Blerg

I am going under the knife tomorrow morning, the first of possibly several rounds of oral surgery that I will be dealing with this year. I'm pretty freaked out about it. I was really looking forward to dancing tonight, I need to burn off some nervous energy and I missed last week so I want to get back to the studio...
but apparently penicillin makes me violently ill? Ah, well. That's, uh...good to know? I guess?

Krill Oil Pills. So Yummy.

So, I take an omega-3 supplement every day, because it's supposed to be good for RA. I find it helps a little with the stiffness in my joints so I keep it up. At first I tried fish oil pills. They are huge, smelly, and make you burp up the taste of rancid fish ALL DAY LONG. It also did some other really disgusting things that I can't mention in mixed company. I switched to flax seed oil pills almost immediately. They are huge, too, but there isn't any lingering nastiness.
Well, the problem is that I keep hearing that flax seed oil isn't a terribly great source of omega-3 because it's harder for your body to process/access it. A friend (you know the kind, the kind that wants to talk your ear off about the latest diet/exercise routine/supplement) has been trying to convince me to try krill oil, instead, and she brought me a bottle to try out a few weeks ago.
From the get-go there were pros and cons. The pros: one tiny little pill per day. No fishy burps. The cons: smells like satan, basically. If satan smelled like rotting fish, anyway. RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Like $36 per tiny bottle expensive. Comes in a bottle covered in snake-oil advertising.
Do I think it's doing me any good? Mmm... maybe. Maybe not. When the effects are subtle enough it is awfully hard to tell. I'll kill the bottle and switch back to flax seed for a while and see if I can feel any difference. I have major environmental concerns about krill oil, probably even more than I do about fish oil. That alone is enough to make me think seriously about how willing I would be to take them long-term.
Okay, but here is the funny part. The friend who gave me these things has a long-haired cat. She punctures the pills and gives a little to her cat every day and it greases the proverbial wheels enough that they live mostly hairball-free. And of course the cat just laps it up because it's sooooooo tasty and stinky and fishy and all the things cats love, right? So tonight I cut open a pill and offered it to my cats. One of them (the one who ISN'T picky) sniffed it and then walked away. The other cat sniffed it with interest, gave it a tiny lick... and then spent the next five minutes doing the bleh-bleh-gross-yucky-get-it-out-of-my-mouth-patooie thing.
Yeah. That worked well.

Doom and Gloom While Things Go Boom

Oh GEEZE, internet! Is nothing sacred? Must there be an active fetish community for EVERY cartoon character ever created? Yeesh. It's gonna take a month of eyeball scrubbing to get over it.

Anyway. The point. I had one, I swear!

Uhmm... back when I first started taking ballet class I told my husband that if I ever went en pointe I would walk around the house like that all day. And he said okay, as long as you dress like Mom from the cartoon Dexter's Laboratory. Because she perpetually walks en pointe, you see. Another character, the annoying sister Dee Dee, always dresses in a pink tutu and ballet slippers, and is known for being a ditz and dancing around at all times. It's possible that back in college my boyfriend used to call me Dee Dee.

Anyway, I was just trying to find a little video of Mom walking around on tiptoes to post here. I was NOT looking for creepy-ass cartoon porn.

 At least not today *wink*

Fun With Statistics

I don't even want to know why "black cat butt plug" is a search term that directs traffic to this blog. I just... don't.

For Serious Guys, No

Have I mentioned that for some reason one of the top google search terms that leads to this blog right now is "balett flats insertion pussy"?
The first thing I thought when I saw that was "uuuuuh, learn to spell, dudes" and the second thing I thought was "I don't know what that means but the only things I can think of are ... uh... never mind" and then I had to think about kittens and rainbows for a while.
Learn to spell, sickos.

