July 2008 Archives

Last night, I went to my normal Wednesday night dance class. As usual, I had an absolute blast. This summer has been great review for me. We've had a lot of new students in class, which means that Christine has really slowed things down and worked on reviewing technique. This has given me an opportunity to take a few steps back and work on my own technique.

Of course, this has been somewhat of a challenge, as well. To be honest, some of the dance exercises are actually more strenuous when done in slow motion. While I was able to quickly execute certain movements and be done with it before, I now have to move through the motions more slowly. This means that my muscles have to work harder to suspend a leg in mid-air for several counts in some exercises.

Of course, a couple of the new students have decided to watch me during a lot of the exercises. They've decided that I know what I'm doing, which I actually think is somewhat of a mistake on their part. I've certainly improved over the past six months, I grant you. However, I still make a good number of mistakes, and my technique still needs work. More importantly, I need to work on doing things well consistently.

Of course, Christine doesn't seem to mind the fact that the other students watch me. in fact, when it came time for us to do our phrase while she watched, one of the women said something about keeping an eye on me so she could follow along. So Christine decided to move me to front and center of the group so everyone could watch and follow. Oh dear. The good news is that the phrase we are working on right now is rather slow, so I've been able to do really well. (It takes me longer to really get some of the more upbeat phrases.) And the fact that we're currently working on a phrase that I learned back in January when I started the class helps a lot, too. (Of course, I don't think the other students realize this.)

The real excitement, however, came for me when I decided to stick around and take the jazz dance class too. I had previously talked to Marina, who teaches that class, and got permission to take it. I was a bit nervous because I was concerned about confusing myself with two different styles of dance. Then there's also the fact that originally, the Wednesday night jazz dance class was intended to be an intermediate class, so I was concerned about being able to keep up. Then there were just my concerns about taking two dance classes back-to-back. After all, two and a half hours of almost non-stop dance is quite the workout.

Fortunately, everything worked out fine. The class was challenging, but that was mostly because I'm not used to the warm-ups and exercises that Marina does in her class. And like many dance instructors, she tends to give a long list of exercises we're going to do over the course of an entire song, then start the music and have us go to it. This meant that I got lost more than once, but I was generally able to recover.

The differences in styles also turned out to be less of an issue than I expected. Certainly, there are differences and I had trouble adjusting to a few things. (For example, I kept wanting to turn out when doing tondus, whereas some of the tondu exercises Marina uses require the feet to remain in parallel position. It takes a bit of mental adjustment.

As for the length of time dancing, that proved to be a minor issue. Other than a blister on my right big toe and a leg cramp last night, I made out quite well. As a result, I've decided to attend the jazz dance class for the remaining two weeks in this term. After that, it'll be time for the Fall sessions to start. Marina said she plans on trying to start up another beginners jazz dance class on Saturdays, and I'm thinking about registering for it. I'd stick with the intermediate class, but I already have other obligations on Wednesday.

Besides, a Saturday class will have me dancing three days a week, which would be good.

Today at 4pm, I'm meeting an account manager from work and another coworker to travel to a customer's site. I will be gone until late Monday afternoon.

Because of the large number of spam comments I've been getting, I've decided to disable all comments while I'm gone so that I won't have a huge mess to clean up.

As an aside, I'm seriously thinking about accepting only authorized comments to prevent the spam. In order to leave an authorized comment, you would need to get a typekey account. (Those readers who blog from Typepad already have one.) Typekey accounts are free and don't require much user information, so my few dedicated commentors might want to check out getting one.

Have a good start to your weekend!

One of the interesting things about Freyja acting as my patroness and primary guide is that she often puts in her two cents on my health and any matter related to it. And while she certainly reaffirms my right to make my own decisions about what I should do, she both makes her opinion about the best course of action known and is brutally honest about the consequences of a bad decision I'm considering.

Consider, for example, a brief exchange we had tonight at dinner. After working at the shop all afternoon, Belinda, Amy, and I decided to go to dinner at Red Lobster tonight. The three of us sat in a comfortable booth enjoying our meals. After I finished my chicken linguini alfredo (one of the great ironies of my life is that I eat at Red Lobster at least once a month despite the fact that I don't like seafood or fish), I pondered the possibility of dessert. After all, I absolutely love their ice cream sundae with the big chocolate chip cookie on the bottom. I considered it when Miss Thing decided to make her thoughts known. The exchange went something like the following.

Her: I don't think that's a good idea.

Me: But it's so good!

Her: Yes, but you've already had enough to eat.

Me: I can manage it!

Her: You also had the pina colada with dinner.

Me: I know, but I probably won't come back for a few more weeks, and I really want the sundae.

Her: Okay, let me lay it out for you. Then you can choose whatever you want.

Me: Lay it out for me?

Her: Your digestive system is already a bit out of whack due to your recent changes in exercise and eating habits. You've eaten a large meal and had a drink. Before you order the ice cream, you might just want to stop and ask yourself how much time you really want to spend in the bathroom this evening.

Me: You mean....?

Her: Well, let's just say that if you have the ice cream, you might want to move the television in there as soon as you get home so you don't miss your shows.

I eventually saw reason and went without dessert tonight. Hey, it was my choice. But all the same, it sure feels like she play dirty some days. ;)

Long-time blog friend Tracie made the hard decision to put down her beloved Bean (pictured to the left). This gorgeous furbaby had been struggling with advanced cancer for a while, and the time had come to grant her peace from her suffering. At this time, I'd like to offer Tracie my deepest condolences along with a few words.

