Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

This is an old picture of me in my glasses. We'll get to that later.

Okay, a month of non-blogging. That is not admirable. Now at this timely junction I must present another post of "OMG, I haven't posted in so long, but here are all the cool things I've been doing!" Most of the cool things in this issue are work related. We started rehearsals for the next show at the Alt. It's called Wading through the Light and Shadows and it's kind of a compilation of original poetry, shorter prose pieces, original choreography and an ethereal soundscape/sound effect type stuff. It's a pretty cool show, and it's been running since February 4 and will keep going till February 21, so if you're in the Buffalo area you should go see it. I've enjoyed this show quite a bit because I was able to have the littlest teeniest tiniest bit of actual artistic input. It hasn't been much, but it was something, and since this is only the second show I've ever worked on, really, I should be profoundly grateful. But those rehearsals were taking up every night, along with new work for the Arts Council, a new fundraising project, illustrating a book with refugee kids, lobbying the city to get permission to do painted cross walks, and other such types of work during the day, my schedule was packed. Now that the show's playing, I actually have more free time, which seems fairly ironic to me.

I've also enrolled in another dance class, Modern 2, not surprisingly a continuation of Modern 1. And again, I'm keeping my head above water, but only just. With this class we actually have a book(!) and reading assignments(!) and written reflections(!) so it's more time consuming than the last class. But the book is wonderful, it's like a compilation of philosophical treatises on the theory of Modern dance written by the people who essentially created it. Maybe they'll be something on here from that soon. Also, I've been to see Avatar, taken the first of what I anticipate to be many trips to the botanical gardens, and made rolls and a number of cakes. And I'm also trying to make head way with learning to play the guitar, which might be going well? I'm learning lots of new chords, but still have a general inability to move between chords in, you know like an actual song, without embarrassingly long pauses while I watch myself adjust my fingers. Sometimes I feel a sense of despair of ever being able to master even the simple aspects of playing the guitar, but that's really the point of this whole experiment, trying something that I find really difficult and sticking with it, even though it remains...really difficult. All of these things have kept me away from the tip tapping of the keyboard that produces these delightful chronicles.

I just have one actual crystallized thought to share for the day. I went for a check up to the optometrist about a week ago and found out the the irritation I was experiencing in my left eye was actually corneal keratitis, which is just a fancy way of saying that my cornea was irritated by lack of oxygen and becoming hazy. I was condemned to wear my glasses for three days, which suddenly blossomed into a full week when my appointment had to be rescheduled. This was surprisingly difficult for me. I haven't worn my glasses for more than the time right before bed or first thing in the morning for years. I didn't feel like myself in my glasses. I didn't feel as pretty either, which made me feel more shy and more invisible. But I still had to do my life, go to Argentine tango and vie for dance partners with everyone else. Go to Emerging Leaders in the Arts meetings, my current most-obnoxiously-akin-to-high-school experience in terms of being in a room with peers, cool kids, and trying not to feel like a silent, awkward loser. But you know what? It wasn't that bad. There were lots of times that I could forget that I was even wearing them and could discover that I was myself even in my glasses. That glasses vs. no-glasses is not an intrinsic part of who I am, not the way the comment I forced myself to make at the ELAB meeting about how artists need support and critique from other artists, not just professional development, is an intrinsic part of who I am. Which is good to know. Good to remember. So that's my revelation for this week.

That's all.
S.