Category Archives: life
Dear Internet
… I suspect you may have reached Maximum Irony when you first offered up what sounds like a great recipe for nut-free fruitcake…
… and then suggested TOPPING IT WITH ROWS OF NUTS*.
>.<
*I realize that this is, in fact, a totally valid configuration for people who aren't allergic to nuts and maybe just want their fruitcake to really, really feature the nuts.
Not (Entirely) About Ballet: Cherchez Le Fem?
Sometimes, life throws me interesting curveballs (says the boy who knows effectively nothing about baseball).
Recently, life has dumped a lot of stuff about gender and queerness and otherness and so forth in my lap.
This may be a function of the fact that I’m primed to accept that stuff right now: ballet makes me think about this stuff.
I am well aware that, while it appears to be my nature to dance in a rather classically bold, masculine style, the essence of my personality is in many ways decidedly femme.
That creates an interesting tension that I suspect could be harnessed in the name of art (so much of art depends upon interesting tension!), and I’ve been thinking about what I might do with that. You know, besides lying in bed at night and wishing I was good enough to dance with the Trocks.
This has led me to thinking about What It All Means (which usually leads to me throwing my hands up in despair and crying, a la Pippin, “Oh, I’ll never find it! Never, never, never, NEVER!”).
Which, of course, is like an invitation to the Universe — like telling your friend who has access to a university’s paywalled academic journals that you’re curious about climate change, or what have you. You look up from your reverie and find a tidal wave of data rushing your way.
This is super long, so here’s a “More” tag:
Danseur Ignoble: Practical Considerations
Yesterday, I signed up for the GRE, which doesn’t sound like it will be too bad.
It’s also possible that none of the programs for which I’m applying actually require it, but I might as well get it out of the way.
I’m not worried in the least about the writing and language bits; my only concern was that I’d have to do a whooooole lot of math review, but it looks like it should be very doable, provided that I don’t leave it all ’til the last minute because SQUIRREL!
As a matter of perspective, I’m much less worried about the GRE than I was about my audition piece.
Curiously, having done the audition has somehow made me feel much more confident and capable, even though the audition itself was kind of a mess due to the fact that there was absolutely no way I could be really adequately prepared under the circumstances. I don’t know, just getting up and winging it, doing it anyway, was a huge confidence-builder.
There’s something about actually doing creative work that is deeply edifying. I may not have had much of the work done in time for the audition, but the part that was done looked like … well, it looked like real dancing, if that makes any sense? And, since then, I’ve been rocking along creating and revising, which feels really exciting.
I’m learning to think of myself as an artist (not just in terms of dance, but also in terms of the visual arts), which is something I’ve always been hesitant to do. It seems somehow hubric to do so — and yet, at the same time, I’ve realized that you have to take your own work seriously, or you don’t give it the time it needs to get done.
…Or, well, that’s how it works for me.
I’ve also started organizing information about application deadlines and stuff for graduate school. Eventually, the most pressing details (application deadlines and materials needed) will go into a table or spreadsheet or something so I can just check them off as I go.
I’m not organizing cost-of-attendance data yet, because every time I look at cost-of-attendance I really rather feel like my eyes are going to explode. I know I’ll figure it out somehow, just like I figure everything else out somehow, so for now, except for looking into scholarship opportunities, I’m more or less ignoring that whole zone.
So now I’m contacting graduate schools, signing up for open-house days for their DMT programs (in this sort of devil-may-care, I’ll-figure-out-how-to-get-there-later kind of way), and so forth.
It’s a weird place to be, somehow. A couple weeks ago, I was all, I don’t know if I’m going to be ready for this; I don’t actually even know if I want to do this. A lot of that stemmed from being persistently sick for a rather longish period, though: eventually, I’ll write about what that does to me emotionally, but I can’t figure out yet how to put it into words.
Anyway, a couple of days ago, I woke up, remembered what I want to do and why, and felt ready to get started … so yesterday, I did.
