Shake What Your Mama Gave You
I walked confidently into that studio, though I had little idea what to expect. Sure, I’d never taken a formal dance class in my life, but everyone told me that didn’t matter, you’ll catch on easily. Plus, you’re just supposed to have fun. I knew no one there, so I was determined to let it all hang out and do just that. I’ve spent my life surrounded by dancers. My best friend since neon stretch pants were de rigueur (the first time around) took ballet everyday after school, and through the years I attended her performances and eventually befriended other dancers as well. I know what a pas de deux is and…
New Year: Bring It
I have never been a big believer in New Year’s resolutions. This is partially because I don’t really care for New Year’s as a holiday in general. Take for instance my celebration of this New Year: home with Mike and the petses, a puzzle, Dances with Wolves (yes I cried at the end of the movie, especially when the wolf dies. I don’t see how that’s anyone’s business but my own), and a big supply of bubbly water. Unless something really good is going down, like a party involving dancing monkeys or famous writers, I don’t care to venture forth into the atmosphere of crazy thugs all liquored up to celebrate a…
Being Real – A Tribute
I try to keep this space lighthearted most of the time – a haven of irony and silliness from a life that is often bitter – but sometimes that is difficult. When your writing comes from your soul, it is bound to reflect the entire spectrum of human experience, from passion to humor to rage to anguish. I come from a place where hiding all that is ugly and painful was the rule, and reflected an incomplete (and therefore false) perception of myself to everyone. This was unfair to the world, to my family, to my friends. Not that I fooled anyone with my “I’m okay”s, but I did not…
Time to Be Honest, People
I’m going to go out on a limb here. It’s scary, but I feel compelled… I cried in the doctor’s office the other day. I hate crying more than almost anything except for spiders and Sylvester Stallone movies. However, the aftermath of a good loud wailing fest does result in clarity unmatched in the human cannon of emotional experience. At least for me. It’s like a release of pressure that builds up inside me because I try to pretend with myself that everything’s okay when it’s not. Or even when it is okay, but when I think it’s not. Because depression can play some nasty tricks with your perception of reality. As…
“Enunciate to the Back Row”
This is kind of becoming “Confessions Week” on the blog, because I have another secret I’ve been keeping from you that just doesn’t feel right anymore. I’ve got to come clean. I may have mentioned in passing that I am a recovering theatre geek, but I haven’t gone into any detail at this point. Really, it’s past time I dealt with this issue. There’s no excuse for keeping you guys in the dark any longer. So, *deep breath,* I took theatre for three years in high school, and one semester in college. I’ve always had a propensity for the dramatic, as evident by this photo: I wasn’t kidding about the…
Successful or Sexy – Pick a Team, Ladies
This one is mostly for my lady-friends. Gentlemen, just sit back, listen, and then think about what we go through as women in American society. Yes! You are trapped in a gender-studies class, run by me. Muahaha! As everyone knows because I can’t shut my pie-hole about it, I am leaving for New York on Friday around midnight, as I am a lunatic who thought the red eye would be a totally okay idea. There are always a million things to do to prepare for a trip of this magnitude, especially when the traveler desires to spend as little money as possible. The less money you want to spend, the more…
A Very Merry Un-Birthday TO ME!
FYI, this is not a real post today. I just got back from a weekend away, and I was too busy to think about you all. Sorry guys. I have a birthday today. It’s not the day of my literal birth, but I am celebrating the day I put down the bottle, which is actually a more important date for me. If I was still sucking down the hooch on a minute-by-minute basis, I’d be dead now. Or homeless. Or worse. Not sure what’s worse than being homeless, but I sure as hell don’t want to find out. This day is not that big of a deal to me –…
Woman in the Gray Flannel Suit
Over the years, I’ve come to know that I am not a task-driven creature when it comes to anything useful, at least in a Marxist sense. I would totally get kicked out of any communist country because I don’t really have any wage-earning skills, nor any aptitude for obtaining said skills, nor any interest in developing any aptitude for obtaining those skills. I’d be off making a dress entirely of daisies and singing to myself while my comrades would slave away in the rivet-manufacturing plant. http://www.hulu.com/watch/22650 If I had no clue before, my selection of study in college should have filled me in – ye good ol’ Literature/Art History duo…
Adventure Junkie?
The closing post for Adventure Week! Hopefully I’ve gotten it out of my system, and can return to reality refreshed and restored (love me some alliteration). Probably not completely though. Because hello, my name is Natalie, and I’m an adventuraholic with too big of an imagination for my own good. I’m starting to see that I may be an adventure junkie. This is very useful; I’m working some things out on this blog. Cheaper than therapy, and all my readers get to feel totally normal for five minutes. Everybody wins here. I’m doing this for humanity. Back when Mike and I were dating, long ago and far away, we would…
Hope, Part I – because you can never have enough hope
– – Warning: this post may contain unusual amounts of introspection. Please tread carefully. – – The breakthrough moment. I didn’t want to be an alcoholic. I was so in love with alcohol, it was tantamount to a death sentence. I didn’t want to stop drinking. But I knew I would die if I didn’t. Hmm, giving up the thing you love most in the world? I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to do it. The only hope I had was that I wanted to want to. So I prayed to my God. Help me to want to. Just help me…
