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.
Category Archives: adulting
Turkeygeddon
I mean, Turksgiving.
Wait, no. THANKSGIVING. That’s what it’s called!
Public gratitude posts are are a thing.
I don’t normally do them, but I’m (mostly) cool with people who do.
I’m kind of doing one this go-round, in part to take my mind off the fact that my throat has, since Tuesday, developed a wicked itching-burning thing that A) makes me feel like I’ve swallowed a snifter-full of angry fire ants and B) makes me cough, which makes the fire ants even angrier.
I suppose I should begin by being thankful for for the existence of of cough drops, because unprintable words this is driving me crazy.
Nice quiet day at home yesterday. I finally transitioned from Trim Painting hell into Trim Painting Purgatory. I’m grateful for that, because jeez.
Also, I am grateful for ballet, modern, and aerials, which keep me sane (fire ants notwithstanding), grant me membership in a phenomenal community of amazing people, and give me something to do with my creative energies.
I am grateful for my astounding husband, who manages to keep a roof over our heads despite my best efforts to completely drive this little train of ours right off the rails (note to anyone considering marrying an artistic type: we can be very responsible, but some of us are prone to long bouts of throwing ourselves wholesale into our work at all costs, and those of us who who dance can be expensive to feed), and the strange beast that is our family, with its many branches staggering off in different directions.
Also for mixed metaphors, without which it might be much more difficult to describe snifters full of fire ants, the glorious chaos that is family at its finest, or probably anything at all about dance or home maintenance.
Lastly, I am grateful that, at least at the moment, I still have medical coverage, so if these unspeakable, unprintable fire ants don’t GTFO soon, I can go see a doctor about about them.
Oh, yeah — and also for everyone who, for mysterious reasons, reads my blog, and for all the amazing and inspiring bloggers out there.
Meh-dern Monday
I am definitely on the mend (the meh-nd?), but not yet well enough for class. I’ve got an inquiry in to my doc’s office to see if they want me to come back in.
I stayed in this morning, slept late, and had really weird dreams that probably resulted from the fact that I was sleeping with my face shoved into a pillow that was, in turn, hanging off the bed and wedged into the Pile-O-Books that lives on my nightstand. I can’t remember what the dreams were about, but I remember thinking they were weird.
Anyway. I read in the bath for an hour and change, trying to get the fresh cement in my head to loosen up. It did, to an extent, for a while.
Then I went off to Dance Team, where the girls were pretty awesome. AS and I restructured the rehearsal program and divided the girls up into discrete small groups, and that made a big difference.
I let my group choose a song to work on with no suggestions from me. They chose Adel’s “Rolling In The Deep” (yeay!) and I banged out the first few phrases and got them started. They did a fantastic job staying on task and picking up the opening choreography, including at least one fairly challenging move, so I’ve added some harder stuff to the section they’ll learn learn on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, I’ll review the technical aspects of the today’s phrases, review today’s phrases, break the new steps down to get them thinking about technique, then teach them the new phrases. I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ll do as a group.
Tomorrow, I’m going to have to see if I can find a pharmacy that actually has my decongestant. I’m now out of my previous supply, and the pharmacy I normally use hasn’t been able to fill my prescription, which they’ve had for a week as of tomorrow 
I am audible enough now that I should be able to call their other locations and check around. I’m hoping one of them will have it, as my insurance only covers two pharmacy chains. I can go somewhere else and pay out of pocket if I have to, though. This isn’t an expensive medication.
In other news, I made Brussels sprouts for for the first time ever tonight. They were good! …Which was nice, because the cooking time recommended on the package was too long,and i was afraid they’d be incredible when I took them out of the oven.
Anyway, here’s my recipe:
You’ll need:
- 14 Brussels sprouts (or however many you need; scale other ingredients accordingly!)
- 1 – 2 tbsp (15 – 30.ml) olive oil or melted butter
- 1 – 2 rashers bacon, cooked and cooled
- coarse salt to taste
Here’s how you make them:
- Preheat your own to 450 – 500 degrees Fahrenheit
- Remove loose outer leaves and cut sprouts in lengthwise halves
- Chop or crumble bacon
- Toss sprouts in oil/butter to coat
- Place sprouts cut-side down on a cookie sheet
- Sprinkle bacon and salt over sprouts
- Roast for 15 – 25 minutes*, until cut sides are golden brown
- Remove from oven, flip sprouts cut-side up, cool for a minute or two, and serve.
