Regularly-Scheduled Life

I'm finally getting to be back in my regular schedule this weekend, although after missing a couple weeks of dancing led to me actually having to take a nap after class (instead of just considering doing so).

I did spend a few hours beforehand wandering around the mall with a friend before, but I don't think that wore me down that much :).

Part of my regular weekend schedule is going to my bi-weekly writer's group on Sunday afternoons.  I might've mentioned them before, but we first met doing NaNoWriMo a few years ago, and someone decided to keep it up.  It was initially just monthly, and we've expanded in the last year or so to twice a month.  It's been a great way for me to keep up on my writing, and I have to admit that some months, the only time I do any writing at all is during those three hour sessions.

I'm currently working on a short story challenge for a contest.  I've got until the end of June to finish it.  The way this challenge works is there's about a dozen art pieces (paintings and photos), and you pick one to write a story of 2000-5000 words inspired by the artwork.  Sounds fairly simple (I've done the same thing, for poetry, in a writing class), until I looked at the artwork and realized that all the pieces are modern, real-world, non-quirky images.

I don't write reality; it's not really my thing.  I gave it a go with a couple of different pictures, but finally decided that I'm a fantasy writer (and abstract-y), I'd write fantasy.  So the story ended up being a mix of fantasy and reality, with the main character losing the ability to tell the difference between the two.  It's only a couple of sentences from being fully written (I haven't decided if I want the ending to be 'strange' or 'horror'), and then I'll have quite a bit of work to do for re-writing and editing it.  It kind of reads like I threw up on the page, at the moment (apologies for the visual :).  But really, it does!).   It's all a bit out of order, I think I'm leaving out certain important details, and there's very little dialogue.  Not necessarily a bad thing, I think, but it's something for me to consider.

I realized recently that a lot of my writing style is based off the older books I read growing up, like random philosophers (Plato, Alexis de Tocqueville), long lists of fairy tales and mythology, Frankenstein, Dracula, etcetera.  Books with very little dialogue.  I suppose the fairy tales saved me from habitually using paragraph-long sentences.   At any rate, it wasn't until I wrote a scene some years ago with five people talking in the same conversation that I actually learned how to write dialogue.  My first story - in it's current incarnation as Nightmare (one of the short stories in my book) - is an example of how I wrote before I figured out dialogue.

Guns, Ice Skates, and Lunches

A day late... better than a year late, right? :)

My Saturday started very early, and ended late, and as a result I completely forgot about making a blog post.  Which is probably for the best, as it would've been sleepy rambles last night.

I was invited to go shooting (as in, with guns) in the desert a couple of hours north of me by a friend of mine, whose husband came up with an automatic game system, of sorts.  I can't say much about it, as it's a currently un-patented, but he has an app that lets the targets move in pre-programmed patterns and then it's simply point and shoot at the one that's currently up.   The group they invited up were all beta-testers, helping him with finding issues with either the software or the mechanical part of it.

They had a bit of a competition set up for who could shoot all the targets in a row the fastest.  I didn't participate in that; it's been about four years since I used a gun and I'm very much out of practice of hitting my target (plus they were pretty small, but I don't really feel like that's an excuse.  I think I could've hit them well enough a few years back).  Despite that, though, it was fun.  I pretty much just used small pistols and a revolver - which was quite fun to use.  I also shot a gun that's similar to what the army uses, which I've never been near before.  Very little kickback, and very light.

Afterwards (for a very different change of pace), I went about half-way home to an ice rink that's open for a ten-hour stretch for public skating on Saturday afternoons.  I've never seen a rink with hours like that.  It was a small place, but very nice.  It's been about a year since I went skating at all, but for all that I haven't forgotten anything.  Like riding a bike :).  It took me a couple of rounds around the rink to get used to it, and then I skated for about two hours.  All the dancing has certainly helped my endurance and leg muscle strength, because I'd be very sore today otherwise.  As it is, I actually slept in a bit this morning.