I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that this happened within a week after getting back to class.
The structure that ballet provides is so essential to my life. While I actually do very much like being a homemaker, I seem to do best when I have a schedule imposed upon me from the outside. It forces me to organize my time in a way that’s really quite difficult for me to do otherwise.
Moreover, going to class is, for me, a signal that things are normal; that life is moving along in its usual rhythm. Not going to class is a signal that Something Is Very Wrong (usually, that either my physical or emotional health has imploded).
That said, I didn’t take Wednesday class yesterday because I don’t quite yet feel like my respiratory system is up to the demands of Brienne’s class. Lingering cough is lingering.
That said, I forgot that Margie now teaches a Wednesday morning class which I could have taken instead. Derp.
I’m hoping to be back up to speed next week, but if I’m not, I’ll do Margie’s class on Wednesday morning (I’m trying to avoid doing evening classes except on rare occasions, since this time of year it means getting home at 10 PM, which is problematic for a number of reasons).
I wrote in yesterday’s post about the relative costs of therapy and ballet as part of my defense of the cost of dancing — not to say that ballet should replace therapy, but it augments therapy rather beautifully. For me, the sense of structure and, I suppose, of belonging are an enormous part of that.
Dancing is part of what makes my life whole. For practical reasons as well as purely impractical ones, it’s terribly nice to be dancing again at last.
Danseur Ignoble: The Search (This. Is. Looooooooong.)
I noticed today that, for this week, the top search that led someone to my blog was “why should ballet dancers be an ectomorph?”
Grammatical awkwardness aside, I think that’s a good question, and one that I haven’t touched on in a while.
The short answer is:
“Because that’s the trend.”
My full answer to this question is really long, so here’s the TL;DR version up front:
They shouldn’t, necessarily — but because fashion and function influence each-other profoundly in the performing arts and especially in ballet, trends in the art form stemming from the mid-20th century have created a situation that makes it easier for ectomorphic dancers to succeed as professionals. Likewise, I would posit that choreography has evolved to best suit the ectomorphic bodies currently in vogue.
Since professional dancers broadly inform our cultural definition (“what a ballet dancer is“), we have come to think that ballet dancers should be ectomorphs — but really, there’s no overwhelming em>functional advantage.
Functionally speaking, some advantages exist — ectomorphs are usually light, and thus easier to lift when partnered — but disadvantages also exist — ectomorphs are more prone to osteoporosis; they’re less likely to be good at explosive movements like jumps. The mesomorphic and endomorphic body types also come with advantages and disadvantages in dance.
At the end of the day, it’s really a question of fashion.
…And now, on to the “Really Long, But Feel Free To Read It Anyway” version:
Danseur Ignoble: Back on the Bus
There’s something deeply satisfying about the long, golden light of an October morning at this latitude.
I live in Kentucky now, but I’m a Yankee by birth and long heritage (one of my maternal great aunts has been known to make noises about “those Mayflower upstarts;” her side of the family — Québécois, Métis, and Iroquois with deep pre-Mayflower roots in this continent — still only half-jokingly regards the English as a bunch of arrivistes). New England suffuses my blood; informs my bones — and here, now, briefly, this glorious light reminds me of home.
The memory of bones runs long and deep.
It’s good, also, to be back in the rhythm of my normal routine, heading to Monday class. It’s good to be wearing one of those ridiculous outfits in which we arrive at class on cool mornings; good to be stuffing apples in my face as quickly as possible between busses.
Curiously, even though part of me has been bathing itself in chagrin, selectively recalling all the worst parts of my audition (seriously, sometimes my brain is like an obnoxious roommate who won’t turn off the TV), another part of me feels significantly more confident as a dancer simply because I got up there yesterday and tried (okay, the one really precise and gorgeous turn that Denis caught on video doesn’t hurt, either).
