Sock

February was Sock-a-Long month for the Fort Greene and Clinton Hill Ravelry members. Unfortuantely, I've been so preoccupied with various activities, and went through four patterns/sets of yarn before I found one that actually worked for my current abilities and stash, that I have just one partly finished sock complete. With less than 25 minutes remaining in the month, I'm not likely to finish on time.

That said, I am thrilled with this pattern. The socks fit beautifully, they have a decent stretch, the yarn shows off stitch definition to a degree that I like, and my work has been consistent. I still have the heel to fill in and the cuff to stitch, but with a few hours of work late on Wednesday and some dedicated time on Saturday morning, I should have one sock finished by March 6. Too bad they have to be worn in pairs...

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Dessert

My friend Phoebe just emailed me this recipe, after tantalizing me with the description of a to-die-for pie that she made for her students in Cincinatti this afternoon. Pastry isn't high on my list of "things I'm in a hurry to bake", ever, but I might make an exception for this pie. May is strawberry season ... I might have to make one of my dinner gatherings a potluck so I have enough time to bake and fashion such a trifle...

A dark and velvety chocolate experience

• baked 9 inch pastry pie crust(or chocolate cookie crumb pie shell)

Bake and cool the prepared pie crust. Set aside.

Chocolate Silk Filling

• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1 1/2 cup coarsely chopped, semi-sweet chocolate, (5 ounces)
• 1 package miniature marshmallows
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• (Whipping cream as required)

In a small saucepan over lowest heat, slowly melt the chocolate and butter together. Remove from heat and stir in the marshmallows; allow them to melt and then add the cream and vanilla. Refrigerate while making strawberry filling.

Fresh Strawberry Filling

• 2 cups strawberries, slightly crushed
• 1/2 tsp of cardamom
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup water
• 4 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2 teaspoon strawberry or raspberry extract, optional
• 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
• 2 1/2 cups strawberries, diced if large, or halved if small

For the Strawberry Filling, crush or mash the 2 cups of strawberries, then season with the cardamom. Combine the sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl and whisk. In a medium saucepan, heat the crushed berries with water until they start to get a little liquidy. Cook and then add the cornstarch mixture until lightly bubbling and thick. Remove from heat and stir in extract and vinegar. Cool 15 minutes and then fold in fresh strawberries. Refrigerate 2 hours.

Garnish

• 2 cups whipping cream; whipped with 3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
• 1/3 cup chocolate cookie crumbs
• Diced Strawberries

To assemble pie, spoon chocolate filling into pie shell. If the filling is too thick and cold, put it in a food processor and whiz with some whipping cream drizzled in, until it is soft enough to use as filling (but not gloppy). Top with the strawberry filling and then dollops of sweetened whipped cream. Dust top with chocolate crumbs and diced strawberries. Serve at once or chill up to two days.

Serves 6-8

Om nom nom nom.

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The Shoes Make the Dancer

After dancing through the toes of my little leather dance shoes at The Flurry, I bought a pair of split sole dance sneakers for Contra stomping. They're much firmer, more supportive, and heavier than any shoe that I've used for dancing in the past, with wicked arch support and squared-off toe stops for stands and jumps, and I was really excited about them.  Until I wore them to last Saturday's Contra and kicked them off in frustration after three dances into the evening. I was convinced I'd made a horrible mistake as I kept tripping over my own feet and felt horribly uncomfortable with everything I tried to do.

Then I gave them a second chance, lacing them up for some practice twirls around my apartment a few evenings last week, and got used to my new posture -- having a slightly cushy stance with my heels raised ever so slightly off the ground.  And yesterday, I laced them up for some practice spins after I dressed for dancing -- and almost smacked myself in the head for my stupidity, for not recalling what I first learned when I was six.  Shoes are your foundation; they influence posture, carriage, gait, timing, speed, and style of movement. These shoes? Give me a much stronger, firmer foundation than I'm used to -- absolutely perfect for leading, with great connection to the floor and more power from the push into a spin. Which was unsettling and slightly less than effective when I was trying to follow most of last week's dances in a super-wide circle skirt that I'm still getting used to the weight of. But after dancing last night and walking through some of the more memorable moves this morning, I'm incredibly happy with them -- the posture change elicited makes it easier for me to hold frame without thinking about it, and I could focus on actually leading someone else while trusting that my own body would do what I wanted it to without overt, conscious instruction. Result? My swing was so much smoother, I really figured out how to lead the double-twirl in place of a courtesy turn (which doesn't mean that I always executed it, but I consciously know what I have to do with my forearm to make sure my partner knows where to go), and I was able to effectively compensate for some of the guys who were taking a foray into the follow's role for the first time and kept trying to back-lead or muscle their way to what was more familiar. (Kudos to John, John, and Mark for being brave and open, and deciding that it's worth testing the opposite role on occasion! That takes guts.)

Shouldn't have taken me so long to figure this out. I remember my directors never allowed me to wear street shoes in rehearsal -- even for auditions I wore shoes that influenced my posture in character-specific ways. I suppose this means I need a different pair of shoes for following...

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Kitchen Sink Cooking

I love to cook, but there are times when the prep for cooking -- selecting recipes, making lists, braving the greenmarket or the co-op or the delicatessen, lugging ingredients home -- is more effort than I can rouse myself to expend on a lazy Sunday. And yet, I still need to eat, on Sunday and throughout the week following. This leads to what I call a "kitchen sink cooking" Sunday -- when everything in the larder is fair game for food prep, excepting the sink itself.  My dishes for this week are a motley assembly of elements that don't really go together at all, but given how busy I'm going to be for the next eight days, I doubt I'll notice.

Semolina Bread
 - a gorgeous, crusty loaf of yumminess. Add butter and jam, and yummy becomes glorious.

