Reading The Tea

Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, Matees. While ye be gettin’ yer yarr on, ye should also be imbibin’ a keg to celebrate the creation of yon emoticons. It do be 26 years of grinny faces. Yarrr!  P-)

Despite my crankiness about them getting in my way, seeing all of the students on campus makes September seem more real. Even with all the Palo Alto sun, the air is starting to have a crisp edge. Here’s my “back to school” outfit:

I’m wearing a simple black sundress (H&M) with an oversized Anthropology sweater, black sparkly flats (Converse for Target kids) and vintage faux-pearls.

I fell for the sweater a year or so ago at Anthropology — it’s a very Frankensweater type, and great inspiration for transforming old sweaters myself. It’s really big, so I pulled it in a bit with gold anchor stud earings.

Besides adding demure sophistication, pearls are an important source of nutrition. (Who else misses candy necklaces?)

Just… watch.

This is mostly a post to see how well the wordpress iPhone application works. If it works well, my blogging frequency may go way up (uh oh…).
I’m also posting a photo from yesterday at Stanford. Today I don’t think that kind of photo would be possible - people are arriving on campus in droves. Biking to work this morning I saw people holding signs on Palm Drive. “What are they protesting already?” I wondered. It turns out they were welcome signs. There were tubas in the quad serenading me all day. I’m looking forward to when they have homework.

I’ve been on a hiatus from dancing. It’s been just over a week now. I’ll start dancing again tomorrow. I realize that in the normal world, a week and a half might not constitute a “break,” but in most of the dance worlds I’m involved in, three days has people gasping for air. So why? Am I burnt out? Actually, no. Even as I write this, I’m longing to go dance. I think that’s part of it — every once in a while I need to make myself stop, take a break, go through withdrawal so I can start again. I also needed a bit more time to think than “normal” life allows. Do you ever wish for a reset button? In college there was one built in — make it to the end of the term, through finals, and poof! you start over. It’s really hard to figure out balance in life — how much time do I spend with each dance (tango, blues, lindy, contact improv, modern dance, middle eastern dance…), on artistic projects, reading, with friends, not to mention pesky things like sleeping, working, exercise. How do you find balance?

Yesterday was a good day for tango. In the morning (briiiiight and early) I did a tango photoshoot with Max Johnson (a great photographer). We ended up mostly on the Stanford campus. There were tons of good shots, so it was hard to choose, but here are two:

Heather and I’s feet. (Do you like my lovely new burgundy shoes?)

Tolga and I, posing.

I’ll probably post more later.

Sunday evening we went to Brad’s tango house party. It was the most fun dancing environment I’ve been in for a while. I am trying to figure out precisely what made it so great — perhaps it was that everyone really wanted to be there, and seemed relaxed and agenda-less? Maybe it was just Brad’s enthusiasm caught by everyone else? Whatever caused the mood, it was great. In Project Learn to Lead (PLtL) news, I lead a tanda with a follow who I’ve never danced with before, and it felt like it was actually dance! I need to practice my lead more… trying to decide the best classes to take for that.

While wandering around the Mission with Heather and Melissa, we stumbled across a marvelous discount fabric store. Fabric Outlet is downstairs at 2109 Mission St., in SF. They had a wide assortment of fabrics, including some delicious velvets and satins. I restrained myself from purchasing anything but a couple mixed bags of buttons ($2.99 each), since any fabric buying would’ve been without a plan. I shall go back, though, and fabric will be mine…

During our recent visit to NY, Dustin, Amanda, my aunt and I took advantage of Morimoto’s extended Restaurant Week menu.

We started with mozzarella and heirloom tomato, which doesn’t sound very Japanese until you see how it was presented.

I had amazing sushi (Missing a piece below, ’cause I forgot to photograph it before I tried one.).

Dustin was thrilled by the Bento Box, with Kobe beef.

And, of course, the wasabi-infused vodka martini.

We were all intrigued by the popcorn ice-cream (milk infused with popcorn overnight), so we shared dessert.

After going on a DNC and Daily Show/Colbert Report debrief kick, I felt dangerously close to loosing my tenderly held cynicysm in favor of flickerings of pride. Talking to my friends and reading some decidedly non-political blogs, I realize that I’m not alone in these sentiments. I think this mural I photographed in Brooklyn (Williamsburg) sums it up:

In other political thoughts: Sarah Palin, what the hell? The idea that she would be an appealing candidate for for the female vote, in particular disgruntled Clinton supporters, is appalling, not to mention insulting. “Oooh, I have an idea! She has a vagina and female voters have vaginas… This is the way to get their votes! We all know they’re too dumb to care about actual issues or qualifications…” Looking forward to the campaign debates.

I usually get impatient with negative political advertising, but if you don’t know how many houses you own… yeah, you’re asking for it. (Yes, I’m voting for Obama!)