Sarah's Current Semi-Permanent Space

Tue, 26 May 2009 19:43:20 GMT

California = permanent shitlist.

That is all.

Thu, 15 Jan 2009 05:29:06 GMT

I've noticed that something tends to happen when I go to see the family in Seattle, Florida, or wherever. It's kind of a process. It goes like this:

I go back to Seattle, Florida, or wherever, to see my family.

Generally, this is because I'm on a break from school and therefore have a light or nonexistent work burden.

As a result, I enjoy vegging out in front of the TV occasionally. This is genuinely a treat for me, as I don't have a TV in my apartment, nor do I have any desire to get one.

When I watch TV, I tend to gravitate towards procedurals. I think this is because I only watch TV occasionally and therefore find it difficult to get into the shows that have multi-episode plotlines.

I have, over the years, had two favourite procedurals. One was the original CSI, but my interest has waned a bit since the departure of my two (soon three) favourite characters. My other favourite procedural is pretty much everyone's favourite procedural: Law & Order: SVU.

So when I go back to Seattle, Florida, or wherever, to see my family, I end up watching a lot of SVU.

And then, for a few days or weeks after returning to Bloomington, I have to fight the urge to change my computer desktop to the image below as I find myself nurturing a rather amusing and devoted fictional character crush on the NYPD's hottest (fake) detective:

Gaaaaaaaaah. So hot.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:06:29 GMT

For your viewing/listening pleasure:

So. Awesome.

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 18:54:21 GMT

Obama defends choice of evangelical pastor

But Obama told reporters in Chicago that America needs to "come together," even when there's disagreement on social issues. "That dialogue is part of what my campaign is all about," he said.

Obama also said he's known to be a "fierce advocate for equality" for gays and lesbians, and will remain so.

You've been talking that talk for awhile, Obama. After having supported you for such a long time, I have to ask: how long before you start walking it?

ETA: Thanks to ninja_turbo for hooking me up with the email address for Parag Mehta, the LGBT liaison on Obama's transition committee. It's parag.mehta@ptt.gov -- I plan to write to him. I hope you do, too. Or at least, those of you who are American.

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:30:27 GMT

Study break. Stole this meme from circe_pleading because it looked like fun.

I'm not including all of my cities on here -- just the ones that fit best into the categories provided. At the risk of sounding like a horrible pompous snob: it would take too long to list all the cities I've been to and loved.

CITIES THAT BROKE MY HEART
Montreal. In so many ways.

CITIES WITH WHOM I HAVE HAD BRIEF PASSIONATE ONE-NIGHT STANDS
Hiroshima, La Spezia, San Francisco, Paris, Manchester, Toronto (I guess? Toronto might have been more of a "short-term casual relationship where we parted amicably and could conceivably get back together" than a one-night stand).

CITIES I'D TOTALLY HOOK UP WITH
New York, Barcelona, Salvador de Bahia, Melbourne, Igloolik, Porto, Bangkok, St. Petersburg, Talinn...

CITIES I HAVE LOVED
London, Tokyo, Montreal (yes, it broke my heart, but I still love it - it's that kind of city), Kingston (in a very fraternal kind of way).

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 22:04:42 GMT

That is all.

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 15:55:40 GMT

euryale000, this one's for you (pilfered from liminalliz).

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

And, for good measure:

euryale000 and I played this at the election watch party we attended, and got the entire crowd jamming. It was a high-five-worthy moment.

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 16:03:10 GMT

Hey guys, look who's on the front page of the Bloomington Herald Times:

http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/

W00T!

(PS: I'm in the purple, smack in the middle).

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 06:55:44 GMT

Oh. My. God.

I think I actually teared up.

We WON.

I spent the countdown across the street at a cafe packed with supporters, in the company of good friends. Everyone cheered at the screen when a new state kicked over to Obama. We ate cake. We drank beer.

At the end of the night I drove a few of my friends home, and after dropping off the last one, I had to cross Kirkwood -- the main drag here in town -- to get back home. There were people outside, shouting, and I heard a flute from somewhere. It was only as I crossed the street and looked back in my sideview mirror that I realised that the flute was being played by Ras Anebana, a friend of mine from my capoeira group. He, and a bunch of other people, were literally dancing on the street corner.

