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...

State of the RPrin

My folks gave me a nice big gift certificate for my birthday (thanks, guys!), so I now have new tights, technique shoes, and even a fancy leotard that I have been eyeballing for three straight years (for the record it makes me feel a bit naked, but oh well.) Mmm... new dance clothes. So good.
I had to order stuff using my husband's Amazon Prime account (I am not going to pay for shipping, guys) and just told him not to look at the invoice because he would be horrified to see what ballet clothes and women's underwear (which I also bought) actually cost. I swear. He can go down to Target and buy a pack of boxers for $5, but I buy one bra and it's practically the event of the season. Sheesh.
I am out of class today because my something-or-other has folded in on itself (I have no idea. It was badly diagnosed as a kidney stone 9 years ago, but it sure as heck ain't) so I am in just enough pain to be slightly delusional. Shoot. I'd much rather be dancing.

I'm looking for a new job. A big-girl job doing boring office work. I have precisely zero experience and I won't give up dancing in the evenings unless you physically threaten my family, so I am running up against a few obstacles. Something will work out. It has to. Because if not, and I am stuck living in this apartment with these asshole neighbors? I will probably snap and kill someone. You will see me on the news. It won't be pretty. I'm fairly certain pointe shoes with rice bags in the toes count as deadly weapons.

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.

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.

Out With the Old, In With the New

Goodbye, old slippers. You were trusty and strong but your time has come. I won't throw you away because I have something of a weird sentimental attachment to you (at least not until the next time I am moving and going through my possessions with ruthless determination.)
And let this be a lesson to all of you out there: my old slippers were tight to the point of being painful two years ago, but the exact same brand, model, and size is now slightly larger than I would like. Either Grishko has changed it's sizing or my feet really have shrunk by about half a size+ since I started dancing. Either way: caveat emptor.  

Also: I would say that "that is just what my feet look like in the winter" but come on, let's be honest. I don't tan, my skin goes from translucent to lobster-red in ten seconds flat so I just don't tend to flaunt my lizard-belly whiteness in public. Tights are awesome. Tights are my best friends.

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.

The Shoes Heard Round The World. Or Something.

Many years ago...
I took a belly dancing class once a week, along with my mom and sister and a family friend. It was probably terribly good for us. Anyway...
As I was practicing turns in the living room one day I caught my toe on the carpet, thereby folding it under my foot. And quicker than you could blink I stepped on it, breaking my toe. It was pretty dreadful. This risky barefoot tradition (with the attendant way your feet get all grubby on the floor during class) remained in my mind as the peril of belly dancing.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago. I had recently quit my retail job and I was stoked to start expanding my online store. I had been tossing around the idea of dying shoes for a while so I was on the prowl for cotton canvas shoe blanks that could be experimented with. I remembered my previous experiences with belly dancing class and decided that some canvas ballet slippers would probably be the perfect medium, with the added bonus of having an obvious market. Breaking toes is just so outré.
So I went online and bought some canvas slippers from Discount Dance Supply...
Which reminded me of all the pretty ballet shoes there are in the world...
Which reminded me of how much I wanted to dance again...
And the rest is history.

PS: I did dye those slippers! But then I discovered that the dye makes the leather soles go all crunchy and cardboardy... and I really hate lumpy soles anyway, so...
Yeah, I never actually put any of them in my shop.
But here they are, anyway, the shoes that started this whole crazy thing:

FLASHY.

I Obviously Have An Opinion About Running

I bought running shoes. RUNNING shoes. UGH. No, no, before you ask I will not be running in them. Ever. Under any circumstances that don't involve being chased by a zombie.
Uck.
But, I keep reading about how you need really supportive shoes to correct for shin splints. And at this point, after the completely wretched week I have had, I will try anything.
But I hate them. There is no such thing as an attractive running shoe. Or a quick-to-put-on running shoe. Or a running shoe that doesn't make your feet look like they're the size of a tractor.
Sigh...

All of the shin splint information out there seems to assume that you have acquired them through running and attendant sports. Marathon... stuff. Whatever. Bleh. So, I have been reading a whole lot more about running than I ever wanted to. All the things I have learned! For instance: apparently people are in to running now. As a ... sport? Kind of thing? Not just jogging around the block in the morning for your cardio workout, but... actually running. For "fun".
Also, did you know that running skirts are a thing? An actual thing that actually exists? You can buy them at Target, even. Why, there are even people who run in tutus. For reals, guys. I just don't even know.