I can't remember if I talked about the trivia night that I went to last weekend, but if I did, I'm about to talk about it again. It was fun and super crowded. It was for the local animal shelter and there were over thirty tables sold. It was really fun. I love trivia nights. The team came in sixth. There was an entire round on science fiction stuff. I knew nothing until they asked what musical two songs from "Wall-E" came from. I knew they were from "Hello, Dolly!". That was clearly a bone thrown to people like me that have absolutely no knowledge of anything science fiction related. But, luckily, most of the rest of the table were really into science fiction and I don't think we missed any questions at all in that round. There always is a longer round based on music clips. I know this and I try to prepare for it. Mid-Missouri trivia nights always focus a lot on country music. Even when they try to make it 'include everyone's musical tastes', it's always country-heavy. I've been on teams in the past where we were burned by not knowing any country music so I make an effort to try to learn a little bit about it now. When I went to Springfield last month and drove out of my regular radio station's range, I just pushed scan on the radio and tried to name the artist of each song that I heard. I learned some country artists that way and we didn't do too badly on those parts of the trivia round.
I've been kind of bored with life lately. Nothing really exciting is happening. School is just going along. I'm on the downhill slope of the semester. The major projects are over. Just waiting for the finals, now.
There are no big trips in my immediate future. Macchu Picchu is looking like it's going to happen in December after graduation, but that seems far away still. I'm walking to try to train. I don't exactly have a way of doing high-altitude training here in the midwest, but I do yoga at least 5 times a week and I attempted cardio yoga last night, but I won't be doing that ever again. I probably do need to do some cardio stuff though. But no jumping around. My legs can't take it. My knees and ankles are really really weak. I blame the dance classes when I was growing up. I would argue that they didn't actually make my joints stronger, but actually just made them weaken faster. So, now I really can't run or jump or anything without having aches and pains for days afterward like I'm an old fart.
When I was in New Orleans, one of my friends and I both got our palms read and had tarot card readings. I don't know if those things are total scams or what. I actually don't know entirely what to believe. It was impressive. If it is just that those people can read you like a book, then we had a really amazing reader. I know I'm not exactly a poker-faced sort of person. I tend to give a lot away in my eyes. But I remember him telling me things that I don't know how he could have known if I'd just been pointed out to him in the shop when he asked the clerk who was next? Anyway, he told me that I wouldn't dance again because of my weak ankles and knees (there was a reason I thought of this and started down this blogging path). He also said that I'd get really tired of my job and just go back to school to finish the degree because I wouldn't be able to see any other option to get out, but that it wouldn't happen for a while (it happened a year and a half after I was in New Orleans, and it was true that going back to school and finishing the degree seemed like the only way out). But at the time when he told me this, I shrugged it off because I was so sick and tired of school and was on academic probation from a ridiculous mis-hap and had already dropped out of another program. I just wasn't feeling the school thing, but it did indeed end up that way. The thing I remember the most was during the tarot portion of the reading, he started saying a lot of country names. Just saying country after country, and it was all places that he said I would travel in my life. And it was really cool because every time he said a place, I'm sure my eyes were lighting up, like, 'Really?! Yes! Cool! That's Awesome!'. The weird thing was that he didn't say any state names except for one: New Mexico. I think my friend's eyes and mine both got big at that point because NM was starting to become part of my little life at the time, but I didn't talk to a lot of people about it, and it certainly hadn't come up in this little reading. I mean, really, New Mexico isn't a state that people remember. People that know my Dad and know he's moving can't even remember where my dad is moving to. They always think he's moving to Arizona. New Mexico is like West Virginia or Delaware, or something--it just fades into the background of the States of the Union, overshadowed by it's neighboring states. For a complete stranger to throw it out as a place I would be traveling to, and for that to be the only state he came up with? It was kind of spooky. I just visited New Mexico last summer for the first time.
Anyway, like I said, I don't know what to believe about those kinds of things, but that guy was incredibly good at his job. I wish I had some sort of transcript of the entire thing so that I could look back on it later in life. If you ever find yourself in New Orleans and you have time and money to burn and want to kind of freak yourself out a little by getting your fortune told in a voodoo house - I recommend Marie Laveau's House of Voodoo.
