Last night I went to see yet another dance performance. I first heard of the local troupe ODC (not to be confused with the Overseas Development Corporation!) when I had a brief fling with Kevin, a former dancer of theirs.

And then it turned out that one of my best friends, Wendy, had been a dance student at Oberlin at the same time as Brenda Way, who later went on to form ODC (the Oberlin Dance Collective). Being sensible people, the troupe eventually relocated to San Francisco, as did Wendy.

Wendy, by the way, is a talented person in her own right. She could easily have been a professional dancer herself. But when she moved to San Francisco, she fell in love with weaving (don't ask me why), and now, thirty years later, she's married with two kids, she's a team-lead at the old software company in Berkeley where I worked for six years. In between all that, she's even had time to become a seriously good pianist.

Anyway, Wendy and I went to see a special "unplugged" performance of ODC last night at their space in the Mission. They are celebrating their thirtieth anniversary, so the event included wine and munchies, and a very informal atmosphere. The troupe members were each dressed in practice clothes of their own, and, for the first time, were performing with "Dance Jam", ODC's kids troupe, who were all kind of like miniature versions of the big guys and girls.

It was great fun. They didn't quite demonstrate the sheer, precise, exuberant artistry of the Alvin Ailey troupe. Instead their work was uninhibited, comic, physical and endlessly creative. It gave me a special insight into just how to let yourself go creatively - the performance was strung together out of seemingly loony ideas that other groups might have tossed.

My attention was riveted though by one of the performers, a tall, gorgeous Brazilian named Felipe, who danced like a muscular swan. He looked very familiar - I believe he may go to my gym. I wonder if I'd have the courage to approach him? Okay, who are you kidding!

After the performance, we lingered in the foyer, foraging on the left over food and wine. (And I was hoping to bump into Felipe, accidentally on purpose :). We talked with Brenda Way for a while, but Wendy seemed kind of hesitant with her, despite their long history. I guess it was one of those situations akin to going to somebody's party where the only person you know is the host. You want to hang out with them, but then, so does everybody else, and you don't want to end up being their groupie.

I haven't been feeling quite right in the head these last two days. I feel strangely light-headed, almost dizzy. And what's more, I've felt a general level of intense irritation like I've never felt before, despite my current high spirits The only time I ever experienced irritation to anywhere like this degree in the past was right after I came off a short period of taking Vicodin. I didn't realize it at the time, but Vicodin is extremely addictive, and even though my prescription only called for me to take it for five days, afterwards I was extremely irritable and thick-headed. So I'm wondering if the light-headedness and irritation are a consequence of coming off Prozac. I haven't heard that Prozac is in way addictive. But I suppose if the body gets used to anything over a period of months, and is then suddenly expected to make do without, it makes adjustments, and those adjustments may be hard to get used to.

So don't mess with me! :)