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Archive for the ‘Dance’ Category

Friday So-Many-More-Than-Five Because Reasons

Posted in 24in48, Alive, Beauty, Books, Coffee Shop Road Trip, Dance, Denton, Fiction, Food, Friday Five, Fun, Hope, Mental Health, Music, Poetry, Prompts, Revolution, Spiderweb, Work, Writing on March 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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It’s the International Day of Happiness. This week has been w.e.i.r.d., to say the least. I’ve had a few panic attacks, and I’m still at work as we try to accommodate students who have nowhere else to go and figure out what in the world we’re going to do next (I would welcome faster decisions here…I’m just sayin’.). But there’s also been so many opportunities for joy. Just in my little corner of humanity, there is so much goodness. There are also so many fun things online. Here’s a list for times when you’re feeling more anxious than happy or just want something hopeful.

  1. Italians singing from their balconies.
  2. Lots of love happening on the ‘gram. Nikki Mayeaux is posting a daily creative prompt called Poem Passwords. The pictures on #seeninquarantine are spectacular. Between her early start for April Love and purrs from her sweet cat, Susannah Conway is soothing my soul. Julia Turshen is posting daily foodie prompts. I love this list from worn_ware of people offering yoga, meditations, etc.
  3. Tessera Arts Collective in Philadelphia closed the gallery for now, but they are still on for installing a street art campaign throughout the city this Sunday.
  4. Local businesses that can’t afford to shut down completely are making the best of it with delivery and curbside pickup. The Dentonite is keeping a running list. I love watching local business owners figure out how to take care of their employees by offering alternate earning opportunities and giving devoted patrons the ability to still tip their baristas/servers (*cough* support Golden Boy *cough*). Also…Golden Boy has key lime and coconut pie right now, which are in my top three favorite pies (blueberry is the third, if you’re wondering).
  5. Aid Network Denton and the city of Lake Dallas are keeping up a list of ways to get help or get involved if you can give help.
  6. Nature is delightful. The canals are clear and the swans are back in Venice. And penguins at the Shedd Aquarium enjoy a tour of the zoo.
  7. Since you can’t go in person, many field trip locations and entertainment venues are coming to you. You may also be able to watch the stage production of your favorite musical online. The Metropolitan Opera is streaming. Andrew Lloyd Webber tweeted himself playing “All I Ask of You”, and Lin Manuel Miranda responded with his performance of “Everything’s Alright”. Yale is offering their course on The Science of Well-Being for free (audit only).
  8. For artists whose income is impacted by all the cancellations, here’s a list of places that may be able to offer support.
  9. Books resources! I didn’t know how much I needed Betty White reading Harry the Dirty Dog in my life until this week. In fact, many children’s authors are reading their books online this week. And one that made me salivate – download from a selection of over 300,000 books for free from the New York Public Library through their reader app!!!
  10. Debbie Allen is teaching online dance classes! So is Chloe Arnold!
  11. Joy the Baker is just a delight. As usual.
  12. People are putting their Christmas lights back up to spread joy.
  13. All the Julia Child is streaming!!
  14. What am I doing this weekend? I’m so glad you asked! 24in48’s Social Distancing Readathon!

I’m sure there’s more. What are your favorite things people are doing right now?

 

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Friday Five – Encouragement and Solace

Posted in Alive, Beauty, Dance, Friday Five on January 17, 2020| Leave a Comment »

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It’s been a busy week that has followed another busy week, and I’m handling it but I also am really looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow. Here are some things that have helped.

  1. Speaking of (not) sleeping, I feel this in my bones – NPR on the sleep issues of Gen X women.
  2. What can you get out of dance training (besides, you know, dance)? A kick-ass work ethic.
  3. Love to Maggie and Michelle (even though you’re closer, you’re still so far away from me) and other long distance friends.
  4. Middle-aged success stories that make me feel refreshingly like a larva.
  5. Jenny Lawson’s thoughts on hard days. ❤

Where have you gotten help this week?

 

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Dance

Posted in Beauty, Core, Dance, Fun on January 9, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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One of my favorite ornaments from the year I decorated my tree with shoes and booze. 

When I was a little girl, I was pretty serious and quiet (more so than now). My mom wanted to get me out of my shell a bit, so she encouraged me to try different things. Other than church activities and choir, one of the earliest activities I tried was dance, and I fell in love with it. I was *cough*am*cough* pretty clumsy, so I wasn’t great at it, but I loved having something to do with my awkward energy.

