just dance

i don't think i have actually talked about this topic before, and i have no idea why since it's a pretty big part of my life.  for whatever reason, when people first find out i'm a dancer they are kind of shocked.  maybe it's because of my other interests, maybe it's because i'm not the most in shape person, i don't really know.  and i think it might surprise them more that i'm actually pretty good at it.  i started in grade school with the jitter bug.  in high school i moved on to east coast swing, and kept with that through college.  for about the past year now i have been doing west coast swing.  i take classes once a week at least, sometimes twice if there is a deal going on at a different dance school.  and i must say, i'm getting pretty damn good at it.  and this is not just my own high opinion of myself (but that's part of it).  this is coming from the teachers and other people in the class.  i have been asked several ties in the last few months why i don't go to any of the public dance nights or dance parties.  part of the reason that i'm good is because i love it.  and i'm at the level now where we are learning some pretty bad ass moves.  and if you know anything about me, it's no surprise that i like to look bad ass.

 this is an example of west coast swing for those of you who don't know what it is:

and as a side note, i really really really want to do a flash mob

lately, i've been wanting to do more (or less, depending on how you look at it) than my dance class.  i'm on one of my kicks where i really want to go club dancing.  and while i personally don't consider this real dancing,* i still have a lot of fun doing it.  and the last time i went was on new year's with gabi.  and that's been too long.  so in the same way that i get ren faire withdrawals, i'm getting club/bar dancing withdrawals.   because of this, i have been listening to a lot of usher and dancing around my apartment in my skivvies.   which means i really, really, really want to go and i'm probably going to be slightly annoying about it until i can convince someone to go with me. so, who's up for it?
 

one more video because i love jordan and tatiana

*it's pretty much just dry humping in public.  which can be really fun and i really enjoy it, but it's not dancing in the way that i define it.

look! i can be girly

aren't they pretty?!?!?! <girly shriek>

so yesterday i went and got my nails did.  it's been about three years since i had acrylic nails done.  i used to get them pretty regularly back when i was in college, but due to money and the fact that most of my jobs involved working outside in conditions that would destroy any and all manicures within a ten mile radius, i thought it best to lay off the nails for a while.  this also gave my nails time to get normal again, since long term use of acrylic tips will pretty much kill your natural nails.  but, in a moment of girly weakness, i caved in.  there may or may not have been an ulterior motivation for this, but that is neither here nor there (i.e. i'm not allowed to talk about it).  but it was mostly the girly weakness.  and omg do they look pretty!  all super cute and pink and cute and pink and cute and pink.  yeah, pink is my weakness.  i used to hate it when i was a kid, but now i've come to terms with it.  i even have pink earrings, pink ends for my industrial, a few pink tops, sexy pink undies (of course), and pink converse shoes.  i also have this crazy neon pink bra that is pretty awesome.  imagine that barbie decided to come out with a lingerie line.  it looks like that.  but what can i say?  sometimes the gamer in me  gets fed up with people assuming that i'm a guy and feels the need to reassert that fact that i carry that double x on my chromosomes.  and that i just want to feel pretty.  and then the rocker side of me starts to scream "wtf are you doing? there is too much estrogen here now!  quick, give me skulls and cross bones and angry music! STAT!" 

gloria, doesn't this remind you of prom?

ok, that's better now.  balance has been restored.

"you look like a russian mail order bride...

...and i mean that in a good way."  so this is probably the strangest and sweetest compliment i received this week.  this was referencing my eyes and the apparently very sultry look i can pull off with them, and was told to me by a new guy i have right now.  and no, this isn't just some guy i'm playing around with.  well, not totally.  there's plenty of playing, but it's different this time.  there's more to it than sex.  and it's kinda of scary in a way.  i've been on a lot of dates in the last year, but i never really cared too much how any of them turned out.  but this time i do.  it's a little weird sharing it this way, because i know he reads my blog from time to time.  i wasn't sure if i really wanted to put myself out there like this, but then i realized that i'm pretty sure that none of this will come as a surprise to him.  so while i'm still not sure how things are going to turn out yet because it's still really new, i can say that i'm really looking forward to finding out.  and if he does happen to read this, i just want to say thank you for making me feel so good about myself lately.  and i will be your russian (but mostly polish/german) mail order bride any time. 

