Fucking Pointe Shoes, Man...

You know how everything that has the word "wedding" attached to it automatically sells for double the cost of the exact same thing without "wedding" in the name? Like, if you go to a grocery store and say "I need a birthday cake for fifty people" they will charge you $100 for it, but if you say "a wedding cake for fifty people" they will tell you it's $250? Ballet is the same way. If it has the word "ballet" in it or is sold at dancewear stores it is going to cost you SO MUCH more than the same thing at Hardware Hal's or Francine's Fabrics. To wit:
After a few short months of use my latest pointes died ingloriously. I suppose it shouldn't surprise me, but it does irk the crap out of me. So I decided to go the jet glue route in hopes of a few more weeks without major damage being done to my bank account.
So, did you know that pointe shoe glue is basically just jet glue? And that jet glue is basically just SUPER GLUE? Instead of paying $15 for shoe glue at the only dance store in town (which is still half an hour from my place and has the WORST parking "lot" I think I have ever seen) or ordering jet glue from Amazon and waiting a week for it to arrive I just raided my husband's glue-and-tape drawer (to be fair I am the one who organized it in to it's own drawer. Look, we have several dozen rolls of packing tape in this house but I can never find an open one when I need to ship something) and found the tubes of super glue we had purchased for attaching the cat's claw caps. TA-DA!
There is just something about disemboweling an $80 pair of shoes with a razor that makes the poor kid in me ("we're not poor, we have each other!") cringe a little bit. But I can highly recommend tearing in to a pair to see what is going on in there. For instance, I discovered that my right shoe is feeling noodly because it has developed a fault-line of near San Andrean proportions right across the arch. Which means that any day now the damn thing will snap right in half while I am trying to do something important. That sounds safe AND comfortable. YAY!
New shoes. New shoes need to happen. SOMEONE please build a new dancewear store in central CA. One that sells plastic shoes and has ten charming young fitters available at all times.

Pointy Business

We got word today that we finally found a new place to live. SO... we'll be farther away from the ballet studio, but at least we'll also be ten blissful miles and 15 beauteous minutes away from our current asshole neighbors (pro tip: spoiled college students who have rich daddies to pay their rent make terrible neighbors)
ANYWAY!

I have solved my worst issues with my new pointe shoes, just about in time for the shanks to get all flubbily. Woot. I think the problem was slightly different sized feet (solved with decapitated socks) and a heel that slipped off perpetually (solved with silicone seam sealant on the insides of the heels).
I went ahead last week and sewed the leather patches the shoes came with on to the platforms. They squeaked dreadfully for an hour or so, but it's worn off (thank god). Dancing with the patches is a very different experience, actually. It's noticeably more difficult to turn/etc with them, but also easier to stick piques instead of hitting the wrong angle once in a while and falling on your ass (I don't think I ever have, but I've been close and I've seen it happen).
I sewed on the patches. It impressed my teacher, but I can't seriously recommend it. Glue that shit on if you know you aren't going to want to take them off again. For one thing the stitches are going to break eventually and I'll be back to square one.
Sigh...

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...

Maybe She's Born With it... Maybe it's Photoshop

From this Huffington Post article: Anna Pavlova in a famous picture you've probably seen before. But now in high enough resolution to see the century-old "photoshop" job on her pointe shoes! She was famous for having her photos retouched to make her feet look extra pointy and small, because she got a certain amount of crap for wearing modern-style shoes. This same crap-flinging tendency still exists in ballet, of course, but now it's mostly aimed at inovations like plastics and anything that reduces your pain level. Because dancers are crazy mofos.
Anyway, I just thought this was great.

Stretch Ribbon

I like using stretch ribbon on my pointe shoes. Forget like, I was instructed to use it by the woman who fit me for the shoes. I have a terrible tendency toward tendonitis (thank you, rheumatism) and the stretchy ribbons take a lot of the pressure off your achilles. The kind I got at the time was great, but the kind you can buy from Discount Dance, frankly, sucks. It pulls and shreds and looks like an utter disaster after being tied once or twice. It's also too flimsy to offer even the slightest support. It's like wearing ribbons strictly for looks. Anyway. So I've been doing a few searches online to see what I can find.
You see this stuff?

