SalsaSalsaSalsa!

On Wednesday, I went salsa dancing at Zanzibar's on the waterfront (in D.C.) with 2 female friends (one was/is a ballroom dance instructor and the other is a massage therapist). My massage therapist friend, who was wearing jeans, a skimpy purple top with a string tie in the back, and open toed shoes, was turned away at the door. ("No Jeans" rule). Solution: retrieve a pair of white taekwondo pants from the car, turn them inside out so to conceal the lettering on the sides, and tuck the waist band/draw string inside. Voila! Sans jeans, we had no pockets between the three of us. Since I was the only one wearing a brassiere, thats where our IDs and some of the money went. My friend used a hair tie and the draw string on her taekwondo pants to secure the car key and her money. (See how innovative we are? Sometimes we put those things in our shoes, too-not keys though-but you can't do that in open toed shoes.)

On Saturday I went out with a friend of the dance instructor. Very good dancer and a nice guy, but I think I'm comfortable with just being friends with him. However, I have someone in mind I'd like to introduce him to (A little matchmaking might be fun!) He's Catholic. This other friend of mine (Catholic) has another (Catholic) friend, and they invited me, (their non-Catholic friend) to go with them to something called "Theology on Tap" which is where you go to happy hour at a bar and then someone Catholic, (sometimes a priest, but sometimes not) gives a talk with a Q/A session afterwards. This girl is single and I think she's interested in meeting someone. She likes to dance formally as well (used to do some Irish dancing) and I just wonder if they might hit it off...

CATHOLICS

My mom converted to Catholicism when she was a young woman (baptized and confirmed) but she was never married by a priest and did not practice it very much when I was growing up. My religious upbringing was mostly influenced by my Grandma on my Dad's side of the family. (That would be Missouri Senate Lutheran.) However, as a child in upstate NY, I attended many religious services with my 2 best friends, who were Irish American/Catholic. My stepfather is Catholic, and my 2 best friends from Virginia are both Italian American Catholics (originally from Long Island). I got my first degree from a Jesuit University. I even almost married a Peruvian Catholic when I was 22! Really, if there were such a thing as an honorary Catholic, I'd be it, so you'd think I wouldn't forget whether my fingers are supposed to go to the left or right shoulder when I cross myself! There was that time when I was taking religious instruction and participated in a ceremony, but wasn't allowed to drink the grape juice with the other kids...maybe since then, all those rituals make me feel sort of like a nervous outsider...I wonder if I'll have cross myself at Theology on Tap? I should write a Gen-Xy editorial on the position of the outsider in a catholic culture...Is it right-left or left-right...