I suppose in part it’s a function of suddenly having this very concrete goal — I am making a dance, and I know it will be a good one once I nail down the choreography. It will force me to home my technique to a degree that probably should seem daunting, but doesn’t.
And even if it isn’t selected for this performance, I will keep working on it, finish it, and bring it somewhere; do something with it.
Anyway, I’m almost to class, so that’s it for now.
More later.
Pas de Don’t
Please forgive the Giant Stupid Whiny Rant to follow.
Yesterday, I had an absolutely lovely conversation with my therapist about trying to learn to sort of honor what I am, including the delicate-respiratory-system part.
Today, I’m just frustrated.
I feel like I make so much progress, then get sick and lose so much ground, and like this is an ongoing thing for me, and like the smart thing, the good-zen thing, the Good Mental Health thing to do would be to learn to accept and embrace that.
And then another part of me is all, “Ain’t got time for all that, I’m a dancer. Dancers gotta dance.”
(The painful corollary: if I’m not dancing right now, do I cease to exist as a dancer? What a freaking terrifying question.)
I have written, occasionally, about Making Dance Accessible.
I am forced, now, to admit that my own internal prejudices, or whatever, have left a potentially huge group of people out of that thought process — that is, people like me, who are talented and have been given bodies that look and in most ways act like classical dancers’ bodies but who are afflicted with chronic illnesses that make sustained training problematic.
Truth is, I don’t see a workaround for someone like me. Or, well, yes — here’s something. Short-term projects; an approach to training that recognizes that even the longest spell of good health will eventually be interrupted by illness. A willingness to be flexible about classes; to step it down a level when the body demands it.
I admit it: I don’t feel ready for the physical demands of Brienne’s class yet — and a part of me is angry about that; just furious that my body has failed me.
Another part understands that it doesn’t help to think of it that way; that this is just another wave in the ever-changing ocean. After the ecstacy, as it were, the laundry: after a stunningly-long period of quite good health, the pneumonia, the period of recovery.
And still it is painful, yet again, to run up against the limits of my being; to be reminded that I am working with mortal clay and all its host of flaws (though, on the flip-side, I remain grateful for the great gifts I have been given, and I recognize that if this is the price, or only part of the price, I have so been given an amazing bargain, here).
I also recognize that the day I accept these limitations will be the day they stop hurting me so often: I’m like a stubborn horse that doesn’t want to stay in its field, startled every time I run headlong into my fence*. The fence is always there; if I just accept that, I won’t crack my legs against it anymore.
For what it’s worth, I was thinking about backing out of the audition (haven’t felt up to extended rehearsals with Denis), but instead I think I’m just going to change horses midstream, maybe: channel all this into a dance, albeit indirectly.
It may not be a dance about all this; I have something else in mind, though something equally topical in its own way — it relates to my other ongoing struggle: how do I learn to live as the androgynous person that I am when, in a very real sense, I’m afraid to do that for reasons even I don’t understand?
That, or else something about living with bipolar (perhaps unsurprisingly, that was my first idea anyway).
Either way? Cue Barber’s “Adagio for Strings.“
Notes
*This is actually a terrible analogy. With few exceptions, horses don’t do this kind of crap unless there’s a good reason to get out of the field in question. Will they bolt through an open gate just for a lark? Sure. When they bash themselves repeatedly against a fence for absolutely no reason, though? Better check your pasture for locoweed (or scary plastic shopping bags — horses be cray).
Danseur Ignoble: The Playa Plague Continues, Audition-y Anxiety
Since my cough was still keeping me up all night, I went to the doc-in-the-box on Monday afternoon. She listened to my lungs and said, “Ah-hah!”
o.O
It turns out I’ve got acute bacterial bronchitis. I’ve been running around assuming that this was some kind of sinus-drainage-induced-annoying-cough-thing that would clear up on its own. So … um, oops?