I'm going to try my best (though I'm not sure how good my best will ultimately be) to avoid platitudes, such as how Bean is in a better place (which I definitely believe) or how even death is the part of a master plan we don't understand (which I might believe up to a point). Instead, I want to say something else to you, Tracie.

It sucks. I know you're hurting and missing your darling little Bean. If I was in your position, I'd feel the same way. I'd probably bawl my eyes out more than once today and over the next several days. So girl, you go right ahead and do that. You both need and deserve to do it. And the gods know, Bean deserves that kind of love.

And ultimately, that's what we're talking about. The reason this sucks so bad is that you loved her and she loved you. You shared a bond and countless precious moments. She was a precious part of your life that you cherished for many years and you will continue to cherish. The loss of that bond -- the loss of the chance to experience new precious moments with your darling Bean -- is worthy of much sorrow. Such love must be mourned. So give yourself the freedom to do so. It's just another way of cherishing the love the two of you shared.

I hope that you find a way to express your sorrow, cherish your memories, and find the sweetness in it all.

My thoughts are with you, my friend.

This week, I went to both of my dance classes. Tuesday was my first dance class in almost a month. After a week and a half of being out due to an injured ankle and another two weeks of break between the Spring and Summer sessions, it was nice to get back into the swing of things. Of course, it was also pure agony.

I think the agony was mostly caused by the one exercise we did on Tuesday -- an exercise that got incorporated into our dance phrase at the end of the night. This exercise involves a move, which I'll try to describe. You start seated on the ground with your knees bent and your lower legs and feet tucked off to the left of your torso. You then swing your legs so that they're off to the right of your torso. Then you swing them back back to the left. Then you fall to your right and roll onto your back, you're knees bent and over your chest. You continue the roll back into a sitting position with your legs on your right again. You reverse the roll and end up back with your legs on your left. You then whip your legs around clockwise so that they go from left to right, then behind you (this requires that you allow your torso to come forward and lay stomach down) back to your left, to the front, and finally ending once again bent and tucked to your right. I imagine that description is hard to follow, but I don't have video. In some ways, I think it helps to picture a gymnast doing a routine on the horse. Except in the dance exercise, you're not trying to hold your weight up on your arms as you whip your lower bod around.

This exercise is murder, especially when you consider the speed at which you're trying to whip your legs in a 360+ degree circuit around your body. (You have just a couple beats in the music to do it.) Quite frankly, at 280 pounds, I have a lot of weight I'm trying to move in a short period of time. Of course, Michael (who weights at least 100 pounds less than me) said he also found the exercise painful the first time Christine introduced it in class a year or so ago. So I take comfort in the knowledge that it's not just me.

Other than that, both nights were actually pretty close to a cake walk. Because this week was the start of a new session and we had a lot of new students in both classes, Christine decided to start over and take things slowly. So the exercises were a lot simpler than what I was used to by the time our last session was coming to a close. Of course, I'm not complaining about this. Simpler, more familiar exercises in class mean that I can take this time to work on perfecting my technique and working on some issues I'm having -- like the fact that I tend to pull my arm too far back when holding it in second position.

Wednesday night, Christine chose to revisit a phrase that the class was working on when I joined back in January. Again, this meant that it was familiar (well, part of it, because she went further with it this time). It also meant that I could focus on getting the arms right, which I had problems with the last time we worked on this phrase. After we refused the phrase a few times, Christine asked me if I got it. I said yes, and she sent Barbara (another long-time student in the class) and myself to the back of the room where the other students could follow our lead when we got to the part of the phrase where everyone turned around. Not that I minded, but it was quite a surprise.

This past Saturday, I took my parents out to dinner at TGIFriday's. While there, our waitress asked me about my pendants. I normally wear two pendants:

1. A silver pentagram which is a little bigger than a dime. It has a bear at the top point, walking on all fours.
2. A brass spherical cage, which contains a piece of amber resin.

Both pendants are religious in nature and are deeply personal to me. I've had a handful of people ask about them, and I'm usually quite happy to answer their questions. In fact, the only two times I'm hesitant to say anything are as follows:

1. When I'm at work (or a work-related function) and there are customers around
2. When I'm with my parents, especially my mother

Sadly, this situation falls into that second category. And I could already see my mother's expression when the waitress asked about it. The problem with being the sole witch in a family that consists mostly of evangelical (and even fundamentalist) Christians is that it can certainly strain family relationships a bit.

After a brief hesitation, I simply told the waitress that they are religious symbols of significance to me. I think she realized I was being somewhat avoidant (and I hated that I was being avoidant) and let the matter drop. Fortunately, the subject quickly changed.

Then again, maybe that's not so fortunate. One of the messages that I keep getting over and over is that I need to be more open with my family. I need to let them into all aspects of my life. The problem is, that's difficult when there are certain aspects of it that they don't really care for. Certain subjects cause hackles to raise.

In fairness to my parents, it's not just them, either. Any time the subject of my faith comes up around family, I get defensive. I automatically expect a problem. And that's not fair. Not only that, I'm beginning to wonder if on some levels, my own family is unconscioually reacting to my own defensiveness. It wouldn't surprise me.

But at the same time, I still haven't found a good way to overcome my first reaction in such situations.