Hoofin' It

I’m practicing my pick-ups and trying out wings.

I’ve got a new tap teacher this year and she’s definitely picking up the pace in class. To move to a more advanced level I’ve known for a while that I've needed to master pick-ups and wings, among many, many other steps, but for some reason these two have been my continual enemies.

With pick-ups, I have a tendency to fall forwards. Or backwards. My sense of balance is not really fussed on which way to pitch me.

With wings, our teacher cautioned that if we didn’t have strong ankles beginners ran a high risk of breaking them. In my youth I managed to break my right ankle and snap a bone in my left foot, so I’m a little apprehensive about movement that encourages further time in plaster.

Our teacher also revealed some rather ambitious plans for our winter recital this year. Our “costume” for the past few years has consisted of black slacks and a nice Christmas sweater. When we’re feeling really daring, we wear mittens or a Santa hat. (Scarves were tried but rejected after one rather unfortunate practice session. Fighting strangulation while keeping a syncopated beat is hard.)

This year, however, she threw out words like “little skirts,” “hot pants,” and other scary terms that will involve some major YMCA time and a more balanced diet on my part. I’m hopeful she is teasing, but she is a tiny woman who could fit easily into my pocket and perhaps doesn’t not understand the distress those words cause to adult-sized women.

We shall see.

My Eyes! My Eyes!

On Friday night, for about the third time in my life, I walked out of a movie.* I was looking for a simple Friday night distraction, and the allure of a dark theater with comfy seats and air conditioning seemed about my speed. My Movie Companion (MC) threw out some suggestions and allowed me to pick and, without doing nearly enough research, I picked Shoot Em Up, mainly because I like watching Clive Owen. I thought it would kind of be like Die Hard.

Holy cow, was I wrong. It was filthy. I can’t think of any other word to describe it. It was the kind of movie where, after a few minutes you think it can’t get any worse and then it manages to. What was perhaps more disturbing was the man in front of us who laughed uproariously at every act of violence.

After 10 minutes of alternatively squirming in my seat and covering my eyes MC leaned over and whispered:
“Do you want to see if we can get into another movie?”
“Yes, please.”

So we were able to see 3:10 to Yuma and I got to watch a rather interesting if inconsistent Russell Crowe and a very gritty and emaciated-looking Christian Bale sweat through Arizona. It was quite good, although after walking out of Shoot Em Up, it didn’t have a very high bar to jump.



*Other movies walked out of include Robocop and The Producers.

On 35

I think I dreaded this birthday for so long that when it finally came it was a bit of a relief. Mentally, I turned 35 around Memorial Day, which is a big lesson to me about being anxious, as I wasted some good months of being 34.

This birthday, though, was much better than last year simply because people remembered. I received cards and, thanks to Facebook, several simple messages wishing me a Happy Birthday from those friends who would otherwise not have known. So I discovered those social networking sites are good for something other than Superpoke and dubious offers of friendship from strangers in Eastern Europe.

On Friday evening I celebrated by having my two best friends spend the night. When I was younger, I used to always celebrate my birthday with a sleepover or slumber party, and I discovered the appeal is still there. Granted, we had to work around a 5-month-old and the presence of the Pack-n-Play in the bedroom stifled some late-night whispering, but you’re never too little to begin learning the ins and outs of slumber party etiquette and Baby Maddie did just fine.

And I think 35 showed me, once again, just how incredibly valuable true friendships are. It doesn’t always come easily. We have to fight for the time we have together now.

But to be able to put down the phone after I have rambled and discoursed and picked apart and revealed my uttermost neurosis to my friend and sigh with relief, “She gets me” – that’s worth every year it took to get here.