I Don't Want to Sleep in a Box

I'm attending a dance workshop this weekend with Lala Hakim in Saint John. I just called the YMCA hostel to book accomodations, and discovered they close a year ago. Oops. I tried calling the other hostel in town, and got to leave a message on an answering machine. Do you know of a super-cheap place two people can stay (snowy_kathryn and I) for two nights in Saint John? If I can't find a spot, I may have to commute every day of the weekend, and that will mean very, very little sleep, and very little sleep does evil, painful things to my brain.

I went down to the casemates this morning for a meeting about the store I'll be running. Next week, we clean, paint, and decorate the store. It's awfully grubby right now, but we shall dress it up and make it look pretty. I'm still having a serious difficulty with getting people to sell their crafts in the shop, though, and I still don't get that. I mean, it's a craft school. The students are all learning how to make crafts, presumably so they can make at least a bit of a living doing so. You'd think they'd be jumping for the chance to get their stuff out there, and for the chance to begin making names for themselves, but you'd be thinking wrongly.

Now, before I finish figuring out my inventory for the weekend's dance workshop, I'll share another bunch of links with you. ( Enjoy! )

No Box For Me

I found a place to stay. It's not as cheap as I'd like, but it's not too expensive, either.

Now, to finish culling and packing for tomorrow. I have a lot of crap mixed in with the good stuff. Going through my stock is a bit like panning for gold. I sure hope I sell enough stuff to at least break even! I'm too broke to be going to a workshop....

Ack!

It takes a lot to offend me, but I think I've actually found something I consider personally offensive. It's from an Atlantic Canadian Middle Eastern dance teacher's website (which I won't link publicly at the risk of alienating her students), and part of the text reads as follows:

Some young girls and mature women are looking for 'powers' in many wrong places and in many wrong ways... they should try our Beginners group, instant friendly acceptance is guaranteed! This is where they can find friends, attention, support, respect, good advice, and learn how to cultivate real natural feminine powers without irritating men by trying to compete with them in masculine ways. For the same reason women don't like men who act in feminine ways. Actually, all men, male friends and family members are always glad to see women as nice, sweet, gentle, entertaining, playful, seductive, delicate and feminine!

Actually, it's funny, in a sad sort of way. But holy yuck! I quite like my "masculine" traits, and wouldn't part from them without a knock-down, drag-out fight. The guys in my kung fu class seem to like me just fine. And my buddy Nigel, a drag queen who does his own wonderful blend of club/belly dance, is adored by plenty of women. I don't think he'd part from his carefully cultivated girlish ways without a hissy fit.

From the same website comes this howler:

We also know about the powerful influence of music on human mind, but the bellydancing music seems to have something more... some strange powers, perhaps, like Egyptian pyramids... The beautiful hypnotizing slow tunes or energizing fast rhythms seem to come from faraway, like some kind of important messages from our distant and forgotten past, or from our past lives, or from a distant place of common roots of all humanity, or from our own roots that were neglected and abandoned some time ago... The sounds are invading our minds, touching our souls, filling our spirits with vital energy and igniting the fire of love and good will from our ancestors, whom we, probably, had to listen much more than we actually did...

What a load of hooha! These are the sort of people who either scare the shit out of me or really help develop my tact muscles.