The international adventures of a singing, dancing zombie queen.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

I am going to Chicago at the end of this week with the Living Dead Girlz. I am excited about it. I'm also looking forward to a break in activity, really; two extra nights of not rehearsing will make me feel a lot less stressed, what with grad school breaking my brain and all. I hate hate hate being in a situation where I cannot finish everything assigned to me, and that will be true no matter what.


My ballet teacher asked me to switch out of the intermediate ballet class into the elementary class, which I think is a good thing, even though it hurt my ego at first. I'm really not good at ballet; I've really only taken a semester with a good teacher. At first, I was thinking that I would just do both; I can reasonably keep up with the intermediate class (after all, the teacher told me to come to it in the first place), but then someone asked me to listen to my body. My muscles all feel fine; I could easily take on about 5-10 more hours a week of dancing. But my knees have been feeling a bit... "funny". And that pretty much set the law down. I think that the chances are pretty high that my bad technique due to the speed of teaching in ballet class is causing me to not protect my knees.

Today I get to go work on a project for my choreography class with the theme "Surrealism." I brought a bunch of stuffed animals, (including Eric Kafka, the bear), a number of the pads I've pulled out of my bras (maybe to shove into my bra, crotch or just randomly into my leotard? Maybe onto my head somehow?

I went back to my old apartment again last night and watched some robot chicken with my housemate. It's a bit rough moving out, and also being in the city (and goddamnit, I totally feel myself having city-disease already... it's like some part of me is screaming that I've paid my commuting dues and i loathe the idea of trekking onto the BART, even though I know it's so easy). There are a couple of things that I noticed about being home.
1) my room is getting dusty from disuse
2) even though I moved there after the big upset of the breakup last year, it's smothered into that room; so much processing I did there... of course, it's also likely to come up because I sleep alone there.
3) dad processing.

I wake up alone in bed and realize that I've been having dreams/thoughts that switch back and forth between me telling either my father or John how horribly disappointing and hurtful their abandonnment of me feels/felt.
And it's weird, because I haven't wanted to bring it up with either of them; just wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, but they're both still around, and every once in a while they try to be involved with me; Dad sending me a friendly email but not making time to see me in 5 years; ex trying at the beginning and ending of the LDG show to get my attention and talk to me, even touching me. I'm just trying to avoid any involvement. I don't want to open the door to that cycle of opportunity for letdown.

I think maybe it's okay for me to go there and think about it. It feels like good processing. But it feels so much better to be in Steev's arms, held, protected, loved, needed, and that I can hold, love, protect and need him. That I can rely on him. It's so comforting that it just makes me want to curl up in his arms and my new apartment and cry for all that loss. But hasn't it been enough time? Christ. Anytime now, being done with mourning. It is not the same as it was, don't get me wrong. I'm not crying or freaking out. But that wound does still itch like a motherfucker under that scar tissue.

Leaving things behind. Blech.

And the thing that relates those moments of processing, I suppose, to the moving out from that apartment is that I really don't want to abandon Jesse. Maybe that's the connection.

This weekend, sick again by Sunday, Steev and I went to Jess' birthday party in the park, which was lovely, and had a weekend of Valentines. I wore a pretty dress, made scones on Saturday morning, brought him coffee from the shop downstairs, and hid valentines with connecting treasure-hunt hints all over the house. On Sunday we watched some Twin Peaks, and also we went to el Targay and generally took it easy. I figured out that the hour I wake up before him on the weekends is the perfect time for me to get some homework done, rather than extra snuggletime, to keep my head in check. It's nice, really; I go down to Starbuuuuckso and get coffee and come back upstairs and read/write papers. This weekend I accidentally spent 4 hours making LDG merchandising documents (I have to laugh at myself for that).
Monday we were both sick, so we marathon-watched Twin Peaks over a box of doughnuts. We even had to stop in the middle and go pick up the boxed set from Basil, since we finished season 1. It was lovely.

Saturday night, before we went to fancy late dinner at Absinthe (OMG, Samar... you have filled me with the Fanny Bay oysters, and now I can never go back!!) we went to go see smith/wymore's show, Disappearing Acts. I love love love going to shows with Steev; he totally thinks like I do; he watched the multimedia dance pieces and talked about the emotional messages and metaphors of the movement, tried to suss out what the contrast/connection between the duets was (were they the same couple at different times? different couples?)... my god. I love him. I am so appreciative that I am with someone who wants to discuss the art and film that we watch together; I love that he's passionate about it, that it invigorates him...

