Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Pink Overload

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I'd acquired a barre. This afternoon I got the first e-mailing from the manufacturer, advertising their "New Special Edition Complete Ballerina Package."

Now, I will admit that women (and girls) far outnumber men (and boys) in ballet classes. But this thing is Pink Overload. It's a barre with all the tubes painted pink, a pink ballet tutu, and a personalized carry bag embroidered in pink.

I think my eyes are bleeding.

Oh, and the image they included in the ad has a big black dot on it like you'd see on a censored porno ad, though what you'd censor at the outer edge of a frilly tutu I don't even what to think about. The website has a larger version of the same photo, sans censor dot, so it couldn't have been too bad.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Back after a week off

I missed class all last week due to travel. The hotel I stayed in, a Hyatt House facility, was great. It's set up for longer-term stays, with a kitchenette, and a goodly expanse of wooden floor. If I'd moved the couch and desk a bit it might have made a nice practice floor. But like most of these trips, I came back after dinner and crawled into bed at shockingly early hours. I did a little stretching now and then, but all thought of practicing the new steps we've been learning evaporated.

So last night I went back to class. I did take about 15 minutes before leaving for class to do some basic stretches, but nothing extensive. Class itself went pretty well, and although I initially forgot that we'd even learned new steps in the petite allegro we've been working on before I left, I remembered them pretty quickly.

Early this morning, though, I woke up feeling tight in my left inner thigh. The cat was howling for more food, so I decided to get out of bed. Bad idea. Within seconds the tightness progressed to a full-fledged, nausea-inducing cramp. For the next 5 or so minutes I tried to figure out how to relieve the cramp, without making it worse instead. Eventually it subsided enough to hobble downstairs, feed the cat to shut it up (priorities, you know), extract a bottle of Gatorade from the 'fridge and swallow some mineral supplements I thought might help. Then I limped back upstairs and eased back into bed.

My usual standard for when I need to resort to Gatorade is that when it tastes good I need it, because the rest of the time the taste isn't very good. But the low-sugar G2 stuff I had is just vile regardless. Of course, that's why it's still in the 'fridge. But still, what's the point of something that tastes so bad you can't drink it?


When I woke up at a more normal hour I discovered that I'm sore in both inner thighs. There are still occasion twinges, but none have approached a cramp. I didn't think I was dehydrated, but I'm going to see how much water I can get into myself today. After all, I have class tomorrow night!