Workin' workin' workin' it out

Either the shiny black and slightly-reflective stall doors in the bathroom at work are extremely flattering, or my piqué turns in skinny jeans and saddle shoes are GORGEOUS.
I can't help it, the bathroom floor is huge and is constructed from slickly painted concrete. It's like the best place to do turns ever. Also: these shoes have absolutely no tread. It's ridiculous. I could kill myself in these things.
 

"Dancewear" is just a label. I don't do labels, man.

Everything Was Beautiful at the Ballet

So, at work we just finished a run of A Chorus Line, which is a hugely popular and iconic musical theater classic. That should be in quotes or something: "Hugely Popular and Iconic Musical Theater Classic! (tm)" Anyway, I had never seen it before, but there was no way I was going to miss the fleeting 50 seconds or so that the horrifying taupe satin tuxedo I labored over for three full days was going to be on stage.
You have probably all seen it already, so this was only news to me, but...
It is wildly depressing. It's all about dysfunctional people who dance for a living. Which is probably very intimate and slice-of-life but as a theater person AND a person who sorta-dances it is just DEPRESSING.
Dee. Press. ING.
The dancing was fun, though. Even if it was accompanied by 70s porn guitar riffs (is that just what music sounded like in the 70s? How did anyone survive?)

 my tuxedo is dead center at 4:07

Not that I could tell at the time, of course.

The Tears Of Angels

See this little bottle of bluish stuff? This is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. I call it the Tears Of Angels and it is pretty seriously the only thing that gets me through the work week right now.
A couple of years ago the arthritis in my hands was giving me a lot of gyp (not that is ever doesn't, but some times are worse than others). I already take a prescription Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory (NSAID) drug every day, and I am not allowed to supplement with any other oral medication in the same class of drugs (they are pretty dreadful for your internal organs). That means aspirin (I occasionally take a single migraine-strength excedrin when I am getting a headache, but don't tell my doctor), ibuprofen, aleve (naproxen), and every other thing that might possibly help is off-limits. I can take tylenol (acetaminophen), but it's worthless, honestly.
Anyway. You can get topical anti-inflammatory medications with a prescription. When I asked my doctor about trying a topical NSAID he agreed that it might help. He said he would write the prescription if I wanted to try it BUT my HMO (Kaiser) wouldn't cover it and I would have to pay (the not-insubstantial) price out of pocket. He suggested switching me to a new oral NSAID instead (it worked okay but ultimately gave me an ulcer so I had to switch back).
And then I realized something. You know those ibuprofen gelcaps (or softgels, or liquicaps, or whatever dumb-ass thing they are calling them today) that are filled with liquid? These ones?

The liquid inside comes right out of them if you poke a hole in the pill. For reals. Easy peasy. I tried it out, and it actually worked fairly well. I just squeeze out the goo, put a few drops on my hands, add a little lotion (or a bengay-type "pain relief" gel. They don't do much but distract you via skin irritation, but why not?), rub that shiz in... and ta-da! It works pretty well on my hands, and helped a lot when I was suffering from constant shin splints, too. It doesn't do as much for my knees, I must say, but hey. Considering that I work with my hands so much that even my non-athritic counterparts complain about cramping and pain?
Yeah. I will take what I can get.



Please note: if you are going to take medical advice you find on the internet you will get precisely what you deserve, whether it's good or bad. You are the keeper of your own health and the decision-maker for your own body and mind. I really shouldn't have to tell you that.

Blog Maintenance and Life Update

I've gone through and added some new related blogs, and removed a few that haven't been active within the last six months +. If you are one of the people I dropped, never fear! If you post again I'll pop you back in to the blogroll. I'm just trying to keep it tidy up in here, up in here.

The studio is closing in on it's recital (just a couple more weeks and then I get to take pointe class without running through Swan Lake like a million times. Hallelujah!) and I am down to the wire on a few remaining costume things that need finishing up. Just embellishing the Firebird's leotard and whipping up two more little peasant bodices for the kids (six total, I think). I will be extremely thankful when it's over and I can reclaim my sewing room. You can't even walk in there, it's ridiculous (tutus, man, they take up a lot of space).
To add a little extra to my plate (because I totally needed that) my summer work schedule has just kicked in. So, now my days off are rare and precious and the arthritis in my hands is going to need a lot of babying. Right now I am building a new show, so basically I work 8 hours a day making bodices and then I come home and... make bodices. I am going to be pretty tired of bodices by the end of this week, let me tell you.

Here is the Firebird's tutu embellishment, done and out of my life. sadly you will just have to believe me when I say it has lots of texture and looks interesting in motion:

Oh man, guys. I wanted to bedazzle this thing SO BAD. I had to stop myself with sequins in hand TWICE. It just... it just needs glitter. It does. Everything needs glitter, guys.

Small House of Uncle Thomas

The theater where I work recently (like a week ago) staged the King and I. I think I saw the movie once when I was 17 and staying at someone's house to watch their cat while they were out of town. That was back when I was terribly industrious and used to get house sitting jobs to earn extra cash. At night I would sit around with the cat and watch my employer's video collection (remember when we all watched videos?) or read their books (Memoirs of a Geisha SUCKED, by the way) . Anyway. So, I saw it ages ago and aside from "Shall We Dance" (buh-dum-dum-dum) and the king dropping dead at the end the only part I really remembered was the ballet version of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the middle. Because it is SO freakin' weird, yo.
So. I went to see the dress rehearsal and found to my surprise that the crazy ballet is actually the best part of the entire show. Maybe I just have a greater appreciation for the dancers and details now, or maybe the antiquated /romanticized/borderline racisty stuff is just more glaring at 32 than it was at 17.
There is a bit when Eliza and the angel are walking across the frozen lake that involves all these little scootchy foot movements across the stage. As I watched all I could think was "I bet people think that is easy, but that shit looks HARDCORE to me". I totally had to try it when I got home. It TOTALLY IS hard! Dang!

