Tuesday Has No Phones

Summer hours are a wonderful invention and I highly recommend them. As do my cats, who feel it is only right and just that I come home early in order to snuggle with them.

I am enjoying geeky productivity at work. The sort of thing where I complete some if not all of what I'm doing and then do a happy bounce of joy at what I created.

If you know me then you don't have to ask if this involves actual bouncing.

I've come to a crossroads about dance. Due to many factors, not the least of which is the realization that it takes me longer to drive back and forth to class than I spend in the actual class (as well as a suspicion that the learning has pleateaued due to the teacher's interests and experience), I am mulling the decision to quit tribal belly dance and move on to other things. It's not an easy decision as I adore tribal (and recently bought a new skirt for it and everything!) but I also feel like my enjoyment is going to experience diminishing returns. There are some local schools that, though they do not teach belly dance, do teach some forms of dance that I am interested in. So I've sent some feelers out to get more information about those. There may not be much progress due to reduced summer hours at the schools, but at least I can get the ball rolling.

My plants are not dead yet, which is good.

The more I see of steampunk the more I think it's very shiny.

Time and weather permitting, tomorrow I will give my new clothespin bag a try.

I've been scarily productive this weekend. In addition to the usual chores I efiled my taxes yesterday and today I cleaned out two closet shelves. There's nothing like finding six extra bottles of shampoo and conditioner to remind you why it's a good idea to try to clean out your closets on a semi-regular basis.

Dance has started up again. It was on hiatus while my teacher dealt with some personal stuff as well as finding a new location. New location is nice, though further away. It's on Monday nights now. On the one hand this is good because Mondays have the highest likelihood of me leaving on time (not that I'm always staying after, just that if I am going to stay late it tends not to be on a Monday). On the other hand yes, I did wonder about the agony of this schedule when Heroes starts up again. Yes that's months from now and the class might change days by then or whatever but PRIORITIES PEOPLE.

The weather is trying to be warm. I do not approve.

Much thanks to those who sent well-wishes after Thursday. I was able to get Serenity on Friday morning and as far as I could tell she seemed okay. The news said it was the worst flood we've seen in quite some time (possibly ever). Apparently some places even got as high as five feet. Considering what I saw, I totally believe it.

Friday was a lot of us at the office telling war stories about our commutes home. 2 extra hours seemed to be the average for everyone. I also found out that if I'd had the psychic awareness to avoid the exit I'd taken I would've been screwed at the next two exits too. So that's a little comforting.

Today was more car fun as I drove down to Rakkasah East. This was my second time going, if you count Spring Caravan as my first. OMG was it crowded. At some points I had to flee for outside just for some air and some quiet. But I bought a top and a shawl, and got to see some nice performances including my teacher with her other troupe. So good times on that end.

After that I went to Delta's Restaurant with christinenj where the food was awesome, she had gator for the first time, I reaffirmed that not only is gator yummy bit it is OMG good when you combine it with a collard green dip, and both of us capped the night off by eating a jungle on a plate. No, this was not a lesbian bar, though you can't be blamed for thinking it might be.

Now I am home in peace and cool and quiet and I have a purring cat on my lap. Life is good.

Not to jinx it or anything but today I did a work thing and it's possible, just possible, that I did not blow something up. And if I didn't, it will be AWESOME!

In other good news, my belly dance teacher is going to be doing classes on Tuesdays now, and at a school that's only 20-30 min away! I'm very excited about this since the 50 min commute both ways to the old school was proving to be a bit much for me. New classes will start on the 4th. Wheee!

flaming_muse sent me a virtual gingerbread man! He's virtually uncatchable! :D

Dance went okay last night. Then after I ended up helping this woman who got locked out of her car, which I'm actually happy about as it helps pay forward the folks who were nice to me when Serenity broke down after dance that one time.

Today is work and dinner with the boss and his wife and then this weekend it's nothing but cooking.

*drinks Gatorade* I can do this! Woo!

The savior of our world settled down just long enough for me to eat breakfast this morning. I'm all urpy now but hey, at least this way I don't pass out from low blood sugar.

She's apparently jumping the game on some stuff as last night I had a near-crucifixtion. I'm calling it that because it sounds cooler than saying I stabbed myself with a nail by accident. The story there is that my parents got a new TV, which means that I got a new-to-me TV, and when setting up the wires and such I had to take apart the back of the TV cabinet and suffice it to say that there was a nail where I didn't expect a nail to be.

But on the plus side now I have a TV that I can turn on and off and adjust the volume for without getting out of my chair! This might sound lazy but it's actually about survival. When you have two cats snuggled up happily on top of you they don't really understand that they need to be disturbed now because you want to watch Project Runway.

It's cool and rainy here today. Tonight is belly dance which I'm going to no matter what the three-headed fake gumbaby has to say about it. And tomorrow... I dunno. There's a thing, but I dunno if it's worth my while to do it, and bleargh.

*ponders*

I went to the Ren Faire, yay!

I ate yummy food and window shopped vendors I couldn't afford and bought a couple of things that I could and saw fun performances, yay!

I also kept a close eye on my health, left when I started to feel run down, and made sure that tonight would be a quiet and restful one just to be on the safe side.

Huzzah!

So basically my deserving of cookies continues to abound. Go me.

On a bitchier note, cabaret dancers really need to not dress Tribal style. There was a belly dance performance at the Faire and while both dancers had good enough skill, the one dressed Tribal style looked like a moron. Not just because she was dressing outside her genre, but frankly because the clothes, when done well, highlight what you're doing. She looked a right git trying to show off what were geniunely skilled hip work underneath the heavy skirts and scarves that are meant to compliment Tribal movements.

And now I catch up on my flist.

Lookit! Pictures! Pictures of me doing belly dance!

See?

(Keep clicking Next. There's 9 in total.)

I would be the one in the black choli. =)

Rehearsal last night went surprisingly well. We're still on for this Saturday, where hopefully the weather will hold out for us.

If anybody would like to virtually attend the performance, here's the song we'll be dancing to. Download and listen to it tomorrow sometime around 4:15pm Eastern. 8)

(It's Punjabi MC's Yaaran Kollon Sikh Kuriye, for whatever that's worth.)

I have control issues. This is a shock to nobody that knows me. I'm a control freak and a perfectionist. Sometimes this is useful. Othertimes it is not, such as when you've got less than a week to get a costume together and you, thinking that this is a Big Step towards Learning How To Let Go and Trust Others to Help You, give up a crucial piece of your costuming to somebody who you will not be able to see again until 36 hours before said performance.

And then you find out the person you trusted with your crucial costume piece is doing her own control freak thing over it, and her idea of how this should be done perfectly does NOT mesh with yours, and even if she did she's having RL issues of her own that are getting in the way of getting anything done, let alone something that will fit and/or be what you want it to be and -

Yes. Control issues plus lack of control make TBQ go something something. And also say "Told you so." to that impulse to Learn to Let Go and Trust Others.

*grumble*

In happier news, I have a cat asleep on my lap.