On the upside, the meds are working (still no voice, but overall I’m starting to feel less like the sort of gross wad of chewing gum that one encounters on the pavements in various places), my DanceTeam girls worked hard today today even though they couldn’t hear me and I couldn’t demonstrate anything, and I should be able to do Thursday class with BW tomorrow night,or barre at any rate.
Author Archives: asher
w00t, WP app is sorted
I haz blorgs again. Just a few more tweaking of things pieces to do and I’ll be up to date.
I’m having trouble getting started on things that involve standing up. For some reason, I couldn’t get back to sleep after Denis got up at 4 AM, and I didn’t really get to sleep ’til after 11, so I’m a little bushwhacked.
My legs hurt less than expected, but if I don’t get off my booty they’re gonna hurt tomorrow for sure.
URL update, finally
For a long time , I debated whether or not to change the URL of this blog to reflect its title, “danseur ignoble.”
Finally pulled the trigger today. It doesn’t make a lot of sense for the title of the blog and the URL to be so different.
Now I just need to sort the Android app, which suddenly thinks I have an account , but not a blog. 
Thursday Class: The Accidental Private
One last responsibility before I can throw myself into the Sea of Sleep (which I hope will receive me more readily than it did last night!) — class notes!
It was good good to get back to class tonight; to the thing in my life that’s my Normal.
Also good and terrifying to be not just the Onliest Boy (totes normal) but the Onliest Student (first time ever.
I’ve done a ton of accidental semi-privates with BB, but have literally never, ever taken a private dance class before (oy, vey — here comes the thing in my head that warps lyrics to effect up Tina’s classic). Fortunately, I am apparently all out of panic at this point (had a good bit harrowing therapy session today), and just sort of calmly accepted the fact that it was All Me, All the Time with the dude who is my local Ballet Crush (in the sense that he’s the dancer I want to be when I “grow up”).
Anyway, we put in an hour at barre, some of which was super hard — I finished fondu (which was not terribly hard or long) puffing like a steam train and sweating like a race horse. My body is definitely enforcing its right to use its resources for and. Woooow.Normally, the fondu that BW gave me would have been somewhat challenging; tonight, it was flat out hard. Oh — and the frappé that ended with an 8-count long fondu à la seconde. Eight slow counts long, that is.
Not gonna lie —I was not strong enough tonight to support that without the barre.
BW has a lovely way of shaping things — tonight he said, “You know, your passé is lovely, but I think you could get it even higher and a little more open and it would really show off your turnout.” (Because evidently your humble Danseur Ignoble be turnt.)
I tried it — basically, continuing to fold and lift and rotate the working leg until (avant) the toe rests just above the adductor tubercule or (arriére) just behind the same point, but crossed in a little more —and it worked. I did literally the best-looking passé in the history of my life as a dancer tonight The best part, though, is that this forces my turnouts to remain kicked on and do their freaking job, which makes the passé balance both more stable and less effortful.
Often in long passé balances, I feel like I’m fighting to keep the turnouts of my supporting leg from taking their coffee break. BW’s adjustment solved that problem for me. My supporting leg leg kind leg kind of *has* to stay on the clock at that point, so it does. Go figure.
Anyway, I also identified the source of my ongoing issue with waltz turns — I sometimes fail to execute the initiating movement as a sort of tombé simultaneous with a brush of the opposite foot. Instead, they become separate movements, turning a 3-beat step into a 4-beat step and tangling your feets.
Come to think of it, the fact that we did a center tendu (to work on body facings, my current white whale) that involved a tombé-brush going both forward and backward probably helped. Priming ftw!
Anyway, I managed to make it through to the end of class even though my brain kept failing to retain combinations. Doxycycline tends to make make me foggy, so whilst I’m recovering at a nice clip, my brain is still like, “Wait, whaaaaaa? Howza go again? Izzat a turn or a wut?”
I also learned that double turns with an ear infection are possible but, um, weird. Like, the first revolution and spot feels fine, but in the second one, the inner-ear disruption catches up, and it starts to geek like your small craft has just hit heavy seas.
This is especially true of the combination ends with tombé, pas de bourré to fourth, turn; tombé, pas de bourré to fourth, turn. Oh, and the music had time for quads, at very least, so I was doing slow doubles, which left plenty of time for the invisible ocean to try to capsize me.
…
One more bit of awesome news. Today a very dear person who I love so very much reconnected with me, and that made my heart so very happy. PapaBear, if you’re reading this, you know who you are. I’m so glad glad you’re back in my life. This was just just the right ray of light and hope at just the right time (and helped me be brave enough to talk with my therapist about the very dark and scary stuff that is finally time to start working on).