This stuff that is sold as "stretch ribbon" basically everywhere right now? This stuff that you can buy little headbands and hair ties made out of for several bucks a pop*? This is not stretch ribbon. This is "fold-over" elastic. It's made for lingerie. You fold it over the edge of a piece of fabric to finish it. It can be found gracing bras, slips, and underpants, but you don't recognize it because it's folded over. Please, people. PLEASE stop calling this stretch ribbon. It's making the quest for the right pointe shoe accessory down right interminable. 

*also, it's super cheap. Like, really really cheap. Stop paying so much for it made in to hair ties! It's ridiculous!

Tap tap tappin' those toes

These both fascinate and horrify me. When I ran across them on Etsy today it took me a few seconds to realize that the terrifying industrial-zombie steel craziness going on here is for toe tap. Not too many people pull off that little party trick these days.
All for the best, really.

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...

On Your Bod, In Your Class

Spending a quiet evening (hubs is asleep because our neighbors were up past 3am playing UKELELE directly outside our bedroom window. Yes, words were exchanged.) turning second-hand salwar kameez in to approximations of sarafan for Firebird's dancing princesses (which will be portrayed in this year's recital by adorable four year olds) and wondering why on Earth you always see pictures of women en pointe with no tights on. Because these new shoes I am attempting to break in right now (and was too lazy to fetch socks for) feel like they are honest-to-god lined in sandpaper.
In other recital-I-am-not-in news: there are lot of really stupid silly strange unusual things that swans do. Like hopping backwards in arabesque. Hop hop hop. I do not want to hop after two hours of class. I want to take off my shoes and have a cocktail.

Moolah

I really try to keep expenses related to ballet (and other silly and/or stupid things like paper doll collecting) limited to what I can afford to spend out of my own private bank account, which is filled via Etsy and Ebay sales. It works out pretty well, at least for the majority of the year. And then all of a sudden I need another pair of pointe shoes and it all goes to hell. Thankfully my dear husband is the type that doesn't require asking permission to buy things. Not that I would hang out with that kind of guy, anyway. It always amazed me when I worked retail and would ring up a woman's purchases and she looked at me nervously and declared "my husband is going to kill me!" Really? Is your husband a jerk-face control freak or are you just really really bad at understanding budgets? Because for realios, guys. It's just weird.
Also: buying new pointe shoes all the bloody time? Pretty unappealing. Get with the program, ballet! Embrace plastics!

Four Classes!

I took four classes last week! It was... whew! It was intense. On the second consecutive day I was definitely feeling it. I'm starting to gain back some of the strength I lost over the past few months, though, and that is nice. Of course, now my stupid pointe shoes are getting squodgy. Wait, have I entered the unending cycle? You wear these things until they are finally comfortable and then POW! They die. Super awesome.
My mom once apologized for not putting me in ballet as a kid. But no, really, it's okay. For one thing I was shy and had body image issues and already ate myself up about my imperfections. And for another thing... we never really had money, you know? Like... ever. And a serious teenage student can blow through a pair of shoes in a week, easy. I am pretty sure we would have been selling plasma to keep shoes on my feet.
Anyway.
I haven't decided yet if I am going to try four classes this week or not. On the one hand I could use all the help I can get, and free classes are nothing to sneeze at. On the other hand... well. I am lazy. I mean, come on. I have important things to do at home. Like watch kitten cams and ignore the ever-expanding pile of dishes in the sink...
You know. Important stuff.

