Three Things

I decided today, as I was leaving my french final, that I want to be good at three things:

1) Circus
2) Teaching
3) French

Perhaps I can someday teach academic classes at a French-speaking circus (CDS) or circus school (ENC)? Or maybe teach a class, in French, about the history of the European circus? Or about the history of French or French-Canadian circus, but teach it in English?

Hm...

Flood Aftermath

Earlier this week we had crazy amounts of rain even for Seattle. It poured and poured for almost three days. We broke all sorts of rainfall records, a giant chunk of I-5 closed and just reopened yesterday, and we were declared a state of emergency. Fortunately my neighborhood was pretty safe, but I know several people who had floods in their basements or damage to their cars.

Now, however, it's sharply cold and beautiful outside. The sun has been out, the sky is blue, and everything is starting to dry out in a good way.

Today I noticed that, thanks to the weirdly-timed, torrential rains, the grass all over town is so green it almost hurts the eyes. The little patches of grass at my apartment complex and at the university, as well as larger expanses at parks here and there, seems to jump right into your face. You can almost see the color vibrate.

This deep, deep green is even more pronounced in contrast to the yellow and brown leaves that litter the ground and hold on desperately to tree branches. One can't help but notice the contradiction between the dead and the fiercely alive.

No, what's "random" is that we have French class in the Law Building.

Getting settled before French class this afternoon.

Classmate: What class is in here before us?
Me (looking at information about a custody case being erased from the board): I think it's a family law class.
Classmate: That's so random.

OMG Running Adventures

Well, hellloooooo everyone. I've been totally slacking in the blogging department! But nothing has really been going on lately, so I didn't want to bore the pants off of anyone. It's not you it's me.

Today, however, I have a story. See, yesterday I had my first real full-on aerial lesson since I got hurt three months ago. It went well. I dunno. I could do stuff I didn't think I would be able to do, but I got really tired really fast and my grip strength is totally not what I'm used to anymore. It's unnerving to be way off the ground and upside down and to think, "Holy cow! My hands want to stop holding on RIGHT NOW!" Scary. I think I'll be okay, though. Everyone and their mother is like, "Don't worry! You'll get it back quickly!" and I'm like, "Heh! Yeah! Okay!" because no matter how quickly it comes back, it won't be quick enough for me.

Anyway, moving on. So I woke up this morning SO SORE (as was to be expected) and I thought, "Hey, maybe I should take a little run to get the kinks out," and I decided to take Chelsea with me. So we made it down to the lake where I always run and (here's where the OMG comes in) there was a race going on right on my usual running path! Okay, that's not really that big of a deal. It is a popular running/short race spot and it is a Saturday. But it quickly occurred to me that this wasn't your ordinary 5K walk/run. For example, there were about 100 runners or so and they seemed to be running in teams or pairs. One person in each team or pair was carrying--get this--a pineapple. A real one. I could smell them (the pineapples, not the runners). Also, many of the runners were wearing all manner of "Hawaiian" accoutrements. Grass skirts? Check. Coconut bras? Check. Flowered shirts? You bet. Weird.

Not only that, but they weren't running along the path like I was. They were for some of the route (I spent a great deal of time dodging these people and running in the opposite direction--against them, but I figured it's a public park, the race isn't that big, and I wasn't actually in anyone's WAY, so it was okay), but at certain places along the path, arrows would direct them to run straight for the water and then back for some reason, and THEN (this is the best part) there was this weird obstacle course (sponsored by REI, according to the one banner I saw along the entire race route) where the runners had to climb over a little barrier, then a larger barrier, then one or more of them had to run to one side of a really tall barrier that had tires at the top, while another member of the team had to attempt to THROW THE PINEAPPLE THROUGH ONE OF THE TIRES from the other side. I know, right?

So, of course, once the pineapple made it through one of the tires, it almost always landed--hard--on the ground, resulting in leaky, sticky pineapples that the runners had to pick up and run around the course with AGAIN. I don't know how many laps these people had to do. Maybe I should have asked one of the HIGH SCHOOL CHEERLEADERS in FULL REGALIA who served as route guides (pointing their pompoms in the right direction, no less). Confusing!

Anyway, I can't really do the experience justice, but I had to try. It was rather surreal. I wonder why I'm suddenly craving pineapple?

Fattitude Adjustment

Okay, so the month of October may suck. I've put myself on a "let's get serious" plan that involves lots of running, abs, stretching, and not a lot of eating. And it's not that I mind the exercise, it's just that I normally do these things alongside my aerial training in order to make myself a better aerialist, but now, because I'm still recovering and because we don't have a rehearsal space this month, it feels like there's no point.

Obviously there is a point, though. The point is my pants feel weird because they are getting all tight around the thigh region. Barf. And I need to be as ready as I can when I am allowed to go back to aerial full throttle so that I'm not wasting weeks and weeks just trying to get my core strength back up. So, yes, technically the utility of this grand program makes sense, but emotionally...I dunno...I just want to whine all the time.

It's not like I haven't been exercising since I got home from camp. I've been running and doing abs and everything, just not very seriously. And as for eating...let's just say I've been pretty liberal about my calorie intake. Not good.

Anyway, I made up a plan and I started yesterday (October 1st) and it's going okay except for the fact that I didn't get to run today because there's some sort of monsoon or something happening outside. So that means I have to run tomorrow, which was supposed to be a day off from running. Whatever.

Something fun: this plan does involve me attending dance classes on Saturdays and/or Sundays. My aerial stuff will benefit from me getting back into dance, I think, so I need to get over the shyness and get through the door and get going with that. New experiences are so scary sometimes. I'll tell you how it goes after this weekend.

