Seven Is The Perfect Number

I got tagged by the lovely Amber of danceprimer.com!

Here are the rules:
1 – Link to the blog who tagged you (above)
2 – Post the rules on your blog
3 – Share seven random and/or weird things about yourself.
4 – Tag seven people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5 – Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven Random Things About Me:

1. I actually like getting tagged in memes like this. I enjoy the challenge to my creativity. Plus, it shows me that other people are reading what I write and actually want to hear more! That’s exciting.

2. I love roses. There’s something about them, with their many soft petals gracefully unfolding around the secret, fragrant heart. I love every color of rose, but I particularly love the soft, pastel roses brushed with many colors all at once. They enchant me. I also love climbing roses. I have a theory that any outdoor structure could be aesthetically improved by the addition of a climbing rose. I once amused myself on a long car trip by imagining how you could grow climbing roses up over the St. Louis Arch. This included a scheme of hanging platforms for them to could grow on and an irrigation system. It was pretty sweet. I’ve always said that if I ever get married, my husband will be a lucky man. If he does something stupid, all he has to do is bring me home roses and all will be well. Of course, that depends on exactly how stupid he’s been.

3. I’m becoming a bit addicted to sugar-free drink mix powders. I used to scorn them as the quintessence of over-commercialized, over-packaged, artificial suburban lifestyles. An unnecessary product with absolutely no nutritional value, packaged in single serving portions, designed to be added to another unnecessary product (bottled water – when the stuff that comes out of the tap is perfectly good). I didn’t go so far as avert my eyes when I passed them in the supermarket aisle, but it was close. Then my boss bought a box and didn’t care for the flavor. So she passed them on to me, and, well, I couldn’t let them go to waste, could I? (God forbid I should actually throw something out!) And… they tasted good. And I started drinking more water. And they had Vitamin C in them. Now the box is almost completely used up and I’m contemplating actually (eek!) spending my own money to buy another box. Sigh.

4. Lately I’ve also been getting a little addicted to the Pieces of Flair application on facebook. I resisted it as long as I could. I always looked down on applications like this as faddish clutter – annoying and teeny-bopper-ish. Then my friends started using it, first Sue, then Lori, then Stella. They kept sending me stuff, and talking about what they’d sent. Finally I couldn’t hold out any longer, and with true convert-fervor started flair-ing all over the place. Maybe there’s a 12-step program I can join…

5. There’s a chance I might get to go to Australia for World Youth Day this summer. It seems that there is a certain organization sending a delegation which has acquired a sponsor eager to pay all expenses for young adults who otherwise could not dream of going. As far as I can tell they’ll pay for everything, and in exchange you help work their booth promoting vocations. As soon as I heard of it I sent back an e-mail saying essentially, “Oh, me! Pick me! Pick me!” They say they want to meet with me, and then… we’ll see what happens. Here’s the funny thing – the acronym for the organization I’d be going with is SPORCH. Which, if you squint at it a little, is like SPORK. Which is a lot like The Tick’s battle cry of, “SPOON!” I find this endlessly amusing. Liv says that we should pass out metal sporks engraved with vocations information, and then people would remember us. I pointed out that all of the meals provided to us at World Youth Day will come with their own sporks as it is, so perhaps extra ones won’t be so memorable. And then, it seems that, since this is an organization promoting religious vocations, most of the other young adults on the trip will be guys discerning vocations to the priesthood. Considering my strict (sortof) no-dating-wannabe-priests policy (and what does it say about my life that I have to have such a policy?), this is more proof that God has a seriously twisted sense of humor. Fortunately, so do I.

6. I am currently watching the season one DVDs of Heroes. Justin found out that I like the show, but hadn’t watched the first season (besides the two episodes that were still upon the NBC website), so he lent them to me. So far I’m almost more a fan of Sylar than any of the other characters. There’s something about a really good villain. They appeal to the same part of me that likes guys who ride motorcycles and have five o’clock shadow. Maybe this is also why I like Dexter so much… Although Mark challenged me the other week on how I, the Theology Major, could justify watching a show celebrating a serial killer. He’s got a point.