Dance still gets me out of my shell.

People say that you’re supposed to get more comfortable in your body as you get older. But I still feel awkward as hell. I haven’t felt this awkward trying to maneuver myself around since junior high (when everything is just terrible). When our new building was in the earlier construction stages, we took a tour. Some of the spaces were hard to get through, and I felt dumb. I’m grown. I should be able to walk around places generally unencumbered by unease and self-consciousness. It’s like I was in someone else’s body, trying to figure out how to move it around.

The only time I remember being truly comfortable in my skin was when I was dancing on a regular basis. So while it may seem weird to list dance as a core value, it is for me. it grounds me and reminds me of how this body – the one I have in reality, not the one I used to have or want to have – moves best.

Dance is the embodiment of emotion. As someone who isn’t naturally expressive, I learned that it was okay to let my feelings show and that doing so could actually be a strength from dance. It taught me to pour out frustration, love, sorrow, and joy, and it taught me that they all could be beautiful.

It also taught me how to fall down less frequently. That part’s nice, too. Who knows how many more injuries I would have sustained over the years without specific training on how to achieve a certain amount of balance?

Even when I’m not taking formal classes, the occasional outing or lesson is enough to remind me to be present with what is true and real now.

“Dancing insists we take up space, and though it has no set direction, we go there together. Dance is dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive, and contagious and it breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere, at anytime, with anyone and everyone, and it’s free. Dance joins us and pushes us to go further and that is why it’s at the center of ONE BILLION RISING.” – Eve Ensler

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Hello, 2019!

Posted in Books, Dance, Food, Getting It Together, Music, Resolutions, Writing on January 2, 2019| Leave a Comment »

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While I prefer a more social New Year’s Eve (I know – it feels just as weird to type it as it does to read it, but it’s one of the days of the year I like having plans), this was a pretty good fallback option.

Today has been both relaxed and productive. I did laundry, reorganized my dresser drawers, and broke open my shiny new planner (YAY!). I usually do two posts for goals at the beginning of the year to help sharpen my focus. Today’s post is a tangible to-do list for goals that I track throughout the year (well, except for one of them which is a one-and-done thing. And yes, there are actual charts). Tomorrow, I’ll talk about my word for the year. It’s a doozy.

  1. Read 100 books. I think I’m going to start posting my TBR list at the first of each month and then look back over it at the end of the month to see how close I actually stuck to it. This year, I’m revisiting some favorite authors (expect some Douglas Coupland, Haruki Murakami, Isabel Allende, etc.), brushing up on some classics, and keeping up with my three book clubs. The January TBR list:
    * The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
    * Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
    * Sphinx by Anne Garreta
    * Many Subtle Channels by Daniel Levin Becker
    * A Redbird Christmas by Fannie Flagg (Epiphany isn’t until Sunday – I have five days!)
    * Becoming by Michelle Obama
    * The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
    * Gift From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
    * You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero
    * Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende
    * Role Models by John Waters
    This may seem like a lot, but some of them are super short, and I have a 24in48 weekend coming up at the end of January!
  2. Renew my passport. I don’t necessarily have plans to travel outside the country this year, but I am adopting a you-never-know attitude about it, so I’d like to be prepared, just in case.
  3. Develop a daily creativity practice. My creativity veers in a lot of different directions, so this doesn’t have to look the same every day. It could be playing piano, dancing, writing poetry, building something, knitting, decorating or rearranging a space, or trying (or, let’s be real – tweaking) new recipes. But I know I get bored and restless if I’m not flexing those creative muscles, so I want to be more intentional about it.
  4. Continue building physically nourishing habits. By the end of the year, I want to be exercising four times a week, drinking an adequate amount of water daily, and feeding myself well. I have specific mini-goals to build up to it so that I won’t find myself looking back on this post in November and thinking, “Hmm…guess I better eat a carrot.”
  5. Get rid of something(s) in my overtaxed schedule in order to carve out time to do the writing I actually like to do (i.e., fiction, poetry, essays, blogging) on a regular basis.

Do you have resolutions for the upcoming year? What are they?