Other things that are going on: School started last Wednesday and I realized this is the 25th year of my life I've been in school. Nice. Also, the Women Studies newsletter went out today and they put a photo of me on the trapeze in it to illustrate something about how "the students' extracurricular activities sometimes inform their research." Or some such thing. I'm in French 103 now (woo!) and my teacher is kind of famous and she's AWESOME and I'm learning a lot. So that's good. Chelsea is all better from her car accident and subsequent surgery, but she's been acting really weird today, in that she is cowering in fear every five minutes (shaking, tail between her legs, hiding in weird places in the apartment). I'm gonna' go ahead and chalk that up to the aforementioned crazy-ass weather we're having and call it a day.

So I'll try to keep updates coming about how my fattitude adjustment is going. Hopefully that will keep me accountable. One thing that's kind of funny is how I can't actually keep track of whether I'm losing weight or not because my scale needs a new battery and the battery is weird and I don't know where to get one like it. Radio Shack? Perhaps. I haven't been too anxious to replace the battery anyway because I'm terrified to see how much weight I've actually gained since I hurt my hand. It's always hard for me to keep my weight down, but when I'm training (aerially), it's WAY EASIER than when I'm in the situation I'm in now. Frustrating.

Speaking of aerials (as I have been for this whole entry, really), I actually got to do a teeny bit of trapeze last Thursday. I had a lesson with Darty and my physical therapist had said it was okay to VERY CAREFULLY start doing some hanging again as long as I wasn't climbing ropes or doing tricks in the trapeze ropes. Still no word on when I'll be able to do those activities again. So most of the lesson was about stretching and core strengthening on the ground, but I did get to do a little bit of bar stuff and it was great. Now I can no longer say it's been two months since I've been on a trapeze. Hooray!

I am off to do some french homework. Thanks for reading!

Pretentious Fiction

I couldn't see the setting sun from the other side of the trees, but it was, indeed, setting as evidenced by the gradually shifting color of the sky, warming before cooling again and then fading to black. From where I sat, alone on a splintered wooden bench, I imagined I was feeling everything that could be felt. But it was a lie. I felt nothing. The longer I sat, the darker the world became, the more I wondered if it was real, this new idea...that trust is never absolute. How can it be when it is merely a human construct and humans are inherently fallible? Trust, it seems, was made to be broken. And these nebulous "feelings" we all talk about were apparently only made to be hurt.

Camp: The Documentary

Okay, this is really weird, but lately I feel like I'm living the epilogue of a documentary. You know, like when you watch a film about an event or a group of people or whatever, and then you think it's over, but at the very end they show what happens afterward when the members of the group or participants in the event go back to their normal lives? Like that. So the documentary would have been about camp, and now the cameras would be following Chrissymine and me around now that we're home. Here we are shopping for a new microwave at Best Buy. Here we are taking the dog to the vet. Here's me at Physical Therapy. There would be snippets of footage designed to illustrate how utterly plain and normal life seems when camp is over and you're out of the bubble.

I sort of wish there was a documentary about camp. I'm so sick of some of my aerial acquaintances around here thinking I'm some yahoo who teaches little kids how to juggle or whatever. I had brunch with some people the other day and one of them, in her most condescending tone, asked if our "little end of the summer show" went well. End of the what? LITTLE? We do three completely different full-length productions each summer. Each show has costumes designed and made for it, sets, sound, and 60-80 kids in the cast. We rehearse each act for an hour a day. Some kids (the intensive kids) rehearse for three hours and then train for two more hours per day. We have auditions and workshops and tech rehearsals and evening rehearsals and a camp show and a parent show each session. Some of those kids are better at tissu and hoop than this particular person who was being condescending to me, so she might want to shut up. And that's just the circus program, by the way. While we're doing our thing there are 9 theater productions, a dance show, a magic show, countless music performances, and an art show all preparing and rehearsing at the same time. People have no idea what we do there. It's hella frustrating.

In other news, my hand is feeling much better, although I have not yet been cleared to hang on anything yet. I am sick of people asking me how my wrist is doing. It is not my wrist that is the problem, thank you very much. Does it matter? Well, yes because somehow I feel like, had I hurt my wrist, it wouldn't be as awful as having hurt my HAND in several places. Considering the aforementioned hanging from things that I do.

Did you know that Chrissymine was the victim of witchcraft or some such shit over the summer? Yeah, it happened at the hands of an Ex-Friend and her Bad Influence. Long story, but apparently it worked considering all the bad stuff that happened to her friends and loved ones while we were at camp. I wanna do some witchcraft on the girls who pulled that malarkey. My version of witchcraft involves punching people in the face. It's not very spiritual, I'll admit, but it is rather effective.

Speaking of bad stuff that happened to Chrissymine, her mom was diagnosed with breast cancer right before camp. Fortunately she had surgery over the summer and had the tumor removed (as well as a bunch of lymph nodes just in case), and now she's cancer free for all intents and purposes, but she has to have radiation every day for a while. She had some tests done that showed the chance of recurrence to be quite low, so that's awesome, but the whole process of getting to this sigh-of-relief point has been really difficult. So did Chrissymine need people to give her shit all summer long? No, I think she had enough on her plate. Did people give her shit anyway? Yes. Because the world is full of jackasses. Jackasses whom I would like to punch in the face.

Wanna' see a photo of my new tattoo? Here:



I got it done in Lake George on July 23rd. It's hard to tell, but it's on the inside of my left forearm. I am totally in love with it. It's meant to represent stars and waves. Stars because I love them and waves because I'm extremely fond of the ocean and have been since birth. One of my staff members designed it for me. So there you have it. My third tattoo, and the first one that's visible. My parents are going to kill me. They still don't know about the first two. Pickolas, do NOT tell them.

Anyway, that's what's going on with me. I'm climbing back into my Seattle life as best I can. Maybe I'll learn to like coffee this year. Who knows?