Thursday, August 24, 2006

8:07 PM - projectile camaraderie

the inappropriateness of vomiting on other people

So for the past week or two, I've started being very open with other people about the things that distress me about Brattleboro. Most people agree that Brattleboro is not for everyone, and I, therefore, am everyone. Still, instead of sitting bottled up in a room with my negativity, I've started blurting it out whenever people ask me how I like Brattleboro. Honesty is strangely cathartic. Sometimes I wonder if I am dumping on people too much. What's been fascinating about the process for me is that by being upfront about the parts of Brattleboro that vex* me, I'm actually happier and more appreciative of the parts of Brattleboro that I do enjoy. Strangely, by complaining about the parts of my job, my situation, or this isolated town that make me angry, I actually have more of an appreciation for things that go well.

There are two things that I need to examine in order to decide what is next in my life. I convinced myself to leave Berkeley by calling Vermont a sabbatical, and I am taking lots of refuge in that right now. I moved here to study circus and said that I wasn't leaving until either a) I'm good or b) I don't want to do circus any more. The first thing I need to decide is if I am still making progress, and if the training I am getting in Brattleboro truly is unique to Elsie and Serenity. The days when I am not making circus progress are the days when I want to cry and punch holes through windows. I had a really good private lesson with Serenity on Wednesday, though, and it makes me feel like all sorts of progress is possible. Is happening, right in the works. Those are the days I want to stay here in Brattleboro and keep working on the performances I want to create. Somewhere deep inside, I have a vicious mad dog persona that will fight hard to make everything work out for a creative project, and Mad Dog can certainly find money and persistence when the circus thing is going well.

The other thing I need to decide is if San Francisco was really as awesome as it is in my memory. I keep trying to remind myself of the things that drove me to leave in the first place: overpopulation, lack of nature, earthquake fear, and the everyday stress of grinding knuckles with other people just in trying to get my own things done. The things I miss keep coming back to me: the friends I left behind, the food, the sun setting over the ocean, the climate, the fact that there are other gay people there..... The culture.

When I visit the Bay Area in a few weeks (September 10-14), I'm going to try to answer for myself the questions of if the aerialist training is comparable to what I am getting here and whether everything is as good as it is in my memory. I'll probably do a lot of writing in my journal to figure out what I actually want to do next. Lauren and I have both thought of this as sort of a "monk" period, and it's definitely a period of growth for me.

I went to a friend's birthday potluck this evening. Had a great time, hung out more with people I knew and people I only tangentially knew... Had a bit of an inappropriate blurt about the things I don't like about Brattleboro, but then someone else (with a great sense of humor) shared a story about curling up naked in a ball on the floor and crying about life. I'm not the only one who has a difficult time in Brattleboro. And feeling alienated has actually helped me to make more friends. So.... confused....

*Vex is such a comic book word. You vex me, Batman. Zok, Pow, Boffo!

Friday, August 18, 2006

3:41 PM - Elvis jokes? *hangs head in shame*

Some bad jokes.

In light of the hoopla about bloggers as journalists, I felt it would be fun to try my own bloggy hand at journalism.

At a recent press conference, Elvis's former teddy bear Mabel discussed her surgery and recuperation after being attacked and having her stuffing pulled out by a Doberman pinscher named Barney. Although her doctors claim that Mabel is recovering nicely, she still describes her condition as "all shook up."

The incident began when Mabel allegedly whispered to Barney that she just wanted to be his teddy bear. Unfortunately Barney likes to play too rough.

When asked if she harbored any ill feelings towards the Doberman, Mabel replied that Barney, "ain't nothin' but a hound dog."

Sorry folks, that's all I have.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

4:29 AM - That gum you like is going to come back in style.

I've got good news...

I cancelled my World of Warcraft account last night. For the second time! For me, games like that can be so.... time-consuming. I got to the point where it wasn't fun for me any more, at least not with the group I was with. They seem to think that leadership necessitates yelling and insults, and I don't think that it's ever appropriate for people to treat each other that way. Part of it is a fundamental flaw in the design of the game; with most high-level challenges requiring 20 or 40 people, you can't really play the endgame without a guild. I'm sure the game designers think they are fostering the growth of community, but for the most part it's like being in high school again. Yesterday reminded me what a rare treasure the Looterati are. Is. Bah, writing about the Looterati and I can't seem to put them in a grammatically correct sentence. Murmp.