streptococcus equi

don't worry, he doesn't have streptococcus equi or strep throat.  lucky horse.

no, i do not have stangles.  but for some reason (i.e. way too many college classes on this topic) whenever i hear the word "strep" my brain automatically fills in the "tococcus equi" part.  and i'm pretty sure that since i don't fall into the equine category, that's not something i really have to worry about. what i do have is strep throat.  it started yesterday with just a mild sore throat.  tons of cough syrup, throat spray, and cough drops made work manageable.  lots of nyquil and i slept pretty well from about 10:00 pm until 2:30 am when i woke up thinking it was way later than it was.  once i calmed myself down by realizing that no, i did not sleep through my alarm, i could not fall back asleep for the longest time because it hurt too much to swallow.  i tried some more nyquil, which knocked me out, and then led me to have crazy messed up dreams where i could no longer use my voice a la little mermaid style.  when i woke up, i was relieved to find out i could in fact still talk, but disappointed because it hurt like a bitch to do so.  upon palpating my neck, i found the left lymph area to be extremely sore.  for the next half hour i debated on if i should go to work or go see a doctor.  upon remember that most of my job is talking which, as stated earlier, hurt like a bitch to do, i figured going to the doctor might be my best option.  finding a doctor turned out to be a little harder.

see, up until today, i have been blessed enough to not need a doctor since i moved here.  so finding an office that took both of my insurances (i am lucky enough to have double coverage from work and a family plan), that was taking new patients, and was able to see me today took a bit of work.  i ended up having to go to one about twenty miles away that could see me as a walk in.  and apparently that means you will spend your entire day in their lobby.  and by entire day, i mean three and a half hours in the lobby, and then another thirty minutes in the exam room before being seen.  i finished off my book while i was in the lobby, and i'm pretty sure i took a nap while i was sitting in the chair in the room.  so after finally getting to talk to what i think was a nurse practitioner and being gagged with a cotton swab, it was determined that i had strep (tococcus.....no, no i'm not a horse!) throat.  i got a prescription for penicillin, which are ridiculously huge pills that i need to take four times a day.   i'm pretty sure the people who made these pills never actually had strep, because when it fucking hurts this much to swallow, i don't want a damn horse pill.  and trust me on this one, i've seen horse pills.  and i have had to use ones that are this size before on prince.

the other down side here is that i'm still in the contagious stage for the next twenty four hours or so until the meds kick in.  which means i can't go to work or be around other people because i'm nice and don't really want to get them sick.  it also means i'm fucking stuck inside for two whole days, which means i will probably be going stir crazy by thursday.  on the up side, i did get to eat a whole pint of ice cream today without feeling guilty, i spent all day in my pajamas (once i got home), and instead of working i was watching movies in bed with the fail ninja.  i have been wanting a few more "me days," i just wish i didn't have to get sick to do it.

what i remember from st. patrick's day (the editied version)*

so thursday night went a little differently than expected.  and from what i remember, it was a pretty damn good night.  we started the night out at mc carthy's.  i got mad props form the ladies in the bathroom line for being able to pee fast.  i was introduced to the "adios motherfucker"** which is now one of my new favorite drinks. tessa made brian kiss me.  everyone on the patio cheered whenever the police helicopter would fly over and shine a spotlight on us.  brian was telling me about a guitar with frets that aren't straight.  and some redhead who i think was named erika told me that i had a pair of glorious breasts and asked if she could feel them.***  i not entirely sure, but i think had about four or five drinks there.  i didn't buy them all, so i sorta of lost count.  all i know is that every time my cup was close to empty, there was a new one in front of me.  which is the way it should be.  and thank you to jason for dealing with the crowds at the bar so i didn't have to.