I parked my car back at my lot and decided to put off sleep a little longer to walk back to Kirkwood and say hi to him. As it turned out, he was with a couple of my friends from capoeira, all of them playing a djembe and the flute and smoking a lot of weed and chanting "Yes we can!" and "Si se puede!" at every passing car. Several of them are Rastafarians, so you can imagine how they must be feeling. We all hugged and cheered.

I honestly can't believe this.

People: remember where you were today. Buy a copy of tomorrow's newspaper and save it. Today is historic. Just like our parents who remember where they were when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, or when the Berlin Wall fell, or when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the Mall, we will be telling our grandchildren about where we were today and the things we did to make this happen. There will be high schools and freeways and maybe even a holiday named after Obama one day.

I've been defensive of this country in response to people who have made xenophobic or prejudicial assumptions about it when I was living overseas, but I have never, before today, felt proud to be American. Right now, riding the high of this victory, I can honestly say is the first time in my entire life that I find myself thinking, maybe this country can become something I can believe in, after all.

Before anyone jumps on me for melodrama: contrary to what many of you may think, I don't actually think that Obama is the way, the truth, and the light of American politics. I just think he's as close as we're likely to get right now. And my present optimism comes in small part because I think he has the potential to do great things as President, but even more because until I watched it happen, I never, ever would have believed that this country was ready to elect him.

This may sound incredibly cheesy, but for right now, hope really is the word.

The Ten Types of Republican

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 04:37:14 GMT

BEST THING EVER.

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 19:49:56 GMT

I have finally gotten off my ass and gone to volunteer for the Obama campaign. Already, if we don't win I'll feel guilty for not having gotten more involved, but at least I'll have done something now. I knocked on doors for three hours yesterday and again today, and then will be volunteering for 3-6 hours on election day.

People weren't all nice, but they weren't all bad, either.

I'm here to urge all of you to contribute however you can in these final days. Make phone calls. Volunteer. Call up your local Obama office to ask how you can help out on election day, by standing at doors or entertaining people in line to discourage them from leaving.

If you can vote early, vote early.

If you can't: bring a book when you go to stand in line. Bring your iPod or your portable DVD player or a book of Sudoku puzzles. Bring a folding chair. Be prepared to wait for 2 or 3 hours. But above all, be sure that you VOTE.

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:09:02 GMT

I have spent the past. . . WAAAAY too long puzzling out grading stuff for my freshmen.

By the way: all my friends on here who are undergrads or recent graduates? I blame YOU for my current misery. See, you can write. And since you are the extent of my exposure to undergrads for the past several years, before this one? I allowed myself to believe that all undergrads could write.

I was wrong. I was so very, very wrong.

ANYWAY.

So I had this idea for a mix CD I want to make for myself, and I thought I'd make it into a meme. So hey: pass it along if you want to. Here's how it works:

We all have songs that drag us, kicking and screaming, into previous times and places in our lives, because for some damned reason we just couldn't stop playing them. I want to know what those songs are for you. So:

1. List the years of your life, as far back as you care to go. Then pick one song (no more!) that takes you back to each of those years.

2. List one song that's stuck with you through all your flings with the others.

Here's my list:

1998 - Goo Goo Dolls, Iris
1999 - Matchbox Twenty, 3AM
2000 - Elastica, Stutter
2001 - Everything But The Girl, Walking Wounded
2002 - Evanescence, Bring Me To Life
2003 - Lamb, Gorecki
2004 - Tori Amos, A Sorta Fairytale
2005 - Carina Round, Monument
2006 - Carina Round, Sit Tight
2007 - Tegan and Sara, The Con
2008 - Thom Yorke, Black Swan

And the song that's never gone away: Massive Attack, Protection

I can connect people with almost any of these songs if you want them.

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:18:30 GMT

Daily Show dude who's not Jon Stewart: Governor Palin brought up Joe Biden's quote about raping the ocean floors this evening.