*The sprouts came in a bag that suggested 30 minutes at 350 — too long at too low a temp, IMO. I did 15 at 500 and 15 at 350; next time, I’ll just do 20 at 500. Sprouts roast beautifully at a high temperature, with a lovely Maillard reaction where they touch the pan. That’s why I put the flat, cut side down, by the way — more surface area for browning!
I was preparing dinner to coincide with Denis’ arrival from a late evening at work, and the sprouts were ready a bit early. I ate almost all of my share before he got home. Thought about eating his, but I’m a nice boy. At least I’m eating again!
I think I’m going to make these again tomorrow, so I’ll try to add pictures.
Moar Whinging, Feel Free to Skip This
I’m really feeling a lot better — which is to say A) better enough that I realize how long I’ve been feeling like crap and, B) better enough to have energy to complain about things.
Before, I was basically feeling too awful and tired to resent feeling awful and tired (besides which, I basically spent the better part of ten days asleep). Now I’m well enough to be past that, but not well enough to be back to normal. So instead I’m feeling cranky and resentful and sorry for myself. Poor me. Le sigh.
I guess that’s progress?
The weirdest complaint is that I’ve apparently forgotten how to eat. This illness just basically killed my appetite, and I kind of don’t think I’ve really been eating enough.
Anyway, today we took our friend KH out for dinner, and I ate half a small Caesar salad and three small seared ahi nigirizushi, and then I was ridiculously and depressingly full.
Mostly it was depressing because the ahi was so good, and I wish I had skipped the salad (which was horrible because it was overdressed, even though this place does a good, legit Caesar … slimy lettuce is just kind of revolting) and just eaten the fish. I couldn’t even bring it home — it would’ve had to sit in the car for a couple of hours, and it isn’t yet cool enough here to pull that off with fish. (I know: First World Problems all the way, quel dommage.)
But it’s also annoying because now I’m eating Graham crackers in bed because I know I’m going to wake up starving at 2 AM but everything else seems nauseatingly oversized. I think I’ve taken in maybe 900 calories today. Bleh.
I hope my stomach will get its stuff together soon so I can go back to eating like I normally do, because this is no way to fuel a dancer.
I don’t have energy enough to complain about real problems right now, at least, so there’s that.
Anyway, I’m done whinging for now. Tomorrow I shall attempt class, so I’m sure I’ll whinge about that, too.
G’night, errbody. Feel free to drop your own ridiculous, frivolous, but still irritating whinges in the comments; I feel like a self-aware Open Whinging thread could be kinda fun, actually. We can collect them into a book later and call it Fine Whines, and we’ll all be famous on the internets and make a million yen (which is only, like, $10,000 dollars, but that’s a start).
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).
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.
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 😛
Wild Wednesday: Missing the Moment
But first, Killer Class.
This morning, I took a shower for once (to clarify: it’s not that I don’t wash myself; I just don’t usually shower in the morning). While showering, I found myself thinking, “Gee, we haven’t done saut de basque in a while. It would be really cool to do saut de basque.”
Apparently, the Divine Killer B read my mind, because we not only did SO MUCH PETIT ALLEGRO (which I managed mostly to do right), but we did an awesome grand allegro combination with sauts de basque and cabrioles.
So, basically, it was an awesome day. I also learned, by the by, that I’ve been over-crossing my arabesques, which makes my penché glitchy. Killer B came over at one point and was like, “Try not to overcross,” and moved my foot over, and then it was like, “OHAI, FLOOR!” So that was awesome, too.
On the other hand, I really missed the bus on what could’ve been a meaningful thing at DanceTeam practice.
One of the girls, who is actually a really awesome dancer when she gets out of her own way (with which, being middle-schoolers, they all struggle), randomly said while I was drilling some choreography with her and her friend in a breakout group, “I feel so fat.”
Aaaaaaand, I totally dropped the ball.
There are so, so many meaningful things I could’ve said — and while it’s true that probably none of them would’ve taken hold immediately, it’s important to hear those messages.
