Dink Lump

VD Attack Plan: SFW, because it's Disney. Yes, Disney did a sex education video. Somehow, I can't see this happening now. Can you just imagine the Lion King singing about the dangers of unprotected anal sex?

I want to be the girl with the most cake: Starry Night Van Gogh cake. No word on whether or not it's one of those treasure cakes. The person who gets the piece with the ear wins!

Steam Toys: For your steampunk needs.

Dancer sues show for dismissal over bra size: "'In the ballet world, obviously, people are small-breasted,' Klayman said in answer to a question about the maturing shape of Alyse, who is a trained ballerina." I blame Ballanchine. Tits don't do the dancing.

Dose of Tenacity Wears Down a Horrific Disease: Guinea worm is my favourite disease du jour.

I went to apply for EI the other day and recognized the girl at the desk. She taught me a weaving class at the craft school a while back. When she found out I was moving, she said it would be sad to see the best dance teacher in town to go. It made me smile, because first of all, there's at least one other good dance teacher in town, and secondly, because she'd never taken a class with me before, so how could she judge? Still...

Bimbo

When raine_storm was a baby, we discovered she couldn't drink cow's milk, so we got ourselves a small flock of dairy goats. One of them, Heidi, was a champion Alpine goat. She had a small white kid with black spots and tiny little budding horns. Her name was Bimbo, and she was my goat.

This was around the time when Sesame Street would show a little film clip of a girl about my age running around with her pet goat calling, "Thumper! Thumper!" She was the first tv character I ever related to.

My family took the goats to county fairs and goat shows. Heidi cleaned up at all of them. She produced a prodigious amount of milk, and had to be divested of it twice a day. And even then, her udders were swollen with the stuff. I showed Bimbo at one of the fairs, and she won a big red ribbon.

I was very proud of Bimbo, and ran all around the fairgrounds with her in tow. I was showing her off to everyone saying, "She won first prize!"

Everyone would look at the goat, read the ribbon, laugh, and then tousle my hair. Bimbo would rear up on her hind legs and dance around, bopping her head all over the place.

Of course it ended up that Bimbo had won worst in show, but I was proud of her, nonetheless. Not all goats dance.

Bimbo went on many grand adventures with me, or as grand an adventure as a four-year-old can have in her own backyard. She'd follow me to the chicken shed where I'd collect eggs (my first regular chore). She'd gambol through the trees with me, play hide and seek and tag, and one of my favourite games was Snow Goat. In Snow Goat, she'd hold still, I'd pack snow all around so that only her face protruded, and then I'd run away. When I'd call, she shook, and the snow exploded and cascaded as she bounded toward me. Sometimes she'd wear a hat, until she shook that off, too.

The odd thing is that I have no recollection of whatever happened to the goats. I don't remember them dying, leaving, or being sold or eaten. Perhaps they were spirited away by goat faeries. Perhaps Bimbo is dancing about under an elf hill.

Right.

Synaesthialicious

f00dave wants me to write a collection of my synaesthetic thoughts. It will be a tricky project for me, as my sensory associations are too obvious to me (like writing, I have a nose. My skin is on top of my muscles). But now that I know this doesn't happen for other people, I ought to invest a bit more thought into it.

Here are a few quick examples:

When my leg muscles are sore, sometimes they feel like they need to puke. Literally.

When I close my eyes, I don't see black. I see coloured static which coalesces into all sorts of shapes and movements. It's like my own personal cartoon show.

When I pay attention to the actual words people are saying, I see black text scrolling simultaneously with the words. Maybe that's why I've always been good at spelling. I see words when I hear them.

When I eat fresh pineapple, it makes me move my head back and my chest forward in a bizarre attempt to escape the flavour, even though I like it. I also see yellow fluid sluicing down into an invisible goblet.

Sometimes when I laugh, it's shaped like a big black wedge (like the end of one of those big pink erasers).

Now, I know these things aren't real. For instance, I don't see a literal black wedge with my laughter, but it springs unbidden in my mind, in a different fashion than if I were to intentionally imagine things to associate with sounds. And it's not like if I heard a horse whinny that I'd suddenly picture a horse. No, that makes too much logical sense. Instead, I might see a flash of yellow, simultaneous with the sound.

I suspect it's all related to my perpetual migraine status aura, but couldn't tell you for sure....

And I Haven't Even Left Yet

I serendipitously got myself a paid dance performance at the Ansuya show in Toronto in July. Dance gigs are so few and far between for me here, and BAM! They're appearing in Ontario for me before I've even shown up!

I just told littlekeltie about the dance gig, and she was all excited. She says she'd like to come and see it, too. Then, during the course of the conversation, it dawned on me that she didn't know I'm moving to Kitchener next week. Whoa.... So now she knows.

I also discovered there are Butoh workshops in the area, so I'm really looking forward to studying that.

So I am leaving next week. Whether or not I get the truck is still in the air. It's almost enough to make me religious and superstitious and all sorts of other ious-es. I need that truck.

We want to have a going-away party. The plan is a potluck chez moi on Saturday. If you're in the area and haven't yet met me, this is probably your last chance. I'll be home around 6, and won't be able to stay up late, because I work at 8:45 on Sunday morning. So if you want to come and say goodbye, please do so!

Edit: Hmm. Now that I think about it, I might be able to get into fitness competitions, after all! Gyms are everywhere in Kitchener, and if I'm going to get my personal trainer certification, what's stopping me? Not a hell of a lot.