I begin to think the fates just don't want me to go to class

Okay, guys, so guess why I'm missing class tonight. Because the HVAC unit on my apartment has died so completely it can't be fixed and needs to be replaced, instead! Current indoor temperature: cold enough to wear a coat and fuzzy socks and still be cold. PLUS my sick rheumatic cat? She was doing swimmingly last week! But now? Not so much. So I am waiting for her vet to call. Soooooo....
No class this week, then.
Since I have missed so much class I've gained weight! I have no idea how much, but enough to make putting pants on an interesting struggle. Tomorrow I am cooking for Thanksgiving. The menu? Puff pastry/cheese hors d'œuvres, chocolate and cream cheese stuffed strawberries, truffles, and pumpkin angel food cake. Yes, sir, that right there is a great way to lose some pudge.
Aaaargh. 

check out these awesome thigh-high rainbow socks I have, though.

 (or you may have already, but that post got lost and I am out
of ideas so whatever) 

Papier Mâché and Related Nonsense

I splashed (a tiny amount of) water on my pointe shoes while lounging on the couch this evening (they were close at hand because I am supposed to be wearing them around the house to break them in. I made it for about three hours today and then my ankle went "BITCH, PLEASE" and I knocked that shit right off.) and I went "ARGH ARGH ARGH OH NOOOOO! MY PAPIER MÂCHÉ SHOES! THEY MUSN'T GET WET! HOLY CRAP! BRING ME SOME TISSUES AND A TOWEL AND PERHAPS ALSO SOME SMELLING SALTS BECAUSE I THINK I AM GOING TO PASS OUT OH MY GOD"
and my husband was like "What? I thought you were kidding about pointe shoes being made out of papier mâché."
And I was all "NO OH MY GOD WHY WOULD I EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT?"
Maybe next time I will get modern plastic shoes and save myself the horror. After all, I am pretty damn clumsy.

Also: sort of ballet-related only not really? I was watching the ancient 1955 TV version of the Scarlet Pimpernel at the time, which stars Marius Goring, AKA Julian, AKA the Love Interest That You Aren't Sure Whether You Like Or Not in The Red Shoes. See? Sort of ballet-related. 
But not much.

Second Balletversary (+ pointy business)

So. Today is my official two year balletversary. Two years! And I haven't given up, yet. That is pretty astounding. I get frustrated sometimes. Hell, even my teacher gets frustrated with me sometimes. My posture is horrifying, because I have scoliosis and arthritis and I-was-raised-after-parents-stopped-telling-you-to-stand-up-straight-itis. And for some reason I could pirouette four months ago, but now I cannot. It's like you hit a plateau... except sometimes you don't just hit a plateau. You hit a downhill slope. And suddenly you are over-thinking everything and things that used to work out okay are now a hot mess. Like chaînés turns. CURSES upon chaînés turns right now, guys. In fact turns in general can basically bite my shiny metal you-know-what right now.
Oh god, that was a Futurama reference. I apologize. I swear that I have never said that before in my life.

Anyway.

So, it's been two years. And there are things that I can do today that I could not do a year ago. There are sure as hell things I can do today that I couldn't do two years ago. I was in much worse shape, back then. While I often regret not getting around to it sooner, the fact is that I am just happy to have gotten around to it at all. With the body I have been given, and the questions that I have to live with every day (what's going to be the next part that catastrophically fails? When am I going to deteriorate to the point that I am confined to a wheelchair? This all sounds very fatalistic and silly and you have my permission to ignore it) I am just proud of myself for not folding up and calling it quits. I'm going to use this body, as awkward and clumsy and ill-suited to dance as it is, as much as I can while I've still got control over it.

To that end I took the pointe test on Thursday. My teacher had said "in a couple of weeks" but then a few days later she said "this week". Which was unexpected and alarming. I hadn't even had a chance to buckle down to the relevés and duck-walking I had intended to! But, once I knew it was coming I just wanted to get it over with because I HATE TESTS. So when she forgot about it I timidly said "hey, let's do this thing so I can get it over with and go spend the rest of the night sitting in a small dark corner of the room and shaking slightly." Well, okay. Maybe I didn't say exactly that.
Anyway.
And so then this happened:

You are asking yourself how comfortable they are. The answer is "not" as in "not even at all comfortable what the hell was I even thinking oh crap now I guess I am stuck with it"

But aren't they pretty?

