Mama needs a new pair of shoes

After 150 years on the market you can pretty much expect a product to be refined, stream-lined, and darn-near perfected. Not clunky, horrible, and nearly-crippling. I AM LOOKING AT YOU, POINTE SHOES.
So. I finally got new pointes. Like, actually went to (braved) the only dancewear store in town (what the heck? There are easily dozens of studios in this city, how is there only ONE store that sells dance shoes?) and sat there for an hour trying on awful shoes while a professional dream-smasher critiqued my placement and shrugged at me. And now I have new shoes. Which? I totally despise. They are So Danca Auroras, and they suck. Okay, honestly, I kind of hated my other ones, too. But I think I've identified the problem. My feet are totally not the same size or shape as one another. They look fine, but they fit way differently. So, these new ones are okay on the right foot but not so much on the left. And the left? Yeah, that is my sliiiiightly longer leg. So basically all 130 pounds of my weight gets concentrated on the very tip of my left big toe and I want to die.
Sigh...
I'll figure it out some day. Some day... one day I will buy fancy plastic shoes at a big brightly-lit store in San Francisco, and then rainbows will trail effortlessly off my tip-toes while I leap gracefully on to the back of my unicorn and fly away...

tomorrow morning may be another story

On Fridays I go bike riding for a couple of hours. I've done it for years and rarely stop for more than a few months at a time (usually because of work, sometimes because the weather is ridiculous, occasionally because of illness or injury- not always my own). My riding partner (my dad. I recommend riding tandem only if you started when you were like 10 years old, because that shit is CRAZY terrifying as soon as you hit adulthood) recently retired after double cataract surgery (oh yes, the last couple of weeks have been so fun around here) and suggested that instead of getting together Friday, which is supposed to be rainy, that we should do the weekly ride today. Thursday. Ballet class day. Not just ballet class, but two and a half hours of ballet class. Now, on ballet class days I usually try to sleep in as long as I can and then keep my activity level really low throughout the afternoon because ain't nobody got spoons for that. If you are unfamiliar with spoon theory please go read this.
Okay. So I toyed with the idea of just saying "oh, hell no" and then realized that my parents are aging and I am lucky to have them and that I would do almost anything to spend every possible moment with them. So, I gave it a shot. Then I went to class.
I am still capable of standing upright at this point... I just don't want to.

Leg Mounts

I hate leg mounts. Leg mounts are those things where you grab your foot and try to développé it up over your head. You know... in a perfect world, with a perfect body. When I have to do them (in the real world, with an aging arthritic body that has only been dancing for three years) it's more like I grab a hold of whatever piece of leg I can and then hike it up to about 45* off the floor. Which isn't even as high as I can développé! But it's as high as I can stand to put the weight of my leg on my hands (legs are heavy! There must be like 20 pounds in a leg. No wait, I will look it up...okay so there are TWENTY SIX pounds in an average female leg! Yikes!) All that weight on my wrists (the first and most horribly sensitive bit of arthritis in my body) is impossible! It's why I stopped doing yoga. I used to be able to do shoulder stands and all kinds of ridiculousness, but NO WAY is that happening these days. My hands are my life, my ability to work. Screwing them up even more with no payoff just makes me angry!
Last night as I unsuccessfully hauled my leg up with my aching hand my teacher asked me if there was something wrong with me. Yes! Leg mounts are wrong with me! She said she should bring me a bungee to use. Which is the silliest freakin' mental image I have ever had. Strapping my ankle up in a bungee and hauling it up like a fish in a net...

Yeah, like that. Except not at all, even slightly.

Don't Glue It, You Have Sew Much to Live For!

You know what is awesome? Slipping on the carpeted stairs (because you are wearing slippery satin shoes with fuzzy socks on top) and falling all the way to the ground floor, hitting every single stair along the way. Every. Single. One.
Did I break in my pointe shoes, or did I just break myself? It was one of those things where you think to yourself "you know, this is really dangerous and I could really hurt myself" a split second before it all goes wrong. I am lucky I didn't break anything.
That happened last night. Today I feel... like I just fell down a flight of stairs, honestly (also stupid, I feel really really stupid). Both elbows are skinned and bruised, my butt looks like I was hit with a two by four (actually I was hit with half a dozen two by fours...), and I appear to have majorly pulled every single muscle in my upper back/neck/shoulders. You know that whole port de corps en ronde thing? Yeah, that SO isn't happening right now.

