Drowning Nor Waving

1) The apartment is chilly. It gets chillier in the evenings. We go about in fuzzy socks and sweaters, and eat homemade onion soup from mugs (oh yeah, some cut-up ends of smoked gouda do really good things to an onion soup), and have a fleece blanket at the ready on the couch. We figure the landlady's waiting for the official start of fall to turn on the radiators, so we're playing the world's slowest-motion game of chicken. This is less bothersome than mildly inconveniencing. I like fleece blankets.

2) Hot bath season is officially open.

3) This weekend's cook list: cabbage rolls (cabbage and tomatoes in the farmshare this week); bread; red bean chili; Chinese eggplant with miso; tofu red curry. And something with grapes.

4) Wrote longhand for the first time in years the other night, when I was feeling antisocial and had the urge to wander and eat alone in Thai restaurants. Funny thing: it worked. It's easing me around the place I was stuck. Funnier thing: when I write longhand now, it's in the same disjointed puzzle-piece chunks that I do on the computer, and I have to string the bits together later.

5) Started back at bellydance class on Tuesday. I haven't been, for various money and time and laziness reasons, for about a year and a half. But this is a new studio (close to home), a new class system (semestered, not drop-in), and a new style (ATS, not Egyptian), so I'm hoping all that will conspire to keep me a bit more regular about it. Also the fact that I've built up some truly epic muscle strength and stamina this summer -- if you ever want to get really strong legs really easily, move a half-hour walk from work -- and I enjoy being epic and want to stay that way. Even in the winter, when I fully expect to totally wimp out and take the subway to work mornings. I notably lost stamina when I sprained my ankle back in June and was off my feet for maybe just a week, and it made me sad.

There are a lot of things about dancing that are still hardwired into my body. And there are a lot of things I have completely forgotten, and my arm strength is mildly embarrassing and I'm considering taking up bouldering to, um, get some arm strength. But I still remember how. And I still do best at this when I stop hyperanalyzing every move and piece of technical form and just set myself like a metronome to the actual music and dance.

There is a really obvious Family Ties moral-of-the-week in that, but we won't go there. It's a really nice cool crisp day, and some things are best appreciated for what they are, and not everything benefits from being interpreted for life lessons.

So. This is a story about dancing. I will tell you another after next Tuesday.

April 30, 2007 Progress Notes:

Above

Words today: 500.
Words total: 9000.
Reason for stopping: Bedtime.
Liquid Refreshment: Water.
Munchies: Bear cake!
Exercise: Dance class.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: Nothing particular today.

Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Bad marital spats.
Research Roundup: None.
Books in progress: Holly Black, Ironside

The glamour: Made myself po' again. And then bought bread and eggs. *g*

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We promoted ourselves to Beginner I classes tonight (the way the school works is that they run classes of whatever level, Introductory to Advanced, and you pace yourself as needed) and even though I was superlatively nervous about it? God, it was fun. We danced. :D For real! Not just muscle isolations! And learned steps and then split the group and did them for each other. And there was jingling and twists and doing the head thing like I was a natural, and and and.

I had the best time. Vive la Coalition!

Now what we're thinking about is whether we throw in our names to perform in the student gala in early June...

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(Also, I committed garden today. Coriander, lemon thyme, oregano, basil, arugala, and English thyme, which will not sit next to the French lavender lest they have border wars. Shh, no tell.)

April 7, 2007 Progress Notes:

Above

Words today: 500.
Words total: 2000.
Reason for stopping: That's the minimum I'll feel unguilty with. And god, tired.
Liquid Refreshment: Water.
Munchies: Sushi, purchased on an indulgence granted me by writing half a term paper today.
Exercise: Bellydance lesson.
Mail: Nomail.

Darling du Jour: There are stories that say they loved each other once, that the Whitecoats took them as much for their loving as Atticus's eyes and arms and Corner's bloodtouch hands.
Tyop du Jour: N/A
Words MS Word Doesn't Know: N/A

Mean Things: Revisionist history.
Research Roundup: N/A
Books in progress: Meredith Pierce, The Darkangel; Hal Duncan, Ink; Textbooks.

The glamour: Seven pages of a term paper I don't especially feel like doing. *makes muskel*

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Oof. It has been a full day, even without the hockey game, and might have been fuller -- I had to turn down theatre tickets in order to get even halfway through that paper. Although I hope it's more than halfway. The length limit is 10-15 pages. I'm definitely going to crack 10, so we'll just see how it goes tomorrow at this point. Apparently I can find a lot to say about a topic I have nothing left to say about if set at it in the right direction.

Dance class this morning was good, and I'm glad I got up early to do it (the studio is on a class card system, where you buy, say, 6 classes in 7 weeks, and if the 7 weeks go by and you haven't used them all yet too bad you. So I wanted to make up for the one I missed on Monday.). I didn't know they weren't holding regular classes this weekend (long weekend) and having all-level workout classes instead, so I almost just went home, but I'm glad I stayed. Yeah, I've only had two classes or so, but I kept up. Mostly. And I know I've never seen most of that before.

So yeah, the workout high was joined by feeling like I had the stones to try and have it pay off. Put the puck on the net every time, never know when it'll pay off, etc. *g* Which gave me enough steam to start the paper...

And now god, I'm tired, and it is time to retire.

So, last night dolphin__girl, ksumnersmith, and I had our first meeting of the Coalition Against the Patriarchy Via Hotness and Sparkly Costumes, aka, bellydance lesson. Alice will be joining the Coalition when we have shed enough of our newbie suck to catch up to her. *g*

We have jingly hipscarves. They jingle. Mine is all burgundy velvet.

Yes, I have an UberGoth hipscarf.


So yeah, Sarah made me an icon! Lookit!