So thanks to PB and Robert and to the Great I Am for that.
In spite of everything, for me, today has turned out (ha ._.) to be a good day.
Let’s Not Be That Guy, Okay?
For the past eight years, I’ve been silently grumbling to myself about the various “Not My Fault” and “Not My President” bumper stickers and their kin.
If you live in the US and you’ve left the house during the Obama administration, you probably know the ones I mean.
Here’s the thing: my problem with them has never been a question of politics. I’m down with the whole idea of people being free to hold hold and express dissenting views, and indeed whatever views they do hold and express.
Rather, it’s the smug, supercilious tone that bugs me — because it’s a hallmark of everything that’s gone wrong with civil and political discourse (fwiw: autocorrupt gave me first “disgrace,” then “dispute” — since when does it know what it’s talking about?).
It’s the kind of thing one expects from the less-mature members of your average middle school populace.
As such, I’d like to float the idea that maybe those of us who didn’t vote for Trump could, like, find a better way to express our dissenting views — and, yes, our anger. (I mean, feels gonna feel, and venting is a necessary and healthy thing, but maybe we can keep public discourse a little more mature?). I mention this because I’ve already seen suggestions for exactly that same kind of smug-ugly mind of bumper sticker.
I have no doubt that there will be some ugly gloating across the aisle. Frankly, that’s kind of been the tenor of the whole campaign, and it’s something or culture has come to encourage(1).
- The gloaters out there should maybe spend some time learning ballet or Muay Thai or racing bikes or working around horses — all those things will take you down a peg quick if you start getting full of yourself).
Bullies gonna bull — especially when they feel like they’ve been oppressed (isn’t that, more or less, where bullies come from?).
And, let’s be honest, things are hard all over. Harder for half the population that’s now faced with a transition from a president who treats treats them as valued equals to one who treats them as expendable objects. Harder for the part of the population that follows the teachings of Muhammad (PBUH). Harder for the people whose skin is a few shades darker. Harder for those who have come here seeking refuge and opportunity,like basically everyone’s ancestors except, oh yeah, that other group whose ancestors were here first — harder for them, too. Harder for those who love differently. Harder for those whose gender expression doesn’t match the prescribed model. Harder for all those guys and gals.
But still hard all over. The vast majority of people in this country have been up against some stiff losses.
So the people who are doing doing the gloating, the bullying: they’re doing it because they’ve felt themselves losing out, and they’re fed up, and possibly their parents didn’t teach them any better (and honestly, because retribution feels great when you’ve convinced yourself you’re absolutely in the right) — but also because as a culture we’ve done a piss-poor job figuring out how to forge alliances and give each-other breathing room, and because the forces that are have done a great job dividing this house against itself (remember that whole “a house divided cannot stand” bit from history class?).
A lot of us in the opposing camp have experienced bullying before. For many of us, this is going to reopen old wounds; wounds that were inflicted when we were powerless. Maybe we’ll find ourselves wanting to bully back. We can’t. We have to respond: but not by sinking to that level. If bullies want to stoop, let them. We don’t have to.
We’ve had eight years of na-na-na-na-na-boo-boo from both sides. This is where it’s landed us.
So maybe we can can come up with something else — something better.
Maybe we can start by omitting obnoxious bumper stickers.
~~
…This is probably the last post in going to write about this, but the way. I stay out out of this stuff partly because I don’t like to feed the flames, but also because I’ve spent enough of my life dealing with legitimate, in-your-face conflict that I just don’t have it in me to fight meaningless battles online.
As such, I’m going to say up front that I won’t hesitate to close comments on this post — not to censor anyone, but because this is my blog, and I have enough crap to deal with right now and don’t have tiiiiiiime for all that (or, well, really, I don’t have the strength right now, not here).
Oh My Fucking God.
I have no idea what to say about the American presidential election right now, so I’m reblogging Captain Awkward instead.
I, too, try to keep politics (mostly) out of my blog, but I feel like I can’t just skip over this.
A lot of us are pretty freaked out right now. The Cap does a good job explaining why.
If you follow my Twitter at all, you know. Y’all know.
I try to keep the blog itself largely free of electoral politics and I’ll try to keep doing that for us. But I’m not really feeling the “We can still all eat Thanksgiving together as one great country and focus on what unites us!” talk today.
