I really miss dancing.  There's got to be something here, though a nice place seems a needle in a haystack.  Not looking for a meat market.  As far as music, the more eclectic the better.  I love to hear a good song I don't know and I know an awful lot of music.

 

Suggestions?

I don't see their point. It seems perverse that people would want to be surrounded by unknown strangers who stress you out.

Myself, I prefer known strangers, whose lives play out just a little off to the side of mine. Those who never quite take on the nomiker of friend (although sometimes yes, with an addition of "not a really CLOSE friend") and whose lives unfold before me like characters in the passing pages of novels.

I ventured into the wilds of Red Hook for the first time last night. A friend had invited me to see her concert at a little bar seemingly off any known busline.
IKEA, on the other hand, was but a hop and skip (no jump necessary) away. And with nothing else to eat in plain view and a half hour before the beginning of the concert, I bumbled over and found the cafeteria. Feasted on k�ttbullar (meatballs).
Now, though I have lived in Sweden, I've never actually been to an IKEA. I have been to Tiger, which is a Danish-based dollar store, and perhaps the most upper-class dollar store I've ever seen. You march through it starting at one end, through winding aisles of merch to arrive at the cash register. The IKEA in Red Hook is set up on the same concept (as I said, it was my first experience, I don't know if they all are). After eating, I went on a storewide trek to find the Swedish foods. (This see-it-all design is cool for dollar trinkets, but odd in a home furnishing environment. Does one actually pick up a cool chair that caught your eye when really all you needed was a new showerhead?)
I had almost given up, when I found it, just beyond the cash registers. There was pepparkakor (gingerbread bisquits) and sill (herring) and v�sterbottensost (cheese) and muesli. About the only thing missing is fil (the soured milk one puts on muesli) and akvavit (I suppose IKEA doesn't have an alcohol license).
I was as excited as I was my first time in a Swedish supermarket (and if you know me, you know that if I bring you back a present from a foreign country, it'll be from a supermarket). A cornicopia of delight, I tell ya.
Oddly, I didn't buy anything. I was running late for my return (got there just as the first song was starting) and would have had a heavy burden to cart round with me. But I know I will soon be returning to Red Hook!