As I sit here I am trying to isolate and flex my stomach muscles. Yes. I actually practice far less for every dance thing I am involved with than I should - however lately I have been really trying to be good. Be good with work, be good with art, waste less time, practice more, devote more time and effort to things I enjoy and want to excel at, want to improve at, need to work at, desire to get better at. It's sort of working.
I just had a moment, working on my story and listening to an old mix, and posted this video on facebook. So I'll share it with whoever is stumbling upon this and let you know - please realize this was a deep seeded, intense favorite song of mine for quite awhile. I have many, of course, but this one hit the cord for some terribly long, terribly intense part of my life so far. And I bet you probably think it sucks, or it's nothing special. It's not really, just a song, just a song that was there, that meant something, that someone put together once and some guy played out and some other guy recorded it and then it ended up in my music library and then I played it obsessively...
The weirdest thing is that even with drum n bass, once my most favorite electronic genre (and probably still) - I can appreciate everything about that track, including the diva-blues-ey vocals, which in house music sometimes are too much and turn me off. Beautiful voices are always good. Specific genre beautiful voices are only good when they're really good - and this one is really good? I don't even make sense to myself, don't worry. The point is, it's an important track to my "Life Soundtrack." Everyone has to have a "Life Soundtrack." Don't you? If you don't, try thinking about it once in awhile - what songs would be playing at certain points in your day, your life in general. If someone was making a movie of my life, and I got to pick the music.... (carry on.)
As someone who spent a great deal of time, at least in college, making films and videos, this is something that you start thinking about. Once you have to bring that dimension to life, you either need to create a physical, real world soundtrack - recorded sounds, footsteps, cars going by, voices in the foreground or background, phones ringing - whatever is there, should be there, would be there if you want your viewer to be there - you have to create this, you have to make it believable. It's half your "movie", and it's just important as your images. (While plenty may agree, this is also just my opinion. As usual.)
****
And you know what else? With the exception of my bellydance ladies, all of those people who are *suddenly* picking up fire fans and wielding them around like they know what they are doing after 2 weeks - excuse me, can go fuck themselves. Like any other tool they take time and practice. Please don't disregard the rest of us and our hard work by making it seem insignificant. Thank you.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Friday, March 18, 2011
Free Will
My horoscope for this week from Free Will Astrology. (This is the only one I read. Sometimes, of course, it seems totally off - but more often than not it is something I at least recognize as eerily relevant to my life. You should have seen the ones around the time I met my husband. It was ridiculously on and in retrospect, kind of creepy.)
"In the absence of clearly-defined goals," said Cancerian writer Robert Heinlein, "we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it." If this description is even a partial match for the life you're living, now is an excellent time to address the problem. You have far more power than usual to identify and define worthy goals -- both the short-term and long-term variety. If you take advantage of this opportunity, you will find a better use for the energy that's currently locked up in your enslavement to daily trivia.
At this point in my life, (and this has never ever been the case before) I find myself less of a slave to time. ( "Don't be a slave to time...man..." - I'll give you a dollar if you know what movie that's from. It's one of my favorites. ) My jobs hold different weekly hours, for small or different amounts of time. I'm not in school, so I don't have to show up at a certain class at the same obnoxious hour every week. I have some routines, but I'm still struggling to hold true to the ones involving work, even if it's art. I should, I think, be sitting down and scheduling art work time like it's the real job I want it to be. I mean, yea - sometimes I'm just not feeling it, but more often I just waste time ON THE INTERNET or doing whatever else where I could probably be more personally productive. Since I'm here doing housework (laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning) sometimes takes a priority to more fun stuff since I feel obligated to take care of it, being here all the time as I am. (That would be guilt coming through. Sigh. Yes.) So maybe that shit is my "daily trivia" and I need to put my energy when I'm not at real work to better use.
So, don't be a slave to time. Man. That's today's lesson.
"In the absence of clearly-defined goals," said Cancerian writer Robert Heinlein, "we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it." If this description is even a partial match for the life you're living, now is an excellent time to address the problem. You have far more power than usual to identify and define worthy goals -- both the short-term and long-term variety. If you take advantage of this opportunity, you will find a better use for the energy that's currently locked up in your enslavement to daily trivia.
At this point in my life, (and this has never ever been the case before) I find myself less of a slave to time. ( "Don't be a slave to time...man..." - I'll give you a dollar if you know what movie that's from. It's one of my favorites. ) My jobs hold different weekly hours, for small or different amounts of time. I'm not in school, so I don't have to show up at a certain class at the same obnoxious hour every week. I have some routines, but I'm still struggling to hold true to the ones involving work, even if it's art. I should, I think, be sitting down and scheduling art work time like it's the real job I want it to be. I mean, yea - sometimes I'm just not feeling it, but more often I just waste time ON THE INTERNET or doing whatever else where I could probably be more personally productive. Since I'm here doing housework (laundry, dishes, cooking, cleaning) sometimes takes a priority to more fun stuff since I feel obligated to take care of it, being here all the time as I am. (That would be guilt coming through. Sigh. Yes.) So maybe that shit is my "daily trivia" and I need to put my energy when I'm not at real work to better use.