I feel anger, and despair, and a profound sickness and alienation. On top of the existential dread, I have asthma and severe bronchitis so for the last two weeks I’ve also been slowly drowning inside my own body waiting for the cocktail of expensive meds to kick in, knowing that Obamacare and the ability to get insurance despite irregular income and pre-existing conditions is literally keeping me alive right now. I knew this could happen, I knew that it was never funny or a joke or a spectacle. I knew that without…
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Not Really Complaining
… Or, okay, yes, but really only whinging a bit 😉
I saw the nurse-practitioner (you guys, autocorrupt suggested MURDER practitioner! W… T … Actual … F?! o_O’) at my doc’s practice today.
She confirmed that I have a sinus infection and also a wee ear infection, which explains why it sometimes feels like the spirit level in my head is borked.
I’ve been handling this thing very conservatively — actually resting basically all the time, staying clear of strenuous activities (except for the part when I decided to be helpful and uninstall two of the three window aircons in the house by myself, which I did successfully, but which knocked me onto my backside). On the balance, I think it has paid off. In the past, my sinus infections have often progressed into bronchial infections by the end of a week and change, so the fact that this one had constrained itself to the confines of my head is comforting.
I’ll be taking doxycycline for a week and I’ve got a script for plain 12-hour psuedoephedrine for a while, so that should get me sorted and back to the studio.
I may attempt Killer B’s barre tomorrow, but I may not. It really depends on my balance and energy level. Today I am definitely listing to port (and not just politically speaking, though I did go and vote), so that’s a huge if. I might also hit up Trap 3 tomorrow night as a semi-spectator, but I don’t want to pull out all the stops right away. I have figured out that easing back into things is part of the deal for me.
On the upside, my blood pressure was stellar (110/56) and my heart rate was fine (75, which is lower than it often is in doctors’ offices, because I am still mildly stressy about being in them, which can be weird and hard and awkward if you’re an intersex person).
So things look doable.
Now I’m going to lie around and watch stupid movies and otherwise bury my head in the sand until the US General Election is over, at which point my friends will tell me whether it’s safe to come out or I should start burrowing a tunnel to Canada. Except by then I’ll probably be asleep.
In other news, I’ve been reading horse blogs, which reminds me how much I miss having horses in my life, which is why I avoid horse-related content.
Also, yes, I’m apparently a sucker for bright orange animals (though I’m not particular about the color of a horse; it’s what’s on the inside that matters).
Cooking with ADHD: Bread 2.0
I think I may may have posted my bread recipe at some point in the past, but I’ve updated it a little bit, so here’s the update!
I have a kitchen scale now, so later on I’ll add metric mass values so those of you cooking in Europe can give it a whirl without having to guess. It works fine by the fairly-inexact American volumetric method, though!
You will need:
- 3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus extra for dusting
- 4.5 teaspoons highly active dry yeast (I recommend SAF red; also, that’s 1.5 tablespoon, by the way; or if you’re using packets, 2 packets)
- 1.5 cups hottish (not boiling) water (or 1 cup hottish water and .5 cup milk)
- 2 tablespoons butter or olive oil (margarine or veg oil will work, too!)
- 1-2 tablespoons sugar, brown sugar, honey, or malt syrup (your choice)*
- 1.5 teaspoons salt *
Ingredients marked * are optional. I like the flavor of bread better with salt (and need tons of salt because my body is crazy), but you can leave it out. The sugar/honey/syrup changes the flavor of the finished bread only a little, but it can help get your yeast going if it’s sluggish. Honey or malt syrup add a little moisture, but not enough to require adjustments (edit: usually).
I think you can also bake bread entirely without fats, but I haven’t tried it, so I’m not sure how it would turn out.
To make the bread:
- Combine water, yeast, and sugar. Stir to blend them, then set aside.
- Combine flour, butter/oil, and salt in a large bowl.
- When the yeast mix gets foamy, pour it into the dry mix (if you’re using butter, the hot water will help it melt).
- If you’re using milk, pour it in, too.
- Stir with a stirring spoon to everything is fairly well blended (don’t worry — it doesn’t have to be anything like perfect!).
- If you have time, give the ingredients about 5 or 10 minutes to rest. This lets the flour take up the liquids. It also lets you find some awesome podcasts to listen to while you knead (might I recommend the History Chicks?).
- Squish everything together a little with your hands, dust your work surface with flour, and dump your dough right onto it.
- If you’re like me, set a timer so you don’t find yourself thinking, “OMG, I have been kneading this dough foreeeeeeeevaaaarrrrrr.” 6 to 8 minutes should do the trick.
- Ready … set … knead! Remember, no grouchy TV chefs are here, and even if they are, it’s your kitchen — so knead that dough in whatever way works for you!
