I guess my summer, up until a few weeks ago, was pretty boring, since, after I came home from Oberlin, I wasn't working. I mainly sat around the house all day trying to muster the will to get to the gym. I had heard about the Twin Cities Balboa Festival at All Bal (which had been the highlight of my summer so far), and harbored a desire to go, but was unsure of whether this could become a reality or not. The Twin Cities are awfully far from Cincinnati, and to just drive up for the weekend seemed a bit excessive. However, luck would have it that my two best friends lived in convenient visiting-points along the way; Katie lived in Chicago and Louise lived in St. Paul itself. A plan was forming slowly in my mind: I could drive to Chicago, visit Katie for a few days, then drive to St. Paul, and visit Louise for a few days, then go to the Festival. It would be perfect! Now the question was: Did I have enough money? I fretted over this for a while before deciding that I did have enough, and even if the trip cleaned out my checking account, I was about to be a salaried teacher in the fall, wasn't I? Another motivating factor was the fact that I really needed to get out of Cincinnati. Due to a weird sequence of events, I’d been presented with some information about myself that I was not particularly proud of, and really wanted to get out of the house in order to figure things out; about myself, about this weird situation, about life. So, I decided to road trip. It worked out even more beautifully since my good friends from Cincinnati, also from high school, would be coming to Chicago for the weekend as well. So we headed north for a weekend of shopping and clubbing in Chicago.
I’d never been out clubbing like that before, and it was a bit of a shock to realize that I was expected to talk to and flirt with guys I didn’t know. I guess that’s how things work in the real world, and so far my experience was limited to Oberlin, where we had house parties and I almost always knew at least half the people in the room. I managed to convince Katie that I didn’t want to flirt with any guys; I just wanted to dance in the safe cocoon of our friends. Thankfully, she allowed me to remain inconspicuous, and I had a great time jumping around with my friends. My friends from home left for Cincinnati on Sunday morning, while I was planning to head out on Monday. Katie and I spent Sunday quietly, sleeping in then drinking coffee at Starbucks while we read and chatted. It was really nice and relaxing; I want to spend all my Sundays like that.
Monday morning I was off again, this time to Appleton, Wisconsin, to visit my favorite set of twins ever, whom I had met at Oberlin while teaching swing dancing. I made good time, and Laura and I had a wonderful lunch, after which she showed me around downtown Appleton. We went back to her house and just hung out and talked until her two sisters, one twin, Stephanie, one older, Catherine, returned from work, after which we had dinner then rented a movie. It was a wonderfully simple evening, but really fun. I love those girls and had a really good time hanging out with them.
To be Continued…
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