Some dude at the debate: . . . Yes.

Daily Show dude who's not Jon Stewart: Does Governor Palin support the ocean floor paying for its own rape kit?

Have I ranted here yet about how much I hate the use of the words "free" and "freedom" in politics? If not - should I? With specific reference to Palin's wankery about how if we're not careful, some day in the future, people will tell stories about a time in the past when men and women in America were free? And, notably, how she said it with a big shit-eating grin on her face, as though she was looking forward to this future period of nostalgia?

And can anybody tell me where the fuck our freedom (or what's left of it post-Patriot-Act) is supposedly going, and who's taking it there?

(note to self: stop whining and go finish your homework, Sarah.)

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:55:04 GMT

Some things are too awesome not to share.

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 04:59:04 GMT

After very brief deliberation, I have decided that the following two points were my favourite parts of the Vice-Presidential debate (which, for what it's worth, was a bajillion times more entertaining than the Presidential debate).

First: Palin on nuclear ("nuke-ular") weapons.

"Nuclear weaponry of course would be the be-all end-all of just too many people and too many parts of our planet, so those dangerous regimes again could not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, period. Our nuclear weaponry here in the US is used as a deterrent and that's a safe, stable way to use nuclear weaponry. But for those countries -- North Korea also, under Kim Jong Il -- we have got to make sure that we're putting the economic sanctions on these countries and that we have friends and allies supporting us on this to make sure that leaders like Kim Jong Il and, uh, Ahmedinejad are not allowed to acquire, to proliferate, or to use those nuclear weapons. It is that important. Can we talk about Afghanistan real quick also, though?"

. . . seriously. What did she just say? Do you have any idea? I have no idea. But I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Daily Show because I'm thinking Jon Stewart will have some great ideas.

Second: Palin on our military leader in Afghanistan:

"Well, first, McClellan did not say definitively that the surge principles would not work in Afghanistan."

Problem 1 with this:

General McClellan:

General McKiernan:

I'm thinking the latter of these is the guy she's talking about, since I'm thinking McClellan was too busy with Civil War issues to be worried about Afghanistan. Especially since Afghanistan didn't come to exist as a political nation until long after McClellan had died.

Problem 2:

Let's look at what McKiernan actually said about Afghanistan and troop surges.

"The word I don't use for Afghanistan is 'surge,'" McKiernan emphasized, saying that what is required instead is a “sustained commitment” to a counterinsurgency effort that could last many more years and would ultimately require a political, not military, solution." Taken from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

If this woman ever becomes the one with her finger on the trigger, I'm running. Fast.

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 06:23:56 GMT

I'm in that kind of stretch where I'm up until 2:21 am even though I'm trying to kick a cold and should be going to bed at 10:00 pm.

I really wish that "apply for grants" season didn't fall at the same time as "write your AFS paper" season and "get ready to grade midterms" season and "finish up all the work you didn't finish in the summer" season.

AFS, by the way, refers to the American Folklore Society, whose annual meeting is coming up in October, and for which yours truly has been accepted to present a paper which she has not yet written. It's only, you know, the biggest, most important conference for our discipline.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

It hurts.

I need to sleep.

Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:19:11 GMT

Okay, new entry just to say:

I have a lump on my elbow from capoeira.

Yes, I know. I can read your minds. Wow! you're thinking. She must be tough, to have a bump on her elbow from training in MARTIAL ARTS!

And I'm just going to let you keep thinking that.

I'm not going to tell you that I got the lump from bashing my elbow on the radiator while we were jogging around the room in circles to warm up.

You will never, ever know the truth.

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 23:41:34 GMT

So. . . I seek the thoughts of wiser people on my friends list.

There's all this talk about a $700 million government bail-out of the country's major financial institutions, virtually all of whom seem to be on the brink of implosion. Government financial advisors are all going "Dudes! PASS THE BILL AND GET THE MONEY OUT THERE!" but Congress is dragging its heels.