Peanut Butter Cookies
 - my favorite recipe from the Williams-Sonoma Cookie Book

Penne with Garden Marinara
 - the last freezer container of marinara sauce that I made in the fall, with the addition of fresh onion, carrot, bell pepper, and portobello mushroom

Wine-Poached Pears
 - I have a small reserve of red wine left from last weekend's dinner get-together. Since I don't drink wine, what better use for it than in a dessert dish?

Roasted Root Vegetables
 - potato, carrot, and parsnips seasoned with onion, garlic, oregano, salt, and black pepper and tossed with olive oil.

Onion Apple Sauce
 - Mom's favorite accompaniment for pork

Lemon-Pepper Chicken
 - marinated chicken, baked

Thai-Spiced Rice with Peanut Sauce
 - because you can never go wrong with rice, and after making cookies there wasn't enough peanut butter left to make storing it worth the shelf space.

The appalling lack of greens is easily repaired; I'll pick up a salad from Europa on my way home from the office tomorrow. That, plus the above, plus the eggs and grits or oatmeal with dried fruit for breakfast will make this a decidedly happy week on the eating front.

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Reading

My living room is littered with opened books, pages fluttering carelessly whenever one of my cats bounds through the space to chase a mote of dust dancing in the light from a window, or to bat the water dish across the kitchen floor.

I have been devouring novels -- favorites like Monique Truong's The Book of Salt, Bernhard Schlink's The Reader (I still haven't seen that film, which is criminal considering how long I've loved the novel), Sebastien Japrisot's A Very Long Engagement, Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, Lisa See's Snowflower and the Secret Fan, Austen's Persuasion (yes, *again*), Janice Lee's The Piano Teacher which I picked up last week and read in practically one sitting, and the Percy Jackson and The Olympians quintet that I purchased last Sunday and have been ridiculously unable to put down.

I desperately want to head to the library for more, but I'm having a severe case of ADHD about reading -- I read a passage, which sparks a question or reference to something else, and I'm off like a shot to rifle through the shelves in search of whatever captured my attention.  Of course, the fact that I donated half of my collection to the library before moving to the city means that most of the time I can't find the reference passage I actually want.

But then, there are the other times, the tiny pearls of wonderfulness that happen when I'm searching for one thing and find something even better.  I was thumbing through Mary Oliver's West Wind, trying to find a line ("Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.") that actually is printed in a poem from another volume ("Wild Geese," from  Dream Work), when I found a passage that I have most certainly read before, but have zero recollection of.  From the prose poem that gives the volume it's name, this is 8.

The young, tall, English poet -- soon to die, soon to sail on his small boat into the blue haze and then the storm and then under the gray waves' spinning threshold -- went over to Pisa to meet a friend; met him; spent with him a sunny afternoon. I love this poet, which means nothing here or there, but is like a garden in my heart. So my love is a gift to myself. And I think of him, on that July afternoon in Pisa, while his friend Hunt told him stories pithy and humorous, of their friends in England, so that he began to laugh, so that his tall, lean body shook, and his long legs couldn't hold him, and he had to lean up against the building, seized with laughter, abundant and unstoppable; and so he leaned in the wild sun, against the stones of the building, with the tears flying from his eyes -- full of foolishness, howling, hanging on to the stones, crawling with laughter, clasping his own body as it began to fly apart at the nonsense, the sweetness, the intelligence, the bright happiness falling, like tiny gold flowers, like the sunlight itself, the lilt of Hunt's voice, on this simple afternoon, with a friend, in Pisa.

Mary Oliver writing about John Keats, and sublime friendship, and the grace-filled gift of love. Heaven.

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When the dog bites...

After some inspiration from my colleague Sara, who adores The Sound of Music, I cuddled down on the couch last night with a bowl of chicken soup, my crocheted socks, and one of my favorite films of all time. I had forgotten how much fun the thunderstorm scene is, with the dancing and the tears and the laughter and getting caught breaking rules by the captain. "Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudel, doorbells and sleighbells and schnitzel with noodles..."  Given how lousy I've felt the last few days, I am making my own list of favorite things to "help me feel better" -- 24, so there's one for each hour of the day.

• following a strong waltz lead
• chocolate truffles
• inside jokes
• spring dresses
• k.d. lang singing Hallelujah
• bells on bicycles
• the sustained moment of anticipation in a theatre, just before the orchestra begins to play
• a genuine, warm smile full of delight
• debates on Keats versus Shakespeare
• sunlight filtered through sheer curtains
• laughter of small children (when I'm not trapped on an airplane!)
• Imogen Heap
• *really* good macaroni and cheese
• gender-swap contra
• deconstructed string theory
• ornate journals with magnetic covers and thick parchment paper
• GLEE
• soft wool and steel crochet hooks
• silver demitasse spoons
• pathways execution
• girls wearing ties and spats
• everything Jane Austen wrote (even Emma)
• luxuriously soft, white bed linens
• Tosh and Jack

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New Powder Room

So the drawback of having a tiny bathing room is that it's impossible for an inexperienced amateur photographer like me to get a decent snap of the space without it looking cold and analytical, like a crime scene photo.  That caveat placed, here are the best that I've got.

 

In a room with zero hidden storage, everything must be out in the open.

Simple shelves with pretty brackets make that an easier thing for me to live with.

 

The photo on the left is completely out of focus, but I like it anyway; candlelight glowing on shiny tile, winter sunlight filtered through the sheer curtain. It seems softer, less real-world. The snap on the right is a detail of the tile in the bathtub.

  

Clearly, I am a lover of symmetry.
 

 

Oh, the number of layers in this photograph. Mirror frame, containing a thought card, which is what I actually wanted to snap. Me, actually positioning the camera. Bathroom wall and door reflected in the mirror. Kitchen wall reflected through the bathroom door. What fun!

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Keeping up Appearances

I am now so far behind with blogging that it will probably take me most of March to catch up. Alas, my brain is fuzzy and foggy and not up to snuff due to a nasty cold and all the drugs I'm imbibing for it, so I'm afraid that humor and astute commentary aren't likely to appear tonight.