On the recital costume front:
I was sent home tonight with this... thing (there is no nice name for it) and told to remove the junky lace apron and ugly trim across the front (it's going on an ugly step sister in Cinderella, BTW) and to generally clean it up (at work we call that "making it pretty" which is just a nice way of saying "this thing needs some serious help. Please. Stage an intervention")

Only problem? As soon as I got it in my lap with a seam ripper in hand I discovered the awful truth. It is all attached WITH GLUE. Uuuuuggggghhhhh...

What What, in the Butt?

My level three class has a batch of new students, so the complexity of combinations has been stepped down a bit. Like, to the point that I actually feel competent. But my mixed-level class has only gotten harder and harder, so now I am stuck either feeling unchallenged or overly challenged. For cryin' out loud, can I get a level four class, please? These dead-dull en croix degages aren't doing it for me any more, and no matter how many times you tell me the sequence of a 13-step grand allegro combination it ain't gonna happen right now.
Sigh...

Sorry, I am feeling a bit shouty, tonight.
Because I... pulled my butt muscle? Or... something. Class was fuller than usual tonight so I got stuck at a portable barre which is a good foot or more higher than the lowest rung on the regular barre. So, when we were all supposed to hike our legs up on the barre... something went terribly wrong. I got through the rest of class but begged off pointe and came home early. If anything, it hurts worse NOW than it did in class.
Effing ballet, guys. What the hell?

PS: this has been a really butt-centric day for me. First thing in the morning I had to take one of my cats to the vet because she has a ruptured booty gland. Well, at least I don't have THAT.

PPS: Look. I am REALLY REALLY SORRY, this is in terrible taste, but I seriously have this song stuck in my head now, and I am sharing it with you because I am basically a bad person and I'm going to hell (and I want you to share in my pain):

Wrecked

ARGH. My calves hurt! ARGH ARGH ARGH!
Thursday's classes, like any class directly after a big travel-oriented holiday, were short on students. As a result technique class was abnormally exhausting (very little if any down time while waiting for your turn across the floor) so I was already panting and Over It by the time pointe class started. There were even fewer pointe students, and those of us that were there are all fairly new at it. So we got serious one-on-one attention and lots of corrections that otherwise would have been lost in the shuffle. The good news is that I now have a much clearer idea of what I have been doing wrong (which has been annoying the bejeebus out of me whenever I have to look at myself in a mirror) and how to correct it (I finally understand what she means by "push against your ribbons"). The bad news is that I am now so totally wrecked physically that there is no way in hell I can use those corrections and get in some practice at home (which has now been officially sanctioned). The transition back to a regular schedule after my month of bruise-induced confinement has been tough on me physically. I basically spend every weekend cursing and whining every time I have to walk downstairs.
Remind me why I do this to myself? Ballet, guys. It hurts.

The Bruise to End All Bruises

So here is why I am only taking barre this week:

My cat stepped on my laptop, which was precariously balanced on the side table, and the rest is history. It's not broken or anything, it just hurts a might and looks like the end of the world. I probably would have made it through the entire class tonight IF I hadn't had to stand up in the train all the way to class. Urgh. As soon as the time changes everyone and their mama wants to ride the train for some reason. I'm hoping to get through it on Thursday, though I am guessing pointe is probably a bad idea.
So, while my classmates got on with center work I got to sit and observe them. It's interesting, actually, to watch a class you usually participate in. For one thing you get to admire how pretty it is (well, except grands jetes, but you get to see how badly everyone else does them so you don't feel so bad) when normally it just feels like a hot mess. And you get to wonder at how easy it all looks when you know that in reality it's damn hard work. And you know when you hit the wall? I mean figuratively speaking. And you think "oh god, just make it stop" because you are exhausted, dripping sweat, panting for breath, and just DONE? Well, the one time I get a chance to actually quit after barre and sit out all the hard stuff all I want is to be up there dancing.
What the hell, ballet makes you a crazy person.

sigh...