I was initially rather annoyed that I’d developed bronchitis, but then I realized it’s actually been quite a while (by my standards) since I’ve had it, or at least since I’ve had a case that warranted medical intervention. I feel like I still get sick more easily than most people, but my overall health is improving. I spend more time being reasonably well than I used to. Thanks, ballet!
So now I’m on an antibiotic and a prescription cough syrup. That should, I hope, get this shifted, though at this particular moment I’m still pretty uncomfortable.
I was able to sleep four about four hours tonight before the prescribed cough syrup wore off and I started coughing again, so I’ve taken my second dose for the night.
Since the cough has been at its worst when I’m lying down (convenient, right?), I decided to get up and give the medicine time to work its magic so Denis can sleep. He deserves a good night’s sleep for many reasons, not least because he’s been so great about looking after me while I’ve been useless and miserable.
The downside to the timing of this whole thing is that I’ve been invited to audition for a dance performance, and I’m iffy about whether or not I’ll be entirely back on my feet by the first weekend in October. (Or, rather, whether I’ll both be back on my feet and adequately rehearsed.)
The upside is that if I make it through the audition (that sounds so dire: there probably won’t be a shark pit waiting for those whose works don’t quite cut it), the performance isn’t until February, so I’ll have plenty of time to arrange my waterfowls in a linear array.
![Swan Lake. By Paata Vardanashvili from Tbilisi, Georgia (Nino Ananiashvili "Swan Lake") [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://danseurignoble.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/arrange-your-waterfowls.png)
Original photo by Paata Vardanashvili from Tbilisi, Georgia (Nino Ananiashvili “Swan Lake”) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Part of me says that I’m just being a big ol’ chicken (duck! :V). There’s some merit to that argument. I talk a good game, but my confidence about my ability as a performer and choreographer is, shall we say, still embryonic — you know, as yet unhatched.
Still, I must not let it ruffle my feathers.
…Okay, I’ll stop with the, ahem, poultry attempts at humor.
At any rate, I’ve bitten the bullet and signed up for an audition slot. After all my whinging about the challenge of finding performance opportunities, I can’t very well pass one up when it’s handed directly to me!
I have a piece in mind, though it’s a little on the short side (~4 mins; audition pieces need to be between 5 and 12 mins long). I’ll have to see if I can expand it a bit. If not, I may have to whip up something fresh — I do have some ideas, though, so that should be doable. I hope.
Being who I am, I feel a great deal of anxiety about the audition and essentially none about the concept of performing before (GASP!) an actual audience comprised of people who have actually paid actual money to actually sit down and watch. In short, I figure if the folks putting this performance together think I’m good enough, then I probably am*.
Here’s hoping I’ll be back in class this week. I’m going to need it. It seems unlikely that I’ll be up for Brienne’s class on Wednesday, but I might be able to handle Margie’s class. I’m optimistic about Friday, at any rate.
In other news, it looks like my primary employment this year will be with Porchlight Express, refitting the website and getting the other communications stuff sorted. That will take up a significant portion of my free time, so it’s useful to know that I probably won’t also need to pick up another part-time job.
I also still need to sign up for the GRE (OMG, WTF, BBQ) and submit my grad school applications. Oh, and take the driver’s exam at some point, hopefully before the 4th, in case Denis doesn’t feel like driving to Cincy for the audition. (But, seriously, there’s an IKEA there — why wouldn’t he want to go to Cincy?)
On my life-anxieties scale, by the way, this audition thing is right at the top. I feel pretty confident about getting accepted into one or more DMT programs and quite confident indeed about being able to really polish the PLX website now that I have time. That really rather puts things in perspective for me!
Anyway, I’ve stopped coughing up furballs for now, so I shall try to go back to bed.
Wish me luck?
Danseur Ignoble: A Not-Really-So-Good Bad Day
This morning, we got up and headed out the door on time to make the bus, but when I got out to the garage, I discovered that the side door was wide open and Robert’s bike was missing.