Fuzziness aside, I've had a number of really great conversations about body image and gender and clothing and appearance portrayal in the last few days, and I want to capture a few of the salient points before I lose them altogether. For now, a bullet-list.  Hopefully later I'll flesh these out with questions and commentary and debate.

1. I am absolutely terrible at trying to ascertain a woman's age using only visual clues. I think that in part this is because age in general is just such a non-figure for me; I have friends who are in their teens and in their seventies and fill the range in between, and my ex-girlfriends range from 25 to 50 -- how long someone has been alive is just not a "qualifier" for me when determining whether or not I want to spend time with people. Because of this, I tend to be oblivious to the way "women of a certain age" are treated in social situations. But as I noted by following a conversation between Laurel and Mark last night, my obliviousness doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, particularly in dance scenes where being young and attractive are serious advantages. Goodness knows I have experience with being the set-aside ugly duckling, so actively working to be cognizant and inclusive and aware has to move higher on my priority list if I want to be an active participant in the social dance scene. (Which I do.)
   
2. In general, the queer community tends to be tremendously appearance-accepting (for women -- I don't presume to speak for the men!).  This despite what The L Word would have anyone believe. Seriously, that's no more realistic a portrayal of body image than Sex and the City was! I had really forgotten this over the last few years, though, as I've gotten caught up in dressing like "a proper grown-up", dressing the part for my job to be taken seriously as a young woman in technology (having to be three times as smart and studied and prepared as male counterparts to be taken as seriously got old *really* fast, and bucking expectations in the fewest number of possible ways made things easier), and over-thinking presentation in order to live up to the expectations of people who are so much more seasoned and experienced than I am. I've fallen into the habit of dressing for the straight world -- for all that I like fitted pieces, ruffled blouses, sweeping skirts, and high heels, wearing them has very much become habit -- and it was really wonderful to recall that I needn't be so limited all the time. Time to dig out my suspenders and newsboy caps, and reconsider my stance on neckties.
   
3. All of that said, it's amazing to me how frequently we (the average, ordinary American citizen) take visual cues from what someone is wearing or their carriage and then develop complex sets of assumptions based on those cues, rather than from conversation and intentional engagement. I don't think anyone is immune to this -- I know I'm not, certainly, although every time I catch myself doing it I mentally slap myself upside the head. There's a post somewhere here about perception and limitations and assumptions, but it will take a much clearer head to pull it forward.

Oh, there's so much more that I'm forgetting. DapperQ and Adrienne Rich and post-war culture/fashion shifts and inherent beauty versus that pushed and prodded on us by intentional media portrayal. Alas. Stupid muddled brain.

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Working from Home

Before I moved to NYC last spring, I spent 8 weeks living with my parents and working out of their dining room because my office in Albany was needed before my office in Manhattan was ready for me.  I learned a number of things, mainly that I really do thrive in a creative, populated work environment -- sitting by myself at a desk for twelve hours a day leads to stagnation after about two weeks. As an introvert who really appreciates quiet and the time to focus and "go deep" into a project or subject, this surprised me; I thought I would thrive in the quiet and solitude, but instead I found myself completely restless and unable to concentrate halfway through each day.

Now that I'm living in the city, things are a little different.  There's so much hustle and bustle, so little privacy anywhere, that there are days when I really do crave the space and quiet to think alone, to puzzle through an issue before I bring it to a team, to outline a project before I assign it to my staff. I'm more attuned to where my head is at with reference to others now, which is definitely a good thing, and I'm thrilled to have the flexibility to  influence my patterns toward optimal performance.  Being able to work from home on occasion is excellent for that.

Like today; I'm not feeling all that well. I'm not actually ill, but I didn't sleep well, and woke up at 5:30 feeling groggy with a sore throat and a headache. That's not enough to keep me from working on any number of projects, work-related and otherwise, but it is enough to make me consider how I can get my best work done.

1. Sore throat. I work at Hope Lodge NYC, where the majority of our guests are immuno-suppressed cancer patients; the slightest sniffle has me rethinking the appropriateness of showing my face in the office. 
2. Early riser. Since I was awake and capable of actually getting work done early and made the decision not to risk spreading infection (if this is a cold rather than irritation, which I'm uncertain of), it's somewhat after 3 o'clock and I've already put in an 10-hour day.
3. Calendar. My appointments today were almost all brainstorming sessions for future actions, the type of meetings for which being in an environment of over-stimulation is counterproductive. Since I can't think or listen well when too much is going on all around me, I get easily distracted by urgent nonsense if I'm siting still with email nearby, and I lose the valuable minutes just after an appointment (when I should be recapping the most salient point and making to do lists) to checking on things around me that are less than vital, being in a quiet, distraction-free zone was excellent. Meetings were productive, notes are taken and filed, to do lists and next-step-questions are written and circulated.

Ten hours of quiet and solitude, with a few phone calls to break up the pattern. I'm ready for some activity and company, so am looking forward to this throat thing -- which hasn't dispersed all day -- letting me get back to the office in the morning. In the meantime, it's time to break for lunch and plan my evening of home improvement.

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RE- novation, -decorating, -viving, -living

Since I moved into this apartment on March 28 of last year -- hell, since I signed the lease and accepted the keys a year ago Saturday -- I have had plans to "fix it up a little."  I'm handy enough, own some minor but useful power tools that I manage rather adequately, never seem to have a problem developing a vision, and am a firm believer that home should be a delightful little haven from the stress of the world; the investment of time and elbow grease has never been doubted as a worthy one. But since I moved in there's always been something more important to do -- getting acclimated to the neighborhood, spending a delightful summer with a great girl, working my tail off all autumn, traveling non-stop in November and December, the craziness of my social calendar since January 8... there's always something.  But on Monday, as I was half-dozing during my train ride back to the city, I decided to take action and just move forward to get it done by spring.