7. I am the third daughter of my mother, who is also named Bernadette, and who is also the third daughter in her family. If I ever have kids, I’ll have to have three daughters so I can name the third one Bernadette.

And that’s what I have for you today! And I hereby tag… Mames (again), Polly (also again), Stuart, Kjirstin, Allison, Kenzie, and Zaph (turnabout is fair play!).

 

Sorry, Betty

So a while back Anna suggested something that might help conquer my self-consciousness on the dance floor. I could pick someone I really admired from stage or screen and try to dance like them, maybe one of the movie stars from the old movies I like so much. I started thinking about this, and decided that I wanted to dance like Betty Grable. I didn’t know much about her, but I had an image of her in my head mostly inspired by her classic WW II pinup photo. It was cute, sassy, and classic. Right away it gave me an idea for styling my Balboa basic. Perfect. I made that photo the desktop image on my computer, and started looking for clips of her dancing that I could mine for inspiration.

I started on youtube, where I quickly found several clips. The dancing in them was… ok, but not really inspirational. Maybe she was better in the movies? I raided my local library, coming home with How To Marry A Millionaire and DuBarry Was A Lady. Millionaire is a great movie, but there was no dancing in it. Plus, Grable’s character was kindof annoying – the kind of cutely perky that would make me want to strangle a girl in real life. So I tried DuBarry. Unfortunately, although the Broadway show of DuBarry Was A Lady made Grable’s career, when they made the movie they cast Lucille Ball in her part. Friends, I hated that movie. It was just stupid all the way through. The only really good thing about it was an incredibly young Gene Kelly. There came this moment after the girl finally said she loved him, when he tap danced pure happiness. No, really, he did. It gave me goosebumps. Twelve seconds of pure magic, the best twelve seconds in the movie. I started browsing Gene Kelly dancing vids on youtube, and came across one from Les Demoiselles de Rochefort. There was one point where he dances with some young girls, and it looks like they do a bit of a Charleston routine. I watched that and thought, hey, I can do that! Then I got up from my computer and tried. I sortof could. It was awesome.

That was when I realized that I don’t need another dancing muse, I’ve always had one. My sister has a theory that every woman imprints at a very young age on someone from the screen who becomes her own personal archetype of what a man should be. She thinks that she imprinted on Tony Curtis playing the Great Leslie in The Great Race. I’ve always known that I imprinted on Gene Kelly. Only, I’ve always wanted to dance with him, not necessarily like him. Plus, I don’t think there’s any way I could even begin to imitate his athletic style. I’m just not built that way. Still, I could watch him dance forever and be perfectly happy. He amazes me.

So I’m not sure what I’ll do with this. Maybe some footwork variations working off some of the tap stuff he did so well? Maybe something else I’ll pick up? I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t really want to dance like Betty Grable, I want to dance like Gene Kelly. If he were a woman. I’m not sure what that means in practical terms. I’ll have to let you guys know.

 

Exciting Day

Once upon a time, I had a cabinet with a wine rack and holders for wine glasses, etc. in my kitchen. It was mounted on the chimney next to the refrigerator, right behind the chair at the kitchen table where I sit to do my homework. I would bump it every once in a while and hear the glasses in the holders tinkle against each other, which reminded me to scoot my chair forward. This is a picture I took of it in happier days when I was trying out my mom’s blurry digital camera.

Tuesday morning I wandered into the kitchen bleary eyed, getting ready to buckle down to my usual cram session prepping for my MA level Aquinas class that afternoon. I woke up my laptop, then randomly got up and went over to the other side of the kitchen for a drink of water. Just then, behind me I heard a huge crash followed by the sound of much glass breaking. I turned to see the entire cabinet off the wall, still more or less upright, crushing some boxes that had been stored underneath. Almost all of the wineglasses had slid out of the holder and smashed on the floor, along with the bottles of alcohol that used to be on the top of the cabinet. Shards of glass were completely covering the area where I had been sitting only moments before, and had shot out to cover most of the kitchen. The place where I was standing was almost completely untouched, although my socks were quickly soaked by either Port or Apricot Brandy flooding across the floor. If I hadn’t gotten up to get that class of water, there is a good chance that the cabinet and the smashing glass would have been right on top of me.