This isn't us, but it's the best production I could find on Youtube. The scootchy feet are about halfway through.

PS: am I the only one who really only knows the story of Uncle Tom's Cabin through this movie? Sure, we talked about it in history classes when I was in school, but it's not like people actually READ the darn thing these days.

What's Up? CHICKEN BUTT!

So, last week at work we were working on tutus and leotards for a play that opened over the weekend. The tutus started life as very generic and plain little white classical rehearsal tutus that we added trim to and fitted with pockets (for holding the confetti. They were snowflakes, you dig?). What we ran out of time for before dress rehearsal was tacking the layers of netting together (because for some reason the shop doesn't have a tacking gun? Really? How hard is that?). I sincerely hope the other people in the shop managed to get them tacked properly before the show opened because at rehearsal they were causing a serious case of "chicken butt".
You know. Chicken butt. Where an untacked tutu flips up instead of standing straight out from the hips and makes you look like you have a little birdy bottom. I searched on Google for hours trying to find a photo of this phenomenon, but to no avail. For some reason the search term "chicken butt tutu" simply does NOT bring you the kind of images I was looking for.
It was with some amusement, then, that I saw the incomparable folks at tutu.com post this photo over the weekend, of a person wearing an untacked tutu and suffering from chicken butt syndrome:

Chicken butt.

Maybe you need to have seen a lot of chicken's butts for this description to make sense.

Funnily enough, though, I was just searching for a picture of a plain white rehearsal tutu to link to above when I came across this photo on Ebay of a model trying desperately to pretend that her tutu hasn't got a case of the chicken butt. But we aren't fooled:

So, what did you do at work today?

I did this:

I have the best job.

That is what a classical tutu looks like from underneath, in case you didn't recognize it. It's also EXACTLY as much of a pain in the ass to wrangle through a sewing machine as you would think. I also made little white leotards with sparkly business to go along with it. I am going to rehearsal tonight specifically to see what the heck is going on with these things.

I also shared a nice conversation with one of my coworkers about starting ballet as an adult. She started pointe at 38! That is my goal: pointe before I'm 40. At first my goal was "pointe before Jenny" Jenny being my young niece-in-law who was taking ballet lessons (name changed to protect the innocent), but I'm not sure she's stuck with it.

Feel the Burn

So I am taking this coming Monday off from ballet. It was a tough call, but Monday nights are dress rehearsals at the theater where I work, and while most of these are totally passable for me (Music Man? AGAIN?) this one is going to showcase costumes that have basically been my waking world for the past month+. It's going to be a really stupid show, honestly, but the costumes I have broken three nails on and acquired four fingertip calluses over are making it a must-see for me. Besides, there is a chance that someone might spontaneously combust, so I have to be there for that, right?
So, I am taking Monday night off. I took a make-up class tonight, just to try and even out the number of days between classes. It wasn't super awesome fun times after my physical therapy yesterday (and the lamentable ten minutes I spent on the couch last night attempting to "do the clam". My husband says if I injure myself doing this silly exercise he is just dropping me off at the emergency room and leaving me to explain to the nurses how I did myself bodily harm while "doing the clam". GOD, it can't just be me that thinks it sounds like a HORRIBLE euphemism!) but it was alright. We had a substitute teacher, though, while my regular instructor is on vacation (which she TOTALLY deserves after teaching 17 classes a week!). And after class, while we were all on the floor doing stretches with the pre-beginning class that meets after us, she made us do CRUNCHES! Oh GIRL! Argh! And then we flipped over and did some sort of backwards crunches! It was probably terribly good for me and I am sure that I need to be doing such things on my own time every day... but I am such a workout pussy. I did a pilates "crunch and burn" video a few weeks ago... I hurt for the next week!
Sigh...

Starring Emma Livry as Herself

At work we are staging a production that requires the leading lady to "fly" up off the stage and through the lighting array above. Which is all well and good in a show that doesn't involve actresses with copious swathes of floaty and highly flammable silk fabric draping artistically off their bodies. We are pretty much all cringing and whispering furtively amongst ourselves about flaming actresses and the much-less-than-impressed audience's reaction to same.
"What an amazing special effect! And the acting! The way she screams like that! So realistic! GIVE THAT WOMAN A TONY!"
Anyhow. I am certain that one way or another (vats of industrial strength flame retardant are being ordered) we will not end our sad theatrical careers with a horrible and dramatic tragedy. But, it's part of our consciousness, isn't it? Everyone you meet will know that people have died when their costumes caught the oil lamps used to light stages back in the day. It's mostly thanks to this ballerina:

Emma Livry who, in 1863,  burst in to flames on stage and later died from her injuries. The most frustrating part of the whole ordeal is that she would have been fine if she'd stopped, dropped, and rolled like a good girl. But OH NO she had to be the drama queen and run flailing around the stage for several minutes. It must have been quite a show.