Last night I took a trip to Lowe's and decided to start with the smallest room (and the one that I considerthe easiest the work through), the bathroom.  There's nothing spectacularly difficult to do: re-caulk the tub and shower, re-seal the window, bleach the grout, tighten the door hinges, putty/spackle/sand some holes/gouges, paint the ceiling and walls, replace the mirror with something more attractive, hack an Ikea stand for a hidden cat box, mount an expanded-shoulder-room shower rod, custom fit a roman shade in the window, and splurge on a little order from Lush to make enjoying the space more fun. With the exception of the Ikea hack and custom window treatment, I should be able to manage the rest this weekend.

The hardest thing for me is always choosing colors. Given that 2/3 of the room is tiled in a lovely Italianate pattern, my color options are limited to a few areas., which actually made this one easier.  I opted to go with warm neutrals: a creamy muslin for the ceiling, and a flecked taupe for the exposed walls. The vanity is a bright maple, so bringing a muted leaf green and a darker chocolate into the textiles will make the room feel like a hidden grotto or an overgrown ruin -- either of which will make my inner dryad very happy.

Tonight is the boring stuff -- putty, spackle, caulk, and bleach. Tomorrow night will be scrubbing, sanding and taping work, and Saturday = color + hardware installation. If all goes according to plan -- which it has to, since I'm now having company for dinner on Sunday,and need to provide at least one finished room in the space!

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Sentimentality

I'm not a terribly sentimental person, I don't think.  Nothing at all like my best friend, or my sister, both of whom weep buckets of tears at the least provocation, or my almost-big-brother, who can wring every bit of emotion from the scantest lyric.  I have my moments of overly dramatic understanding and attachment, of course, but they're fleeting -- I don't hold onto the trappings of times long past, loves lost, opportunities missed.

And then I re-read a favorite novel, like Jane Austen's Persuasion, and think, how can it be that all the sensitive, compassionate, warm- and tender-hearted people in the world aren't wracked with the daily reminder of how fragile and fleeting our little lives are?  How can we not all be sentimental fools?

Then again, comparing the old love letters I wasn't compelled to save with the work of a moment from Captain Wentworth, I wonder how anyone in the world can have the audacity to convey thoughts and feelings with less hopeful fervor than that figment of fiction -- and believe that they matter. Art imitates -- and immeasurably improves -- life.

The Letter

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart ever more your own than when you almost broke it eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you. Unjust I may have been, weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant. You alone have brought me to Bath. For you alone I think and plan. --Have you not seen this? Can you fail to have understood my wishes? --I had not waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think you must have penetrated mine. I can hardly write. I am every instant hearing something which overpowers me. You sink your voice, but I can distinguish the tones of that voice, when they would be lost on others. --To good, too excellent creature! You do us justice indeed. You do believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men. Believe it to be most fervent, most undeviating in

"F. W."

"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow your party, as soon as possible. A word, a look will be enough to decide whether I enter your father's house this evening, or never."

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Flurry 2010 or, The Wanna-Be Photo Post

Despite carrying my camera in my dance bag for three days, I didn't take a single photograph while at the Flurry. What then follows is a list of all of the snapshots I wish I had from this weekend, in an approximation of chronological order:

• Leading off sets with Mark at the top of too many sessions to count.
• Nightingale.
• Miles teaching me how to catch a flourish twirl properly -- and the look of satisfaction that must have graced my face when I first made it work while leading a dance. 
• The moments spent serving as a human chair for The Best. Dance. Partner. in the World. (tm)
• The collective swoon throughout the room when Nils and his trombone made their first entrance on Friday night. (And my thrill at learning I'm not the only person who goes weak in the knees for fantastic brass.)
• Elixir in general.
• Every subsequent entrance made by Nils and his trombone.
• The dance with April when I figured out how to fit three twirls into a do-si-do with a double-hand catch into a balance and swing.
• The moment when one of my hands-four groups did a collective Petronella spin in the wrong direction against the rest of the room.
• Dancing with Ross and learning to add core isolation movement into a balance and swing -- in other words, dropping the ballerina collarbones for a few seconds during a dance. Shocking!

• The jam with fiddlers and hammered dulcimer players in the Atrium.
• The jumping-up-and-down delight of meeting Adam and realizing how we were connected (Clay and Susan and musical theatre), and then receiving an email from Clay with identification photos introducing us to one another, and the ensuing laughter.
• The set jumpers in the "wavy lines" dance in the Double Delight Contras session. (Give me a year or so and I'll start to remember dance and pattern names, but I'm definitely not ready to give my attention to that yet.)
• Any of the groups sprawled on the floor discussing the emergence and development of queer contra culture (and occasionally lamenting the lack thereof within the east coast swing/blues world).
• The cheesy Valentine's Day decorations at the Sushi Thai Garden, and the gorgeousness of my yellow curry.
• Every single dance from the Experienced session.
• A frame-by-frame reconstruction of the entire Eye Sex session from Saturday night, and the Sunday morning throw-back to it.
• Adam, twirling at whirlwind speed in his tiered skirt.
• The vehement nods of agreement every time someone said, "Contra -- it's such pretty math!"
• The smolder of Stacy and Michael practicing tango between Contra sessions.
• The metric ton of bananas I consumed -- because potassium and water can fuel me to dance for 8+ hours before I feel a protein deficiency. (Mom, I blame you for setting me up with ballet class-to-soccer practice car snacks.)
• Leading two people who'd recently had joint surgeries in the "groovy contra" session, where rhythms were lighter and easier and flourishes unnecessary, and seeing their joy at being able to participate without being handled.
• The pulse of laughter in the room when Lisa introduced the "X-rated Session for Experienced Dancers Only" as a "no space for crabby dancers zone".
• Stacy's prop-8 Iowa t-shirt and the expression on her face when the 89th person asked, "so are you from Iowa?"
• Back-to-back-to-back-to-back gender swap dances with Christie and Michael and Cat and Alice.
• The moment when I realized I can follow quite well if I just stop thinking about the calls and trust my partner -- and Michael's reiteration of that fact with his super-smooth pick-up into a swing against the call, without once tripping me up. (Shall have to keep trying that -- dancing isn't just about leading!)
• The Giant Robot Dance, and being in the middle of a long set of gender-swapping dancers -- talk about never being able to anticipate your partner or your neighbor or your shadow!