YAY.

So, that was my weekend. It was lovely, even with a sore throat.
I suppose I better go choreograph that surreal piece now....

Sunday, February 11, 2007

Christmas Photos!! Kansas Pics!

At long last, some pictures for me to show you!
This gallery starts with Kansas; Vegas pictures start on page 6!

Steev & Amber's Kansas Christmas

Christmas, Rory is Steev's adorable niece who became our siamese twin while we were there.

Vegas, beginning with our ginormous bathroom!
"Unicorns in space!"

"Q-BERT!"

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Kidneys, Friends & Home

I've been really sick for the past week; I still am sick, but the big bad is over, thank god.
Only five more days of antibiotics... *eyeroll*
But I finally got to dance again today, which felt so wonderful; YAY!!
It's amazing how greatful you are for your health after these serious bouts of illness. Many thanks to all of you wonderous folks who gave me snuggles and made me not "jostle my organs" before I was ready. Your care I'm sure has saved me from many many extra days if not weeks of pain and ick.

On more fun notes, I've been at Steev's a bunch, and I just discovered this week that the
Starbucks downstairs in the building is managed by my friend, Teala.
I've been asking her for years, "Where is this Starbucks that you
manage, Teala
?" and never knew where she was talking about. Now I'm practically living upstairs, since Steev moved into the building above it, by sheer chance. I discovered that she worked there because on my first visit, I saw the employee Halloween costume collage, and there she was dressed as Cruella DeVille. It filled my heart with glee. I'm that sorta girl.

Today I actually got to see her in the morning, and then this evening I came down for chitty chat, a few ultra-discounted Xmas mugs that I wanted, and the requisite calling of one another "betch" and talking about love and birthing styles.
(Did I mention that last night I discovered that I'm in posession of a picture of myself before my umbilicus was cut? I wanna make a shirt. It will be pink with gold writing and say, "My First Picture.")
Her store is very comfy and couchy and people come in and read and study and visit her, including folks that I know. I feel so excited to have a local coffeshop in my life again; and it's right downstairs!!
Not to mention that it's one of the fastest Starbuck's I've ever been to, which is really important to me (especially since I'm usually cutting it close in the mornings). I want to gouge my skin off when I am left in line at a coffeeshop with slow service. I have to restrain myself from screaming, "Look here, mister morphinated coffeeshop employee! Every customer here is addicted to caffeine. You cannot serve us if you cannot step up to the challenge. ADDICTS. You must be on pointe! How can you drag yourself around back there with unlimited caffeine at your fingertips when there are people in NEED here??!!!"
Having been a barista, I can tell you that there is no reason for people to make one drink at a time except for bad training. And I can go in to Teala's store, wait for two folks to get rung up before me and leave with my Venti Lowfat Cinnamon Dolce Latte in like... 6 minutes. It is HOT. Dead Fucking Sexy.
YaY TEALA!!!
Your store is the bestest EVER.

And on top of that, I get to wake up with a man who opens his eyes in the morning and tells me I'm beautiful, snuggles me, gets up and ready for work and comes in to kiss me goodbye and says, "you are my dream woman."
Goddamn, he is amazing.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

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Dance & Fitness Faculty member at San Francisco Peninsula Community Colleges, Director, Choreographer & Featured Dancer, Founder of the Living Dead Girlz, and Owner of the Steele Dance Company, which provides entertainment for festivals, corporate events, conventions and private events. Teaching private dance lessons and creating choreography since 1997, Steele graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Double Major in Dance and Comparative Literature and completed her Master of Fine Arts in Dance and Choreography at Mills College. She has toured all the major cities in Germany and performed at the Cannes Film Festival as the featured dancer in TRIP -- Remix Your Experience, a multimedia exhibition of film, live music and art. Steele has also performed as a featured dancer for RJ Reynolds (CAMEL) promotional events. Steele currently manages the go-go dancers of "Poor Impulse Control," who perform frequently in San Francisco's industrial, alternative, and rock venues.

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