From Thursday evening through Sunday, I participated in a tango encuentro, a festival of sorts. I danced with people from all over the country during the weekend, which still seems a little crazy but I suppose I’ve traveled to do things like watch a few baseball games.

After I spent a few weeks reintroducing myself to tango at the start of the year, I found out about this event and set participation in it as an internal target. Since this wasn’t a competition it was not the easiest to create a measuring stick for success, but I settled on something like being skilled enough to participate comfortably (squishy though that standard may be). I’ve been dealing with some muscle injuries that limited my prep, but I feel satisfied that I achieved the level I wanted for the event. I still feel I was among the worst participants, but so be it. I did receive positive feedback from multiple other people so maybe that’s more accurate than my own internal monologue. As for demographics, I was definitely on the younger side. Stated differently, I was almost certainly one of the ten youngest people out of the two hundred or so participants. In some ways that was freeing and older women are more willing to tolerate my two left feet anyway.

I then followed it up by going to a concert last night where I stood for several hours letting country rock music wash over me. This was actually my second time seeing Paul Cauthen in concert as I also saw him perform when I was in Montana last summer. I was very glad that I brought my concert earplugs with me; those were a great find by my brother a couple of years ago. It was a great show, but it did prolong my inability to resume my normal sleep schedule. Choices.