• My first waltz in a floor-length twirly skirt - and an aerial view of the room where the cross-step waltz workshop was held.
• All of the beautiful costumes!
• The eight-year old dancers whirling through the set of grown-ups dancing a weaving dance -- doing a better job of keeping time than their parents.
• Jill's delight when Miles gave her Valentine's Day flowers.
• The incredibly elegant pull-through dance with Allison, made slightly less elegant by all of the crashing shoulders. (And the one poor girl who got rammed between two of us tall people at the same time!)
• The wicked overhand-underhand spin that James tried to teach me -- the only time I've been dizzy from dancing since learning how to spot turn when I was eight.
• The totally blown-out toes of my split soles. (Tuesday = shoe shopping before Blues class and practica, provided I can walk by then!)
• Making people laugh with my yes-I-run-like-a-deranged-ballerina move for water between sets.
• The last dance with Brian's "Neil Gaiman green fedora".
• Allison's valentine!
• Pull-through blues turns with Michael and Stacy on an empty floor as the decorations were coming down.
• The steamed up windows at The Four Seasons (which had nothing to do with Flurry, but I love that spot like no place else on earth).

There are so many awesome things I'm forgetting, but these are some of the best bits. I'm so tremendously glad that I went to Flurry. Given what I'm learning about Festivals this is probably the only one I'll be attending. I do NOT camp -- won't inflict my what-do-you-MEAN-I-can't-have-a-hot-shower-with-fluffy-towels-and-perfectly-brewed-tea-the-instant-I-crave-it-? moodiness on people I actually like! -- so dance camps are out for me. And that being the case, I'm thrilled to have had such a good time, and can't wait until next year.

Okay, I can wait until my feet don't hurt, but hopefully that won't take a year.

Update: Many thanks to Ed Burke of The Saratogian for seeking me out, finding my blog, and sending me photos of the weekend!

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Haircut

While I was upstate for the long weekend, I made time to squeeze in some time with Sarah for a haircut. It's nice to be able to wear it straight, but I'm looking forward to having my curls back in ten days or so.

Side view with a ludicrously rumpled collar

Closest thing you'll ever get to a head-on photograph that I take myself

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Genius: Slender Frame

This past weekend I had to do a relatively large file dump from my computer; I've filled the hard-drive with way too much media so dropped about 12 gigs of music -- mainly downloads that I didn't much care for, albums that I'd ripped but found myself not listening to, etc. I still have more than 17G, so it's not like I'm somehow lacking variety and joy, but it was a mental adjustment to suddenly have a collection 3/5 the size of what it had been.

Tonight I took the time to build and sync some new playlists for my trip to Flurry. (Some people might think that bringing recorded music to an enormous live music and dance festival misses the point, but I really do listen to music all the time; there's no stereo in the guest room at my parents' house, so I have to bring a soundtrack not only for the train trip but for the minutes when I'm not dancing my toes off in the City Center.)  I wasn't sure quite what to expect when I clicked on the Genius icon to test some new lists, but I have to admit that the first one that popped up just might be a new favorite.  It lacks some of the variety I'd come to expect (6 songs from a single artist is three too many, I think), but they're good tracks, so I don't really mind.

From a-ha's "Slender Frame," Genius gave me 99 songs that span from vaguely moody to dark and broken, most about love or connection..  (There were 100, but I really can't stand Sheryl Crow -- something I never recall until she pops up in unexpected places.) Given that I've been swinging between "vaguely moody" and "bitchier than all get out" this week, it makes perfect sense that I'm enamored of a playlist that suits my attitude.

1. Slender Frame, a-ha
   
   (The rest are below the break)

Snowpocalypse

View of the backyard, from my bathroom window

Snow Day. City schools are closed, offices are closed, transit service is diminished. Kids and their parents are walking up my street to the park with sleds, planning an impromptu party on the hill. I'm cozily typing away, wrapped up in my bathrobe with a mug of tea on the desk, enjoying the snow fall and the billowing wind -- but plan to take a walk after my two o'clock call.

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Doctor Who

So I started watching Series One of the new Who on Sunday, from the beginning. As I've watched the first 5 episodes, here are five observations thus far.

1. Roger T. Davies is deliciously dark. Duh, Torchwood. But really, he  knows how to push all the right buttons to bring out the pathos of each character in ways that make my heart ache for the chance to live so fully.
   
   
2. I like Christopher Eccleston anyway, but I love Nine in his hands. There's an anger in him that I've not anticipated seeing in the Doctor (based on what I've seen out of turn with Ten and Torchwood), one that indicates it might hide some moral ambiguities that make him interesting. He doesn't seem to have the driven saviour complex that I've seen in Ten - at least not yet. It's more a sense of "I'm here  and I can, so why the hell not; what else am I going to do?"
   
   
3. Nine's conversation with Jabe (the tree woman) in The End of the World indicates that the destruction of Gallifrey and the other Time Lords is very new for him, very raw. And yet, the fact that this iteration of her "organic matter identification device" had no schematic from which to identify the Doctor's unique genetic structure indicates that the Time Lords have been removed from public record, as it were, for a very long time.
   
   
4. Given point 3, and my assumption that the Doctor we meet as Nine has relatively recent memories of the genocide of his people and thus his own place as the last of his kind (regardless of linear time), I understand the near-immediate attachment he's developed for Rose; he's yearning for connection to someone, being a Time Lord traveler used to having a companion, but particularly in the face of his loss.  Rose is young and a little silly and not terribly ambitious, but she's clever and snarky and isn't inclined to let him steamroll her. They both have something to gain from the situation.
    