I don't understand how this works. I don't understand what the pros and cons are, or how that $700 million would be distributed and disbursed if it passes. I would like to develop a more informed understanding, and perhaps eventually an opinion, on the matter, but I don't know where to look or who to ask.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Recommendations? Opinions?

Sun, 14 Sep 2008 18:53:30 GMT

This is honestly the best SNL skit I've seen in years.

Tina Fey is a genius.

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:28:13 GMT

I just have to share this.

I'm listening to NPR right now, and there's a show on featuring interviews with delegates from the RNC. One woman is on about how history is about to be made because "we're about to nominate a woman for vice-president."

Apparently this woman has never heard of Geraldine Ferraro. Who was a hell of a lot more qualified than Palin could dream of being at this stage.

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:09:06 GMT

Hi, friends.

So I'm sitting here on my couch on a Saturday morning, listening to CarTalk on NPR and I should really be doing photo editing for my leftover summer research (which, for what it's worth, is FINALLY coming under control after I lost a bunch of work when my computer died. On the plus side on that front, I'm typing this message on my brand new, black, shiny 13-inch macbook, given to me for FREE by Apple to replace my 3-year-old, almost-out-of-warranty iBook G4 which they killed when they tried to repair it. Suckers.)

SO. I should be working on photo editing but I'm distracted. I was distracted yesterday, too -- so distracted that I gave up and went down to the woods near town and went for a half-hour run on the trails. I think I wrecked my running shoes by accidentally following a deer-path which I thought was a human-path and ending up in a swamp. I thought that maybe running off some tension would help me to come home, sit down, and focus. It helped a little. I'd like to run again right now, but I can't because my shoes are still completely covered in swamp gunk. I'm thinking that if I wait for it to dry, I'll be able to chip the worst of it off.

ANYWAY.

The cause of my distraction is Déline, which I described a bit to everyone here in two posts not far down this page. I still haven't been approved by the chief, but I've been emailing back and forth with the chief researcher up there who has told me this:

1. She's chasing the chief for a response. Honestly.
2. The other people in the project, including the local researcher with whom I'd be working most closely, are all about having me. They really, really want me to come up. She is confident enough of my general approval that we have been talking as though I have been approved.
3. They are aware of my schedule requirements in terms of finishing coursework and taking my qualifying exams, and are prepared to work with those.

All in all: this is like, The Dream Job Offering. I think Monica is the only folklorist who reads this, but Monica? you can vouch for this: getting the kind of support they're offering me, especially this early in my graduate career (read: still 3 semesters from finishing my coursework) is pretty feckin' awesome.

Right now, I want nothing more than just to say, "Sign me up, folks!"

Unfortunately, it's not that easy. I think I may have ranted about this a year ago when I was trying to decide on a regional focus, but: the Arctic has a problem with tuberculosis, and I have a problem with immunosuppression. In other words, I take drugs. They suppress my immune system. Ironically, this keeps me healthy, because my immune system, left to its own devices, likea to do really unpleasant things to my digestive system.

The other day, I called up the Chief Medical Officer of the Northwest Territories. It should say something about the Northwest Territories that he answered his own phone. We spoke for a few minutes and I explained the situation. He said, in a somewhat incredulous voice:

"I hope you're not thinking of turning down this opportunity because of TB. Déline hasn't had an infectious case of TB in fifteen years! You'd be at much higher risk from other things than you would from TB."

"Really?" I said. "Like what?"

"Oh, you know. Walking off in the snow in the winter and getting lost, or going off onto the lake in a boat without the right gear. Flu-like viruses can travel pretty fast in that kind of community."

"Okay, but I could just get a flu shot before I go--"

"Or you could get it there. The nursing station is supplied."

So I heard that and thought, "Sweet. Case closed. I'm going to Déline."

But then I remembered that the chief researcher had given me the phone number for the nursing station in Déline, advising that I talk to them about the TB risk. I thought: it's probably not a bad idea to talk to the people who actually have feet on the ground in town. André Corriveau, the Chief Medical Officer, is based in Yellowknife.

The nurse in Déline was significantly more reserved. The first things she said when she heard where I was calling from, before the actual question of immunosuppression and TB was raised, was ". . . You're planning on moving to Déline?!"