I was able to pick my way to the kitchen door, where Liv brought me a pair of shoes to wear. She couldn’t help with the cleanup, the glass would have punctured her wheelchair tires. It took me three hours to pick up all the glass and clean up the alcohol. It was especially interesting because as the alcohol dried it started to glue the smaller pieces down to the floor.

Unfortunately, this consumed all of the time I’d set aside for school work. Consequently, I found myself at 1pm, just starting my prep for Aquinas at 3pm. There was no way I could get everything done. This meant that I had to send an e-mail off to my professor, asking for an extension because the wine rack fell off the wall.

If I were a teacher, I wouldn’t believe it either.

 

Deeply Grateful

I know it’s a cliche beyond cliches to write about what you’re thankful for on Thanksgiving.  Regardless, sometimes you just gotta embrace your own unoriginality.  So, just in case you wanted to know, these are the things that I am grateful for this year:

1. Liv. A year ago this time we barely knew each other.  Today we’re living together.  A girl couldn’t ask for a better roommate.  We share the same slightly macabre sense of humor, the same fondness for plain speaking, and the same understanding that the world is a strange and wonderful place.  We’ve only lived together for about five months now, but believe me, they’ve been an eventful five months!  She was with me through the ups and downs, the boy-crankiness, the days when all I could think about was dancing, and all the rest.  She is a great blessing to me, and I am deeply grateful to have her in my life.
2. My new home. When I moved this summer, it had been six years since I had lived in a place that I could really call my own.  First I was traveling non-stop with a national youth ministry retreat team, then I spent a year back at my parents’ house, then three years with another family first as their nanny and then as a roommate with increasingly little ownership of my living space.  It’s the kind of pressure you don’t notice until it’s released.  To live in a place where my presence is welcomed, not merely tolerated, where people want to know how I am and are willing to rejoice with me in my successes – it’s an amazing thing.  I am deeply grateful to live in a house that is truly my home.
3. Being able to leave unhealthy relationships. At my old living situation, I was stuck in between a controlling mother and her immature but increasingly rebellious teenage daughter.  I considered it part of the price I paid for living in what seemed an ideal location for school.  The money rent was cheap, but the emotional rent was pretty high, particularly when they were fighting.  I can remember too many times hiding up in my room trying not to listen as they screamed at each other.  Last Christmas the mother was diagnosed with liver cancer, which is killing her.  I moved out in June, and haven’t had very much contact with them since.  Recently I went back to visit, and found out, among other things, that the mother and daughter are choosing to spend their last days fighting viciously with each other.  I am grieving for their short-sightedness, but also so glad that I am not there, and not in the middle of this.  This is one mess it’s not my job to clean up, and I am deeply grateful.
4. Anna helping me dance better. About this time last year Anna put out the call for people willing to learn how to teach.  I knew that I wasn’t anywhere near the skill level necessary, but I also knew that the university swing club I belonged to needed to start training teachers and I was one of the few even remote possibilities.  One of Anna’s requirements for teachers is that they be serious dancers, committed to constantly improving their dancing, and she’s willing to help them get there.  Last December I was videotaped for the first time, and started coming more regularly to the weekly practice sessions.  I started to work seriously on my Lindy basic, and on Charleston.  I learned partner Charleston, reworked my frame, and began learning how to style and improvise within my dancing without throwing off my lead.  It’s been a great joy to feel myself get better, to experience the pleased reactions of those I dance with, and to finally start being able to have the joyful, playful, fun dances I had always dreamed of having.  Today I am three or four times the dancer I was a year ago, and I am deeply grateful.