5. The Doctor's yearning for connection also provides a solid rationale for the almost-cruel, knee-jerk response to her snark (about a few hundred years of time travel being no big deal) of bringing her to witness the destruction of Earth. To stand -- for a few devastating hours, at least -- as the last human being in existence, to feel what it means to be the only one *like you* left alive, knowing that there will never be more, and knowing that all of what you love is gone. It was a moment, and it was fleeting in the grand gears of time, but I wonder about what that experience means for Rose, and for her  relationship with The Doctor, knowing that he engineered a situation that would force her to experience - in some small way that she may never fathom - a fraction of the pain and loneliness that he has.

Please note: I am *enjoying* the wondering, so no spoilery telling of what happens, please!.

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Solitude

Finding space to feel alone is difficult in New York City. That seems odd on many levels, given that I live  alone and solitude should be easy to come by, and given how terribly lonely so many New Yorkers are, even surrounded by people. But feeling isolated is different from having a place of solitude in which to relax and think.

Last Thursday night I walked from my office in midtown to my home in Brooklyn. It's not a terribly long walk, just a bit over six miles, and it took me a little under two hours with pauses for what I suppose passes for sight-seeing. I'd intended to walk all the way south to the Financial District and cross over the Brooklyn Bridge, but my feet were a little tired when I hit Canal several blocks east of where I thought I was, so I climbed the pedestrian path on the south side of the Manhattan Bridge, instead.

I wish I had thought to bring a camera with me, if only to snap a photo of the gate on the Manhattan side; it's a beautiful, imposing structure that looked vaguely sinister against the deep, deep blue of a post-sunset winter sky. The pedestrian path sits low on the bridge, protected from the subway tracks my train crosses each morning and night by a stone parapet and an open-work metal fence. On the water  side, there are lovely nooks carved out of the stone, set up on steps so that pedestrians can view the southern part of the river, and the skylines of Manhattan and Brooklyn, and the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. They're gated with welded steel spanning above my head, though. (My first, bleak thought as to the reason they'd be barricaded was jumpers.) There are flood-style street lights every twenty-five paces or so, ensuring that the path is well-lit without pockets of lurking darkness, except when a lamp is blown and the shadows beckon. It's a stark but beautiful walk, made poignant and fragile when the whole structure shakes under and around you as the trains rumble across the spans.

At the almost midpoint of the bridge a lamp was blown out. I paused by the gated nook for several minutes, looking out over the river at the shores that seemed so far away, at the water lapping below. For a few breaths it was still, and quiet, and dark -- I could hear the waves below, and the wind whistling icily by, and there was no audible indication of traffic or people at all. Perfect solitude in the city..

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A Frosty Day

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Robert Frost
seen on the Q line's "train of thought" poster this morning

I'm having a melancholy Monday; perhaps I'll find a metaphorical snowfall of beauty intertwined with reminders of life's transience to lift me back into spirit and action.  Melancholy can so easily become depressing...

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Gender Politics and Dance

Ah, gender politics, how I've missed you.  I seriously thought I left you behind in any meaningful way once I left grad school and proved to my super-macho uncles that I hadn't "wasted my father's money" by insisting on higher education; when I began leading incredibly diverse teams of people for whom gender was just one of many differences on the table; when I found a company to work for that includes transgender equality in its list of protected minority groups (and walks the talk); when I stopped omitting the fact that I date women from casual conversations about love and relationships and family.  I didn't anticipate that I'd find you again on the dance floor. Alas, it's true.

Now, part of my disappointment in bumping into GP again is because of my terribly high expectations; I began social dancing at the monthly gender-role free Contra Dance at The Center -- safe to say that it's about as open a place as one is likely to find for all sorts of personal expression.  But  what I've found is a teeny, tiny pocket of traditionalist attitude among a very large group of people who've been dancing iogether for a long time -- a set of expectations that haven't been shifted in response to new challenges.  Not everyone is, or will be, (or, I suppose, has to be) comfortable with people who operate outside of traditional "gents" and "ladies" gender roles.  I'm okay with that.  I actually have a pretty high tolerance for other people's discomfort in general; as long as they don't go out of their way to insult me or make me feel unwelcome, I am just fine if people I don't know are offended by my presence in a room -- or, hell, my existence as a whole.

As a relatively new dancer who breaks the mold in a lot of ways, when I'm at a traditionally gendered dance I go out of my way to be clear about what I like and what I don't, what I agree to and what I don't, and whom I dance with and whom I won't.  I've only just started asking people to dance (rather than hanging back and waiting to be approached) -- I always choose people who clearly like to follow or who frequently trade positions back and forth, and I clearly state that I'd prefer to lead or that I'm happy with either role, as the case may be.  When I'm asked by someone whom either always leads or whom I don't know, I indicate that I prefer to lead and that if they aren't happy with that arrangement they should find a new partner (and that I'm not offended by such a move). In a Contra set, I make sure that the people around me understand that I'm leading, so that when they look up expecting to see a man ready to swing or allemande or dosido, they don't get confused.  I consider that my responsibility, since I'm the one challenging norms, and ensuring that everyone at a dance has a great time is everyone's responsibility. It's easier to have fun if you know what to expect.

But responsibility is a two-way street in any social scene, particularly one that bills itself as being open and welcoming to everyone, and something happened at last night's dance that has made me supremely uncomfortable.  I was dancing a set with my friend Jeffrey, who is an adorable man who loves being twirled around -- he's also new to Contra, but has the potential of being a really fantastic Follow.  He's both tall and very slender, so we're well matched when I'm Leading.  Ours was an early dance in the evening and one with relatively simple moves; I felt confident that not only could we get through the dance with few flaws, but that I could practice some embellishments that I've been working on (Jeffrey is lovely and indulgent that way).  But twice on our way through the set, couples that we moved on to dance with were put out by our role reversal, and once we were physically moved into "our proper places" by a guy who was way too strong for either of us to avoid. Talk about not fun.