- Ball up the dough, cover it with a damp cloth, and let it rise for 30 minutes (if you’re in a hurry) to 1 hour (if you’re not). Longer than 1 hour is fine, too. If it’s going to sit all day or overnight, though, maybe stick the dough in the fridge so it doesn’t go completely crazy.
- When you’re ready to bake, preheat dat oven — I like a darker, crisper crust, so I set it for 450 to 500 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Punch down your puffed-up, self-important doughball friend, then shape your baguettes or batards or loaf or rolls or boules or what have you. I often do one baguette and either four submarine rolls or eight dinner rolls.
- If you have time, let your dough rise again (like the Mary-Ellen Carter!) for 15 – 30 minutes. this step is optional, but gets you a pooftier end product.
- Bake for 15 (for dinner rolls) to 30 minutes on or in whatever kind of pizza stone, cookie sheet, loaf pan, and/or baguette pan you’ve got on hand. You can probably even use muffin tins (though I haven’t tried that).
- Cool (preferably on a rack) for as long as you can stand it.
- The most important part! Enjoy your bread while collecting accolades from your friends and loved ones who will be like, “OMG, this person is amazing!” (Unless they can’t have gluten. I should learn a good gluten-free recipe, because Celiac is no joke.)
That’s it! I’ll try to add pictures, and someday, I swear, I really will do a video post about this.
Edit: Oh, yeah. You can also also combine steps 1 through 4 and just mix everything together right away, as long as you have good yeast. I like to proof mine because it makes me feel like a mad scientist, but it isn’t really entirely necessary.
When I make pizza dough (exact same recipe!), I usually omit the second rise.
Lyra Photos!
Nov 6
This gallery contains 10 photos.
My friend Kevin Spalding is a budding photog of the first order. Last Monday, I took a metric shedload of decongestants and pried myself out of bed in order to go dangle from the ceiling with my friend and trainer, CL, and another classmate of ours, AM2, who works in television media and did some did some […]
What I Do When I Can’t Dance
This week I came down with some kind of fever-and-sore throat combo. As such, I spent much of the past few days in bed, asleep, letting my beleaguered and probably overworked immune system do its thing.
Today I finally felt well enough to crawl out of bed for a few hours, so I cleaned the kitchen and made a giant batch of chicken and dumplings for the family next door, which is wrestling with bad news about about the health of the husband (who is also Dad and Grandpa to a growing clan), and a regular-sized batch of bread for us.
As an experiment, for for the the bread, I doubled the amount of yeast I normally use (a choice facilitated by the fact that I buy yeast in 2-pound packages; no need to worry about running out of little envelopes here). I’m surprised at how significant an impact it had — my bread is usually good, but this batch is really, really good. The crumb is light and springy, while the crust is thin but very crisp, and the yeastier yeastier flavor evokes the best pizza crusts I’ve tasted. I’ll have to try the same variation the next time I make pizza (FWIW, my bread recipe is, in fact, actually a pizza dough recipe anyway).
Anyway, it occurred to me to be pleased with myself about a couple of things.
First, I know how to make legit chicken and dumplings from scratch — no packaged stock or anything — and it’s good enough that people request it when potlucks and and so forth roll around. That’s a minor accomplishment on the grand scale of things, of course, but for a raised-by-cats Yankee from a we-don’t-cook WASPy family in the chicken-n-dumplings deprived Northeast, knowing how to make from-scratch chicken and dumplings good enough to be requested even by quasi-Southerners is a pretty cool piece of adulting to master.
Second, I know how to make good bread — that is, bread good enough that even my culinary friends with serious breadigrees (see what I did there? :P) have pronounced it “good.” I feel it’s worth noting that one of these friends is a Swiss-French pastry chef and the other is the person our local high-end bread bakery turns to in a crisis. They both know their way around good bread.
I can’t take too much credit for that, of course.
In fact, good basic bread is roughly the easiest thing in the world to make — mix up like five ingredients, knead for 6 to 8 minutes, cover with a damp cloth and ignore for an hour, shape, cover with a damp cloth and ignore for another 30 minutes or so, and bake at 450 – 500 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 – 30 minutes depending on what you’re ultimately making. You can even ignore it for roughly 30 minutes less, total, if you’re in a hurry and you use highly -active yeast.
I honestly think the main reason people find basic bread difficult is that it’s hard to believe that something so good can be so easy, so they start tinkering with it.
Anyway, neither of these skills are going to win me the Nobel Prize in Adulting, but you have to take your self-esteem where you can get it.
Preferably with a grain of salt and some good butter or maybe some hummus and a slice of havarti.
So that was my day today. Now I’m going to go read, write, and try not to eat that entire batch of awesome bread 😛
danseur ignoble 