How can they see with SEQUINS in their eyes?

For the past several weeks we've been doing this horrific dégagé combination at the barre. It involves counting and it's ridiculous and no one ever gets it right. Well, last night I freakin' NAILED that son of a bitch. That is right, STONE COLD NAILED IT. Well, on the first side, anyway. The left side will get there in it's own sweet time. Which isn't to say the rest of class went beautifully, but you have to seize your triumphs when they present themselves.

Last night I actually saw my teacher wearing pointe shoes! It was pretty astounding. Usually you won't catch ballet teachers within a mile of a pointe shoe, regardless of the class they are teaching. In fact, I could have sworn I once heard her say she wouldn't be caught dead in them (I believe the exact words were "wild horses could not drag me back in to pointe shoes") but there she was! Also: girlfriend straight up uses scotch tape on her toes. That ranks up there with folded up cheap paper towels, which I have also seen.
While she and the pointe students (I am the only person on flat in that class, now. Don't I just feel special) were all sitting on the lobby floor putting on their shoes I was standing alertly in the corner, absorbing their ribbon-tying instructions on the not-even-at-all sly. She looked at me and said "aw, RPrin. Do you feel left out?" and I was like "naw, naw. It's all good. I am learning from you guys" and she mentioned that she did not want to put me en pointe while I am still working at the theater (the season ends next month, and I go back to maybe-sorta earning a living from home for the next nine months) because it would be "a recipe for disaster". I wonder, do I really seem that harried and out of it right now? I mean, I AM harried and out of it, because I have to tube feed a cat at 6am and midnight every day. But STILL. I like to think I present an image of having my shit together.
It makes me think of one of my favorite songs (which, holy crap, we are staging at work this Summer. I am pretty excited.) I try to live the dream, man:

Obviously I am not doing such a great job of it.

The Science Guy Goes En Pointe

While toodling around on Google Patents a while back I ran across this weird thing:

which is supposed to be the internal support structure of some kind of bizarre pointe shoe. And all I could think was "good grief, how the heck is that supposed to work?"
I never looked at the inventor's name or gave it any thought, really.
This afternoon I was looking for an image online, of a ballerina "floating" while holding a balloon. And one search term led to another and I learned that this insane contraption (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) was invented by none other than famous edutainment personality Bill Nye.
Well. There you go. You learn something new every day.

And now I wish that someone actually produced this crazy thing. Because, as a ballet and science enthusiast, I would totally buy some crazy Bill Nye shoes.

Fashion and Ballet: Together As Always

Ballet-inspired fashion is nothing new, they've been doing it since fashion inspired ballet (which was always. Hello, turnout so you can see my expensive shoes!) but this one impressed me mostly because it appears to have actual dancers in it:

All I can say is "chaînés turns on carpet, man." That's hardcore. I assume that shiny satin shoes makes such a thing possible. If I tried that in canvas I'd probably break my foot.

Fashion Week or Whatever

As much as I love pretty clothes I have to admit that I don't give even the very smallest damn about anyone's fashion week. Judging from the buzz online, though (okay, on the Man Repeller's facebook page), I would say it's probably New York's turn right now. Or else it was, recently. Like I said, I don't really pay attention to that stuff.
Anyway. There is always at least one fashion week collection that is ballet inspired, or pseudo ballet inspired, at any rate. Here are Clover Canyon's rhinestone-encrusted pointe shoe-wearin' models du jour:

and models in pointe shoes always seem to look awkward as all heck, but this one is pulling it off okay (at least in this picture. In others? Mm, not so much):

I do quite like this company's big bold digital prints, though I do wish they didn't insist on making dresses out of icky materials like neoprene. Because: yuck.

