Wednesday, April 29, 2009

in a little while, take 2

Apparently all my writing has digressed to list-making. Oh well. Here are another couple of 'em.

Things I can now do that I couldn't do a week ago:
1) point
2) flex
3) stand on one foot
4) walk quickly
5) ride a bike
6) climb stairs/walk down stairs
7) walk around in socks
8) tendue
9) pivot (in socks) both on carpet and wood flooring

Things I can't do now that I could a week and 8 hours ago:
1) releve
2) plie
3) pointe work
4) turn
5) jump
6) run
7) dance for 5+ hours in a day
8) mount my bike from the left side without thinking about it
9) wear flip flops, high heels, and other ridiculous shoes
10) contact improv

Really? That quick, eh? Injuries suck. I'm not that depressed about this one - it's minor - but I am super duper grumpy about it.

I can think of all the things that lead up to this one, in hindsight they make a clear path. I wish I could see a clear path the other way, one in which I could predict when I'd be done with the healing process, and where that would leave me today and tomorrow. I'd like to know when I could dance again.

Watching class is hard. Sometimes I know what it would feel like to do what my peers are doing, and I believe that I could. This is when my body remembers that it was just dancing, and the realization that it is not capable right now comes like cold water. Other times I get frightened watching the other dancers, sure that they will hurt themselves. This is when my body is with itself in its present injured state, and, understanding that it couldn't accomplish the movements, projects that feeling on to the other bodies.

Having a minor injury after having a major injury is only slightly easier having gone through that big thing. Comparatively, this one is nothing, so that's easier. But there also resides in my muscle tissue and emotional cognizance all the crappiness I felt during that time. So, even though I know that I'm only going to be out for a week or so, when I watch class suddenly I'm back in that place where I was watching for a year plus, and all I wanted to be doing was dancing.

All I want to be doing is dancing. Seriously. Like this:cc--------/{..:;`'||

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

wherein i realize that this bench is on wheels and this feels the same no matter where i am

I write, receive, and send lots of emails. When initiating e-mail conversation, often I agonize about what to put in the subject line. I can't title them like my blogs, oh no, and by the amount of bad email subjects I get I know that there's a definite skill to it. Oh, it is so much easier when someone else starts the email thread, and then all you have to do is hit reply and make up stuff that makes communicative sense in the body of the email. Incidentally, this is also how I feel about contact improvisation. And flirting.

These are some of my favorite subject lines I have received lately:
  1. "An idea" Because it was from a person who, considering my relationship with him, could have meant absolutely anything. And I was completely surprised by the idea.
  2. "Are you here?" Sent from an iPhone to my computer. Tried not to get too metaphysical about it.
  3. "Enclosed is a big hug..." I like it when people I don't know send me e-hugs for doing my job.

Monday, April 27, 2009

in my own way, i got under the influence

This is from a year ago. I was updating my resume (the dance one!) and I guess I was feeling nostalgic.


http://www.flickr.com/photos/celinet/2446840467/in/set-72157604763355136/

I liked it because of the De Young Museum in the background. Seeing this photo was one of the things that brought home to me: you live in San Francisco. Yes, LIVE here. Another: seeing the Golden Gate Bridge from the window of my surgeon's office. Working out in the YMCA and seeing the Bay Bridge. Coming and going though City Hall on work. Riding the bus past the Painted Ladies. As landmarks became a daily part of my life, yes, I realized that I live here.

It still strikes me at times. I have a big-time crush on San Francisco.

There's also a host of things I've never done in this city, and I'm starting to feel the need to make a list and methodically cross them off. Summer project?

Sunday, April 26, 2009

grump grump frump grump

I'm getting grumpy, so I thought I would try three things to get out of it.
1) Coffee
- done awhile ago
- helped momentarily
- tasted good
- unfortunately too late to repeat
2) Headstands
- fun to do
- easy on the ankle
- work momentarily
- easy to repeat
- people might look at you strangely
- luckily I am at CELLspace
3) Writing a blog
- yes.

To update the bit of vagueness from my last blog, I will be performing with Dandelion Dancetheater at Joyce SoHo this July. I am so excited and thrilled about this that I don't believe it. At all.

I also sprained my ankle last Wednesday, but it looks like it should heal well and I will miss very little.

I have no money and should be working right now, on the subject of grumpiness.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

into unkown, gushy waters

What kind of subject line do you use for an email that's full of unexpected bad news? I don't know. I think I'm going to send this one blank.

Through this process of writing an email full of bad news, I have learned that it's not just when writing emails to silly boys that I'll spend 5 minutes trying to decide between ending a sentence with a period or an exclamation point. It's when writing about something I care about, and feel unsure about expressing. How to be forthright in your own uncertainty without coming across as needing another to clarify your world for you - it's difficult.

So, bad news aside, email boy thinks I'm younger than dishwater (ha), which incidentally I don't care about because someone I deeply admire has asked me to join something that deeply inspires me. It almost mitigates the bad news, despite the ongoing presence of fear that this is worse than it seems. But I'm meeting with this person tonight to discuss this offer and other things, so perhaps more later.

xoxo, dear blog!
-J

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

tomorrow i am taking a day off and this is what i was thinking the night before

Last night my entire body ached. I came home at6:30pm, showered, crawled in bed, sent some emails, and was asleep by 8pm. I slept until 8:20am. Tonight, I am high on life. I saw art which made me cry and laugh all within 1 hour and 20 minutes, and left thinking that art can be very healing. Then on the bike ride home I realized that I get high on life a lot, and I got worried about what the withdrawals from that would be like. Like the period of time right after death might be really painful, because I will physically miss life.

