Things that Make me Feel Better about Myself as a Dancer

Taking classes from professional dancers who are even more one-sided than I am.  Petite Jamila of Bellydance Superstars spins in one direction.  She says if we want to do spin the other direction we are welcome to figure it out for ourselves.  Christina Camperlongo of Cirque du Soleil says she has the side that works and then she has the stupid side.  She doesn't do things on her stupid side.

Speaking of Christina Camperlongo, I got her to sign my program from Amaluna.  Dream big, darlings!

Tutu!

I have been angry or sad most of the time since I moved to Wyoming.  But today, I felt a little fabulous.

This routine is still a work in progress, but I think wearing a tutu is not only going to work, it's going to be gorgeous.  Just wait until I'm wearing the sparkly white performance costume and tiara. 

Close Encounters of the Wyoming Kind: Tools! For Great Wifedom!

The other day in the gym, my sister and I were setting up our aerial rig in preparation to working out on the silks  This involves assembling some steel beams and using a wrench to bolt them together.  It's fairly simple.

One of the more elderly gentlemen who take their morning constitutionals in the gym, seeing this, remarked that because we can use tools, we will make good wives one day.  I have many problems with his comment.  First, saying I use a tool is sort of a meaningless statement.  Humans are tool-using animals.  Not by any means the only animals that use tools, but it's a thing we do.  The aerial rig itself is a tool, we drove to the gym in a car, which is a tool, and earlier that morning I used a coffee grinder, an electric kettle, a coffee press, and a coffee mug.  Later that morning I used a computer.  But since tools for mechanical and/or manual labor are more stereotypically for men (Sojourner Truth and Rosie the Riveter be damned) than, say, the applicator I used for spreading sparkly green polish on my fingernails, they are more important, even though putting on nail polish actually requires significantly more muscle control and skill than turning a bolt with a wrench.  I mean, it's a wrench.  It applies mechanical advantage to a bolt such that I don't need much in the way of skill or muscle when turning it.  That's the whole point.   I am, however, a woman, so my ability to use a manly tool such as a wrench, particularly since it isn't a specially marketed pink lady-tool, is surprising and worthy of note.  

My other major problem is the statement that using a non lady-tool will make me a good wife someday.  What exactly non-gender-stereotyped tool-use has to do with forming a government-recognized partnership based on mutual love and respect I do not know.  I do know that he probably doesn't think of marriage in an egalitarian sort of way if he makes this statement, but I'm going to ignore that.  I have skills.  I have skills now.  I use skills to accomplish tasks now.  I am using my remarkable tool-using skills in despite of my ladyness in order to be an aerial dancer.  That's a skill to be proud of.  There is nothing wrong with marriage, and if it is implemented well, there can be quite a few things right with it, but to imply that this is the apex and end of accomplishments for a woman is insulting.  I am a dancer whether or not I am married, and that accomplishment is an accomplishment to be recognized that has nothing to do with marriage.  Come to that, my ability to use a wrench, is a skill (such as it is) that does not need to be modified by marriage.

What I'm getting at is that this man is refusing to recognize that I am a skillful person now in myself.  If in my life I marry, I imagine I will be rather skillful at that too, but it doesn't take marriage to make use of my skills and be a good person.  To imply, or blatantly state, otherwise is an insult.

Close Encounters of the Wyoming Kind

I talked to people today!  About things!  For work and community integration!  I was not impressed with the experience.

• While putting gas in the car (See?  I can do first world things!  I drive a car and I pay for gas with a credit card and I turn off the engine before putting gas in it. Unlike Tanzanians.) I was engaged in casual small talk by a gentleman putting fuel in his overly large pickup.  This gentleman, it turns out, hates Wyoming and has to work all the time to support his four children (Is it culturally appropriate to talk with Americans about condom usage, importance of?).  It further developed that he wanted my phone number and a date.  Seriously, who makes passes at strange women in gas stations?  Is that a thing?  Can it be not a thing? 

• While doing my actual sort of job and trying to sweet talk some people at a nice gym with a high ceiling into letting us nice dancers rig aerial silks in exchange for paying the gym money, I encountered a rec center supervisor who, instead of just saying no to me, started making up physics in order to explain to me that the ceiling was only for, and I quote, "up forces, not down forces."  I don't even know what to say to that.  Can we get some government organization to send in some volunteer physics teachers posthaste? 

On the plus side, the ladies at the DMV were nice and there are so few people in this state that there is no line-waiting to be done.  Also, there is a coffee house which is not part of an imperialistic franchise and at which the baristas will very nicely ask if I would like whipped cream and a chocolate covered espresso bean on top of my drinks.  Yes.  Yes I would.  Thank you for anticipating my shallow needs.