musings from the pink chair

my jazz dance teacher talks exactly like li’l c. now, for those of you who don’t know who li’l c is, he’s a hiphop choreographer and judge on so you think you can dance. and the way he talks…is incomprehensible and filled with long, misused words and phrases, but yet somehow still manages to be insightful. basically, just watch this video.

so. my jazz teacher talks in those same weirdly specific and nonsensical phrases, and it cracks. me. up. i need to somehow share the hilarity/awesomeness, so here is a small archive of delightful comments from him:

“be a school of fish! i want you all to get caught up in the gulf stream of excellence.”

“come here, my baby giraffe, my little antelope. you have those long raptor legs and arms, a little head, and lips like a russian singer. use it.” (a russian singer? what does that even mean?!)

“you have a nine hundred pound black man inside of that tiny little ten pound body. and his name is…big daddy…something.”

“you don’t have any brothers, do you? you dance like you don’t have any brothers.”

“ballet is dead. jazz is dead. tap is dead. there is just this.”

“if you keep dancing it like a ballerina, i’m going to sew your pointe shoes to your feet and make you dance swan lake every day for the rest of your life.”

“épaulement was invented for ugly dancers. you are not ugly. you’re pretty. i know because i’m pretty and i’ve seen you at the meetings.”

yeah, so if you’re in atlanta and you dance, you should pretty much come to this class.

my mom says there are no fat people at duke.

and, when i think about it, she’s kind of right. i mean, there are, obviously. but the percentage of overweight people at duke compared to the percentage of overweight people in the general population…there’s NO comparison. relatively speaking, there ARE no fat people at duke.

interesting socioeconomic observation, that.

my family stayed with me in atlanta this weekend, and my dad made shrimp. i love shrimp.

except when i pulled out the leftovers for dinner the other night, i picked one up in my hand and felt like throwing up. i had a sudden, horrible realization: i had to rip off its poor little legs and tail and peel off its skin before i could munch on its tiny, lifeless body. i told myself i was being ridiculous and ate one. but i felt even worse and couldn’t have any more. i was completely disgusted and upset.

i’ve eaten fish and meat my whole life. and while i try to buy free-range, humane, environmentally-friendly meats, i never felt the need to become a vegetarian until that moment. why did i have such a strong, visceral reaction all of a sudden? i haven’t been reading any literature, watching any documentaries, listening to any vegetarian friends. it’s like a switch flipped in my brain.

i have no idea what’s going on, psychologically. but i do know that at the moment, the very idea of eating meat, poultry, or fish makes my skin crawl and my stomach turn. so i’m not doing it anymore.

i’m dancing in a a show this weekend. this means lots of things: ridiculous dressing room photos, eating in costume (for SHAME!), warming up in the theater, lamenting the stage floor/lack of a spotting light/awful sight lines, suddenly being able to bust out perfect triple pirouettes, feeling the energy of the audience, and, of course, STAGE MAKEUP.

i am terrible at applying makeup. probably because my mom never wears any (she’s so pretty), so i didn’t have anyone to watch growing up. but yeah. the only thing that takes me longer than applying eyeliner (very imperfectly, i might add) is getting it off. and it never, EVER comes completely off. so even after i rub my eyes raw and burn them with soap and water trying to make it all go away, you can still discern it the next day. probably because i don’t ever wear eyeliner, so even the tiniest smudge of black is really obvious. (and smudged it always is.)

all this is to say that we just had a dress rehearsal, so if at work tomorrow you can’t tell if it’s me or a raccoon at my desk, i’d just like you to know that, sadly, it’s me. (i mean, probably. no guarantees. there were zebras and elephants in the parking deck that one time, so i won’t rule out a raccoon in the newsroom). but yes. me. wearing smudged eyeliner that just. won’t. come. off.

so at work, we have a parking deck adjacent to the building. those of you who live in normal, regular-sized towns are thinking, “so what?” but those who live in big cities get that this isn’t always the case and that it’s very nice. anyway, so we have this parking deck, only there’s not enough space for everyone who works there to park in it. so if you’ve been with the company for fewer than about three years, like me, you have to park in the dungeon BELOW the parking deck, which we oh-so-lovingly call the pigeon pit.

