Quick check-in

My dear readers and fabulous followers:

I'm not ignoring you and I haven't forgotten my duties to provide you with semi-daily reading entertainment. I have things to catch you up on about my adventures in dance-student-land. I've wanted to write for about five days now, but when the day is at it's end and I have a few moments to write a paragraph or two, my bed typically wins out.

BUT! I will write a recap of my first week back tomorrow. I promise!

And hey, hey! Melissa and ...love Maegan have joined my Follower ranks! Welcome ladies.

Until tomorrow...

A li'l shout out to Follower #2!

Just a couple days ago I noticed that Star Kicker joined That Baldy Fella as my second official follower - welcome to my blog! I'm sorry I didn't acknowledge sooner... have no fear, I did take note, and I'm flattered you decided to join!

And for the rest of you who read my blog all sneaky-like - what's the hold up??

Just kidding. Kind of.

When more exciting things start happening in my dance and school world, I'll post more. The last couple days of classes have been pretty ho-hum. You know, the usual first-day-back business: here's the syllabus, don't skip class, your exams are on these dates, yadda, yadda. Nothing exciting enough to post more than the few sentences here.

Until then - toodles!

A new beginning

Our 44th president was sworn into office today! I enjoy new things, and this is definitely new and exciting. Watching the various videos on CNN.com today, I ran across this one and really liked it, so I thought I'd share. I like it for the respect it shows between two different men with different ideas, but who share a common, important thing: running this country. George W was not my fave president - he really irked me, most of the time - but I still respectfully say farewell and thank you for leading this country. And to our new Chief, Barack Obama, WELCOME!



As one steps down and the other takes the lead, I look forward to the changes ahead!

TGIF, indeed

Ahhhh, Friday!

After a long week, Friday always arrives with a feeling of relief and lifted spirits. I'm still tired, but I'm much happier today - no feeling on the verge of tears, yay!! - because it's FRIDAY!

And to make today even sweeter, its a three-day weekend!


When I get home from work tonight I'll refresh my brain and stretch out my back with a little yoga. Then off to the movies - tonight I'll see Gran Torino. I need Clint Eastwood to cure me of the uber-cheesy-girly Bride Wars from last week. Ugh. Don't get me wrong. I really like Kate Hudson, and Anne Hathaway isn't so bad, either, and I like a good romantic comedy from time to time. Buuuuutttt, this flick didn't rev my romantic comedy mojo. So, ugh, again.

Tomorrow will entail some errands, then off to Denver in the afternoon to work on some acrobatic hip hop moves at a gymnastics club with the rest of the crew. I'm looking forward to the bouncy floors! I'll stay in Denver with friends tomorrow night, dork around Denver on Sunday, then do the usual hip hop rehearsal that night. Then back to the FoCo.

Monday, Monday... I'll fill you on Monday's scoop when Monday arrives. Until then - happy Friday and weekend everyone!

The mean reds

Holly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly: No. The blues are because you're getting fat and maybe it's been raining too long, you're just sad that's all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you're afraid and you don't know what you're afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
{scene from Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)}

Yes, Holly, I do.

I'm one of those people who remembers my sleeping dreams. Quite well, actually. They are detailed, imaginative and very, very real. It's as if my subconscious never grew up past the make-believe part of childhood. Sometimes this is okay, when my dreams are wacky and off the wall and I wake up amused with my imagination. But other times its really not okay. Sometimes my dreams are bad, scary or downright disturbing. Lately my dreams have been in the latter category.

Now, I don't think dreams predict the future or anything wackadoo like that - and thank god, too, or else there would be some crazy shit going down in this world if my dreams came true - but I do believe they are a good representation of what's going on in my emotional life. So my bad dreams as of late are an indicator that not only am I stressed and anxious about something, but I'm REALLY stressed and anxious.

I don't sleep well when I have upsetting dreams, either.

Such has been the case for about a week now. Maybe more, I don't know. When you're going on the upteenth day of poor sleep and bad dreams, time just blends together. Wait, no, I remember going through this around Christmas and over that weekend. So yes, its kinda been ongoing for several weeks now.

