I’m typing this up at work, sitting in the lobby listening to the big ass outdoor concert going on across the street.  It’s a Vietnam Veteran doo-dad that’s been going on for two days now, and given that it is outdoors and literally across the street, I’ve heard it all.  8 hours yesterday, 8 today.  Whee!

 They have occasionally had cool military planes and helicopters flying over, most of which go RIGHT over where I’m working- several times so close I thought they were going to hit the power lines!  Well, for some reason, it didn’t occour to us until the last time they did it that it would freaking ROCK to go up on the roof and watch from there!  They would literally be like 50 feet away!  So Helen and I rushed up to 5^th floor, climbed the ladder, unlocked the hatch (Ooh, how LOST), but by the time we got there, they were flying away.  Booo!  I did snap a picture or two from the ground with my phone (because stupid me actually did NOT have my camera with me for once), but I haven’t figured out how to get the photos OFF my phone yet.  If I ever do, I’ll post!

 We had a Studio Night at the ol’ bellydance studio on Thursday, and we got to debut our tribal fusion choreography, which was a lot of fun.  Watching the video, I already have an entire page of notes of things I need to fix- video is the BEST tool for cleaning up your dance! 

 I should go back one night though, to Wednesday night’s class.  We were told we’d have a guest teacher this week, to help us with turns.  I was a little nervous, because I was feeling kinda sick to my stomach when I got there, and I knew that hours of turns were not going to work out well with that.  Well, the guest teacher was running late, so we started the warm-up.  During warm up, they got a call from the teacher, saying she was running late, and she wanted us in straddle-squat when she got there so we could start from there.  At this point I’m wondering what the hell straddle squat has to do with turns, but we all face the back of the room and get down into one of the most evil positions known to man.  We hold it for several minutes, and it’s especially uncomfortable because my right hip needs to pop, but I can’t get it to.  OUCH!  So, we take occasional breaks, just standing in foreward bend so our legs don’t fall off, and I’m starting to get lightheaded from the combination of heat, being upside down, and not feeling good.  Who the hell is this evil guest teacher that is making us do this?

 Someone asks who the guest is, and they say that she wants to introduce herself.  Um, okay.  Eventually, someone else asks if they can tell us anything about her.  We hear that she’s been dancing a long time, she owns her own studio, and does a lot of different kinds of dance.  At this point, I get an idea, but there’s such a slim chance that I’m right that I try not to get my hopes up. 

 So there we are, asses in the air, in pain, sweating from the lack of air, when the door opens.  From my squatty position, I catch a glimpse of long black hair.  It looks like my guess just might be right.  We’re told to stand up, and yup!  There’s Brittney, our beloved teacher and founder, who has been in California since January studying with the infamous Suhaila Salimpour.  She’s come to visit us!  But no time for talk now, we have a class to do!

 It was so much fun having Brit back, and doing a class that was totally different from what we’ve been doing lately!  The only bad part was that about 10 minutes in, I started feeling like I was either going to throw up or pass out, I couldn’t even get my body to do easy things, it felt like I was going to faint.  So I grabbed the bathroom key and my water bottle, and took about 5 minutes to just sit down, splash water on my face, and drink some water.  After that I was fine for the rest of the class- thank goodness!  I didn’t want to spend my one Brittney class sick!

 So, that brings us back to Thursday!  We did our tribal, then Brittney did a solo (I thought she was kidding when she said it was 15 minutes, but nope!), some other girls did solos, and then the beginner troupe did their very first performance!  A fun night!

 In other Beledi stuff that I still haven’t written about (seriously, my last post here was in like 1987!), most of us decided to hit the St Louis Ren Faire the end of May, and lots of sweaty fun was had by all.  It was literally about 100 degrees out, and we were out there for about eight hours!  I, of course, got no tan.  Still vampire pale.  Thanks for asking.  I’ll post pictures eventually.  In fact, I have decided that I love Kodak’s easyshare gallery system, so I’m going to upload a ton of my photos there, organize ‘em up, and then give you all the links.  I *thought* I was going to do this on Flikr, but after I got three sets all organized and captioned and everything, I found out that you’re limited to 3 sets on the free account, which totally ruined my plans.  Thus, Kodak!  Plus uploading them elsewhere saves me a ton of bandwidth!

 Hmm, what else has happened since I last posted here?  Oooh!  Plans for Blogathon 2006 are in full swing!  I’ve already set up a pretty new blog for it, chosen to blog for Doctors Without Borders again, and even have a few ideas about what I want to post about!  I’ll do a whole entry dedicated to the event sometime in July, once sign-ups are open.  In the meantime, check out blogathon.org for more info!

 I was a little bummed on Thrusday night- the infamous Kellylou was driving from Texas to Chicago, which meant she would be passing my way, so we made plans for her to stay at the hotel where I work for the night, to rest up a little on her long drive.  It gave her not only a place to sleep, but a chance to see me! Sadly, when Thursday night came, I found myself unable to stay awake.  It was the day after our super hard class, and just hours after our studio night, and I was sore and exhausted!  The only thing keeping me awake was that the episode of Inside the Actors Studio with Angelina Jolie was on, and it’s one of my favorites, so I had to watch.  Afterwards, I gave up and crawled into bed, cell phone on the nearby table in case Kel called.  About half an hour later she did call, saying they had decided to just drive on through the night.  Now, as much as I wanted to see Kelly, I was SO happy, because there was NO way I was going to make it out of bed at this point, let alone drive a half hour over to Branson!  Someday, Kelly, we will get to see each other again!  Someday!

 So as I mentioned, I’m sitting here at work, typing to try to stay awake.  It is almost 10pm, and although I normally work till 11, I said I’d stay till 12 tonight, which was kind of stupid in retrospect.  At least it’s overtime- all of today is, actually, since it is supposed to be my day off.  I really need some extra cash for Mexico (July 7-11!  Yay!), so I’m getting overtime wherever I can!  I added it up a few days ago, and if you don’t count the days I have off for dance class, I am working 21 days in a row with no time off.  (Dance class days don’t count as real days off, because there is so much work involved!)  That is a REALLY long time to go with no day to just relax and sleep in! 

 Holy crap, I think Willie Nelson is across the street.  I’m pretty sure it is his voice.  Hah! 

(This is the kind of interruption you get on a night like this)