"Well, maybe," I said. Then I got to the question at hand.

"You know we were exposed to an infectious case in June and July of this year," she said.

"Really?" I asked. "Because Dr. Corriveau said that there hadn't been an infectious case in Déline for fifteen years."

"Well, the guy was from a neighbouring town and was here visiting," she said, "so maybe he was counted on the list from the other town. These communities are small and close, and people do travel between them in the North. So we had to trace a contact map and test about 30 people for exposure, and some of them did test positive so we've got them on medication to keep them from becoming infectious."

So that changes things a bit.

I really don't know what to do. On the one hand: at the risk of laying it on thick, this? Is my dream opportunity. It's socially relevant. I would be joining a project in process, so I don't have to worry anymore about heading off somewhere and just hoping to stumble into the right people to work with. The people with whom I'd be working are really excited to have somebody with my skill set to join them at the table. It's a geographical area that fascinates me. The whole package is just perfect.

On the other hand. . . I'm dying to go, but I'd really rather not go and die.

That said: exposure to TB is a risk that anyone takes when they go to the Arctic. And actually, the risk is much higher in many other places than it is there, particularly in impoverished countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. And it remains that this is Canada, a first-word nationan among first-world nations, with a health care system whose quality of care is ranked one of the best of all developed nations in the world. Déline has a very reliable medevac system that flies medical emergencies to a hospital in Yellowknife. It bears mentioning that the Arctic is an arid climate with very low precipitation, so there's virtually never any worry about storms preventing the medevac planes from taking off (no more worry, I'd say, than the fear that a blizzard might prevent ambulances from getting around in the snowier parts of the Midwest).

And TB is not like malaria or Yellow Fever or some random parasite that you can pick up in the tropics. Those are aggressive and fast-moving illnesses that could probably kill your average person in a week or two if left untreated, but would kill someone like me in a few days without treatment. TB is a very slow-moving microbe. People can carry the bug for years -- their entire lives -- and never know, because their immune system keeps it in check and they are not contagious as long as they aren't coughing, which is why perfectly healthy-seeming people sometimes have to be tested for TB (most of us have been at some point -- where they inject you with something in the arm, and you have to go back a few days later to have the injection read by a doctor). Even for me, there would be time-lapse between exposure and infection. There's no way of knowing how long that would be, but the point is, it's not like I'd be exposed one day and dead the next. If I were exposed, I probably would never become a carrier, or someone who has the bug but doesn't know about it. I would probably get sick sooner rather than later -- say, two or three months after exposure, I'd probably start coughing. If I had a cough that persisted more than a couple of weeks, I'd have a chest X-ray that would indicate the presence of TB.

What would happen then? I'd go on anti-microbial medication. I'd have to spend two weeks in medical isolation to prevent contagion. Then I'd spend another year taking the meds, but after that first two weeks I'd no longer be contagious.

It also bears mentioning that while the NWT has a relatively high TB rate, they have NO recorded instances of drug-resistant TB. Knock on wood.

But there are other things to consider besides the risk to me, personally. Not the least of which is the potential strain I could put on the medical facilities of such a small town. The facilities and resources that they have are there to care for the people who live in the town, not to care for some high-risk folklorist who shows up needing chest X-rays.

Last night, I scoped out livejournal communities for people with Crohn's or other autoimmune diseases, thinking that I might post my situation somewhere and get feedback on what they might do in my situation. I couldn't bring myself to do it. The autoimmune forum was full of people with heartbreaking questions about what to do after they exceed their insurance or medicaid limits, or people telling stories about how their medication isn't controlling their symptoms so they have joint pain so bad they can't walk, or they're getting skin lesions in their scalps, or they can't get out of bed for more than an hour at a time without needing to sleep some more, so my question about "Oh, poor me, I don't know if I can go to the Arctic" seemed pretty frivolous. Most of those people would just like to be able to hold a job without having to go on disability.