Snake Oil Pulling

So, I am not totally opposed to naturopathic medicine or anything. It's interesting, my family is 50% crunchy-granola-hippy-flower-child-new-age-touch-therapy razzmatazz but also 50% science-minded skepticism. A firm background in the harder-core sciences coincides with a strong belief that we don't know everything there is to know. But, when it comes down to it, we just aren't gullible enough for most of that crap.
Now, I am not saying that trying the natural methods to fix something that is wrong with you is a bad idea. I successfully treated a moderate flare up of my chronic depression with St John's wort for a while, and I have had luck using garlic oil to help an ear infection (I didn't have health insurance for a while, can you tell?) and hey I am still willing to take valerian and flaxseed oil and whatever. But, the point is that this stuff has been subjected to actual clinical trials. I didn't start taking the flaxseed oil until I had read the extremely dry scientific papers about omega-3.
Anyhow, the point is that having a chronic health condition is like painting a target on your forehead for people who have read about a guy who read about a guy who had an aunt who tried something for her arthritis and wow now she is cured. Wow, guys. I am super impressed. My neighbor tried telling me that my problems would all be solved by drinking a glass of water with a spoon full of baking soda in it four times a day. That is basically like chugging a whole tube of Airborne every day. Which might feel like a scouring-pad of blessings when you are catching the sniffles and have a sore throat, but otherwise? Really? Yeah. But, this was also the neighbor who asked me what natural methods I was using to treat my cat's hyperthyroidism. I am using the method of giving her the drugs she needs to take twice a day for the rest of her life because it's proven to work and hyperthyroidism is fatal, thanks. I won't dick around with my pet's health even in cases when I might dick around with my own. Your cat/dog can't tell you that your tricks aren't working.
Sigh.
So, anyway, the latest-greatest in the world of treating your illnesses (whatever they may be) naturally is "oil pulling" which is benign enough that I suppose it won't do you all that much damage if you are in to it. But, that is about all I can say for it. If you haven't heard of oil pulling yet it basically means you take a bunch of (vegetable or seed-based) oil in your mouth and swish it around for twenty minutes every day. Now, I can see how this might be good for your oral health, okay. Because it rinses off some of the crap that flossing leaves behind (and nobody really flosses enough, right?). But there is no bloody freaking way in heck that it will cure my rheumatism, give me crystal-clear skin, and change the spark plugs in my car all at the same time (you know what I mean).
Now, if you have conducted a double blind study and have proven that this works on everything in the whole world, then great! When you have that paper published let me know and I will buy a copy of the New England Journal of Medicine that week. Until then, I don't really want to hear about how it "draws the toxins from your body" because dude, seriously? That is not how your body works.

(Also? It triggers my gag reflex just TALKING about it! Gross, dudes!)

The Underpants Conundrum

So, I have special underpants that I save just for ballet. I know, I know, it sounds stupid. And, if you want to be serious about it, like professionals and students who are headed for ballet stardom, then you don't wear any panties at all.
But... uh...
I don't know. I just wasn't born to be a freeballer (or whatever the female equivalent would be. I can't think of anything that isn't SUPER RUDE). My mom was a supporter of the underpantless cause, but we were still trundled in to them as kids. And then a terrible thing happened when I was about 3 or 4. I was put in rhumba panties (you know, with the ruffles on the butt). And it was all over. I freakin' LOVED my rhumba panties. I was especially fond of a bright red pair. I wanted to wear those things constantly. Oh man. I've been an underpants fan ever since. I love fun underpants! So I never really go au naturel, or Scots proper if you prefer. And I am just not comfortable with clothes on without the panty barrier.
I could claim it was my professional wisdom speaking (underpants are a pretty important part of keeping your clothes clean and long-lasting. A bit of vajay goes a long way, as they say. Poetry unintentional. But run with it!) but to be honest I just feel a little squicky without my undies (you know. Stuff happens down there).
So anyhoo, I have these perfect underoos for dance class. They aren't specially made dance underpants (yes, they make those) or anything, they are just super sleek and snug and made with flatlocked elastic that is micro thin. So, no panty lines. They are awesome for skinny jeans and leggings, too. Cuz there ain't NO WAY I am wearing a thong. Okay, seriously? I hate to get sidetracked and all, but I have to rant a little about thongs. They are evil and wrong for anything other than personal sexy times. I used to work in a maternity store (it was HORRIBLE) and our hottest sellers were packs of maternity thongs. REALLY? Come on ladies. Be serious, now. What the what? Sheesh. Okay. I am done being sidetracked now.
The whole point was that I got these silly fabulous underpants at Costco about a year ago (which means they don't have them anymore, of course. That is how Costco rolls) and so I have to be super careful to sort them out of my laundry and pack them up with my leotards and tights so that I don't get caught half an hour before class running around the house like a crazy chicken shrieking "WHERE ARE MY UNDERWEAR?? YOU HAVE THEM DON'T YOU? I KNOW YOU DO! GIVE THEM BACK!"
Especially because I'm the only one home at the time...

It's Also Zoloft's Fault That It Is An Election Year

So the most embarrassing thing happened in class on Monday.
I get sweaty. I mean, sure, of course, everyone gets sweaty in class, right? That is how you know you are doing it right. And the weather in my little slice of  "paradise" (quotation marks intentional) has been unseasonably warm and gross, lately. But I wasn't just glowing. There was nothing ladylike about this. I was sweating so much that halfway through barre it was actually, honest to god, dripping off of me. So gross. And my leotard? The new lighter weight one that I just made? SOAKED. Like, everywhere. All the way totally freakin' soaking wet. Even my headband was soaked through. I did feel like it was a particularly challenging barre, but seriously. Yucka. I came home and greeted my husband and he asked me not to touch him, okay? Like, yeah.

I think maybe it is the Zoloft. I know, I can't blame everything in the whole world on zoloft (sure I can! This weather? It is TOTALLY ZOLOFT'S FAULT) but the thing did say increased sweating was a possibility. Well, it also says prolonged erections are a possibility, but I certainly don't have any of those.