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[[groovy musics: ]]

10:02 a.m. // 25 January 2006

Akron/Family show last night at Andy's was freakin' transcendent or whatever. I only got there for the very end -- these 12-hour Tuesday workdays get me down -- and they were doing their man choir thing. Dwayne said he wanted to see them at 1919, with the band members all singing and the audience encircling them. Then that happened for real.

The band got into an extended psych-prog jam at the end, and one tall beardy guy was digging the rhythm and dancing near us in the middle of the place. Then James Wash. came over to join him in the dance. Then more guys joined in until it was a half-dozen men dancing in a circle, a little bit silly but uninhibited. As the music built up somebody dropped a beer bottle onto the ground, and the dance got a little more frenzied, glass getting ground up and kicked across the floor.

Then one of the Akrons came over with an acoustic guitar, then another with a tambourine, then the rest of the band... the jamming died down and Akron/Family sang, unaccompanied save for some percussion, about wanting to be a mirror to reflect love and space. They had the whole audience circled around them with hushed breath and on tip-toes, then got the crowd clapping and chanting-singing-shouting the mantra of "love and space."


I guess that makes it sound like a bunch of hippies, but it was cool, really.

Last weekend Dwayne and I went to a Catholic pre-marriage retreat, required for us to get hitched. We had to stay Friday night through Sunday afternoon (right before I needed to be at work), and because of the time commitment I was a little anxious about the whole affair. It turned out to be really good -- they have you write on various topics to your future spouse, then share what you've written and discuss. Dwayne and I figured out that we communicate pretty well; the weekend just solidifed that, and the importance of that.

We had to sleep dormitory-style, and I got a top bunk in a room for four (originally designed for two). Dwayne had to sleep in the biggest men's bedroom, with six beds and one extremely loud snorer (whose log-sawing could be heard on the floor ABOVE).

Because it was in Fort Worth, Dwayne and I bookended the retreat with visits to Spiral Diner. Yeah! Dwayne was pleasantly surprised by the scrambled tofu "eggs."

It means a lot to me that our friends -- even those we don't know that well -- are happy we're getting married. We told Cri (who is anti-tofu-eggs, for the record) and he bolted out from behind the restaurant counter to give us a hug.

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