Last night's dream was no exception. I dreamt that I was driving to work in the morning, and on my way, the streets were filled with tons and tons of dead geese. (There are hundreds of geese in FoCo right now, per the status quo for this time of year - I mean, they are everywhere!) All the dead geese had been run over and killed by cars - some were half-flattened, some were fully flattened. There were blood and feathers everywhere. It was creepy. And I was the only one on the road as I drove to work. No other cars or people around. I was completely devastated about the geese and very upset. I was almost to work when I passed this one goose who had been flying around trying to find her mate. She found him on the side of the road, and as she nudged him with her beak to see if he was still alive, he shuddered a bit and then died. Then I woke up.

Yeah.

Last night's dream has been the creepiest so far. All my other dreams have been about people I actually know, and while they've been upsetting, no death and gore has been involved. So far. Ugh.

Needless to say, I didn't feel so great today. My back is incredibly tense and I've had to hold back tears all day. I don't know what's going on, but this sucks. I want to sleep. And I don't want the mean reds anymore!

T-minus 7 days

Work was BUSY today. Which was fantastic because it was over before I knew it. But it was one of those busy kinds of days that made my eyes burn from staring at hundreds of uber-detailed spreadsheets and my brain was the consistency of overcooked cauliflower. The only cure for cauliflower-mush brain is to get out my jujus and dance like a crazy woman... so I did.

I stopped at my apartment for a quick pre-workout snack of peanut butter and honey toast, changed clothes and made my way to the gym. Since its still winter break, the gym was not busy at all and the aerobics studio was wide open.

I warmed up with some ballet barre exercises. Holy crap, my ballet muscles are tight! And my feet are not pointing as strongly as they should be... *sigh* I guess I should have done more ballet-focused conditioning the last three weeks. It is so hard to motivate myself to do ballet outside of a required ballet class. Ugh. I don't hate ballet, but I don't passionately love it, either. Someday I'll write a post about my love-hate relationship with ballet...

Anyhoo.

I lightly stretched - its not a good idea to intensely stretch before a workout. Better to save that for the very end. I then popped in my iPod headphones and started dancing around the studio.

I was listening to the song I want to choreograph to for Studio Night, and I was jumping around all over the place with some West African-esque moves. I'm sure the people running by on the track were wondering what the heck was wrong with me - "why is that girl spazzing out all over the aerobics studio?" - but whatever. I got my juju's out and cauliflower-mush brain quickly dissipated. And the creative juices were flowing! This is a huge relief. I've been thinking about what I want to do for Studio Night for most of break, and I've been feeling antsy that I really need to get on the ball with choreography, but I've had zero creative inspiration. But ideas were coming to me as I spazzed out around the studio, so all will be well.

I then did my hip hop conditioning - a series of various push-ups and crunches - and finished with some good stretching. At least I've consistently stretched over break. I think I'm more flexible than I was even at the end of last semester! Take that, ballet.

I'll go back to the gym on Thursday for more ballet. And more spazzing out in the interest of my jujus. And (hopefully) coming up with more choreography. I need to get to work - t-minus 7 days!

Food for thought

Here are a couple quotes I ran across this week that I really like...

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."
Frederick Douglass, American abolitionist

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty."
Maya Angelou, American poet

This week in Better Late than Never-land

Aaaaaand, I'm back!

Sorry for no riveting, profound posts this past week. I thought of things I could write about here and there, but I felt nothing was really that interesting to my readers after all was said and done.

Speaking of readers, I know I only have a small handful, and most of them are real-life friends. Now, a big thank you to my real-life friends for reading my blog! But I want cyber-blogging readers, too... all bloggers do. That's why we blog! So, as I peruse the 'net on a daily basis, I notice the number of readers so many blogs have. "How do they score these readers??" I sigh to myself... and then one day this week, I'm checking things out, making sure all is well in bloggy-land, and there on my dashboard was "1 follower" in the upper right corner.

Could it be??

Yes!! I have my first official follower, That Baldy Fella! This is your shout-out, my bald blogging friend, for being the first brave soul to sign up to follow my rantings. Cheers!

And in other news...