Looking For Ballerinas in All The Wrong Places

Well, I've done it. I've finished off Nutcracker and Mouseking, the story that the Nutcracker was based on. It was interesting in a few ways. For one, the mouse king was this terrifying 7-headed rodent creature that was obviously inspired by the German folk legend of the rat king. If you've never heard of it before I am terribly sorry to introduce it to you, but it gives you a certain understanding of the story we are working with, here. The little girl (named Marie, not Clara) sort of vaguely helps the nutcracker (Drosselmeyer's bewitched nephew) defeat the mouse king (VERY vaguely) and then she marries him, despite the fact that she is 8 years old. There you go. There is a brief trip through the land of sweets, but they don't stop to talk to anyone on account of the residents all being terribly grumpy (because they all have sore teeth, naturally). Why did we make this story in to a beloved ballet classic, again?

Random write-up in mental_floss magazine this month:

not particularly informative or anything, it just caught my eye.

Never Was a Story of More Woe

Ballet! YAAAAY! Kermit flail!

For the past several years I have attempted to get my husband interested enough to go to a ballet performance with me. Our wedding anniversary and my birthday are right at the start of the ballet season, so there are always great shows going on that I would love to see (you know, for the occasion). But, my husband, bless his soul, while he's a wonderful man and happy to attend live musical performances and even some of the plays I work on, is not a dance man. He wasn't really raised with it and to a certain extent it's an acquired taste. So, while he is totally willing to attend the ballet with me he views it as taking one for the team, if you see what I mean. He imagines his boy parts will fall off as soon as the curtain goes up or something. I tell him (repeatedly!) that ballet dudes are super athletic stud-muffins who get to feel up the girl dancers like constantly, but OH NO it's still too girly for him (thank god he isn't a sports guy. I am willing to take almost anything in a man provided he doesn't watch sports).
But this year I decided TO HECK WITH IT and so I bought tickets for my mom and a girlfriend and we went to see Romeo and Juliet! YAAAAAY! Awesome!
I had a thoroughly enjoyable time. I probably haven't seen a live ballet for ten or eleven years, at least. Either they've put down some new and fascinating material on the stage or modern pointe shoes are SO much more quiet than they were 11 years ago. Squeaking and thumping was a constant component of the ballets I saw in my youth (eh, sonny!) and those gals in their pretty pale peachy Freeds were really super quiet. I know, because I got front row seats, yo. The better to appreciate the panting and sweating of the performers, right? Right.
Another cool thing: when I was ... maybe 11 or 12? One of the principal dancers with this company was a ballerina that I was SO in love with, named Nina Baratova. I got to see her dance the Sugar Plum Fairy, and it was totally the highlight of my year. She retired quite a while back but today we got to see her as a guest artist dancing Lady Capulet. I recognized her face on stage before I read the program, and that kind of amazes me. I have a miserable memory for names and faces.
Anyway, a lovely time was had by all, I tried not to fixate on the underarms of that purple dress that was obviously made with a dye that was no match for ballerina sweat, and I've had Pretty Piece of Flesh stuck in my head all evening. It's from the Romeo + Juliet soundtrack, almost the entirety of which (in fact, I hardly ever played this song, I didn't care for it) I used to listen to on infinite loop when I was in highschool, and that probably tells you exactly how old I am. Oddly enough, I didn't watch the movie all that much. But I still have that album on my iPod.

PS: It must be hard to die with your feet pointed so prettily. Twice.

PPS: Forget boys, I am going to the ballet with my girlfriends from now on.

Reconstructed Ballerina Shirt

This is only sorta ballet related, but here is what I made when I couldn't sleep Wednesday night (I had just worked an 11 hour day, so there is absolutely no excuse at all for insomnia):

It used to be one of those great big oversized sleep shirt things. It was a gift from one of my dad-types about eleven years ago. I realized eventually that I just don't like sleeping in nighties or sleep shirts, because I can't stand how they get all bunched up around your waist at night. But I loved it and couldn't get rid of it, anyway. I have been meaning to do something interesting with it for ages now and just never got around to it.
Now I can wear it to work and everyone can experience what a big nerd I am.