There are so many ways that his behavior was rude and inappropriate and wrong.  I'm a grown-up, and yes, I'm relatively new to dancing (although at a separate moment last night I was chastised for not dancing with enough new people, so apparently I've been around long enough to be "experienced"), but I know tow to control of my own body and know where I am supposed to go and when; being forcibly moved against my will by someone I'm not even dancing with is incredibly insulting. But for the moment, I'm going to ignore that and focus instead on the fact that -- politics and comfort aside -- I could actually have been badly injured by that move. (I'm not speaking for Jeffrey, since I didn't see his part of it.)

Let me walk you through it.

In a Contra foursome such as the one we were dancing, the Lead stands on the left and the Follow on the right, with the first couple facing the second.  (If it helps, imagine the square imposed on a clock face, with Leads at 2 and 8, and Follows at 10 and 4, top of the clock as couple 1, bottom of the clock as couple 2.)  What happened to me twice last night is that, while Leading (clock position 8 next to Jeffrey in position 4), my partner and I moved through the set to a new traditionally-gendered couple where a man was Leading (2) and a woman was following (10).  As a Lead, I did my job -- I made eye contact with my new neighbor (the woman in position 10) and said "I'm your lead." We moved into the steps, beginning a dosido where we walked past and twirled behind one another and then a balance and swing, where we used the tension and weight of our upper bodies against one another to generate centrifugal force for a spinning motion in the middle of the floor. Or rather, that's what I was prepared to do.  

The Lead in the couple that Jeffrey and I had just met in the set decided that I was in the wrong place.  Rather than say something to me or somehow get my attention and ask if I knew what I was doing, he grabbed my free right arm at the wrist, and pulled.  When I resisted, he stepped closer, grabbed me around the waist, and moved me to the opposite side of the set.

Two really terrible things could have happened when he did that.  First, I was walking and spinning backwards when he latched on and he pulled my arm toward him.  If I were less nimble (or less healthy, frankly), he could have wrenched my arm at the wrist or shoulder socket, or caused me to pull a muscle in my back or chest. Second, I had all of my weight on my right leg (the one closest to him) while preparing to shift into a swinging move, when he started to pull; if he'd pulled harder, or if I were less nimble and able to move my feet around, I would have fallen like an axed tree, with nothing to break my fall because my left leg was in the air and he had hold of my right arm.  He was much stronger and much heavier than I am -- that he didn't actually hurt me is almost entirely due to the fact that I have really good reflexes.

Now I'm physically fine.  I'm sore today, yes, but that's the result of lots and lots of dancing after a busy day with too little to eat, and some very energetic dances that I wasn't quite prepared for -- I have no pulls or lingering soreness from that situation.  But I'm pissed as hell; much moreso today than I was last night.  As soon as he let go of me, I said, "don't do that; I'm leading, and I know what I'm doing," and moved back to my proper place; we finished the set, and I avoided him for the rest of the night.  

I don't know the man. I don't know what his problem with us was; maybe he did  think that we just didn't know what we were doing, and was trying to correct the set as quickly as possible.  Contra is lively, and friendly, and social, and I've had really fantastic experiences thus far -- I don't want to think that the people I'm meeting and becoming friends with are uncomfortable around me. But I also don't want to start second guessing everything that I do or say or think to be sure that I'm never causing offense or getting people to think outside of the box -- been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. It's not who I am, it's not what I do, and it makes me supremely unhappy.

Time to become cognizant of the norms again, and hyper-aware of all the ways I break them.  I suppose that in some ways the whole "being a lady who leads" thing would be easier if I still shaved my head and hid my curves beneath boys' clothing, but I outgrew that attitude with my teens. It so clearly feels past the time that the rest of the world should grow up and see the beauty in shades of gray.

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Beer, Beer, Beer* (or Coop, Part II)

I am a really smart person.  Yes, that's the opinion of a lot of people, but it's also quantifiable fact if you trust in the numbers about such things.  Being known as a really smart person makes the few occasions on which I do something completely stupid both outrageously funny and totally mortifying.

Yesterday afternoon I worked my first shift at the coop.  I signed up to cashier as I have way too much experience with that role, am a super-fast money counter, and have no qualms about being responsible for a few K in sales once every four weeks.  (Lots of people get freaked out about that, apparently.)  Cashiering is pretty basic.  People come to me with either just a few items for me to ring up for sale, or with a receipt for a longer order that someone else already bagged and tagged -- it's then my job to scan their stuff, accept their payment, annotate their receipt, and send them on their merry way home.  It's a very clear system; the barcode scanner, slip verifier, and register computer are all programmed to complete tasks in a particular order, and the speakers/monitor beep and flash if you do something out of sequence -- even if you make a mistake, it's easy to self-correct.

So, thirty minutes into my training I've got the whole thing down and am merrily tapping away at orders and chatting with the other members who come through the line (usually about some awesome product that they found).  Everything goes swimmingly until about 6:24 -- just a few moments before I'm supposed to report out and head down to count the drawer and prepare the deposit.  A chatty couple comes through my line on their way to dinner with friends, worrying over their dessert choices.  I reassure them that in my book at least, not much can beat brownie sundaes with a great drink as a meal finisher; if they like the ale that they've selected, they're in great shape. Of course, I say this while scanning through their items -- a package of brownies, a tub of gourmet ice cream, and a six-pack.

All evening, I've been picking up items, examining them to locate the bar code, and placing said code beneath the scanner to record the sale.  Super easy, right?  Well, someone came up with the brilliant idea of placing the barcode for a six-pack on the bottom of the carton.  I, in my I'm-going-to-be-really-friendly-and-chatty-and-have-a-good-time-while-working mode, pick up the container, turn it upside-down, and scan the barcode.

Some part of my brain did consider that this might not be the best idea, as I splayed my hand over the bottle tops to keep them from falling out as I moved to make the flip, but with only five fingers to hold them in place that left plenty of room for one little glass thing to obey Newton's Law and shatter all over the floor.