I told him about it (and that I’d be happy to send my mountain bike, which I don’t ride very much, home with him so he can get around), and he took it fairly well: he laughed and said, “Huh. So whoever it was apparently decided to steal the cheapest bike in the garage.”
When I told Denis about it this evening, he mentioned that the neighbors have been having some issues with kids trying to break into their garage, so that it might be the same thing. Denis thinks he probably left our side door unlocked the last time he was working out there, which makes sense — there’s no sign that anyone picked the lock or anything like that. Still, for the time being, I think I’m going to lock up the Tricross in the garage at night.
Anyway, we wound up missing the bus while I was double-checking to make sure nothing else (or, well, nothing else that was obvious; our garage is a bit chaotic right now) was missing, so we didn’t make it to class. I’m going to do both classes tomorrow to make up for it, though of course three classes on three different days is really a better practice strategy than three classes on two different days.
Other than that, though, today was pretty decent.
I took Robert out to a couple of shops to try to find some more comfortable summer going-outdoors clothes. We found him a couple of inexpensive wicking t-shirts as well as a nice, light short-sleeved Henley that was on clearance for $5. All of them should be much more comfortable for him when he’s out and about in the summer.
We had also intended to find him an athletic supporter, since finding a dance belt in his size on short notice is pretty unlikely. However, either Louisville’s entire stock of athletic supporters has been purchased in a the usual back-to-school shopping frenzy (public schools in Kentucky start early), or nobody sells them in regular stores anymore. We didn’t have time to trek out to a sporting goods place, though — I’d be surprised if a place like the Sports Authority lacked athletic supporters.
We figured a pair of compression shorts might work, but back-burnered them for the time being because Robert didn’t particularly like the only ones we found in his size. We’ll figure something out if he wants to try Margie’s class tomorrow.
It’s been nice having Robert around (though, of course, we haven’t managed to accomplish all of our goals yet: we still don’t have our Cooking with ADHD video done). He’s going home on Sunday, so I’ll be back to my usual routine next week.
Conveniently, so will ballet school — the fall semester begins Monday, and with it a new weekly session of Margie’s class and apparently a barre cardio class.
We have Open House days on Wednesday the 12th and Saturday the 15th. So free classes, yeay! If you’re in Louisville, get your hindquarters to Louisville Ballet School on Wednesday evening (I probably won’t be there; I do class in the AM on Wednesdays) or a week from tomorrow (I probably will be there).
Okay. That’s it for now. Tonight, we’re showing Robert Big Hero 6. Yay!
Road Trip: Day 10—Wethersfield and “The Witch of Blackbird Pond” (Part Two of Two)
Yay! My home town of Wethersfield, CT gets some love from Emily Jacobs in the post below the fold (which, admittedly, is now over 3 years old, but sometimes the wheels of the Blogosphere grind slowly, amirite?).
Ms. Jacobs has included some beautiful pictures from Old Wethersfield, most of which were taken 2 blocks from my Mom’s house.
Old Weth is its own little universe, and I still love and miss it.
Edit: PS, I wasn’t sure whether to mention this, because it might sound like a bit of a downer, but my father (who died when I was a senior in high school) is buried in the Village Cemetery. He loved Wethersfield, too, so even though I am sad that he is gone, it is nice to think that his resting place is in a place where he felt at home.
If you like old buildings, Wethersfield, Connecticut is pretty much house porn for you. The slideshow below is what I saw while walking to and from the Cove.
After I toured the Buttolph-Williams House, I walked over to the cemetery.
. . .
It was a very sunny day, and a hot early afternoon, but the cemetery still gave me the creeps. My guide was kind enough to let me know that the oldest stones were at the top of the hill, known as Hungry Hill because that is where the Indians would retreat during flooding times, often with little sustenance.
. . .
It’s just not a vacation if I don’t get to go to an old cemetery.
. . .