I performed all last weekend, and today got an email from a colleague at CELLspace, the place where Dandelion has an office and I go to type, send emails, print things, and file things. He saw my show and wanted to share something that he had written years ago on grace and movement. Because I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind, and I'm also pretty sure no one reads this self-centered dump of a blog, here it is:
I am thinking of how I feel grace of movement

Standing near a heavy train as it approaches and passes. You can feel its weight and the strength that drives it. So full even the earth shakes with a slow rhythm.

Fully loaded A10 jet makes a screeching fast hard bank turn. You can feel its weight pressing impossibly on the air. Yet their movements are full of grace and with an undeniable purpose. Both push so much strength yet they are held in grace by just the slightest touch. Hit that curve in any thing less than curve of grace and risk it all.

You can feel it...


rock and the mountain are in a moving grace with each other.
The rock must move down the slope.

It matters not how long or the process, it will happen.

Rolling, falling, cracking and splitting on late frosty nights, pushed around by roots and menaced by moss. It must happen.


I like how he talks about the power behind grace. Or that grace exists within power. Grace is never something that I think about while dancing. I think about strength, I think about movement, I think about energy, I think about feeling and sensation and momentum. If grace emerges, it is a byproduct of fully engaging these other things. Like big moving iron things aren't build for grace, but for power, strength, and functionality.

I also like that the things he talks about are big things, because I've been noticing that I'm big lately. Not necessarily too big (although it is easy to go down that path), just comparatively to those who are built with skeletons half the size of my own, I am big. And I move large. Rarw, watch out.

Also, I always question whether it is only dancers that have this kinesthetic sense of movement, or a visceral connection to the feeling of how things move. It's validating to see that it's not just us, that's more of a human thing.

All weekend, when I was performing, I would drink a cup of coffee and listen to the Mountain Goats beforehand to calm down. Odd things to lean on? I don't give a damn. Works for me, and I love both of these things.

My roommate was listening to the Mountain Goats this morning, which is cool, because I didn't know that anyone else knew of them. So we had a mini bonding moment over the Mountain Goats and swapped CDs. Now I am listening to "No Children" on repeat.
I hope I cut myself shaving tomorrow
I hope it bleeds all day long

Our friends say it's darkest before the sun rises

We're pretty sure they're all wrong

I hope it stays dark forever

I hope the worst isn't over

And I hope you blink before I do

Yeah I hope I never get sober


I wrote to Jeremy today in a stern yet diplomatic attempt to get what I need to be friends. Whether on not the approach will work, I don't know another way. If there's not a way for both of us to find and get what we need out of a friendship together, than I suppose the other option is nothing. Which I am actually okay with. It would be more than a little sad, because he is a spectacular human, and we were best friends for a long period, but if there is not a way for us to just be without the passive aggressive quibbling, than there's not a way. I can not and will not put in the amount of effort that dealing with that requires.

Both my roommies spend all their nights with their boyfriends. Which leaves me plenty of time to do annoying things like listen to one Mountain Goats song over and over and over and over again.

And I hope when you think of me years down the line
You can't find one good thing to say
And I'd hope that if I found the strength to walk out
You'd stay the hell out of my way
I am drowning
There is no sign of land
You are coming down with me
Hand in unlovable hand
And I hope you die
I hope we both die

Anyway. Email boy isn't emailing me back, which is potentially leading me to move on and spend less energy composing emails. I haven't quite given up on it yet, but if no emails come in the next week, ah well, it was a good run of uncalled for giddiness and daydreams without potential.

There's something in an Anne of Green Gables book where she talks about how she'd rather get super duper excited about things and then be super duper disappointed when they didn't pull through than not feel super duper excited ever. I'm pretty sure Anne said it much more elegantly, and with more big words. I'm pretty sure I agree with her.

But Anne, my acupuncturist would say, that's hard on your adrenals. And stop drinking so much coffee.

Shut up, push play, and let it ride.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

in the interest of time

I have gotten NOTHING done lately. I've noticed that I go through these phases, but I don't remember one ever being this bad. As in I've missed deadlines, skipped out, and generally blown off any commitments that didn't have to do with dancing.

I'm tired.

At the end of the day of dancing, I want to dance more, and I want to be less tired. And I don't want to do anything else.

I'd also like a window. Every once in awhile my lack of one depresses me, and now is one of those times. Please, just some sunlight, the ability to wake up and watch it for a little while, a chance to sit and glance out at something other than my living room.

I'd like to leave the City for a little while. Go somewhere with more space in it, less people, and more plants. In two weeks I'm planning to visit my friend in the Headlands! Maybe that will work. But if today really was the start of a long weekend for me, I would have gone somewhere for all of it. But I have commitments tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday. Followed by a Monday-Friday, and then commitments on a Saturday and Sunday, which will just start again on a Monday.

I'd also like a boy to kiss a little. Or maybe just watch movies with and sit close.

I'm performing tomorrow? My parents will be here the day after, for a whole week? I'm performing the next weekend? Seems unreal. I am excited, however, somewhere. I think that my eyes are tired, my stomach is nervous, my legs are heavy, and the bottoms of my feet are excited.