So I went to the Crohn's forum and it was full of people talking about needing tube feedings and trying to put weight on and wondering if anyone had advice on ways to control that kind of abdominal pain that brings you to your knees on the sidewalk because their current meds clearly aren't working and they can't get a doctor's appointment for another three days. For most of them, the dream isn't to go to the Arctic -- the dream is to go to the mall with friends without having to worry about when the need to find a bathroom like right this very second right now or I'm going to have a very embarrassing situation in the middle of Banana Republic.

I can relate to most of those things. Fortunately, I have never, so far, had the urgent diarrhea problems for which Crohn's is famous. But I've had those stomach pains, and the weight loss that made my ribs stick out like the black keys on a piano, and the arthritic joint pain so bad that I had to walk up stairs sideways, leaning back on the railing, because that was the only way my hips would bend. I stopped growing between the ages of 9 and 10 -- literally. There's a horizontal line on my childhood growth chart. In a family of people who started menstruating around age 11-12, I didn't start until 15. Outside of family, there are few, if any, people who know me now, who knew me then. Most people who know me now probably couldn't picture me like that.

In my adult life, I have made so many concessions to this disease. I don't want to list them, but even tracking back in this livejournal will provide a few examples. I hate, HATE, the idea of making yet another concession. I think this one would be the worst.

But then I think of how much worse I could have it, and I think, "These restrictions that I'm facing are SO much less restrictive than those faced by other people who have the same disease that I do."

But THEN I think: those people who are sicker than I am all hope to be in my position one day. They want to get to the point where they can look at a trip to the Arctic and not write it off.

Here's the thing: I will never, ever have this opportunity again. Barring any revolutionary breakthrough in the under-funded studies of Crohn's and IBD, I can never in my life expect to be more healthy than I am now. This is not the kind of thing where I go, "In ten years, maybe things will be different." In ten years, I could be one of those people who dreams of a risk-free trip to the supermarket, let alone a low-risk venture to the Arctic.

I really, really want to do this. I wish I could make up my mind.

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 19:54:35 GMT

Brief post while waiting for my video file to finish compressing:

Thank you, John McCain, for shooting yourself in the foot.

Women of the world (and of my friends list): The fact that there's a vagina on the ticket doesn't make it the feminist choice.

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:35:29 GMT

Moving help needed!

I've got a u-haul booked for Friday 8/8, since that's the soonest I could get one. I have a sofa, a somewhat heavy desk, and a full-sized mattress and box spring that I'm not going to be able to lift by myself. If you are free to help me schlep things, I would be eternally grateful. My gratitude is served with pizza and beer.

If you have a vehicle big enough to carry any or all of those things, I would be even more grateful for your help in not having to wait until the 8th to get fully moved. I think the desk will be the most difficult thing, but I'd be willing to let it go if it meant that I could be out of the house sooner. I'm not even 100% sure that I'll have a good space for it in my new apartment anyway.

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 01:57:57 GMT

My little brother made a choreography reel!

He's 19 now and has been dancing hip-hop since he was about 9. He stopped for a year or two in high school because he got into theatre, but got back into dance seriously about two years ago. He made this reel with a friend who was a film major. It took them six months, mostly because of the challenge of assembling everyone at the same time in the same place with cooperative weather (especially difficult in a Seattle winter) for no money.

I think it's pretty rad. Aaron, my brother, is the only male dancer who's in every segment (skinny guy, brown hair, though his hairstyle is different in a few of the segments -- sometimes ear-length and kind of shaggy, sometimes short on the sides with a quiff on top). He choreographed the whole thing.

Definitely worth 2:30 of your time. The video file is 3:16, but the last 45 seconds are credits.

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:18:48 GMT

Nem todo que reluz é ouro
Nem todo que balança cai
Nem todo que reluz é ouro
Nem todo que balança cai
Cai, cai, cai, cai
Capoeira balança mas não cai
Cai, cai, cai, cai
ccapoeira balança mas não cai

Those are the lyrics of a very simple capoeira song that's a favourite of mine. Translation: "Not all that glitters is gold/ Not everything that balances falls/ Not all that glitters is gold/ Not everything that balances falls/ Falls, falls, falls, falls/ Capoeira balances but doesn't fall/ Falls, falls, falls, falls/ Capoeira balances but doesn't fall."

