A little inspiration...or coercion

There's a Hafla (bellydancing dance party) this Saturday. It includes open floor dancing and performances by various members of the dance community. My dance troupe had planned to work up a choreography and perform, but for various reasons everyone (except me) wasn't sure they'd be in town that night. I decided to design a solo, dancing to a rock song rather than the traditional Middle Eastern music most people use. Life, work, and a lack of inspiration got in the way and I never much worked on a choreography. I announced at last week's practice that I wasn't going to perform. That got the rest of the troupe riled up and they forced me to perform what little I had and improv the rest right that minute for them. Well, it went better than expected and everyone liked what I did, even though I couldn't remember what I'd made up after it was done. It inspired me to finalize a choreography and sew several new costume pieces. I did a dress rehearsal at practice last night and felt pretty good about it. No, I felt great. I'm so glad now that I let myself be coerced into working up a solo. Now comes the last few days of practice, where people catch me singing and dancing to myself in my lab coat at work, and my car stereo plays nothing but The Song while I shimmy in my car seat. Oh, and the frantic last minute costume sewing, from which I'm taking a brief break and really have to get back to. That's one problem with never using patterns to sew, it takes a lot more time and effort to figure out how you want some pieces to look. Hopefully I'll be able to tape the performance so you all can see it. Who knows, maybe it'll even be YouTube-worthy. Of course, my standards are a fair bit higher than some of the tripe you see posted.

Death by healthy beverage

I know drinking too much grapefruit juice in one sitting will hurt my stomach. So will drinking too much milk. So why did I just drink a tall glass of juice and then another of milk? I can feel them fiendishly plotting my downfall together. I'm blaming the Simply Juice people, and the folks at Homestead Creamery for my current state of blleeaaaggghhh.

Things I've noticed today

I finally found a place to drop off my recycling! I hate that I've wanted to recycle for ages, yet couldn't find anywhere to accept it. Geesh, I even save kitchen scraps for composting, yet couldn't recycle a freakin glass bottle. Anyway, there's a place at the CRC with dumpster bins for recyclables. I'm going to make it a regular stop on the way to work from now on. Hooray!

It's far more fun to bellydance with other people than alone. Especially if you're dancing together and not just practicing the same moves at the same time. My excitement over dancing goes up exponentially in a group, which is why I *still* haven't really worked at home on my solo that's coming up in like 3 weeks.

I'd like to give my dog a snack without her engulfing my hand up to the second knuckles. No matter what I'm holding or how gingerly I drop it, there I am with sopping fingertips afterwards. But I can hold a small treat in my mouth and she'll ever so gently take it without touching my face, except her whiskers. Windy has a massive cat-like set of whiskers, we call them her sensor array.

If your boss demands a minimum business casual dress code, he shouldn't get upset when women wear heels that make noise when we walk. It's not our fault he paved the hallways with bricks, or built the front room to acoustically amplify the smallest sound. And we're super not allowed to wear shoes that scuff the blazing white floors, which most women's flats will do. So, scuffy shoes are out, heels are discouraged (he refers to them as noisy shoes), no clogs, no open heel or open toe shoes of any kind. What pray tell do you wear with a skirt or nice pair of trousers?

Do you think there's something in the air? Almost everyone I know either feels bad physically or mentally. We're all stressed, tired, overworked, overwhelmed, irritable, worried, grumpy. Isn't there a spring wind that brings bad vibes called the foehn? I don't know if what we have going counts, but it could explain a lot.

Tonight's the night

Tonight is the first official night of "Man this would be a great night to be out camping" season. It's in the upper 50s, calm and clear. I stepped outside after dark and could imagine sitting around a fire, drinking Guinness out of a tin cup, no idea what time it is and not caring. Laughing over the inevitable fire-starting competition we always seem to have (it requires drinking a beer before picking up the flint & steel) and my obsessive fire-tending throughout the night. Reminiscing over prior events and people, plans for trade items like leatherworking and handspinning, and the occasional non-PC topics like genetics and wastewater treatment. Trying to bring the youngin' of our group, a quiet fun 14 year old, up to snuff on certain matters ;)

I can't wait. I'm smiling even thinking about it.