"Because Beelzabub touched my W-2. That's why."

In the news today I found an article the perfectly describes why I have no patience for stupid.

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE.

As a non-Christian, I'm 100% certain I would not survive well in the deep south, even though I don't generally advertise my beliefs nor do I dispute anyone else's. But seriously? It's your fucking computer-generated auto-numbered tax information, dumbass. While there's probably an argument to be made that Satan is involved in taxes (particularly for IRS employees and tax accountants in the 1st quarter of every year), I'd think any entity with titles like "The Father of Lies" and "The Great Defiler" has more important things to do than fuck wtih YOUR W-2 forms.

I mean really, could you be any more concieted? Don't you think the Devil is far too concerned with Reality TV stars to give a shit about your taxes?

Because I require a decent contrast, this is why dogs are better people than most people. Although my dog is still pissed at me for making him naked, so it's possible he'd eat me amble away, possibly whistling all nonchalant-like.

And because it's Friday (and really what's better than a Klingon band and bellydancing Wookie...thanks YouTube!):

YOU'RE WELCOME.

Why I Bellydance (This is not a funny post. You probably don't want to read it).

So I'm six feet tall. This has relevance, promise. By the time I was in fourth grade I was taller than everyone else AND I was getting boobs, because nature decided I needed multiple targets for the bullies in school. Since I was about eight I've been a pretty consistent failure at being a feminine female. I've lost count of how many times I've been called "sir," regardless of makeup or the fact that I have a DD chest.

Model material, you may say...after all, aren't a lot of supermodels tall and boobaliscious? Not this girl: my body wasn't my friend. It still isn't. I've been overweight since I was young and really overweight since college. A lot of that is the same (boring!) body-hatred-punishment bullshit that I KNOW is happening but have a hard time getting over. It doesn't need to be analyzed here, because really, how fucking typical do I want to be?

I don't expect to be Marilyn Monroe or Lana Turner, sexpot extraordinaire. I don't expect to be Kate Moss either (good lord, I like food people, not drugs). Hell, I idolized Hepburn (Katherine, duh) and wanted to be Ripley. But I'd really like to love my body and work with it instead of feeling like I'm locked in constant battle with my mortal enemy. Seriously, your mortal enemy in this mortal life really shouldn't be the FUCKING BODY you pilot.

Ah well, I'm a work in progress. Aren't we all? I focus on it for a while and get lazy or distracted and decide "fuck you world, I don't care if you think I'm pretty/thin/womanly or not," but that's not the answer: ultimately it's the love/loathing dichotomy that needs to change.

Luckily, I've found one (legal-to-view-in-public) physical thing can do something pretty damn cool that a lot of women can't or don't. I can bellydance.

I found Middle Eastern dance a decade ago when I couldn't take my eyes off of Aliyah Sahar at the MN Renaissance Festival. Inspired and terrified, I LONGED to be able to move my body in that graceful, sensual way. I longed for the joy of movement and the utter joy of being female that bellydancers have.

And I found it. Over a remarkabe ten years, not only did I get to learn from Aliyah but managed (bafflingly) to become her friend, and both occurrences have been constant bright facets of my life ever since. (I'm not saying that to get free classes, FYI.)

Bellydance celebrates the female body in the best possible way, and even though it's incorrectly thought of as akin to stripping, bellydance is all about harnessing female energy and powerful beauty, regardless of a woman's size, age, race, or class. I adore the female friends I've made in the community and the support I've received even though I'm not a size 2. I adore the acceptance and encouragement and even the sparkly/jingly/makeup/girly aspects. I adore that no matter how hard class is, no matter how awkward I feel or gangly I am, for at least moment every time I dance I feel like a beautiful woman.

After a decade of awkward classes, stilted performances, frustration, joy, solos, and teaching I feel like I can say: I'm a bellydancer.

UPDATED: Warning: This Post Contains Coworker GIBBERISH

Writing doesn't pay any of my bills: I write because if I didn't I'd wither away into bitterdom. Yes, I just invented a word. I'm that awesome. Or mental. Probably mental.

In my I'm-paid-to-sit-at-this-computer hours, I'm a business analyst in the medical insurance industry. Sounds boring as hell, doesn't it? Sometimes it is (generally those are days when you get multiple blog posts during the day and I'm on twitter/facebook/interwebz WAY more than I should be). Case in point: I'm writing about 10,000 UAT (User Acceptance Testing) test cases for software functionality.

Ok, I'm exaggerating. It's 1,000. I'm not kidding. Sound exciting? It's not. At all. It's tedious and nitpicky, but still better than starving my dogs to death, so I do it.

Sometimes it's challenging, interesting, and even a little fun even though I'd always rather be writing.

Or watching Xena: Warrior Princess.

Or bellydancing, which is the only hobby I've ever had that pays a little bit, and that's a neat little bonus to the fun of it. But being inherently lazy, usually I'd rather be watching Xena.