after mc carthy's we moved onto creekside.  which is a downstairs bar.  i had never been there and did not know that, so yeah, i was a little surprised to have to maneuver stairs while drunk, but i managed.  it's pretty small on the bar side, but they have a separate room where there was live music.  i have no idea if the person(s) playing were any good because it was too loud to hear them clearly from the bar and we never made it into the other room.  i remember talking to some blond girl about the drink she had because it looked good.  i ordered one for myself and it really was as good as it looked.  and keeping in tradition of drinks i like having the word "dirty" in them, (dirty girl scout anyone?) this one was called a dirty shirley.  i sorta kinda remember talking to a guy at the bar also, but i don't remember if he was part of our group or not.  it may or may not have been brian.  but i do remember tessa taking my cherry.  after that our group broke off into smaller groups and some people went home.  i decided i wanted food.

so if you have ever gone out drinking down town with me before, you will know that i get cravings for wild bread when i'm smashed.  that night was no exception, so jason and i made over to woodstocks.  i now know it's a good thing we took palm and not marsh to get there because i found out later that there was a sober check point set up on marsh and there is no way in hell i would have passed that.  but apparently i was sober enough to see the cops sitting on the bench, and jason tells me that they were snickering about that fact that i not so quietly pointed it out to him.  but they didn't stop us, so we made it to woodstocks so i could get my fix of the cheesy, ranch covered goodness.  if you have never had wild bread while drunk at 1:00 a.m., then you my friend are missing out.  hit me up if you're ever around and we will fix that.

* i thought it best if i took out all self incriminating evidence.  not that there was any or anything like that.  because you know, i'm a prefect angel and such and don't do anything bad. (lol ok i was laughing when i wrote that.  even i dont believe it)

** i find it really funny that my spell check recognizes motherfucker as a correctly spelled word

*** between her and the girl from new year's, i'm starting to think that for some reason, the ladies really like me

so it's about that time again

so today is that one glorious day out of the whole year where people look at you weird if you don't start drinking at 6:00 a.m.  i was not one of these people because 1) as i have said before, only one thing can get me out of bed that early, and 2) i had to work.  so i am now about thirteen and a half hours behind in drinking.  in about thirty minutes i will be trying to make up for that.  i have $50 to spend tonight, and if last year is any indication, i will do that.  only problem is that i work tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.  which is going to suck.  but not enough to keep me in tonight.  that is why God invented coffee and tylenol.

fun with colors

so i've recently started working with color editing some of my pictures.  it's tedious, time consuming, and amazingly awesome.  my favorite things to do would be a color splash or an aged effect (like the picture above).  and just a simple change to black and white can dramatically change the mood of the picture.    so i figured i would share some of the pictures i did tonight, since all my creativeness went towards that instead of coming up with a witty blog post.  i will try to be my usual smart ass self next time.  until then, enjoy the pretty pictures.  oh, and a special thanks to jason for keeping my company while i took the pictures and for putting up with the random way my mind works while i'm feeling artsy. 

color splash can be tedious enough to drive you crazy.  this one took about  thirty minutes.  but overall, it usually ends up being worth it

drunk uno!

ok so it's been a really long time since i had a good game of drunk uno.  and i'm feeling that needs to change.  if you have never had the pleasure/misfortune of playing drunk uno, you really are missing out.  drunk uno is a creation that me, jefe, and some other friends came up with one weekend in college, further proving that anything can be turned into a drinking game if enough alcohol is involved.  we were all pretty tipsy when the games started, and all ended up shit faced drunk by the time it was over.  i won/lost depending on how you look at it.  it came down to me and jefe (the two most borderline alcholic members of our group), and while i technically lost the game of uno, i had consumed the most alcohol in doing so.  so overall, win for me.  the rules are pretty simple.  basically anything other than a number card has a swig attached to it.  if you get skipped, you drink.  if it gets reversed back to you, you drink.  if you play a draw two, the next person drinks two.  and we play where you can stack draw two cards, so you can get fucked if you're the only person without one.  i think i had to drink eight at one point.  if you play a wild card, the next person drinks.  if it's a wild card with a draw four, they drink four.  if you have an uno and forget to call it, you drink seven.  if you can't make a play, you drink however many cards you have to draw.  over all, pretty simple and way more fun than most other drinking games.