It took me a surprisingly short amount of time before I found Gershom Bulkeley’s gravestone. As I said, in the bright, hot sun, it was still an intensely creepy…
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Onward and Upward, By Fits, Starts, and Degrees
Sometimes, recovering from a bad episode of this depressive bipolar crap seems a bit like doing the hokey-pokey.
You put your left foot in, you put your left foot out, you put your left foot in, and then you go back to bed because frankly you’ve had enough for today and you’d really rather try again tomorrow, thank you very much.
I tend to make optimistic prognostications about my ability in moments that I’m feeling a bit more “up” than I have been (read: moments when I’ve taken my meds and downed something with a bit of caffeine in it, of late).
Later, when things shift back towards really deep end of the spectrum, I tend to sit there kicking myself about making said optimistic prognostications (which I tend to do publicly, because, in short, I never freaking learn, I guess?).
Right now, I’m somewhere between those two states: not at that point where I’m like, “I am going to do All This Stuff soon,” but not at that point where I’m like, “Yeah, I’m a waste of oxygen and I should really stop thinking I’m ever going to do anything.”
Instead, I’m in this spot where I’m able to see that the optimistic part of me that makes bold plans is okay, and the horribly depressed part of me that gets really angry when I fail to complete those plans is also okay, and that can be what they are, and it is, in its own way, okay.
Not always happy, not always fun, not always even remotely anything like pleasant: but valid, allowed. The human experience is rich with contradictions; with complications.
Today I did not even remotely attempt to get out of bed early enough to get to morning class. A part of me is really pissed about that — the same part that’s forever saying things like This is why you never amount to anything; you’re better than that; this is what makes the difference between people who succeed in ballet and people like you.
Another part of me recognizes that you have to work with what you’ve got. What I’ve got right now is hard to work with (though, on the other hand, I’m writing a fair bit, so there’s that).
I did begin my Great Office Rehab Project — or at least some of it (some of it will have to wait ’til I can buy some paint and some fabric). Denis brought in the replacement desk, so I set it up, installed the office air conditioner, and then became insanely, furiously frustrated because there are still Too Many Things In This Room.
The difficulty is that some of the things need to stay, but they need to live in or on other things that aren’t in here yet, and I don’t want to bring those other things in until the things on or in which the first set of things resides are out of the way, but I can’t get them out of the way without bringing in the things to put the things in…
Yeah.
My brain makes everything a thousand times harder than it has to be when I’m depressed (not like ADHD helps any of this, but depression makes it worse; when I’m manic, OTOH, I can organize anything to within an inch of its life, as long as something else doesn’t distr— SQUIRREL!).
So today I went to see my therapist (and rode my bike a lot, because I figured actually getting some exercise would solve one of the problems contributing to the severity of this depression — lack of exercise).
Tomorrow, maybe I’ll bring in the things into which I need to transfer the other things, so the things in which the things now reside can go wherever it is they’re going.
Maybe I won’t.
I’m not making any bold statements right now. We’ll see.
Perhaps that should be my motto for the time being: “We’ll see.”
Ultimately, it’s not like we can ever say for certainty what we’ll be doing at any given moment, anyway. Control is an illusion, and it seems especially illusory when you live with a mental illness that really rather prevents you being able to make long-term forecasts about your emotional weather.
If I have my head together well enough, my foot should hold up to at very least Essentials on Friday. I might give Intermediate class a try.
I do feel like I need to get back on top of ballet. I have missed so much. I don’t suppose I can do anything about that (water under the bridge, etc.), but I can work on putting the pieces in place to prevent it from becoming an established pattern.
Just going to class is one of those pieces — ballet is such an effective preventative and remedy; it seems to take the teeth out of my depressions when I can keep dancing.
This particular depression, though, has been a perfect storm of ballet-interrupting foot injury, stress, hormonal disruptions (blargh), lack of externally-imposed structure in my life, general lack of exercise, and the destabilizing effect of summer itself.
Anyway, that’s it for now.
More soon, maybe?
We’ll see.
danseur ignoble 