to get to the pigeon pit, you have to go through a confusing network of underground service roads and cross two sets of railroad tracks. sometimes there are trains on these railroad tracks — usually when you’re running just a bit late, and you’re about to screech into the parking deck at 7:59 am and might actually make it to your desk on time, but then there’s a train and so you’re 20 minutes late. oh yes. these trains are LONG, and they move very slowly, and they frequently get stuck on the tracks. i don’t know how, but sometimes you’re just sitting there waiting for them to pass, and they grind to a halt for no apparent reason, and you hear the parking attendants saying the train got stuck again into their walkie-talkies.

then, once you actually make it to the pit, your car is subjected to a series of violent and unavoidable potholes. you must dodge these, along with an ever-changing array of dumpsters and heavy machinery, to find yourself a parking space. and when you find a space and begin walking up to the building, that’s when the real fun begins. on the walk from my car to the stairs, i have nearly stepped on the following things: a toothbrush, a q-tip, the remnants of several fast-food dinners, lots of beer bottles, an apparently used condom, some rusty nails, a couple of paperclips, and a filthy rag. oh, and god help you if it’s raining (or has rained within the past five days), because then the entire place turns into a puddle at least six inches deep.

if you make it past all this, you’re rewarded with a nice long three-story walk up to the street, which you must bravely cross before finally making it into the building. seriously, sometimes by the time i get there, i feel like i’ve already done half my work for the day.

there are two kinds of people in america: those who consider t.g.i. friday’s a legitimate dining option, and those who don’t.

okay, i have to say this:

I HATE BACON.

it’s disgusting. it tastes like sizzled lard. the texture varies between really hard and really squishy. it makes me want to vomit.

i feel the need to put that out there because BACON IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD. it’s showing up in EVERYTHING. pasta sauce. seafood. BROWNIES AND DOUGHNUTS. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.

next time i try to order scallops, i don’t want to have to settle for something else because they can’t make the sauce without the freaking bacon. and bacon in DOUGHNUTS? anyone who thinks it’s possible to improve on a hot krispy kreme original glazed, especially by contaminating it with bacon, is clearly certifiable.

to all the new yorkers with cablevision who are so upset about potentially missing the oscars:

ABC is a NETWORK CHANNEL.  that means ANYONE CAN GET IT FOR FREE.  PLUG IN AN ANTENNA and you can watch the oscars. DID I JUST CHANGE YOUR LIFE?

[yes, antennas may be what your parents used in the '60s, but they still work. for free. and you get free HD, too. IT'S LIKE MAGIC! slash common sense.]

hey, look at that:

small talk blows. it’s medically proven.

i was right all along. ugh, people suck sometimes.

i went to bed early last night with a migraine. this morning i woke up, and within 10 seconds, realized my worst fear: the pain was still there.

i’m a migraineur, and it sucks. a lot of people think migraines are just bad headaches. no, no, no. they are incapacitating. they are bad headaches plus nausea, eye strain, sensitivity to light, sound, and smell, and sometimes blurred vision and dizziness (aura). they can last for several days. they’re also genetic (my mom gets them), and are way more likely to affect women than men (UNFAIR!).

on new year’s eve in 2003, i had a migraine so bad that it made me cry. if i had known then what i know now about the signs of a brain aneurysm (namely: the worst headache you’ve ever had in your life), i would have gone to the emergency room. in 2004, i had migraines so frequently that i took enough aspirin and ibuprofen to inflame my stomach lining. it felt like someone was yanking out parts of my stomach with a string. i had to have an endoscopy, take medication for almost six months, and follow a diet (no caffeine, no acidic foods like tomatoes or citrus, and definitely no NSAIDs). i finally got on prescription migraine medication, which comes with its own risks (serotonin syndrome, anyone?) and is CRAZY expensive ($10 per pill, and that’s with insurance), but is better than almost certainly developing a bleeding ulcer.

most migraineurs have “triggers” that they can avoid if possible. mine include sleeping too little and sleeping too much. but a big one for me is changes in the weather (usually when it’s about to rain), so that can’t really be avoided. which blows.

anyway, since i had to work today and since i try to avoid taking my prescription migraine meds (see: $10 a pill), i downed my tylenol-plus-a-can-of-coke-over-ice cocktail, put on my sunglasses (see: extreme light sensitivity) and hoped for the best. it did as well as could be hoped — kept the pain at bay enough so that i could function. it never really makes it go away. and now we’re nearing the end of day two of migraine pain. it’s fading. it will probably be gone by tomorrow. but in 2-4 weeks, i guarantee it will be back.

when i was like five or six years old, my mom said she had to lie down because she had a headache. i said, “what’s a headache?” because i couldn’t conceive of the inside of my head hurting. i miss that.