i do have two pieces of advice if you ever want to play this game.  the first would be to have some way of keeping track of who's turn it is.  this game gets you fucked up fast, even if you're drinking less hard core stuff than jefe and i do.  and believe me, you will forget which direction you are playing.  the second piece of advice comes from experience.  do not make the same mistake jefe and i did.  buy waterproof cards.  they are worth the extra $3.00.

alex made me do it!

why do so many of my stories start like that?  so this time is was starting an account at okcupid and it's all because of alex.  he wanted me to make one to see how well the compatibly match ups really were.  basically, my account was to be his control sample.  so since it's free and i had nothing better to do last night that answer a shit ton of random questions about myself, i figured what the hell.  so i do the whole thing, check and see how it matches us up,* blah, blah, blah.  anyway, about twenty minutes after i start this thing i get a message in my inbox.  so since i'm talking to alex on facebook while all this is going on, i let him know. if i remember right he said something along the lines of "that's bs!  i've only had one girl message me unprovoked, and you get a guy in less than an hour?"  yeah, yeah i did.  because i'm just that awesome.  and in less that twenty four hours, i have had a total of five guys contact me.  granted one was a pot head, and one is a crazy desperate guy that posts on craigslist every other fucking day, but still.  they picked me to creep on.  so take that alex.  i'm cooler than you are on this one.  and you can't bitch about it anyway since you made me sign up for it in the first place.  and no, listing the things i think about most as "sex and video games" is not cheating because it's true.  i can't help if the things i like are guy kryptonite. 

*66% match, 81% friends, 18% enemies.  his response? "why isn't the enemy score higher?"

the nude photo shoot

ok not really.  jason wanted me to call it that.  mostly because he tagged along on my photo spree today, and one of his friends texted him to see what he was up to.  he gave her a smart ass answer and said he was being a nude model for an art project for me.  and she believed him.  so for the rest of the afternoon, it was referred to as the nude photo shoot.  but in reality, it was the converse project.  i ended up going to the mini oak forest for it, and i'm pretty happy with how most of the shots turned out.  and because i had this little vision in my mind, all the photos that i am keeping from today have been color edited.  i was feeling extra artys and/or creative tonight, so i figured i would give it a shot.  overall, i think it worked well.  some were simple aged effects, some were color splashes, a few are filtered to have a painted effect, just things to spice it up a bit.  i almost never edit my pictures, so it was something new for me to try.  it was kinda fun, so i might start doing it every now and then.  here's a little example of my handy work from tonight.  the rest of the pictures are on the facebook page.  let me know what you think.  and rest assured, there are no naked pictures of jason.  so you won't need any eye bleach (hopefully) after looking at them.  

 

  

 

the converse project

so i went to hookah last night and a painting i saw there has inspired my next photo project.  it was simple, but i really liked it.  it was what i think was oil on canvas, and it was just a pair of converse high tops hung over a telephone line.  but seeing how i have a great love of converse shoes, i decided i want to do my own converse project.  pretty much i'm going to be traveling around with my high tops and taking pictures of them in places where you wouldn't expect to find shoes.  it sounds a little weird when i put it that way, but i have some really cool ideas for it floating around in my head.  and i might do some black and white shots with the pink chuck taylors as well and just have the shoes colored in.  hell, i'll probably do some black and white shots of the high tops.  i took black and white pictures of my black and white cat, so why not my black and white shoes?  i'm still trying to figure out where i want to go for this.  i have a few ideas; maybe back to the pier, maybe some back ally ways down town, maybe the mini oak tree park.  i'm actually really digging on that last one.  if anyone has any other places to suggest, let me know.  a lot of it will probably depend on how i feel that day, but i'm open to various options and going to more than one place.  weather really won't be too much of an issue, since i think a little rain might add to the effect i'm going for.  and for some reason i'm really looking forward to the spread.  probably because it's a little more on the artistic interpretation side than any of my other weekend projects have been.  yay for being artsy!