Stop Trying to Make Fetch Happen

Every year come recital time we have a few solid weeks of experimentation in the classroom while the choreographer (my teacher) works out her game plan. And every year we seem to end up doing endless turns around the room in a circle. This never works. Never. It makes people dizzy to the point of colliding with one another. It never looks good, and it's tortuous to practice until it does look good, so eventually it just tapers off and we forget it for another year. I'm hopeful we have gotten it out of our (AKA my teacher's) system for the current year, but we may be stuck with it for another month or so until it really sinks in that this isn't happening.
Stop trying to make this happen. It's never going to happen.

Ring-a-ding-a-doo

I've discussed spotting before, and how no matter how well I try to spot I always feel dizzy after turning. So far the only solution is to hop up and down while making my way back to the starting point for the next pass across the floor (very classy, I know). Either I can't focus well enough to make a difference, or... something. Whatever.
So, when I found out about this guy all I could think was "oh man. I am gonna barf just WATCHING this"
How about you?

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!)

Please Take Me Dancing Tonight...

No ballet at all this week! UGH! Today I just hurt too much.
I dunno. Possibly my own fault for not taking any of my medications for three days while I had the flu (I had this idea about "cleansing" the chem-lab quality from my life, but mostly I stopped because I felt so nauseous that fistfuls of pills was not even vaguely possible) and then going out to ride a bike this morning. AND THEN smashing my knee against the leg of a wrought-iron restaurant chair (why would you even put iron chairs in a restaurant? Aren't they just awkward for everyone?), which couldn't have helped.
Anyway, I don't know why I felt compelled to play with word cloud generators today, but here is one from the blog: