Estoy Nueces

I bought a new diary this week to write in by hand on a daily basis. What a novel idea! I've kept a daily diary for years. I haven't done one for the first seven months of this year because I've had this online diary but I think I need both. The online doesn't have some of the mundane stuff that I like to keep track of (i.e. took my vitamins today!) and I don't forget the handwritten diary as easily as I forget the online diary. A habit that I've had for fifteen years or so comes easier than this new fangled technology.

Life has been very busy and good and fulfilling lately. I'm going to start taking Lindy Hop lessons next week. That will be cool. The dancers at my husband's gigs are always such a kick to watch and if I could do a little of it like they do I know I'd have more fun than I do now. Can't beat it for exercise either.

I've been getting my work done amazingly quick this week. I've fit in all sorts of other things amongst my work day too. In fact, I mentioned to Mark that I would be leaving to go to this recital during the evening and he looked exasperated and said, "Do you ever work?" I think having something that I need to go to energizes me and makes me get through the work more quickly than I do when the night has no end and there is no reason to rush.

I had a truly Austin experience this week that I will not soon repeat. I felt like I was in a sitcom or a candid camera episode. A woman I know is in an Improvisational Dance class at Austin Community College and invited me to her performance this week. I went to be polite and went to see where the campus was. It is a really cool campus where Austin High School used to be. Great neighborhood at 12th and Rio Grande. So I go to the school and find the auditorium. The auditorium would probably take you right back to high school days. At least it did for me. Same vintage as my old Canyon High School auditorium except this one was pretty small and only had about 300 seats. I get there late and four girls are on stage doing a very ethereal and spooky kind of dance to some very rhythmic and strange music. It ends before I see much and their instructor gets up and talks about the "piece" and takes questions. I couldn't make heads or tails about the questions or answers. "It seemed like this was an organic piece, did you have an organic intention?" "Oh, yes, I had the robotic structure in mind but the plantlike movement as the complement to the blah blah snnnnnooorrre....." Sorry, I nodded off through this point and was itching to leave already. I wanted to see enough of my friend's part so I could say I was there. Finally these people cleared the stage and a different teacher took over. Now, believe it or not, this is where it got weird! She asks us all to come and SIT on the stage for this performance. Slowly, like cattle to slaughter, we shuffled to the stage and sat with grunts around the periphery. I am an ample woman and my legs were asleep under me before the first "dance" begin. I put dance in parentheses because it was unlike any dance I've ever seen except maybe in those old films of kids on drugs at Woodstock or in San Francisco. Each "dancer" (hippie would probably be a better word) took to the stage while a boy played the drum and another performer read words. The words were sort of like a poem but not. The dance was sort of like a witch doctor's dance but again not. Imagine a full grown person throwing a tantrum like a two-year-old and slinging their toys around the room and running around like they'd had two Mountain Dews for lunch while a friend shouts "Redemption, peace, motor oil" and you're too busy looking at their hairy armpits to really get much out of it at all. That was my evening. Cindy was performer number five and, thank God, my requirement was over. If only my legs would wake up and let me crawl off the stage unnoticed. The gods smiled on me and I was able to make it and slowly creep out of the auditorium without having to witness more. Miraculously, cutting funding to the NEA seemed to make much more sense.