Taking the Plunge

A few years ago, back when they discovered that the problem in my hands wasn't carpal tunnel syndrome, they sent me back and forth to half a dozen specialists in an attempt to suss out the culprit. None of them had any real idea what was wrong but one doctor, a hand specialist (the one who finally did the test that determined a predisposition for rheumatic conditions) suggested that I should try acupuncture for the pain. He put through a referral to the acupuncture department for me, but I never followed through with it because A) It looked like we were going to get a real diagnoses soon, B) it's all the freakin' way in another city, and taking the bus to get there (we only have one car) for orientation would be a TWO HOUR trip through unfamiliar territory, and then require a half mile walk. And C) WHATEVER DUDES. I have a pretty low opinion of the pseudo-scientific "chi energy" rigamarole, and don't really want to listen to it.
But, things have changed in the last few years. For one, I hurt a lot more. And also, I don't appear to be getting any actual medical treatment, here. I'm just about at my wit's end, and at this point I would do darn near anything if there was any actual chance it would help me feel better, especially when I'm dancing. So, I looked in to it. There are real honest-and-for-true clinical studies that support the use of acupuncture, though of course no one actually knows why it works. They have theories ranging from triggering immune responses to counter-irritation to just plain old positive thinking. But... you know? At this point? *sigh* I don't even care WHY it works, just so long as it does, you know? And everyone I've talked to that has first-hand experience with it has been 100% sure it did something good for them. Of course, these are also the people who claim that it's painless and that you'll blissfully frolic through the experience with no blood loss. I have a friend who used to be a dogsbody at an acupuncture clinic, and among her grosser chores was cleaning up the large quantities of blood left behind after a session. UCKA. Fellow rheumy and blogger extraordinaire Jenny Lawson's book Let's Pretend This Never Happened contains her own account of acupuncture treatment. She lays it on the line and tells it very much like it is, pain and blood and all. But at this point unless they want to ram the damn pins in to my EYES they are totally welcome to give it a shot. So I'm signed up to take Kaiser's acupuncture orientation class at the end of November, and then we'll see how it shakes out.
Honestly, I am not amazingly happy with the idea because I don't like getting poked with needles, much. And I STILL don't want to listen to anyone regale me with wisdom about my chi. For crying out loud, people, you can't just make up something when you don't understand how it works!
I asked my (deep skeptic of a) husband what he thought about me trying it out and he has been supportive. Not that he's the sort of jerky husband who isn't supportive of most of my decisions or anything (he even lets me smudge the house, so long as he isn't there while I'm burning the sage), but I do so like to not make him think that I'm a crazy person on a regular basis.

the toes know... s?

My first ballet-related toe injury, my ring toenail (is there a ring finger equivalent on your foot?) tore up my middle toe during class tonight. And thus a lesson was learned about cutting your nails before class.
At least it was an honest ballet injury. A badge of honor if you will. At least I can clutch my proverbial fist dramatically to my bosom while sighing about sacrificing myself for my art. Which is more than I can say about my badly bruised and formerly bleeding big toenail on the same foot. 'Oh no. That one was accomplished via the most physically graceful moment of my life.
I... stubbed it. On the floor. While I was sitting down.

Sigh...

Proceed only if you want to see the gruesome evidence (and you promise not to judge how callusy my toes are) I'm also not entirely sure if my baby toenail is bruised or what the heck is going on there. Edited to add: after seeing this entry pop up in the blog aggregate site I use, I noticed that it doesn't protect the innocent from the picture of my yucky toes. So I added a photo of my cat's tummy in an attempt to rectify the situation.

FYI

Okay, just for the record? That knee cap stretching business this morning has equaled an unparalleled  amount of pain this evening. I think if I saw my PT right now I would kick him in the shins just to even the score.
 Or the sack, because this shit hurts.

Pretty Annoying Week

This past week or so has been really off the charts, pain-wise. I would like to blame it on the CLAM and the other stupid exercises I am supposed to be doing, but in all honesty I haven't been doing it as often as I am supposed to. Still, though, we are talking more knee pain in the past week than in the past several months. I went to class, anyway.  It adds another awful dimension to the deep hatred I have developed of assemblé.
Oh assemblé, I hate you so.

In other news I would like to share this bit of wisdom with you:
Never, after applying icy-hot/bengay/etc, no matter how much of a rush you are in to get to class, forget to wash your hands before using the bathroom.
Just... don't.
Trust me.