F this S

I'm in such a ballet funk. I really just don't want to go at all, right now. It has been a few months since work and life permitted regular twice-a-week class attendance, and I haven't taken pointe since May. And now that time is opening up? I just don't wanna! I am doing it because without ballet I am considerably less mobile and in a whole lot more pain. I'm just not enjoying myself at all.
One of the issues is that a new teacher has taken over two of my regular classes. And he's great, don't get me wrong. But it's different. Every teacher has a different style, and he isn't giving me the same experience that I have grown to expect and find comforting. He's teaching pointe, now, too, which makes me really hesitate to get back in to it. He really is a nice guy, and a good teacher, but...
sigh...

PS: trying to apply steroids directly to my scalp is not my favorite part of rheumatism. Wait, RPrin, you have a favorite part? Hell yes. All the best people have rheumatism. Me, my sister... my cat... uh... Lady Gaga...

Injured and Complaing About It, Thank You Very Much

My little ballet world has been pretty frustrating, lately. After the horrible "cat + laptop Vs. my poor naked foot" incident I knew I was going to have some bruising. But, did you know that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAIDs, in other words: first line treatment for RA) medications can cause excessive blood pooling and therefore bruising? Which can take a really long dang time to heal? Yeah, I didn't know, either. I have now missed five whole classes, and had to sit out center work for three more. I am pretty unhappy about it.
But here is the weird part. I always bitch about ballet hurting me, and it's true! It does hurt me. It gives me shin splints and broken toenails and foot cramps and you get the idea. But while I've been taking a bunch of time off I've noticed all the ways that ballet makes me feel BETTER. Without class my back hurts. My knees hurt even worse than usual. I thought my shin splints were coming back but it was actually some thin little muscle running along the front of my leg cramping up. My ankles hurt! My toes on my foot that ISN'T bruised!
Geeze!
So, I have decided to just take barre until I am ready to use my foot properly, again. I tried doing center work on Tuesday and it did not work out for me, but OH! The pretty combination we got to do before it all went to hell! Balancés and waltz turns, swishy port de bras... and I felt almost competent for a few glorious moments!
And then my foot was like "what do you even think you are doing, woman?"

Errythang is Zoloft's Fault: the saga continues

So I have noticed that I am increasingly less willing to read blog posts longer than a couple of paragraphs. Even blogs I really like and have been following for a long time. I just sort of skim over them and touch on what is going on, and if something exciting seems to be happening I go from there. But ... why? Am I just becoming too much of a lazy internet-age instant-gratification-demanding thirty-something who acts like there is no time to spare in life? Or am I really and truly suffering from a concentration problem? Could it be Zoloft's fault? After all, EVERYTHANG is Zoloft's fault.
The only other time I took antidepressants (during a particularly stressful and awful year in college) they made me totally flunk a class I was more than capable of (I mean, seriously. It was smack-dab in my major and I use the stuff I learned in that class constantly. Like, every single day. But I totally got an incomplete. Way lame.) because I could NOT concentrate for more than three minutes at a time. Also, because the teacher was being a dink, but that is another thing entirely. Anyhow, lectures were tortuous. So I decided that the drugs had to go. But that was a tranquilizer-type antidepressant, rather than the SSRI that Zoloft is.
Anyway.
I should stop typing because I just realized that if this was someone else's post I probably would have clicked over to Pinterest already!

There will be a ballet-only-no-whining-about-my-health post ASAP.