Reclamation

Over the weekend I had thought about writing a whole post about the events of Saturday. They can be summed up in a paragraph though. I went to the library and put my car in the shop. The car needs to go back this Saturday so that they can finish the work since they had to order a part. Grrrr. Then I will be already to start taking road trips. Saturday was also my aunt's birthday. After the errands, I went to a brunch that one of her friends was having to celebrate her life. Then I went out to dinner with family to do the same. My stepmother is still the same. Her birthday is later this week.

Now onto the real subject here. A few weeks ago I was talking about reclaiming my life -- and my sanity along the way. Tonight I took yet another step in that direction. I am once more enrolled in a Portuguese class. The surprising thing is that the instructor remembered me from before. It's been three years since I've taken a Portuguese class. It's slowly starting to come back.

Of course, I still could not escape death. We had to pair up with a classmate to do introductions. The woman with whom I was paired said that she was taking the class because her sister-in-law who passed away in June was Brazilian. And now this woman is raising her twin three-year-old nieces. She is taking Portuguese because she doesn't want them to lose their mother's language. I don't know about you but I wanted to cry. But then we got to hear from the one guy in the class who said that he wanted to learn Portuguese so that he could meet more women the next time he goes to Brazil. And so we got to laugh. All in all, it seems like a fun group of folks. When I had to describe myself later in the class, I said that I was faladora. That would be talkative. Because I figured that I should be honest.

Tomorrow night and Thursday night I am going to try to enroll in a couple of dance classes. I would have tried for one on Wednesday as well but I tutor on Wednesday nights.

I'm nowhere near done in reclaiming my life though. There is still at least a couple more pieces to the puzzle.

Tim and Veronica are not allowed into my closet

You have to watch the video until the end so you can see the metallic dress. That dress? There are still dresses hanging in my closet that are that length. And I am now in my 40s. I haven't worn them for years. They really should be purged. That's what I discovered in the closet portion of the Great Organization Project of '07. That I haven't done a closet purge in over a year.

I used to purge annually. The exceptions were party wear that still fit and that I felt good about. And suits. I haven't had to wear a suit in years but I have some nice ones. So I am keeping them just in case I should ever need them again. Same goes with formal wear. Everything else? If I haven't worn it in two years, then it goes. That way I have room to start shopping again. Or maybe sewing up the endless amount of fabric that I have collected over the years.

A lot of those short dresses and skirts? Never going to wear them again. Time for them to go. Because I checked the BMI recently and I am in that borderline land of still being underweight so I'm not in a rush to drop the pounds that I have gained over the last five years. Especially since folks have been telling me that the extra pounds look good on me. (Depending on the scale and what I have on, I have gained five to ten pounds in the last five years or so. And if you've met me recently, try to picture that. And know that when I was 10 to 15 pounds lighter than I am now, I was told by an agent that I could stand to lose five pounds or so. I didn't listen to him because I like food too much.) Bottom line, why force myself into something like a sausage or that I would need to pick up Spanx to wear? That's just sick in my mind. Those clothes are taking up valuable closet space. So this weekend I'll be bagging up the trash and donations.

Oh, and I like just about any song that has an Eastern rhythm. It's an addiction.



This, along with Shakira, started the addiction. Probably why I can merengue so well. My mother is jealous about how I can isolate my hips and shoulders. Thank you, jazz dance and belly dancing lessons. Of course, if I was still taking dance classes and going out dancing 2 to 3 nights a week, then maybe I'd keep those dresses and skirts. Because then maybe my butt and waist would be two inches smaller.

Shall we play a game?

No, not that one. This one you could say was in some part inspired by my BFF, Jade. Back when we were in college, Jade would call our group of friends "The Ho Patrol" whenever we were heading out. Her motto was, "It's OK to look like a ho. Just don't look like a tacky ho." Thus there was a great deal of lycra in my wardrobe back then. And really short stuff.

Then I started working at my first real job in the 90s. Not as much lycra in the wardrobe but still plenty of really short stuff. I used to party with the receptionist. I partied at least four nights a week back then. One of her favorite songs was "Connected." She swore that if she was a stripper, that would so be her song.