I could’ve said, “Don’t worry, there’s no one right body for dance,” or “The right body for dance is whatever body you’ve got” (though that one can sound a touch judgmental) or “All kinds of bodies are beautiful” (though, honestly, that might be a bridge too far for someone who’s in seventh grade and wrestle with all the stuff that people wrestle at that age). I could’ve pointed her to some amazing dancers that are shaped like she is, if I wasn’t so terrible at remembering names (1)
- Honestly, I am stunnnnnned that I’m actually remembering the names of ALL my DanceTeam girls; it’s a bleeding miracle.
Instead, I sort of choked and said, “You look fine!” and then, over the course of the conversation, reiterated the things that I think are great about her dancing — she has attitude for days and she’s really expressive, which means she has awesome stage presence; that she’s naturally a great mover for the kind of dance we’re working on.
Maybe I should’ve just asked, “What makes you say that?” and tried to listen, but on the other hand, we were trying to get a lot of choreography tightened up in not very much time.
On the other hand, it’s cool that some of the kids feel like they can say stuff like that around me, given that they really haven’t known me very long. It makes me feel like, against all odds, I’m doing okay making connections and putting them at ease (2).
- Probably the smartest thing I’ve done so far was to admit that I don’t know from Hip-Hop; that they get to teach me there.
Anyway, I’m going to have to think about this: how not to be caught off my guard the next time something like that comes up, and what to say that will be both concise and, in the long run, helpful. I’ll also check in with AS about that, since she (as an actual middle-school teacher) might have some insight.
So that’s it for now. I have to run off and suffer … erm, I mean, go back to Trapeze 3 after a not-really-intentional two-week break. Eeeeeeeek.
5, 6, 7, 8 — Boy, Can We Procrastinate!
I am clearly confused about life right now.
I’ve jumped into an assistant-coach gig for a middle-school dance team, which is a huge leap out of my comfort zone, what with my background being strictly ballet & modern of the kind that tends to foam at the mouth when someone mentions “dance as a sport.”
That’s not where I’m confused, though.
While I may be something something of a knee-jerk mouth-foamer about about the concept, I’ve realized that, with the right coach, Dance Team can be a way into dance as art for kids who might otherwise never have a chance. The coach I’m working with, a friend of mine from the increasingly tiny world of dance and aerials, is that kind of coach. Likewise, she and I come from essentially opposite dance backgrounds, and know how how to work together to take advantage of that, so we make a good team.
I’m totally drinking the Kool-aid, there.
No — what I’m confused about is this: why am I still scraping the paint on the house when I should be firming up the piece I’m choreographing for the team?
Or, well … Okay, I’m not really confused. I know what’s going on. I’m just confused about why I’m letting it happen.
Basically, I’m terrified. I’m afraid I’m Doin’ It Rong; that the dances I create are stupid.
This is also part of what keeps me from finishing my longer choreography and writing projects. Every now and and then, I experience a spasm of lack of faith in my own vision.
I don’t, I should note, most faith in my ability as a writer (sadly, the same cannot be said for my flaming case of Impostor Syndrome about dance): I’ve had too much success not to know that I can put words together beautifully; I just fall into fits of thinking my stories are stupid. Then I freeze for an indefinite period of time, after which I return to my projects and continue work.
Anyway, today I should be making a dance, but instead I’m busy being afraid to make a dance. (I should be making plans for auditions for next year, but I’m paralyzed about that, too.)
I’m writing this so I can see how silly this all is. Maybe someday, I’ll read this and laugh at how silly I was.
After all, it’s not like I have to go win the Prix de Lausanne the day after tomorrow (besides, I’m over-age for that). I just have to come up with a dance for a group of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders who all seem like hard workers with good attitudes (or mostly-good, which is good enough).
Regardless, I really need to up my procrastination game. Who procrastinates by scraping paint, anyway, FFS?
Apparently, I do.
There’s also this other thing. Maybe you can relate. When everything starts coming together and landing in my lap, which is totally happening right now, part of me (of course) feels grateful and excited … but another part starts looking around to see if the Universe is trolling me. Like, “Was that a real pat on the back, or did some divine force just stick a kick me sign on there?”
…Which is also totally happening right now (sorry, Universe).
I’m going to force myself to proceed as if there is no Kick Me sign; as of there’s no possibility of any such thing.
It just might take me a little while to really start believing it.
danseur ignoble 