Scribbler's Cafe

Fabulous Friends (or DANCE! DANCE! DANCE!)

Thursdays have a habit of being wonderful for me. Thursday is the day Matt grants me late night babysitting and I run off to Osaka to play. Usually, I just go to Cafe Absinthe to scribble away in my notebook for a couple hours, but occasionaly I am joined by friends and my enjoyment of the day soars. Yesterday was one of those days.

I first had dinner with a friend I haven't seen in months and months. He makes for excellent dinner company. We talked Camus and De Sade and the unstoppable passage of time. We lingered a long time to catch up on all drastic happenings in each other's lives and promised not to let so much time pass before we spoke again. Delightful. We said good-bye and he caught his train back to Kyoto just in time for me to meet up with my next friend.

I had promised to take out one of the other teachers from my school to my little cafe/bar so that he may sample absinthe for the first time in his life. This man is high energy and great fun. Plus, he's one of the few people I feel no hesitation in practicing my terrible Japanese with. He actually liked the drinks I ordered for him and we got to have one of those wonderful discovering friendship and each other's lives conversations. Then he took me dancing.

Dancing! I have not been dancing in two years. But I absolutely love it. Because my friend is Japanese, I was able to go with him to a club that foreigners do not visit. I was the only gaijin in the house. It was an older crowd - which I prefer, and the music was very dancable. It looked like any other dance club I'd been to back home in America, dark corners, occasional smoke machine, girls in sparkly tops, men smoking cigarettes at small round tables. Yet, the vibe was totaly different. People barely moved on the dance floor. They all looked like they were having fun, but the dancing was so... stiff... and reserved. Plus, people were not really dancing with each other. On one side of the dance floor, the wall was covered by a giant mirror, and almost everyone danced by themselves facing the mirror. Sway sway. Smile smile.

My friend and I were not affected by the sway and smile regimen. We stood out, to say the least. I forgot how wonderful dancing feels, especially in the half dark with the music pounding. It was almost cleansing, except for the obnoxious smoke machine and plentiful smokers. A small half circle of men would always be dancing behind me, but as this is Japan, they stayed in their own spaces and did not intrude at all. So very polite. A couple of graduated students were in the crowd and freaked out to see us there. They hollered and smacked hands with sensei, but were too shy to dance with us.

At one point, the music lowered and a pretty girl who'd been dancing in the crowd was called up to the dj booth to say a couple things into the mic. I asked my friend what that was all about and he said that she was last year's Miss Universe Japan. Omoshiroi!

Anyway, it was a fabulous time and we're going to go dancing again when the quiet New Year's holiday is over. Plus, having a friend with a car is an unbelievable luxury to one such as me whose nights must usually be concluded by the last train home. (An early 11:30) I didn't get home until past three last night. Of course, today I'm exhausted as it's been ages since I've stayed out that late. The long night was quite a strain on my little body.

posted by Scribbler @ Friday, December 30, 2005