Oh, what a great day. Lots of fun things.

I took a gemstone wire wrapping staff workshop today. I've taken both wire jewelry classes at the CC, but the teacher of them doesn't really do gemstone wrapping. And I've always wanted to learn how to do the really pretty stuff. (Like this.)

The new teacher is danged good at it. He's been doing it for something like 13-15 years. I only wish we could have gotten to learning everything- I wanted to learn how to wrap multiple stones at once, but we just didn't have that much time. We learned how to do a loop frame, a cage frame, and a "fist", which looks literally like a wire-wrapped fist holding the stone. Bizarre. I think I'll have to sign up for the full-on class whenever it's being offered.

After that, I went to Borders and happily bought a copy of The Ghost Brigades and Stitch N' Bitch Crochet: The Happy Hooker, both of which I've been wanting for AGES and just came in! I also got a book called Resenting the Hero, which I quite like already. Plus Borders has finally gotten around to getting a frequent buyer reward card system, so I happily signed up for that. I've been wanting one for 8 dang years! Plus, I can stick it on my keychain like I'm going to the grocery store or something. Hah.

And after that, I went to see Fears Of Your Life, which was amazing. I had my reservations about going to this one, but... it was awesome. And my friend Denise who turned down going to it made a biiiiiig mistake. :P

Bev describes it better than I probably would. I'm also going to pimp her entry on one of the dancers as well. But what really got to me wasn't the whole fear thing so much as...well, I'll quote Bev:

"The message seems to be loud and clear that we are all people, that some people can do things that other people can't and vice versa, but everybody has feelings, everybody is afraid, everybody is able to compensate for the loss of one of one or more pieces of the body."

The two things that convinced me to see this show was (a) Bev's stuff, and (b) one of the volunteers on my shift this quarter has been working on the show. She particularly raved about Stephanie, and upon seeing her dance I must totally agree. Girl was AWESOME.

She's missing a foot, and she danced with a prosthetic on and with it off as well, and sometimes with crutches. And sometimes just herself, and sometimes a chair, and sometimes riding around with Judy. And the moves she made. Wow. So gorgeous. I didn't know people could DO that with crutches. And they weren't afraid in this show to play with the fears that would come from that too. At one point, the other dancers are taking the foot away from her before she can take it back. At another point, she actually picks up the foot and screams into it. Heh.

It almost gave me hope, in a way.

I love dancing, but I am ALWAYS, without exception, the worst dancer in any class I take. Even the most beginning noob that walks into a studio, with no talent, no turnout, no rhythm, is considered by any teacher to be a better dancer than me. Never mind that I've been doing dance for...hm, ten years originally, then off and on for the last eight. A long time, doing a bunch of different styles. But I'm considered worse compared to even a noob because I have no flexibility.

I can't do a split, I can't do downward dog, I can't kick my leg high (or even medium sometimes), I couldn't even get CLOSE to touching my toes if you dropped an anvil on my back. And pretty much everybody else can. A real-life equivalent to Homer Simpson can at least probably touch his toes. So, by dance standards, I am shittastic. I love dancing, but it's just fucking embarrassing for me for at least 40% of the class when I'm too inflexible to do the moves.

But watching people dance for whom being The Most Flexible wasn't a factor? AWESOME. It almost gave me hope that someone who couldn't kick their leg to their ear could dance. Course, then I realized that everybody but the leader of the group had massive dance creds and I still wouldn't be up to snuff unless I ever got paralyzed. But still, if I ever do, I'm signing up for an audition with Axis. Then for once I wouldn't suck.

And finally, my mom had a freaking disturbing conversation with one of the hospital staff about me. Argh.

The fellow's name is Samuel and he's a particular pal of Mom's. Apparently he was asking my age (again- I guess he didn't believe me the last two times he asked) and why didn't I have a boyfriend. And Mom said I'd had a couple. And I don't know why she brought up THIS ancient history, but she brought up that the ex before Dave dumped me because he had mental issues.
And Samuel then indicates maybe my exes dumped me because...well, that I wasn't sexually satisfying them. At which point Mom busted up laughing and said, "Um, no, that wasn't it!"

And then she says that previous ex had...well, we'll say Certain Sexual Issues. I guess that amused Samuel, who said that African-American guys don't have that problem and then, "Well, if I could introduce her to my brother...he's HIV-positive though." Um, no thank you. Though I'll keep the first part of that sentence in mind should an opportunity ever er, arise.

After hearing this story, I was all, "Um, WHY ON EARTH was my sex life being brought up in conversation here?" Good lord.

And the worst part of that? Oh, they were discussing this stuff RIGHT NEXT TO MY DAD. Like he needed to know that? Jaysus, I've tried so damned hard to let him think I'm still a virgin, or at least to keep this sort of talk away from his ears, and Samuel blows it. Gee, thanks, Samuel!

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