Today

I just got home from dance. Of course, by "just got home," I mean "said 'Hi' to Mom, went into the kitchen, gulped a huge glass of water, refilled it with juice, gulped that, then came upstairs, put the kettle on, checked a few websites, contemplated checking either the 11 emails or 20 voicemails that somehow stacked up while I wasn't looking, put on pajamas, came back to the computer and opened a new post, went to get a sweater because the sweat had dried and I was cold, got a lemon-ginger teabag out of my purse, threw away the teabag left in the otherwise empty mug on my desk, turned on the David Crowder Band, rinsed the mug a little, made the tea, and finally mosied back to the computer and started typing."

Today was a crazy day. Yesterday, I overslept until 10:30, missing all of Orchestra and part of Japanese. I'm still feeling a little off. Today, I woke up (relatively) bright and early, took out the curlers that I had put in my hair the previous night for no real reason other that boredom, went to school, and was pretty much bored all day. After school, the sun was shining, I'd managed to slip out of class a minute or so early to beat the rush out of the student parking lot so I wouldn't be late to teach my little ballet girls, and all was right in the world. Plus my hair was curly, which is always a plus.

On my way out of the parking lot, I passed some weird kids with the windows rolled down and some hip hop music blaring. The lightbulb went on above my curly head. Down went my windows. Up went my volume. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I was cruising down River Road, Vivaldi blaring at an inexcusable volume. In a minivan. I did turn it down before I got to the studio, just in case one of my little girls' parents started to question my fitness for the job.

We tried on costumes today. All twelve of them looked fantastic in their little orange leotards. Unfortunately, many of the yellow and orange feathers molted off of their costumes and lay on the studio floor as if Big Bird had got in a fight with...um... something orange...and feathery.
Nonetheless and never the more, they looked adorable.

After class, I went home and played this silly game called Outpost Kaloki X on the Xbox that I have become shamefully addicted to. It's basically like Sim Space Station. Except funny. I had rescued the princess and was trying to build a wildlife reserve, but by the time I had enough money, all my power sources were exploding. I hate it when that happens.

I was about five minutes late for dance, but that was okay since class started about five minutes late. All through barre I was feeling about as shiny as a happy hippy, but without the drugs. Center went by without any serious problems. We put our pointe shoes on and went to run our Swan Lake stuff for the recital. By the way, it's really, pickin' hard. Roughly five exhausting minutes later, we finished, bowed and walked serenely off stage (left, right, left, step small so I don't run Kyla over, right, left), then collapsed, gasping, all over the floor and crawled painfully over to our water bottles. Mrs. Jennifer then said the thrice-accursed words: "Okay, let's do it again." I stood painfully, leaving a small, muddy puddle of sweat on the marley.

The second time through was torture. Before we had even made it to the cabrioles, I was literally wheezing. The air was thick with pretty much everything but oxygen. My throat wouldn't relax enough to let what little air there was into my lungs. By the time we got to the baby swan variation, I was in tears. It was no good.

So here I am. Feeling crusty and sore. Tomorrow are the auditions for the junior company (Hosanna Prepatory Ensemble, or HoPE), and I'm on the spot, teaching choreography I'm working on to "I Saw the Light" by the David Crowder Band. It's pretty cool that, even though I'm old and leaving, there'll be a piece in the repetoire with my name on it for quite a long time to come. I've got roughly 45 seconds of the 3:10 minute piece done. Tonight, I need to read two poems for AP Lit and a half-chapter of Lord of the Flies for my English for the Apathetic/Ignorant.

O, pray for me. I am so very weary.