where my creative energies have gone
My student troupe! Choreographing a “steampunk” piece is really hard because uhhh there isn’t much basis for comparison. I am happy with how this piece came together – especially because many of the funny stuff (well, I thought it was funny) was not originally choreographed but arose out of the stuff my students were doing. This was a big experiment in loosey-goosey choreography (among other things): setting a framework for people to be spontaneous/improvise rather than choreographing every step (given that we are drunken airship pirates, loosey-goosey is pretty appropriate). I think they really pulled it off!! I am actually performing WITH them this weekend at a steampunk convention (the original reason for the creation of this set) — I usually don’t perform with them because I like students to have their own special space, but we are going to be missing somebody and rather than restage the whole thing I’m just going to jump in. Hopefully I will do as good a job. 
banging up against the same wall
I recently read Discomfort Zone: How to Master the Universe on Zen Habits, one of my favorite internet watchamacallits. I’ve been thinking of uncomfortable but good idea things I’ve done somewhat recently.
A big (and ongoing, let’s be honest) one is learning to eat vegetables. Basically I just shoved stuff in my face as fast as I could to minimize the amount of time it spent on my taste buds and eventually I became OK with it. I find that it’s much easier for me to eat meals that are all plants. Cheese is a plant, right? 
There has been this great snowball effect where the less I eat refined/fatty/salty stuff, the less I crave them, and the better my diet gets…for the most part. Step 2 is taming my anything goes weekends. We’ll get there.
More recently: I’ve been getting up IN THE MORNING to work out. WHAAAAAAT this is an unexpected development. The gym I’ve been going to has 7am training and I’ve been going to it. 
The trick is to pack everything up the night before and sleep in your gym clothes. That way, the ONLY reason you “can’t” go is because “you’re too damn lazy” which is at least a little more difficult to justify. And talk about discomfort — waking up in the dark, stumbling out into the cold just to lift some weights? It’s a warehouse gym (ie not super insulated) and last week the weights were so cold we had to put our gloves on just to hold them (there was talk of knitting dumbbell cozies). But then I’m done with the workout and on with my day! It’s not quite a habit yet so it’s still a struggle – which is why I told the trainer I planned to come on the regular, another motivator.
I’ve been noticing a lot of discomfort in my arting. I haven’t really been pleased with anything I’ve done – hence the lack of videos. My one “rule” that I have is I don’t HAVE to post a video, which somewhat reduces the pressure of creating for YouTube. The downside is if I’m trying new things and they are dumb, no videos.
Part of it is letting people in on the process, I guess. This has elements that I like, but I took such a convoluted route (and covered over things that would have been better) that I don’t even want you to know how it started. It is interesting to me how there is a real sense of discomfort and tension when your creating isn’t going well; in my case I feel like I’m just repeatedly hitting a wall and not getting anywhere. My theory is that if I keep bouncing along I’ll eventually find a way through, like in Labyrinth where it turns out there was a passage all along, “you just ain’t seein’ ‘em.”
It might sound silly, but when I get stressed about my arts and crafting (HIGH STAKES GAME!) I remind myself about how I eat spinach now. If I can eat a bunch of leaves, a fate worse than death, I can probably also deal with some shitty arts.
ugghh lazy
But there is nothing filled in!
I was going to post something earlier – so this just doesn’t turn into a Wordless Wednesday blog – but then I got sick AGAIN. The only logical conclusion I can draw is the universe is telling me I have to sit down and catch up on Breaking Bad. I have trouble watching too much TV because it feels like a waste of time – as opposed to screwing around on the internet, which is a great use of time – so I only really do it when I’m sick/really lazy. Anyway, I watched like 3/4 of season 2 yesterday. I guess I should get back to it, lest I hinder my recovery.
if you don’t mind
Usually my unpleasant dreams have to do with being late for something and totally unable to get my act together. I’ll bend down to tie my shoes and when I come back up, 2 hours have gone by. NOT FAIR
Apparently this is my 70th video. I’ll try to get to 100 this year. Maybe I should, like, organize them into playlists or something. I don’t even know how I would categorize them, though.