So, don't be a slave to time. Man. That's today's lesson.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Trash Soup
Trash Soup (aka homemade vegetable stock)
Ingredients: leftover onion peels, carrot tops, parsley sprigs, celery ends, garlic peels, potato peels, apple cores, egg shells (they leach calcium into the stock), almost anything that would be good in a soup/compost (all rinsed of dirt and debris)
(Veggies to avoid: bell peppers, broccoli, citrus, tomatoes, eggplant...)
fresh or dried herbs, spices (bay leaf, dried rosemary/basil/thyme/whatever)
salt/pepper (to taste)
water
tupperware containers or plastic freezer bags for storage
Instructions:
In the weeks prior to making your Trash Soup, save and freeze your end pieces in a bag in the freezer (like onion peels, carrot tops - not the green part though, potato peels, parsley/herb stalks -very nutritious, apple cores, egg shells, etc. Avoid anything that has gone bad or is browning, and the veggies mentioned above. Pretty much anything that would normally go in a soup or is okay to boil forever without a weird taste - broccoli and peppers I hear turn bitter after awhile, and I generally avoid anything that's sort of "soft", too, like eggplant or tomatoes.)
Once you have amassed a large quantity of frozen veggie "trash", find the biggest stock pot you own and fill it with water. If your veggie pieces aren't clean, make sure to rinse them off well. Add your veggie "trash" to boiling water, along with spices, herbs, salt/pepper. Feel free to add more fresh vegetables to the stock if you'd like - sometimes I throw in some extra cloves of garlic, or if anything is about to go bad in my fridge and would be okay to use for stock, but not so great to eat fresh.
Boil your Trash Soup for as long as possible, at least 4+ hours. (Feel free to do it all day long if you can, or save it in the fridge covered and boil it again the next day.) The water should be colored a nice rich brown at this point. Strain out the broth, saving the liquid in a separate pot. At this point you can throw away the boiled veggie trash or save it for compost. Sometimes I put it right back in the freezer in the original freezer bags to avoid it stinking up my trash until trash day.
You can now use your delicious, cheap, homemade veggie broth (TRASH SOUP!) to make anything! Boil your taters in it for mashed potatoes, or make soups or sauces of all kinds. It will be better tasting than anything you can buy at the store, I guarantee you. Store in tupperware or heavy duty plastic bags in the freezer until ready to use.
WAA-LAA! Bon appetit.
Ingredients: leftover onion peels, carrot tops, parsley sprigs, celery ends, garlic peels, potato peels, apple cores, egg shells (they leach calcium into the stock), almost anything that would be good in a soup/compost (all rinsed of dirt and debris)
(Veggies to avoid: bell peppers, broccoli, citrus, tomatoes, eggplant...)
fresh or dried herbs, spices (bay leaf, dried rosemary/basil/thyme/whatever)
salt/pepper (to taste)
water
tupperware containers or plastic freezer bags for storage
Instructions:
In the weeks prior to making your Trash Soup, save and freeze your end pieces in a bag in the freezer (like onion peels, carrot tops - not the green part though, potato peels, parsley/herb stalks -very nutritious, apple cores, egg shells, etc. Avoid anything that has gone bad or is browning, and the veggies mentioned above. Pretty much anything that would normally go in a soup or is okay to boil forever without a weird taste - broccoli and peppers I hear turn bitter after awhile, and I generally avoid anything that's sort of "soft", too, like eggplant or tomatoes.)
Once you have amassed a large quantity of frozen veggie "trash", find the biggest stock pot you own and fill it with water. If your veggie pieces aren't clean, make sure to rinse them off well. Add your veggie "trash" to boiling water, along with spices, herbs, salt/pepper. Feel free to add more fresh vegetables to the stock if you'd like - sometimes I throw in some extra cloves of garlic, or if anything is about to go bad in my fridge and would be okay to use for stock, but not so great to eat fresh.
Boil your Trash Soup for as long as possible, at least 4+ hours. (Feel free to do it all day long if you can, or save it in the fridge covered and boil it again the next day.) The water should be colored a nice rich brown at this point. Strain out the broth, saving the liquid in a separate pot. At this point you can throw away the boiled veggie trash or save it for compost. Sometimes I put it right back in the freezer in the original freezer bags to avoid it stinking up my trash until trash day.
You can now use your delicious, cheap, homemade veggie broth (TRASH SOUP!) to make anything! Boil your taters in it for mashed potatoes, or make soups or sauces of all kinds. It will be better tasting than anything you can buy at the store, I guarantee you. Store in tupperware or heavy duty plastic bags in the freezer until ready to use.
WAA-LAA! Bon appetit.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
You know you got fire
I've been neglecting my alt-blog. It's not because I don't have anything to say, or that there is nothing going on. Those topics just seem to fit better in my other blog or nowhere public. So, I will share with you some most excellent shots taken a couple weekends ago by the husband/fiance's of The Penny Treats - which are now on Facebook, so like us - and there should be a website too, coming soon. We also made some kick ass business cards last minute for a performance last Thursday night. Enjoy.
Business card front
Business card back
Okay - and I know hardly anyone knows about this blog or even reads it - but HELP - I need a burlesque stage name! My "porn star" name (first pet and street that you grew up on) is "Coco Obispo", which I think is pretty damn rad - but don't know how much it actually has to do with me. I like "Coco" - and then otherwise, I'm just not sure. Should it have to do with "Xtina" in some way? Or should it just be random and fun? I'm stuck. If anyone is reading, please help!
XO
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