As a result of her comment, I now often find myself thinking, "Is that a stripper song or not?" I think that my song would be "Fly on the Windscreen." (Yes, I know it's kind of morbid but it has a hip shaking kind of beat.) Or perhaps "Wherever I May Roam." Or if you're in the crawling across the floor mood, there's "No. 1 Crush." There are other songs as well but they often seem like such the obvious choice.

So now we have the game. What would be your stripper song?

And yeah, this is what happens when you awake at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning and are procrastinating about all the chores and errands you could be doing? There was no vicodin involved. Just lots of caffeine. And there was also the fact that I was subjected to that video twice in a three hour span.

I'm just impressed that I was able to type this all with a cat sitting on lap between me and the keyboard. Thank you, Boris.

Bad girl

Over the last few weeks, this song has haunted me. I have danced to to it way too many times to count.

Toxin free

.. and too tired to be bitchy. (This was originally titled "They shoot horses, don't they?")

Yesterday I finally made it to the samba class. It seems I have made a commitment along the way. Yesterday's rehearsal was the second rehearsal to get ready for Carnival. Yep. That's right. I will be dancing in this year's Carnival parade.

I went to class sporting a tank top, a hoodie, and jeans. (There were also some shoes involved in the whole thing but they were not conducive to dancing on the gym floor and were quickly discarded.) The hoodie was discarded after about 15 to 20 minutes. I have never sweated this much in all of my life. Within the first half hour, I had sweated every toxin out of my body. And stupid me did not bring any kind of beverage with me to rehearsals. The rehearsals? Three hours. I am suddenly thinking that by Memorial Day weekend, I will have absolutely no problem fitting into a size one.

after three hours of dancing and sweating, I did not have the energy to see about my mom's stuff. Nor did I do the tutoring thing. Hell. It was all I could do to stay awake until 8 p.m.

And don't ask me how ugly things got at Safeway. This woman was having severe issues with her total. I was going through severe dehydration. And I was starting to feel pain in my legs. When I finally reached the checker and he asked, "How are you doing?" with some silly grin on his face, only one answer seemed right. "Not good. Especially since I'm a little dehydrated and had the misfortune of choosing that stupid woman's line." Can I also say that there were many moments when I almost slammed the cart into the folks in front of me? Except that the person closest to me was a perfectly innocent little boy. Wenches did that to me on purpose. I know.

At one point in the evening, I caught up with Emerald. She said, "You can lose a lot of weight doing that. And you have to be limber as well." Later in the conversation, she asked how much it all cost. Now here's the real beauty. Three hours of hardcore sweat and it's all free. I believe that I had a whole week's worth of cardio in that three hours. Because the drums never really stopped during that whole time. (Yeah. Drums.) And the cool down stretches? Why did most of them have to be based upon Downward Facing Dog? Yep, yoga. Kind of like my bellydancing days. Back when I last could get into the size ones. So I am having the feeling that if I keep this up over the next couple of months, I'll be back into my cute little size one dresses just in time for summer. Oh, and there's also the feeling of accomplishment of mastering the choreography. The samba I have down except for that last part. That last part is dependent on wearing the right shoes. The other dance I know pretty well. Well, at least the parts of it I saw.

But the best part of it all? Mimicking other people. And I've always been really good at that. Something to do with my inner chameleon.

I'm a little sore today. Not like the worst of the days when I took bellydancing years ago and would awake around three in the morning after class, screaming over the pain in my legs. No, this time the screaming was for a different reason -- my alarm clock.

All I have to say is, "Is it Thursday yet?"

Why can't there be more holidays?

I think I may return to work today a lot more rested than I have been. Well, temporarily at least. Seeing as I have to finish report cards this week.

Friday's shopping trip never happened. I never heard from Jade the entire weekend. Not surprising though. She's been known to do that.

I had agreed with my co-worker on Thursday that we should head out Friday night. (I really need to come up with a name for her as I have a feeling she will continue to be mentioned here.) After much debate Friday afternoon, we decided that there really was nowhere else to go but North Beach. That meant our usual dance spot there. So I finally got the dancing out of my system Friday night. As we were leaving, we were approached by these two Peruvian guys. They seemed to think that I was Brazilian. They also wanted us to go out salsa dancing with them sometime. I got the phone number of one of them. He tried to trick me into giving him mine.

