surreality is:
Washing your face in between shows (dancing hard leads to sweat) and realizing that the strange pinkness in the school-bathroom sink is your blush washing off. Ah, the many joys of show week. I’m generally not a makeup person, but under stage lights and makeup-less, I am so pale that I fluoresce. I’m also incompetent at makeup, but I had help with face/hair/so on, thank god. There was a can of spraystarch for emergency ironing, and someone put it next to the hairspray. Guess what- I almost sprayed starch in my hair. THIS is why I don’t do major appearance upkeep every day. Shirt, pants, hairbrush, watch, necklace? Check. Face washed, teeth brushed, hair decent? Check. Awesome. Leave the house before you miss your bus!
The shows went really well, the dances got great reception, the house was full for both shows, and we got our dance teacher all emotional at the company bow. Good times. I’m really pleased. I’m also really pleased that show week is over, and I can get on with my life/ sleep/ start studying again, although I miss the frenetic family vibe that forms from a dance company during show week. Everyone becomes both a little more rigid and somehow more flexible, freaking out over little things like bobby pins and how the index finger should look in this-particular-arm-motion, but is totally okay with randomly approaching people and going “Excuse me, but I have a lift in my second piece, and I am not sure how this is going to work, you’re about her height, can I lift you for a sec?”
I don’t know… but I’m happy. Good times.
where I’ll be this week
It’s hell week show week. This means:
Of course, I have exams, because the world’s timing is impeccable.
Dance rehearsals late every night.
I have to miss cello lessons and choir rehearsals.
Bruises.
Plus, I’ve got a cold.
I’ll be out of blogging commission for a week or so. Sorry, guys.
Oh, how we suffer for our art.
Quick edit/ add-on: Dress rehearsal tomorrow. Rehearsals this week all point to success. Everyone has gotten better. Good times.
Still crazy swamped, though. >.<
We’ve all come to look for America…
on chemotherapy and other difficulties
Watching my dad get chemo’d over and over is awful for the following reasons:
This Lehman College Teacher of the Year is losing his memory and his speed
He can’t stay awake for more than ten minutes at a stretch
He can’t swallow real food and sustains himself on liquid nutrition
He coughs all the time, to the point of legitimate exhaustion and extreme shoulder pain
He’s always vomiting
His signature beard is gone
He can’t focus on a book
His students miss him
His voice is hugely different and extremely hard to understand
The last vestige of his old voice is on our home answering machine
He can’t go to plays anymore
People on the phone can’t understand him
His drugs are all too often not covered by insurance
I’ve lost count of his drugs
and, the kicker:
His chemo is no longer effective. We need to change his treatment, because the three different types of chemotherapy (erbitux, taxol, and carboplatin) that he’s on now aren’t shrinking his tumors any more.
to be trusted is a pretty thing
My pencils smell like cedar, and my window won’t close. It lets in cold damp fresh clammy somehow air that tugs on my spine. My dance bruise glares up at me Sweden-shaped from just south of my knee.
Sophie’s showering roars from the bathroom like lots of little wet tigers. The black-barreled pencil is now resting uncomfortably and impermanently behind my right ear, itching for a thought, scratching at my brain.
My cold Nalgene breathes off the tea that I filled it with this morning, kissing the tapwater in it now. The little bit of plastic in my mouth crinkles as I turf it around. I’ve always got a little bit of plastic in my mouth, or I’m singing. The modern world. I would be one of those cowboys with toothpicks if this were any time but now.
My wrist craves the cold lick of my metal watch, but gets the warm reception of the noisy Swiss plastic one instead. A blue Times bag strains clear brittle thin and fails against my index finger. My cold room smells now of stale incense and cold weather.
It stands out of sheer force of habit.
Thoughts from today:
No one (I mean no one) looks anything besides lumpy in skintight full-body spandex.
Cowboy boots two sizes too small + dance = recipe for pain.
Cowboy boots + jazz splits = recipe for success and ruined marley.
It’s always a little awkward and a little scary to cater friends’ parents.
Music is god.
Five hour rehearsals are tiring.
War is scary.
Feet are beautiful… NO. No they’re not.
Lightbulbs are too yellow.
VOTE. Please. This is madness.
I think in show lyrics, apparently…
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch… again!
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch… again!
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch… again!
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch… right!
That connects with…
Turn, turn, out, in, jump, step,
Step, kick, kick, leap, kick, touch.
Got it?-Going on. And
Turn, turn, touch, down, back, step,
Pivot, step, walk, walk, walk.
Right! Let’s do the whole combination facing away from the mirror.
From the top. Five, six, seven, EIGHT!
Pressure’s on, folks. If you don’t like steam heat, this isn’t for you. I, however, like pressure. Or at least, I thrive under pressure. Pressure cooker. I’m thankful, though, that there’s only one more day.
I’ve come this far, and even so, it could be yes, it could be no…
one potato, two potato, three potato, a+bi+cj+dk potato.
It’s a four-dimensional root vegetable.
And it ate my vacation.
it’s all good.
Things, thankfully, resolve themselves.
I don’t have too much else to say.
