Awake

I awake at four. The air has gone still and stagnant. The heat presses me down into the bed, plein et dur. Sweat slicks out of me, trickling down all my cracks and crevices. I sprawl across the bed spread-eagled, but it doesn't help. It's just too damned hot.

He's still conscious. I can feel it in the tiny movements of the bed. These are what woke me, and I lie still, willing him to stop moving. The bed keeps moving, and I turn to look at him. He's prone. The only movement is the steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. I lay still again, press my face down into the mattress, relax my clenched jaw, but the bed moves like the tick of a silent clock. And then I realize the movement is me. It's the beating of my own heart.

Danse du Jour

Meet 9-year-old dancer Florencia. Imagine how skilled she'll be in another ten years. Damn.

Watch on YouTube

Human Shishkabob

I had a one-on-one intermediate pole dance class yesterday. The heat and humidity made it difficult for me to get a grip on the pole, but the class was great. The instructor fine-tuned a few of my moves, making them go from ok to strong, well-orchestrated spins of beauty. It all had to do with lower arm placement, so now I know what I need to work on.

I worked on a variety of spins, including the fireman, the waterslide, the butterfly, the corkscrew, the bottle opener, and the jellyfish. I have a long way to go before I get the jellyfish, I think. Or maybe I just need a cooler, less sweaty day. I couldn't hold my position. Perspiration made me glide down the pole prematurely.

At one point, the instructor asked me to walk up to the pole, really working through my hips. So I did a walking Maya, at which point she said in astonishment, "You move like a snake!"

Last week, while dancing at the Renn, another woman told me I danced like a cobra.

Sssss....

Today is the beginning of my new, super-duper workout mode. I'm doing a cycling class at noon, ballet at 5, and weight-training at 6:30.

And now that my dance classes have been cut back until September, I need to find a part-time job, too. Ugh.

Link time.

How a fake word from The Simpsons ended up in a perfectly cromulent string theory paper: Does this mean "cromulent" will join "doh" in the dictionary?

Hermes Ad: Posted just because I think the manicure is awesome.

Intercourse and Intelligence: The dumber you are, the more sex you get. "Only 65% of MIT graduate students have had sex."

Cervical Piercing: And he did it himself.

Cautionary Tales of Swords: Swords are dangerous, mmkay?

Jan's August Writing Challenge

I'm writing daily. Now I have an extra reason for it:

Jan's August Writing Challenge: Write something every day in the month of August.

Sounds tough! What do I have to do?
Write. Something. Anything. Any length. Prose or poetry. Every day. For a month. And share it.

Sounds cool! How do I sign up?
Join the august_writing community if you're not already a member
Link to this post in your LJ so that we can get as many people involved as possible
Post either your writing, or a link to your writing to the community every day in August, starting on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007.

Sounds simple! Are there any other rules?
Nope. Well, not really. It has to be creative writing - prose or poetry, of any any length, on any subject. Stuff you would normally be writing anyway counts (so, for those who write serials, that counts) but stuff you write for your job doesn't. But it can be anything. Short fiction, short-short fiction, essays, character studies, stream-of-consciousness, writing exercises (I post a different writing exercise every day during the month of August for anyone who would like to use it), sections of a larger work you have in progress, etc. Anything at all, so long as it's a piece of writing that you did that day. It would also be really cool if you could read and comment on a couple of other posts every day.