"Why don't you call me to make sure you entered the number correctly?"

"One minute. I haven't quite saved it."

I fiddled around with the buttons and then called.

"Why does it say 'Private'?"

Hmmmm. Now how could that happen? Perhaps because I am smart enough how to block my number on my cellphone. Idiot.

On the way home, we noticed that my old fave bar was still open so we decided to stop in to say hi. The bartender gave us flak for stopping in at the end of the night. The owners were overjoyed to see me.

"We haven't seen you in forever. You never come to see us anymore. And my, don't you look sexy."

I now remember why I always prefered to go out in SF as opposed to the East Bay. The unadulterated worshipping. Suddenly I knew that I had to head back there on Saturday night.

My coworker had a date Saturday night. Their only plans were dinner though. We decided that after dinner that they would meet up with me in SF at the bar.

Well, of course I got there before they did. As I was enjoying my first drink, I noticed a guy making a beeline toward me. I groaned inside, fearing the worse. Shows how much I know. Turns out he was perfectly nice and fun to talk to.

It also tells me that I should wear pink more often. Because that also gives me an excuse to carry the cute little Kate Spade bag. There was that scary moment though. Some random woman approached us as we were talking to comment on how I was rocking the pink. She also pointed out that she too was wearing a pink shirt. And then she kissed me on my cheek. The guy asked if I knew her. Ummmm. Nope. Now that I think about it, maybe the pink is too powerful.

I this is around the point in the conversation when we started to discuss underwear color. (See number 1.) He seemed to think that since I was wearing so much pink, that my underwear should match. I explained that I did not own any pink underwear. So he offered to buy some. But it wasn't said in a sleazy kind of way. Because we had also just finished dissecting his lack of style on Saturday night.

The guy also knew some of the folks I know in the place, including a former bartender. Now the former bartender would have read me the riot act if there was anything wrong with this guy but he didn't. My friend also seemed to approve of him once she showed up.

Eventually my friend and her date left to check out another place.A bit later my phone rang. It seems my friend and her date had missed the last BART train and the first of the All Nighter buses wouldn't be coming for another hour. I told them to sit tight and that I would be there within a half hour.

The guy offered to walk me to my car. I told him that I needed to catch the bartender to settle my tab. It seems that I didn't have a tab though because the guy had already settled it. So off we went. Upon reaching my car, he asked for my phone number. What the heck. He then explained that he didn't believe in the whole "you have to wait a certain number of days before calling" thing. To me this said that I should expect a call on Sunday.

So I rescued my friend and her date from downtown, dropped them off, realized I was hungry and hit Nation's, and then headed home.

Around 2:00 Sunday afternoon my phone rang. It was the guy. It seems that he has a business thing in Berkeley on Tuesday afternoon. So we're going out when he finishes up. Argh! Now I have to sit around obsessing over what to wear. And trying to figure out a name for him if the date goes OK. But I can't call him "fill-in-the-blank Boy." Because he seems to be more of a "man" than a "boy." Wish me luck!

Happy feet

Around the time I wrote the last post, I realized that what I was missing was missing was regular physical activity. Back in the day this meant dancing at some club for hours on end. When I first started teaching, I was enrolled in bellydancing classes. (Perhaps this is why I started to be mistaken for a "dancer" when I went out.) Dance has always been a part of my life. That's what the real problem is. I can dance all I want at home for the cats but it just isn't the same.

Dancing began when I was four. That's when my mother realized that I would be tall and that she wanted me to be graceful. She signed me up for tap lessons. She forgot that I was painfully shy back then. Classes consisted of me standing around and refusing to do anything. Then I'd go home and execute the steps perfectly for my dad. After some time my mother decided it was a waste of money. When I was nine and asked for ballet lessons, she threw this back in my face. I ended up with piano lessons instead -- my request though.