In other news, I have made my peace with being in Brattleboro. It's not the place for me long-term: It's too isolated and there's too much weather. The people I've met are nice, but it seems like everyone is Christian and having babies. There's nothing wrong with being Christian or having babies or even wanting to have Christian babies. It's just that everyone here seems to be doing the same thing, and it's a bit creepy in a "why is everyone white??" kind of way. Even a woman at the circus school, who is vehemently uninterested in having babies, is feeling the urge to have babies. My breath of fresh air has been Naomi, who's become my favorite checker at the grocery store and who ran up to me yesterday and yanked me over to her lane, even though it wasn't open. She's got this playful goth thing going on, and yesterday she augmented it with sparkly teal eyeshadow and a bright purple flower in her hair. She's moving to Oregon soon to study as a Priestess of Isis. And while being a Priestess of Isis isn't personally my thing any more than having babies, I still say thank goodness. Thank goodness there's someone here on her own path, having her own life adventure, and doing something different. Thank you, Naomi.

(To be fair, the circus people here are invaluable. Thank you all for being so supportive and wonderful and good. Thank you.)

But I've made my peace with Brattleboro. Even though living here is hard, and even though there's no money at all to be made here because there is no industry, I have come to a realization. Two, actually. The first was about my time in China: my daily life in China was difficult, challenging, and way outside of my comfort zone. I was sad lots of the time on a day-to-day basis. But now, seven years later, it's the period in my life that I talk about the most, and it was an enormous growing experience. In a different way, Brattleboro will serve a similar purpose in my life. I am growing, facing challenges, and learning about myself. I'm learning to step up to challenges a bit more instead of being miserable about being outside of my comfort zone. The other realization happened when I was watching some fabric performance videos on YouTube. I saw videos of a beginner class in Brazil, doing the same exact tricks that we learn, and I also saw a woman with incredible strength and technique (and no performance sense) with toes pointed like knitting needles and I realized: that's the aesthetic that Serenity is pushing me towards. Pushing me because she believes I can reach the same level of strength and achievement. She wouldn't push me if she didn't think I could get there. That encourages me to try harder and put more faith in her method, rather than struggle and try to rebel as I have been doing. No more thrashing!

I've become inspired to work on a new piece. Finally all of the pieces that were floating around in my head have congealed into an idea. A goal. It's beautiful in my head, and I know that when I get bitten by something like this, I work very hard to make it a reality.

For a side project, Puzzle Pirates is having another video contest. My Scooby-Doo pirate video won second place in the last contest (and some people preferred it to the winner, although the third and fourth place winners also deserved quite a bit of recognition). I hadn't announced it in the blog yet because I wanted to wait to show off my prize, but apparently my prize isn't done yet. In any case, I'll have something to work on with this new contest: it's a 30 second commercial. So.... much... potential.

Finally! For those of you who have read this far: I'm visiting the Bay Area September 10-14. Oh how I miss you, my beautiful city. I'm mostly going to see friends, though it's also going to be a tenative "Do I want to move back here? Let's get some perspective..." type of a trip. I'm also going to eat good food. Good. Food. *drools and passes out*

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

6:04 AM - Know the local trespassing laws and be ready to accept any consequences.

a follow-up to yesterday's post

Today we present the WikiHow guide to Breaking and Entering. (Or is it "breaking in entering"? I always thought that "breaking and entering" was a common misnomer.)

Monday, August 07, 2006

8:23 AM - Make sure you eat a hearty meal before attempting a battle.

Direct your raps toward things that bother you or upset you.

My computer is still in the shop. In an effort to ease some of the tedium of using a 7-year old Pentium 2 laptop, I have elected to use the personalized Google homepage to check my e-mail. By default, it comes with a module created by WikiHow.com, and its initial offering, How to Coin Stack a Penny Bridge was so absurd that I chose not to remove the module from my default Google page.

That minor non-action has borne fruit, as today WikiHow presents: How to Survive a Freestyle Rap Battle. My favorite part is when they explain how to use Metaphors ("Making comparisons with your target to something that denigrates them") and Disses ("Saying things that either make fun of them in general... or about them personally... anything that directly goes against them in a way that makes fun of them.") in your first battle.

Priceless.

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

4:47 PM - my first YouTube post

amazing choreography

So innovative and interesting. Take a look.