I'm getting rather antsy for school to start back up. I got the break I needed, ate the holiday food I shouldn't have, but now its time to get back down to business. While it has been nice to work a few more hours to get a little caught up with bills and all, I've been reminded that I'm not cut out for sitting at a desk eight hours a day, five days a week. Most days, by about 1 or 2 in the afternoon, I'm ready to peace out. I'm checked out mentally, ready for a change of scenery, and ready to move around. I feel like my spine is kinds of compressed and kinked-up by 5 pm and I'm fidgeting like a three year old on a 6-hour flight. Ugh!

Do me a favor, dear readers... when I start complaining about how tired and sore I am, how frustrated I am with ballet, how busy and stressed and tired I am of running around between classes/work/rehearsals, wah, wah, wah... PLEASE remind me of my alternative: sitting at a desk job the rest of my life. I was on that road before I embarked on this dance adventure, and let's just say I was NOT a happy camper with my life. When I forget this, as I will, help me remember that the madness I experience each semester will more than pay off in the end!

Thank you :)

And that concludes our update. Until next time!

Farewell, 2008

I've been sitting here for awhile thinking about what to write on the last night of 2008. I wanted to write something profound, something reflective, but of course, as any writer knows, as soon as you sit down with too specific an agenda, the words don't flow.

One of my friends likes to ask people on their birthdays what they learned over the last year. I never have good answers for her because she catches me on the spot and I'm usually in the middle of celebratory birthday shenanigans, so reflective thinking eludes me. But I have been thinking about the answers to that question all day today. So here's my list.

A handful of things I learned in 2008...

* I learned how important it is to constantly, diligently work at your craft so you don't become stagnant. I think all artists know this inherently, but sometimes we need a good kick in the butt to remind us... like returning to school in the fall after not doing much to train and stay in shape over the summer, and then being s-o-r-e for weeks because you took the phrase "lazy summer days" too literally.

* While it is important to continually train and learn and grow, it's also just as important to take breaks. For dancers, breaks and rest are necessary to maintain strength and agility, as well as to prevent injury. Creating new work isn't possible, either, if you're burned out. You can't restock the well if you go-go-go all the time.

* In the second half of the year, I slowly began to feel more comfortable labeling myself as an "artist." I always shied away from this, thinking that to justify giving myself such a title I had to have some kind of huge, published work that was bringing in the cash, or be famous in my field. Well, baloney, I say. I write, I choreograph... I'm an artist. And the more I think of myself as such, the more confident I become in my dance training, in my choreographic ideas, in writing projects, etc.

* Saying "no" doesn't make you a bad person. Doing things you don't really want to do is just a recipe for unhappiness and resentment. I experienced this over the summer with a certain obligation I made that my heart wasn't 100% committed to. No more of that business.

* The biggest and hardest lesson I've had to learn this year is that I'm not the center of the universe. When you're mired in the middle of such a destructive, self-centered idea, you become blind to the hurt you're causing others in your orbit. Sometimes that hurt becomes too much and your world explodes. My world exploded and someone in my orbit, someone I loved very much, someone I hoped to be my future, careened away from me. Since November, everything has been a nebulous confusion of heartache and uncertainty. Yes, it takes two to tango. No, it's not all my fault. But I can only take responsibility for myself. I still cry at night when I go to sleep, I still get knots in my stomach. I still have an empty, dull ache in my heart and there are days when I can't focus on much of anything. I still pray that God forgives me and that he would heal the damage that I caused. But I know that I have the choice to either use this to learn and grow, or to wallow in self-pity and spiral into cynicism. I choose growth, as hard as the growing pains are right now.

So, my 2008 exits on a, well, bittersweet note. To be honest, I'll be very relieved when I wake up tomorrow and it's January 1. The holidays and my birthday were hard, and I don't mean to sound bah-humbug about them, I just want this year to be done. Not that I think that life will suddenly be filled with sunshine and unicorns and rainbows and glitter as our calendars change from 2008 to 2009. I just really look forward to the fresh page of a new year and a new chapter.

With my lips glossed, my hair curled, and my cute new red purse on my shoulder, I bid thee farewell, 2008. I raise a glass of champagne and welcome in 2009 with one supafly dance party.

Simple pleasures

Being at home.

Cooking.

A glass of pinot grigio.

Cheese and onion quiche lorraine.

Putting together my 2009 planner.

Thumbing through my new cookbook.

Nibbling on jelly bellies.

Reading my new book.

Sleeping in my own bed.