The past few years I've had a couple higher-stress gigs (one required a lot of travel which I bitched wrote about plenty already), but they were small companies with a "family" feel to them (if your family is high-drama and a lot of work). The current gig is delightfully low-stress: partly because I'm a contractor (therefore I don't EVER work over 40 hours because they'd have to pay me overtime) and partly because it's a large company with all the requisite bureaucracy.

And the requisite gossipy, snarky personalities. During all that time with nerdy developer-types I forgot hilariously annoying that many women working in the same space can be.

Of COURSE I have examples, silly! These are all from the same girl who I can only assume is a spoiled brat attention whore simply because she's so fucking loud and repetitive I'd like to ball-gag her that her inane comments make it through my headphone-filter. Oh sorry, was that snarky?

• I hate when I see people treating their kids like pets: kids shouldn't be on leashes, that's just cruel. Because clearly she's never lost a child anywhere and is a judgy bitch.
• It's like $100 for cable and internet. I'm not paying for HBO when all I watch is "The Young and the Restless" on Soap Network every night.
• I can't believe you lost your kid! What kind of parent ARE you?
• NAME REDACTED put an APB out on her kid in Macys! (please include a bitchy, snotty tone and loud self-important giggling when you read this for full effect).
• NAME REDACTED! LEASHES ARE FOR DOGS, NOT KIDS! (In caps because she yelled it. Repeatedly. I'm only partially kidding when I suggest ball gagging her.)
• Name Redacted, my elbow just burst. Can my elbow burst?
• OMG YOU HAVE TO GET THEIR FRIES (again, yelling and went on about Smashburger fries for a good 10 minutes. Irritating, actually).
• Well I'M not coming in early! Upon the supervisor asking for volunteers to work on authorized overtime. Said supervisor replied, "We already know that, Twit Coworker Name Redacted. You said so three times. We heard you."
• UPDATE: Why are you always isolating me? (upon discovering the person across from her cube is moving out) Supervisor: "Oh Twit Cowroker Name Redacted, if we were going to isolate you we'd put you in a padded room. Or the basement where no one could hear your whining." Fucking AWESOME.

In other news, the new Starbucks guy gave me a fork with my oatmeal today. A fork with my oatmeal. WTF?

To fix my day I've ordered 4 Unicorn Fart Lip Balms from Etsy. They smell like thin mints. Fucking tubes full of AWESOME. Also, Etsy may be the devil...
This whole post was totally random and if you made it this far I love you a lot. And you may need some professional help...just sayin.

UPDATED: Unicorn Farts are on their way! WOOT!

Improv

I'd like to say I'm fast on my mental feet, so to speak. Unfortunately I can't often say that: I'm the girl that comes up with the snappy comeback to a nasty comment about three hours after the fact. The girl who thinks up the perfect joke after already making an ass of herself at a party. Yeah. I'm not that girl. I'd be kicked out of the comedy olympics with a dirt medal: dead last. For some reason almost all my wit comes out in writing, not in speech.

As it turns out, I'm even clumsier at dance improv as I am at the vocal variety. Give me a choreographed piece and I'll learn it and be able to make changes from there. Turn on a piece of music I've never heard before and, while the rest of the class makes up moves and dances all around me, I'm the girl-in-the-headlights. I can't move, I can't think: seriously, I could get hit by a bus. And usually I'd prefer it to improvising dance to something I've never heard.

Yet that's how many of my BD classes seem to end lately. I know I'm supposed to get better at it with practice, but the fact is, after 5 years of bellydance classes, the last 2 in advanced classes, I'm still no better doing improv than a beginner whose never done the moves at all. I'm beginning to wonder if this is a dance disability I've given myself somehow, or if my brainpan just can't function in that situation.

For the record, I have a crappy time dancing at clubs and such if I don't know the music, also.

Sigh.

Shimmying Abounds!

So in a few weeks I'll be in a bellydance show. It'll be the first time I'll have performed in over a year...I'm already a little nervous. I was going to do the student performance at the hafla in June, but it's been cancelled. Instead, on Father's Day weekend I'll perform with some of my class (NOT a solo:woohoo!) at a benefit for no-kill animal shelters in the Twin Cities area.

Yup. Terror is setting in, but excitement is close on the heels and I need to get some SERIOUS practice in before we start rehearsals, since class doesn't even start again for two weeks. Dave thinks it's hilarious that I shimmy subconsciously when I'm supposed to be standing still. I seriously don't know I'm doing it until he points it out. I probably look like I have to pee, but all practice is good practice!

Oh, and I'm EVER so glad to be home. Missed my hubby, missed my dog, missed my own bed. About in that order, too. One more week until the MIL moves out, which will be weird. She's been here so long I may actually miss her, since when Dave's in a gaming craze she's usually around and able to have a conversation without getting distracted by killing giant spiders or whatever else is on WOW.