In the meantime, my mother who always loved dancing taught me cha-cha, swing, and mambo. I got to college and signed up for ballet and jazz classes. In the club kid days of the 80s, the cool thing was to come up with your own move -- something that others would want to emulate. I never got there and instead could mimic someone a couple of beats behind him/her. I guess this was unique in some ways. So I'd mimic moves off of the ultra-cool in the SF underground club scene and take them back to San Diego.

A few years ago, I was hanging out with a former friend in SoCal for her birthday. One of her sisters is a bellydance instructor. My friend had requested that her sister dance for her birthday. After I saw the performance, I knew this was a perfect form of exercise. I have never been a fan of gyms. The first few months, I would awake in the middle of the night in extreme pain as I discovered muscles that had not been used previously. After a year or so, I took a year off. I was sure that upon my return, I would be in pain once more. The surprise was that I wasn't. It seems that the muscles had not forgotten.

Over the last few years I have sworn to myself that I would return to classes. But then I had that job that did not facilitate making plans with folks. When I took the Portuguese class, I almost had to throw a hissy fit so that I could make sure that I got off work in time to attend classes. I guess I could have done the same with the dance classes but by the time I thought of it, I knew that it was time for me to leave that job.

Where is all of this heading? This week I found out about a samba/Afro-Cuban class at the secondary school in my school district. It's this afternoon and I plan to be there. Hopefully the dancing will fill that void in my life.

Best of times, worst of times

I think that sums up Friday night pretty much. I have spent most of the weekend toying with whether I would write about Friday. After I decided I would, it became a debate about how much to share. Because I am still processing some stuff.

Friday I headed home from work and then realized that I was restless. I didn't want to go to the usual place though. I needed something different. So I called up this other teacher and we agreed to meet at Kitty's.

We managed to have one cocktail at Kitty's before deciding that the scene was a little too dead for us and so headed into North Beach. To go dancing at a place I haven't set foot in in many years.

The first highlight was when the bouncer carded me. I think he was a bit surprised. As he returned my ID, he said, "I'm two years older than you." It didn't hurt that he's pretty cute. We set off inside to purchase the warm-up drink. (For those of you -- yes, I mean you, Neil -- who are not aware of the practice, it is customary for a woman to purchase her first drink upon entering an establishment. Theoretically this is the last drink that she will purchase in the evening because by the time she has finished it, the guys in the place have had enough time to check her out.) We headed off for the dancefloor with cocktails in hand.

We were first joined by a group of attractive guys. But then they disappeared. We then headed outside to check out the other possibilities. We spotted a group sitting at a picnic table. They definitely had potential. Along the way my friend was cornered by some guy who has a girlfriend. Even better when the girlfriend eventually showed up and my friend realized that she knew the girlfriend.

Next I was approached at the bar by one of the guys from the picnic table. He was conservatively dressed. I guess that's why I was kind of surprised when he greeted me by slapping me on my butt and then inviting me to feel his ass. (It was rock-hard, by the way.) He also insisted that my friend check it out as well. I felt obliged to see if the abs were as tight as the buns which sadly they were not. He said something about being hot. I replied, "I need something cold before I have anything hot," and so he bought my drink. I should have realized that this was the turning point of the evening. When we hit the dancefloor, he was a wild man. No. Really. At one point he picked my friend up -- literally. Lesson learned here -- never judge a book by it's cover.

Somehow we managed to ditch the wild man but it took some trying. I guess the next batch was this group of Irish guys. One of them was rather smitten with my friend. When the place closed, they tried to convince us to come to a party out in the Sunset. We finally agreed.

The party was OK. Eventually my friend was ready to leave but I wasn't. I was assured that they would help me find a way home. So I told my friend to go. At this point, large amounts of coke suddenly appeared. I immediately sent a text to my friend but there was some sort of delay and she didn't get it for at least 30 minutes. By the time she called back, I told her to not come back and I would just figure it all out on my own. I made it home eventually and there were more adventures in between.

Originally I was going to call this post "The Queen of Bad Decisions" because that was my specialty in my old hardcore partying days. I thought I had gotten a little bit smarter but I guess I still have some learning to do. I'm still going to go out though. Because that's my nature.