperate to dance rather than moshpit in the crowd, but it was great nonetheless.

Those of you who live in NYC, next year I swear I am going to bug you all about checking out at least the Friday, which is cheaper and less intense for a newbie but still made of massive amounts of win. If I ever moved to NYC, it would be because of things like this. Not that I plan to, but I could see the appeal for the first time in ages of having access to these bands every week instead of a few times a year.