Dance class last night-- the first in two very long weeks! It felt great to focus like that again. I dance on my own and with a friend, and practice some every day, but it's not the same. The Stellar One kicks our asses.
She had us working on complex step combinations for Sa'idi music, which is from Upper Egypt (the southern part of Egypt, since it's the upper valley of the Nile, which flows north). Sa'idi is much more folkloric, much bouncier than the Cairo cabaret stuff she usually gives us. Lots of shoulder shimmy, mizmar horn, and quick footwork, stutter-steps and careful foot placement to ensure accurate follow-through.
Timing, as with all dance, is everything. It doesn't help that my left foot is retarded about turns; in one of the integral step combinations my left foot wants to swing forward and to the right, when instead it must swing back and to the left, which would set me up for the right side hip shimmy, and from there a step combo leading off on the right foot. Silly damned left foot, all class long, turned me the wrong way. My instructor laughed at me and said it was the same problem she had, and she said she had a complex about the complex steps. She promised me if I practice I'll get it. I think if I chop off my left foot then maybe I'll get it.
Walked with R and Jesi to R's little cubby hole apartment, where we sat on the floor of her kitchen because she doesn't have any furniture other than a small desk and a bed roll on the floor in her bedroom, which is smaller than the kitchen. R and Jesi discussed snuggle buddies and how great it is to curl up with a man in bed and have reached mutual agreement to not have sex because it changes everything, and how sure the guys probably want to have sex and surprise surprise the girls do, too, but such an act changes the intimacy of being snuggle buddies. I had no comment on the issue. It made me shrug. I did feel like telling them that marriage means their snuggle buddies will also be their lovers and their best friends. But I'm just an old married lady, what the hell do I know. I collected sweet sweaty girl hugs and headed home to my own snuggle buddy with Sa'idi music in my head.
When I arrived home, S was listening to Peter Tosh on the stereo he had set up while I was in class. Part of the components had been down at the coffeehouse, and our sole source of music for years has been a little radio cd-player. This is a very nice stereo, and he set the teak-framed Pioneer weighs-a-ton 40-years-old turntable up on a small antique craftsman-style oak table. The speakers are also Pioneer, and were part of the same stereo set my Dad had bought in Japan when he was on leave during his time in the Navy. All in excellent condition, well-loved and cared-for, well polished. Not many bells and whistles and lights on this old stereo but I prefer that, it sure sounds great, and now S can play all his old record albums from when he was in high school, many moons ago.
Like Peter Tosh, The Clash, Souixse and the Banshees, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, The Damned, and... Linda Ronstadt? What's this doing in here? Did you buy this? Which one of these things is not like the other...? Not like I have any room to talk. I am not going to share the information of my Linda Ronstadt equivalent with anyone.
Before bed we clinked whisky glasses and listened to an old bellydancing album he had purchased recently in anticipation of getting the stereo set up. The first song is called "Ouzo," like the Greek anise drink that will knock you on your ass. Come on over here, I said, and snuggle with me.
She had us working on complex step combinations for Sa'idi music, which is from Upper Egypt (the southern part of Egypt, since it's the upper valley of the Nile, which flows north). Sa'idi is much more folkloric, much bouncier than the Cairo cabaret stuff she usually gives us. Lots of shoulder shimmy, mizmar horn, and quick footwork, stutter-steps and careful foot placement to ensure accurate follow-through.
Timing, as with all dance, is everything. It doesn't help that my left foot is retarded about turns; in one of the integral step combinations my left foot wants to swing forward and to the right, when instead it must swing back and to the left, which would set me up for the right side hip shimmy, and from there a step combo leading off on the right foot. Silly damned left foot, all class long, turned me the wrong way. My instructor laughed at me and said it was the same problem she had, and she said she had a complex about the complex steps. She promised me if I practice I'll get it. I think if I chop off my left foot then maybe I'll get it.
Walked with R and Jesi to R's little cubby hole apartment, where we sat on the floor of her kitchen because she doesn't have any furniture other than a small desk and a bed roll on the floor in her bedroom, which is smaller than the kitchen. R and Jesi discussed snuggle buddies and how great it is to curl up with a man in bed and have reached mutual agreement to not have sex because it changes everything, and how sure the guys probably want to have sex and surprise surprise the girls do, too, but such an act changes the intimacy of being snuggle buddies. I had no comment on the issue. It made me shrug. I did feel like telling them that marriage means their snuggle buddies will also be their lovers and their best friends. But I'm just an old married lady, what the hell do I know. I collected sweet sweaty girl hugs and headed home to my own snuggle buddy with Sa'idi music in my head.
When I arrived home, S was listening to Peter Tosh on the stereo he had set up while I was in class. Part of the components had been down at the coffeehouse, and our sole source of music for years has been a little radio cd-player. This is a very nice stereo, and he set the teak-framed Pioneer weighs-a-ton 40-years-old turntable up on a small antique craftsman-style oak table. The speakers are also Pioneer, and were part of the same stereo set my Dad had bought in Japan when he was on leave during his time in the Navy. All in excellent condition, well-loved and cared-for, well polished. Not many bells and whistles and lights on this old stereo but I prefer that, it sure sounds great, and now S can play all his old record albums from when he was in high school, many moons ago.
Like Peter Tosh, The Clash, Souixse and the Banshees, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, The Damned, and... Linda Ronstadt? What's this doing in here? Did you buy this? Which one of these things is not like the other...? Not like I have any room to talk. I am not going to share the information of my Linda Ronstadt equivalent with anyone.
Before bed we clinked whisky glasses and listened to an old bellydancing album he had purchased recently in anticipation of getting the stereo set up. The first song is called "Ouzo," like the Greek anise drink that will knock you on your ass. Come on over here, I said, and snuggle with me.
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