Friday, October 24, 2008

Happy Friday



I have been lusting for one of these neckwarmers for quite some time now and finally bought this one from HiJinx on Etsy yesterday. It is kind of like a modern ruff, no? Or perhaps more Victorian. Either way, I'm in love! Sometimes I wish I could make my own things like this, but that would involve sewing/crocheting and I have not the patience for that sort of learning. I've never even sewn my own pointe shoe ribbons! *gasp* The last time I tried was during a class rehearsal. The ribbons on my one of my shoes popped off and I had no choice but to try my hand at sewing them back on. I did get them sewn back on, but they popped back off within ten minutes of dancing. For the rest of the season my ribbons were held together with a safety pin. Yikes. I know.

In other news...Halloween is a week away and I'm super excited about my costume. Excited and a bit nervous, as it could result in a totally embarassing situation. Womens' costumes these days are nothing short of a stripper's uniform. Mine is one of the less revealing and that's not saying much. Why, even my sister questioned me after I described my outfit. "How is that sexy?" What are we teaching these kids? But I will have to be careful of my movements and make sure everything stays in place. I'm taking extra steps to make sure of this. I'm not sharing what I'm going to dress as yet! I'll post pictures post-Halloween.

Anyone else dressing up? Let me know!





Friday, October 17, 2008

Poefusion ~ Friday 5

Fourteen

Your find yourself
behind slightly open curtains
wearing wings made of wire
and blue-green nylon

The audience waits
The burning bulbs
drip hot color on your skin

If only this stage
could swallow you

If only the epitasis
wasn't swelling in your heart

But the conclusion of dramatics
comes before the story's told

They will all stop and stare
because all the world's a snare

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Um...what?

Date a Vampire

Monday, October 13, 2008



I love this quote by Neil Gaiman, on the tribulations of story ideas:

"In your head, it's wonderful, brilliant, fabulous. Then you sit down to write and it becomes a shadow."

Good to know I'm not the only one who feels like she's watching the most incredible movie inside her head, only to realize it's not that great on paper. Not in the beginning, at least.


Saturday, October 4, 2008

Ophelia Tours

I've just come to learn about these 19th century Ophelia Tours, in which the women in the asylums were dressed as Ophelia in long dresses and flowers, and visitors could buy a ticket and walk through to see all the beautifully, "mad" women in their cages. I'll admit that I'm guilty of glamorizing tragedy in my writing and whatnot, but this is just too much!

There's not a lot about this on the internet, but I did come across this:

This is Dr. Hugh Diamond's photograph of a young female patient taken during the 1850's in an asylum for the insane. The image, reproduced by Elaine Showalter in "Representing Ophelia," is Plate 32 in The Face of Madness: Hugh W. Diamond and the Origin of Psychiatric Photography, ed. Sander Gilman. The image of the sexually obsessed Ophelia had so thoroughly saturated the popular imagination that the fictional character and the real madwoman had become one, as in this photograph where the young woman has been garlanded in flowers and leaves for her portrait.

"The iconography of the Romantic Ophelia" was so fixed in nineteenth-century culture that, according to Showalter, one way for a young woman to express her psychological anguish was to imitate Ophelia, and "where the women themselves did not willingly throw themselves into Ophelia-like postures, asylum superintendents, armed with the new technology of photography, imposed the costume, gesture, props, and expression of Ophelia upon them" (86). As Oscar Wilde had observed, life imitates art--at least in the incident of this young woman.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Ballet Nostalgia (In pictures!)

It's been 8 years, folks! Ahh...the memories. Shall we look at a few shining moments?


Backstage at my first recital. I was a total novice at putting on makeup, much less stage makeup. Thank God my grandmother was there to save the day! I can't remember what the name of our dance was. It was a short one, maybe 2 minutes long, but I savored every minute.

Cinderella was my first big performance. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos from that particular year, but I was cast as the evil step-mother, and it was my first year on pointe. I was scared and a little clumsy, but it was such a fun role!



Next came La Fille Mal Gardee. My main part was as the Harvest Queen. This photo was after the performance. Kirstie (middle) was the rooster and my sister (right) was a maiden. I believe that was her first year in ballet.



Getting made up for A Midsummer Night's Dream.



Me as Titania. This was my main costume for the part. I love how the sleeves look like little wings. (Psst...yes, that is my natural hair color.)



The grand wedding costume! This is my former ballet instructor's favorite tutu. I was the third dancer to wear it! It has been worn in every wedding march and I was honored to adorn it :)


The faeries practice a dance for Sleeping Beauty. I loved the look of all the colorful tutus lining the floor.



I love this photo of my sister putting on her makeup. She was the Emerald Faerie in Sleeping Beauty and her first major role.



My last and most treasured performance. Being Carabosse in Sleeping Beauty was a blast! Probably my favorite part of all time. Here I am with Lilac Faerie.



*The* most awesome wings a girl could have!

I hope there are many more years of memories to make and pictures to take. After I moved I was scared ballet wouldn't be a part of my life anymore. The demands of time, money, and living on my own (with bf and dog) for the first time was a huge change for me, and I was really afraid it would all take away from my life of 5 days a week of ballet. It's true that I don't get in as much ballet time as I'd like, but I'm still dancing and dancing with all my heart. That's all I can ask for.

LOL

You Are Stalking
You tend to be very obsessive. Once you focus your attention on something or someone, it's all you think about.
You are also very secretive. People don't know much about the life that you lead.

You are attracted to weak people. You may want to prey on them, but you also may just want to help them.
You need attention, and you can get desperate if you aren't getting attention from the right person. You'll do about anything to get noticed.


I have to laugh because I actually have been a stalker! The most memorable was the time my best friend and I had a crush on a juggler we saw at a small town Texas festival. Yes, a juggler. We were about 14 and he was probably in his 20s. We never actually talked to the guy at the festival. No, we went home and began the research. Somehow we found information about his juggling troupe at the library in some magazines (wow, research before massive internet usage). We found his name and where he went to college. That led us to where he might possibly live, which in turn led us to the phonebook. There were a few guys with the same name, so we called all of them! The right guy was the last guy we called...at least, we *think* it was the right guy. He seemed either drunk and/or stoned at the time, but we had a whole coversation with him. All I remember him talking about was his camping trip and how he might have been juggling, but wasn't sure if he was the right guy. ??? Yeah, pretty sure he was stoned.

ANYway, that's my awesome stalking story. Please, don't be scared :P

In which I buy *more* shoes

I feel kind of awful since I just bought a pair of shoes about a week ago, but I have been obsessively trying to track down these mary janes for a week. Every website I went to said they were out of stock. One shop I contacted said the manufacturer was sending them into extinction, so imagine my excitement when I stumbled across them just now!!! You better believe I whipped out the card. Actually, I used paypal :)