Also, it being Administrators Week (who decides these things, anyway?), the attorneys took out all the non-attorney staff for lunch.  It was very nice; although I've worked in the admin profession for three and a half years (three different places), this is the first time I've received acknowledgement for it.

Ups and Downs, and Dancing

It's kind of funny how things go.  I started this week with my debit card number being stolen (how does that even work?), so I had to have my card canceled for the first time since I got it, about twelve years ago.  And of course, since banks are open only during business hours, I had to go to a branch with Saturday hours, which meant a week without my card.  That, of course, wouldn't have been too much of a problem, as long as I was careful to make sure I had extra cash on hand at all times, except that I opened my door to head to work on Friday and discovered a wasp building a nest less than a foot from my front door.  I was leaving for work early, which meant that I had the time to make some phone calls and find a company that would take care of them (because if there's one, there's more) for a reasonable cost and no later than Saturday.

I was getting to work early, however, because I was going to a dance that night and wanted to have time to get dressed.  Still, I left work at a reasonable time.  And then, naturally, someone parked a beaten-up car in front of my driveway.  I can park on the street in my neighborhood, fortunately, so I waited to call the police to find out what could be done until I got home from the dance (which resulted in being on hold for half an hour with the department of transportation at 10:30-11:00 at night).

Everything finally got sorted out, though, and the dance was awesome.  I really enjoy this dance club I found.  It feels a bit odd, at first, being one of the only people at their events who's under 50, but that seems to be a bit of how ballroom dancing is viewed - something for older people.  Most of their events are informal, with a bit of a lesson before opening up the floor to general dancing, but this one was semi-formal, with a fancy dinner at a fancy hotel.  So everyone was dressed up fancy, and even when I wasn't dancing, it was fun to watch them.  Plus, some of the dancers there were really good, and they're amazing to watch.

One of the most difficult pieces when learning how to dance is that the instructors keep telling people to go to dances, even if they're still beginners, and this group is very friendly for that.  At the dance last night, they had men there specifically to dance with women (there's always more women then men, no matter what the age of a group is), and they were all very good teachers.  I learned quite a bit.  And I won a door prize (I never win those!) for a private lesson, which'll actually end up covering the cost of attending the dance.

It's also why my post is late, as, after wearing myself out dancing, I woke up early to deal with the wasps, and then went dancing again this afternoon at my usual lessons.  So I'm beat. :)

Weekly Report: Dancing

It occurred to me that last week I had neglected to mention something that's become one of my staple weekly activities: dancing.

So apparently finding a dance studio that teaches classic ballroom is kind of hard to find - in Los Angeles, anyway.  Wonder if it's different in other places?  On top of that, my main interest is waltz, which is even harder to find.  Still, I managed to find a studio a couple of months ago.  They also teach tango and foxtrot during the 'American Smooth Ballroom' classes on Saturday afternoons, which are fun to do, even if they're not my favorite.

What with the complications with my knees and feet and all, even though my knees were healed, finding cute dance shoes can be difficult.  I don't generally wear heels, and when I do, they're orthotic (which is the best invention we've come up, ever, regarding shoes).  But when I went to lessons, the pretty shoes I liked best were heeled.  Also, orthotic dance shoes aren't a thing, apparently.  So I hunted around, and discovered that the style of heel I preferred is called Cuban (no clue why.  Research project waiting to happen, I suppose).  Generally speaking, I also have a preference for shoes that aren't very pointy at the toes, but when I saw these on Amazon, I couldn't resist.

 

 

Aren't they cute?  The purple part is velvety, as is the inside, which makes them more comfortable.  The colors of the purple and red are customizable, as is the type of heel and the height of the heel.  Of course, I got the shortest height available, which was two inches.  You can check them out here: http://amzn.to/2merHoL

Before I got these, I'd been using flat jazz shoes, which, as an aside, work just fine.  But since I want to dance socially at some point, knowing how to dance in something fancy comes in handy.