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Friday Five – I’VE HAD SO MUCH SUGAR NOT SORRY

Posted in Books, Dance, Fishbowl, Friday Five, Writing on November 16, 2018| 2 Comments »

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The title (minus the Friday Five) is what I just yelled in the office. We had our Thanksgiving lunch at work and there was a walnut/chocolate/candy (let’s be real – it’s candy on a crust) pie. I ate most of the piece and now I have all the energy and have to maintain because I’m going to see the UNT Jazz Singers tonight and don’t want to crash before/during it.

Here are some things I enjoyed on the intrawebs this week:

  1. The Bloggess opened up her comments section for all of us to post our blog links because blogging is fun and cathartic and no one who enjoys it cares that it’s allegedly dying. It’s alive in our hearts.
  2. I visit my library at least twice a week (more now that the laptop has given up the ghost…*sigh*), and I approve this message.
  3. The 31 best dance scenes in movies. Any of your favorites on here? Any not on here that you love? My favorites on this list are #21 (Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines!) and #31 (Steve Martin/Bernadette Peters with Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers in the background).
  4. I love these stories of complete strangers saving the day.
  5. And Jonathan Franzen’s 10 tips for novelists is inspiring as I start looking toward editing the novel in January.

What have you enjoyed this week?

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My #24in48 Weekend Begins!

Posted in 24in48, Books, Dance, Feminism, Nostalgia, Poetry, Writing on July 21, 2018| Leave a Comment »

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Coffee? Check. Delicious rye for sandwiches? Check.

Large stack of books that I absolutely will not get through and – let’s be real – will probably forsake for audiobooks while I knit or jog (indoors, because Texas is stupid hot in summer) or one of the four ebooks I am about halfway through? Check.

This is one of my favorite ways to spend a weekend. Reading. Sleeping. Eating. More reading.

It’s not too late to join. You can sign up at the 24in48 website.

Or you can just read with reckless abandon, and not just this weekend. That’s an anytime thing. You don’t have to sign up to do that.

Now on to the books! I think I’ll start with Molly Wizenberg’s Delancey.

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Happy

Posted in Beauty, Books, Core, Dance, Feast, Lists, Writing on February 10, 2018| 3 Comments »

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Coffee with friends = ❤

It seems like cheating to list happiness as a core value, so I’m not going to do that. While I’m sure that there are some people who don’t value happiness, I think most people probably list “happy” as something they’d like to be or as something they enjoy being. It also seems to be what a large corner of the self-help market tries to help us achieve. I don’t know how good most of us are at getting there without work.

I just finished Gabrielle Union’s audio version of We’re Going to Need More Wine, and a line stood out to me. “When you’re in a place where you don’t know what makes you happy, it’s really easy to be an asshole.” That makes a lot of sense to me. The times it’s easiest to be mean are the times when I’m in a fog or a funk and can’t find a way to get myself out of it. So for those times, I’m just going to leave this list of things that make me happy.

  1. Having dinner with people I love. Whether I’m having friends over or being invited over as a guest or eating with family, I love sharing meals with people. I like cooking for people and seeing them enjoy it. I also like not having to cook. Feeding people and being fed may be one of my love languages.
  2. Reading. That is, most reading. Occasionally, I will trudge my way through a book that tries to eat my soul, but most of the reading I do is relaxing. Even if it’s challenging or outside my typical comfort zone, those challenges energize me.
  3. Fresh, ripe peaches. They save the day during my least favorite season. All the oppressive heat of summer is worth it when I see peaches at the farmers’ market.
  4. Doing laundry. I know it’s weird. But I find it so soothing. I think it’s the sound of the dryer. Sometimes I wait to pop the last load in the dryer until I go to bed, just so I can go to sleep to the sound. I also enjoy that the ratio of effect to effort is larger with laundry than with other chores.
  5. Seeing something beautiful when I walk into my apartment. Whether it is a vase of flowers on the table, the Christmas tree lit up, or just an uncharacteristically neat living room, it immediately puts me at peace.
  6. A wide, open sky. Wine and sunset, coffee and sunrise, country drive or road trip, rain or shine. The sky is my favorite part of nature.
  7. My dad telling stories about his dogs. It’s Dad at his most animated. I think it makes him happy, too.

What would be on your list?

 

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Friday Five – Happy Graduation, Happy Friday!

Posted in Books, Dance, Friday Five on December 15, 2017| Leave a Comment »

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Happy messy coffee beverage! Traffic was a mess this morning, but for the best reason. Graduation ceremonies! I waved at all the people putting out traffic cones and the people whose ceremony was e.a.r.l.y. The traffic cone people waved back. Understandable. They weren’t trying to cross the road in heels.

