somewhat melancholy rambling

It feels like a fall day, oddly. Wind blustery and smelling like burn leaves. The gale force is so strong that no matter which way I turn, my hair is in my face. The sky is grey and overcast--I think we're on tornado watch and huge thunder storms are just around the corner. I'd do anything to be in a soft bed cuddled up next to something warm and comforting be it a human or kitty.

I should have worn boots with my outfit today but grabbed a pair of sandals instead. I feel especially short. I barely stand an inch above 5 feet and my normal shoes give me about 4 inches of lift so that I can somewhat compete height-wise with a standard female, but today, I'm barely 5'2'' and discovered that I can't see what all is located on the top shelf of my work cabinet. Crazy what a couple of inches would do!

On a related note, it's a huge pet peeve of mine when a person lies about their height, especially a guy, on their driver's license. I knew someone who was barely 5'9'' who claimed to be "close to 6 feet." That's a huge turn off and something so easy to disprove! Apparently a lot of men lie about their height (about as often as women lie about their age or weight) even people I would expect to not get a complex about it. I can proudly say that T is not one of these guys. He's 5'10'' and a quarter inch. He towers over some of my friends who claim to be 5'11.''

I'm pretty good a gaging height. My sneaky way of measuring is by hugging the person. For the record, when I hug T without shoes on, my arm comfortably go around his waist and easily rest on his ass while my nose hits the part here his sternum and diaphragm him. I definitely can not see over his shoulder.

Went back to ballet in a long while. I figured I'd rather be in physical pain than be down so often. The lack of dance has really gotten to me and I figured my foot pain has gone away enough that I can manage. Anyhow, it felt so wonderful to be in class again. I kept eyeing myself in the mirror thinking to myself: "Okay not too bad! Not too bad! The little tummy is kinda cute. My legs are still thin. I'm still flexible. Feet are still strong. Arms need more work, but still...not bad."

The funny thing that I did not account for, however, was the weight of my hair! It's gotten so long that the bun in the back is somewhat substantial and I discovered that I now tip backwards whenever I turn. Who would have thought of that? Theoretically, one would continually take classes so the growth of hair would be a non issue as you adjust your technique daily. It's been 6 months or so since I really took class and wow...my center of gravity totally changed!

Anyway, I slept really hard last night and had a whole slew of bad dreams. In one of them I was wading through knee deep water looking for a silver bracelet that my husband had playfully tossed into the water. As a trudged through, just below the surface, I saw two large glimmering cerulean eyes staring back at me. They belonged to a toddler with platinum colored hair and he was smiling slightly. When I reached down to grab the baby out of the water, his body disintegrated into a multitude of colorful guppies. As beautiful as the image was, I felt sad....

I know precisely where I lifted the imagery of the baby underwater from. J and I were exchanging childhood stories not too long ago and he told me of the time when his family went out swimming at a lake when he was 2. He was playing on the shore while his mother watched him. She had diverted her gaze for just a few moments and when she looked back up, her baby was gone. Screams and panic. No child could be seen along the stretch of shore. In a panic, she ran into the lake, worried now that her only son had drowned. It was then that she looked down and saw her toddler looking right back up at her through the water, two big blue eyes opened in wonderment and I imagine a smirk, holding his breath just below the surface. He's not sure if he was lying back or standing underwater, but I'm sure that's a horrific experience for a mother to go through. Anyhow, obviously that story made an impact of me, although for what reasons I do not know.

I haven't slept well for a long time and even though I slept hard last night, I think I could have used another couple more hours especially after that dream. I'm also really sore from ballet last night.

As a side note, one of the cats brought us a dead garden snake as a present. That too set the mood for an odd day.

evil back exercises pt. 2

I took these photos to try to convince myself that my back is getting stronger. If you recall scary Russian ballet mistress suggested that I do these things more regularly to improve my arabesque and back attitude line. I'm surprised at myself! I'm *almost* at 90 degrees! I have a ways to go, but at least there is some progress:



And of course I just had to post this because Hippo was very curious about what I was doing as I was holding a pose:

back bend craziness

We've established on numerous occasions that I ain't a spring chicken at least in the ballet world. Although I can do the splits and have fairly loose hamstrings my back is pretty darn stiff. This has as much to do with skirting close to 30 as it does with the fact that my day job consists of sitting in front of a computer.

I discovered the most horrendous exercise known to man yesterday in ballet class. My usual com padres are all taking their Royal Academy of Dance examinations right now, so I was carted off to the advanced pointe class which, by the way, was nearly impossible to keep up with. I was sweating enough just trying to remember the combinations never mind holding my leg up above my head at 180 degrees. Vlada, the instructor, was quite kind though and understood why I was there instead of pondering why a short chubby gal was tainting her long-legged sylphs. And yes, her name is Vlada and she's Russian...to add to the pressure, lets just say two of the other students are named Nikita and Dimitri.

Anyhow, at one point Vlada instructed us to get on our bellies. That's odd, I thought to myself and then the sweet gal (who happened to be the senior division 2004 Youth Grand Prix winner, by the way) at the bar with me offered: "Oh, we're doing backwards sit ups." I asked if she could go first because I wanted my notion of what this would entail to be proven wrong. Anyhow, it ended up being worse than I imagined. Sitting on Cody's perfectly arched feet and holding onto her sinewy well turned out legs, I watched every freaking muscle in her back and buttocks contract as she went from lying on her stomach to being arched backwards lifting the top part of her body so that she was folded into an elegant L shape with her arms encircled above her head.

Good grief! Would I even be able to get my cheat off the ground? And then to add to my horror, I heard Madame Vlada yell out: "ONE! Down...TWO! Down...THREE....Down...."

All the gals on the ground started doing their backwards sit ups to the count of the instructor and at the end they had to hold the arched position. I couldn't stop admiring the lovely musculature of my ballerina buddy, but good God, the fear was immense.

My turn wasn't too bad. I was afraid that my partner wouldn't weigh enough to pin my legs down, but seeing she's 100% muscle mass proved to be enough. I could get my chest off the ground a decent amount, but I was no where near a 90 degree arch. Furthermore, by the time Vlada has counted to 3 I about ready to quit. Oy!

What's the point of these? you may ask.

Well, the idea is to have an incredibly elongated line that resembles Irina Dvorovenko:


If you recall an earlier post with the leg warmers, I'm technically doing the same ballet pose as she is, but without the flexibility or elevation. That's about how high my leg goes up, folks. Remember, I ain't a spring chicken!

I should add that Irina is not kicking her leg up there and relying on the magic of flash photography. No-no...she's holding that position with the muscles in her back, ass and legs. Frankly whenever you're in this back attitude position or any ballet position for that matter, you're using every freaking muscle in your body. For the record, Cody can get an even more pronounced arch, but I couldn't find a pic of her.

Needless to say my back hurts like hell today.