In my defense, my trainer, the cashier sitting next to me, and the two women buying these groceries all watched each step in the process, including the moment when I carefully and intentionally upended a box of glass bottles filled with smelly liquid.  Which really only made it funnier. The bottle shattered, we all jumped, I placed the remaining five on the counter while apologizing profusely, one of the members ran off to get a replacement bottle, my co-cashier called for maintenance, my trainer pulled our bags and coats out of the way (miraculously the smelly stuff didn't land on anyone, merely the concrete floor) and about 15 seconds later we're all laughing hysterically.

Foolish, stupid, idiotic? Yeah, but also really damn funny.

* Beer, Beer, Beer is the name of a song by Marc Gunn.  Listen here.

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Everything Takes Longer, Until it Doesn't (or Coop, Part I)

I scheduled my first work shift at the coop this afternoon. Not knowing precisely what to expect (other than the one thing that *everyone* has told me, which is "disorganization"), I left well in advance of my 3:30 shift and took the most direct route I was familiar with. Arriving at 5 til 3 (I gave myself an hour and it took just 25 minutes to get there) I learned the first anomaly: my work shift is technically 3:30 to 7, but I'm not due at my station until 4:30. I don't understand this at all, but whatever -- when I schedule the next one, I'll confirm "what time I need to check in and sit down," rather than "what time my shift starts.

Since I had some shopping to do (non-urgent things that I wasn't willing to pay double for and schlep from Manhattan, like rice noodles and simmer sauces and tuna), I figured I'd use my 90 extra minutes to get that done. Because the other constant I've heard is "the coop line on Saturday afternoon is an hour long." Today must be a light shopping day, or a super-efficient cashier day, or a Lissa-is-using-up-a-year's-worth-of-luck day, but I was through the building, through the line and standing on the sidewalk with 61 minutes to kill at 3:29. Thank goodness for Starbucks, and that there's one a few minutes walk from the coop. (Yes, I love independent coffee shops, but I'm a tea drinker and haven't vetted any bean-with-leaf proprietors in this neighborhood for drinkability. Shall work on that... sometime.)

So here I am, sitting in Starbucks, tapping away at my blackberry and letting the clock tick down while sipping a chai latte and listening to the canoodling couple next to me not-really-whispering nonsense at one another. They're adorable in that trying-just-a-little-too-hard-to-not-care-too-much kind of way, and every third adult woman who walks by is glancing at them with a one-part indulgent/four-parts "I remember what that's like" smile.

I wander the city to watch and catalogue the sights all the time, but always on my way to someplace else, taking the "roundabout way of getting there" as an excuse to do two things at once. But sitting still and observing is also lovely. And doesn't take so long that I can't make the time to do it more often. Next time. Now, it's time to earn my bread.

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Yarn Photo Spam

A benefit of working from home: access to my camera while lunch is warming up in the microwave. Thus, tonight's post is yarn pic-spam!

 

Classic Elite Renaissance in Celery, for a sweater

Valley Yarns Huntington, in Forest, for my first pair of socks

Malabrigo merino Worsted (LOVE) in Continental Blue, for mittens

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in Sheridan, for a more advanced sock pattern (eventually)

Plymouth  Happy Feet (colorway 10), for this cardigan that I am totally in love with

My little hands shall be busy for MONTHS.

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Panegyric

I can't remember the last time I went to a dictionary to look up a word that I had absolutely zero familiarity with.  Nerd Alert: I'd forgotten the exhilharation that comes with learning something completely new and foreign, something that didn't exist anywhere in my brain before the moment that I first experienced it. So much fun!

So the word in question was noted while reading another "about Jane Austen" volume -- one that I had picked up believing it to be humor only to note after beginning it that the induced wry smiles and laughter are a result of the author taking herself with too much of the utmost seriousness.

panegyric (noun)
1. a lofty oration or writing in praise of a person or thing; eulogy
2. formal or elaborate praise 
from the Latin panegyircus: of or belonging to a public assembly, with the Greek equivalent panegyrikos: solemn assembly
Synonyms: homage, tribute, encomium

I do feel sure that I've heard the word used before (perhaps by my ministerial friends as they prepare for funerals?) but am certain I've not come across it in print.

Anyone else read the dictionary for fun?

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The Growl

So I was dancing my way down Broadway to Whole Foods tonight, freestyling to "Feeling Good". Yes, I looked like an idiot; no, I didn't care. The first minute before the chorus is just tonal background for a spoken - not really sung - first verse. I had some interesting step patterns going on, and did a decent job of getting back to the start to come down on the one. And then the sax section comes in with that delicious deep growl, and the horns flare into brightness just above it with that chest-opening run up the scale.

I *love* a well-played saxophone, as I've said before, and only wish that I played better. But here's the deal -- if you play sax, you get tossed out of the band if you hit the one. "Swing it, man!" is all about the 2 and the 4, and you avoid that 1 at all costs. Make your solo entrance late and force the guys behind you to vamp for another 8 if you have to, but don't you dare hit the 1.

Leading blues dance is all about guiding for the 1.

Even in my entertainment I can't prefer the easy stuff, can I?

(I swear there's a LOLcat hiding somewhere in all of this counting, but I'll be damned if I can find it.)

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Ballerina Waiting for a Train

That's my favorite line from Clay's summer show last year, but it's an apt description for Katherine, not for me.

Me? I am definitely the not-so-staid girl waiting on the subway platform with earbuds in and big band music playing. If it's not crowded, you can bet I'm shimmy-stepping my way to the right car -- and if it is crowded, you can bet I'm at least walking in time and weight-shifting/hop-stepping around when I'm "standing in place" to wait. Grapevine through a deserted crosswalk? Charleston or Slow Drag in the park? Pivot turns out of line at Starbucks? That's me, too.

Grade B insanity, perhaps, but it makes me smile on a Monday morning after a particularly un-fun Sunday night..

What kind of New Yorker are you?

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