I just got back from a three-day event held to celebrate 10 years of capoeira Angola in Indiana. We learned and practiced many things, and among those were daily capoeira rodas held outdoors in a huge pagoda in the middle of a huge park on the south side of Indianapolis. The roda on Saturday was. . . well. I have to start at the beginning.

The event was headed by my teacher, Contra-Mestre Iuri Santos, and Contra-Mestre Espantalho, a friend and colleague of his from Brazil. Espantalho (pronounce it "'spantahlio") is, in addition to an Angoleiro, a teacher of Maculelê and an Orixa dancer. He has actually been teaching maculelê to my capoeira group for the past several weeks so that we could perform at this event, which we did, and we bombed, totally (we blame this on never having been able to practice in the performance space, and on not having been able to practice at all for 6 days before the show). Still, it's insane amounts of fun. Why, you ask? Two words:

Sticks.

And hit.

I'm like a twelve-year-old with those things. Knock 'em together and they go BANG! Yay!

Anyway, I'm digressing. On Saturday just before lunch, we had a workshop to learn some hopped-up Orixa dancing. If you clicked on the link above -- picture that, kind of, except three times faster, with more variations, for two hours without stopping, taught by a guy who speaks only a few words of English.

Yeah.

And they were Orixa dances, so we were effectively calling to the Orixas to bring us many things -- health, happiness, a good harvest, and rain. Definitely rain. Many times we called for rain without even knowing what we were doing until he told us later.

Time for the roda came later. The roda is the reason we train capoeira -- you practice and practice so that you can improve your skills in the roda, which is the actual capoeira event. We all went outside into that big pagoda, set up our circle with the bateria (musicians) on one side. I don't know how long we'd been playing when the rain came, but it wasn't long. The thunder and lightning started almost immediately. The rain came down with such force that even though the edges of our circle were a good 2-3 meters in from the edge of the shelter, we had to squeeze closer to stay dry. We kept playing. My turn in the centre came, and I played with a girl named Jessie who is (fortunately) just about my level in a game that as entertaining and theatrical for the others to watch as it was fun for us to play; we got cheered at every hit we made (and we each landed one or two) and hammed it up for every hit we received, everyone singing Joga bonito que eu quero aprender and huddling in from the storm. The roda continued until the park officials told us we had to stop, because it was too dangerous to be in the pagoda when there was fork lightning around.

I guess those Orixa dances are more powerful than any of us had guessed.

The next day we had another roda. I played with a guy named Cody who could have cleaned the floor with me one-handed, but was kind enough not to. The roda sang "Joga de dentro, Joga de fora" so I did my best to help keep the game in a close space, in the spirit of the song. It was his last roda before moving away and I felt a bit guilty that he had to play it with me instead of with someone who could have given him more of a run for his money, but he was a good sport, the energy of the roda was amazing, and I was sad when the berimbau ended our turn.

The awesome thing about playing in the roda is that it's the beginning and end of the world while you're in it. All you're worried about for the few minutes of your game is not getting your feet taken out from under you, or your head kicked out from over you, by the person you're playing with. It's a game of call and response, of reading the other person and responding in such a way that it's difficult for him or her to read you. For those two or three minutes, nothing else in the universe matters.

In training, I managed to conquer my fear of an exercise I'd never managed to do before. Basically, one person gets down on all fours on the ground. You go up to that person, pop a handstand on the ground beside them, and let yourself roll over their back to the other side. The variation is to do it backwards: you rest the base of your tailbone against their side, then bend back into a bridge until your hands are resting firmly on the ground, and curl your legs over. It requires more balance than you'd think and I've always been too afraid to fall to do it. But this weekend I did it, in both directions. Go me.

I've spent the past two weeks running around humming a Candomblé song used in our Maculelê performance. It's a beautiful song.

Best weekend ever. And now I really need to sleep, because tomorrow is Monday and back to the grind, though I don't really feel like I've had a day off (ow my feet).

Ay, ay, Oxum.