Here are some things from the intrawebs that made me happy this week:

  1. This year, Equal Exchange has been posting a series on food systems and the citizen-consumer’s role in them. They’ve been popping up in my news feed again this week, and I’ve enjoyed that. Here is the first post, introducing the issue.
  2. I love this post from Social Dance Community about why we get so addicted to social dance.
  3. Google’s Year in Search video is one of my favorite things.
  4. I look forward to the Hater’s Guide to the Williams Sonoma Catalog all year long. This year’s guide did not disappoint. HILARIOUS.
  5. And finally, a gentle nod to what I’m going to spend a lot of time doing this weekend (in between meetings and parties and whatnot). It’s okay that I have 10,000 books I haven’t read.

 

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Not-Friday Five

Posted in Dance, Friday Five, Seasons, Writing on May 22, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Not Friday Five

So Friday got away from me last week, but I have some gems to share with you from the Internet, so here we are on Monday.

Summer is my second wind of trying new things. It’s also the season that I tend to eat the best (because really, it’s just too hot to eat anything but salad and fruit. And also snow cones). So a lot of the things that stick out to me that I want to save for later are food and indoor fitness related, because running outside right now until October? That’s ridiculous. And then there are the things that always stick out to me, like livable wages and social experiments. So…enjoy!

  1. I also like tacos, though, and so I need this book. I’m not sure this can be considered a cleanse in the traditional sense, but I’m willing to listen. Because tacos.
  2. I like stories like this, even though they’re clickbaity and possibly staged and insert-all-the-cynical-things-here. All wages should be livable. Living is what working is for.
  3. I might take tap and ballet again. That would be fun. And also indoors. Win-win.
  4. This made me laugh and laugh. Also, I can attest – accurate. Don’t #notallmen me. Because that’s not the point. The point is that it doesn’t have to happen every time; it happens enough that, statistically speaking, it’s likely just as much the result of societal conditioning as it is individual asshattery, so we as a society should look into cutting it out. Also, if you feel defensive, maybe ask yourself why. Is it because it really didn’t apply to you, or is it because maybe it applied a little and you feel uncomfortable that you may have made this impression? Honor that discomfort. Maybe deal with that instead of reacting defensively. As an aside, when I use this kind of response when people compliment me, and they like it, it makes me like them even more. My people.
  5. Last, I love this. This Gen-Xer agrees.

I’m thinking about sending another newsletter soon. I have some writing news that’s exciting and different. So if you want to hear me yammer on about it, you can sign up here. Also, there’s usually a recipe. I mean, it’s summer, so it may be for a snow cone. But it would be a delicious snow cone!

 

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Friday Five -Happy Almost Birthday to Me

Posted in Dance, Friday Five, Fun, Hope on March 3, 2017| 2 Comments »

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March is my birth month, and you should know that I tend to be obnoxious about the celebration of me. So Fridays on the blog this month are going to be celebratory in nature. I want to highlight things that make me happy to be alive. This may look like, “Look at this awesome person and what they’ve accomplished and also buy all their things in rampant support of them.” Or it may look like, “I love this cause – please donate.” Or it may look like, “This is a simple way to brighten your day. Enjoy!” Or it may look like cute animals, because who doesn’t need more cute animals in their life?

Speaking of things you need in your life, that’s how we’ll get started:

  1. Today (March 3) is National Moscow Mule Day. Do with that what you will. Also, bring me one. But, you know, after 5:00. Because it’s impolite (i.e., against the rules) to drink at work.
  2. MISTY COPELAND HAS ANOTHER BOOK COMING OUT. First, a few words about her. She’s the first African American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre.  She calls people out, particularly those she works with, to hold them to the role model standard to which she holds herself. She has founded her own brand of dance wear, called Égal. I’ve already pre-ordered my own copy of her new book, but I recommend it and everything she does ever. It’s called Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You.
  3. Also, if you use Amazon, go ahead and use Amazon Smile. They donate a portion of every purchase to your charity of choice. If you need a charity of choice, I humbly recommend Christ the Servant Lutheran Church of Denton, Texas. 🙂
  4. Support my friend Emily’s GoFundMe for her surgery.
  5. The Float Spot – they stick you in a floaty pod with water and Epsom salts. I want to do this! I feel that water massage would kick traditional massage’s butt. If I do it, I’ll report back.

Happy my birth-month to all!

 

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