I have some new flexi-rules for myself that I have decided to put into play. After a wonderfully fantastic executive trip on an executive vacation in Thailand for an executive two weeks of wedding-touring-relaxation, all of which I enjoyed to the fullest, I decided enough was enough. Time to get rid of the annoying lagging credit card debt, time to trim things down, time to release some burdens.
Notice how I am starting this *before* the holidays, so that these new flexi-rules will completely cover the holiday shopping as well. Firstly, I moved around some holdings and brought my visa down to zero. Like actual zero. then I immediately set up a regular automatic payment to go out to lessen my small but irritating line of credit debt. Even if I do nothing else in life, it will go down a chunk every two weeks, so I will have that uplifting feeling of positive progress.
I already give myself a weekly stipend to spend on groceries, lunches, dinners, clothing and anything else. Much of the time I stick to it, but sometimes I see something I really like and want and go over budget completely.
This past year I made less than normal at my job, as I took time off to doartsythings, so money should have been little tighter, when actually, it didn’t seem to make a whit of difference. I used to be much more frugal at point in one time, and rarely carried a balance on anything. In the past few years, that has been far from the truth. I don’t generally rack up ridiculous charges, but I have always had this annoying balance/burden constantly being carried from month to month to year.
So what are these new flexi-rules, you might ask? They are simply guidelines (which I am more likely to heed) and not rock-solid rules and they come in the form of pre-purchase questions and they are as follows: Continue Reading »
Today’s word of the day, I have decided is schadenfreude. I was surfing bloglinks of friends and came across the term again. Why is it so seductive? I know of people who don’t feel properly alive unless they have someone or something to bitch about. The quickest way to feel better about yourself is to put someone else down, or observe or talk about someone or something deprecatingly. It feels momentarily good but it’s wrong, and it’s bad for the soul, I believe. Slippery in its quick, dark seduction, delivered in the form of bad TV, tabloids and gossip, it’s a thing I personally try to indulge in as little as possible. Great word, though.
I’ve been noticing women, of late. Women walking, that is. Quite a few times I see a woman walking along the fair streets of Montreal in summer wearing a lovely summer dress and fetching footwear, and then I notice the walk. Too often it’s a waddle or a swagger or a lope or a shuffle or a trudge, which completely ruins the effect of all the other nice things about them. Beauty is in the gait. Did they not get the memo, I wonder? Is our current society even sending out these memos anymore?
A woman’s gait (and a man’s for that matter) is what carries off the rest of the personality; walk all sloppy and it won’t matter what you are wearing or who you think you are. Perhaps it’s easier for me to say this, being a dancer. I’m always walking as if I’m about to enter from stage-right, and propelled by delusions of grandeur I also walk about as if I own the joint and as if to say “I have arrived,” even somewhere as mundane as the grocery store. But it feels good to have a dignified and intent-filled gait, you feel like you own yourself and are at harmony with the environment around you. I think more attention should be paid to how we mindfully move through space, that’s what it is. So step up, peeps, step up.
After an amazing fortnight of dance spent in Toronto, I headed straight for a spa I had heard about called Body Blitz. It is a women-only spa near Spadina and Adelaide where you can spend $38-$48 for a whole day just flitting between all the bathing pools and steam rooms for as long as you like. Treatments are extra, of course. They have a salt-water pool, a cold water pool, a pool of green tea, an infrared sauna, and a hammam. They serve you a variety of tea by the poolside and shots of healthy elixirs containing mixtures of ginseng, ginger, rosehip, wheatgrass, lavender and all manner of healthy concoctions. Needless to say, it did wonders for my well-exerted muscles and their aches.
The main thing I liked was that nudity was completely accepted and a bit encouraged. The main thing I found irksome, was that hardly anyone exercised their nudity right. What is it with women? I stuck to my guns and went fully nude, despite all the 20-something and 30-something girls who stayed in their bikinis the entire time. Only a couple of women past 40 were at the point where they didn’t care what the world thought, and happily went about nude. I was the only relatively young person in the nude in the entire spa that day. Did these young women not realize that you are more “judged” with clothing on than off? To my eyes, if a woman is in a bikini she is trying to hide faults and accentuate assets, whereas a woman wandering about nude is simply “in her skin” rather than “naked”, and therefore sexuality and the notion of body perfection fall to the side. There is nothing to hide, and suddenly one feels more relaxed.
It would be nice if our North American attitudes towards nudity were more realistic and less uptight. In Québec we’re thankfully a little more progressive in matters of the body than the rest of Canada, I’d say, but still, we could do with less nudity hangups.
An Evil King. A Noble Youth. A Damsel in Distress. More Damsels of the ass-kicking Warrior-Goddess variety. Jaw-dropping Fights from one of Montreal’s best choreographers. Dance, Theatre, Kung Fu & Storytelling meld together to tell a timeless tale of War, Peace, Love and Death.
Come see Zura herself in a very unique play featured in this year’s Montreal Fringe Fest which is happening from June 11th-21st! There will be fighting, acting, dancing and general ass-kicking – not to be missed!!
I invite all that are able to come see the show. One of the pivotal characters (mine) is actually named Zura. :) You will of course notice that the flyer design is a take on a certain someone’s avatar.
If you enjoy Amazone (how could you not), you’ll also enjoy Vérité & Conséquences, a french one-man show with ninjas.
So I am currently on vacation, as I decided to take 3-4 weeks off of work just to be in and work on this play. My body hurts all over, and if possible I am busy working more intensely that I normally am at my regular IT job. I’ll definitely need a vacation after my vacation, or perhaps just an indulgent day spent at a spa. I am living as a working artist this month (who happens to have vacation pay at the same time), and as exhausting and volatile as it is, I am completely loving the creative process. Yay.
Here’s a terribly inspiring and eloquent interview with Indian actress Shabana Azmi by Charlie Rose. It’s well, well worth the whole watch.
The world is recognizing that all parameters cannot be set by the west by which the east will be judged. For the first time, there is a recognition… you need to understand different cultures in the paradigms they themselves have, rather than what you impose… That is a very happy situation to be in.
How the heck do I have time for everything? It’s a question I get asked a lot and that I am now asking myself more pointedly. Between a full-time, fast-paced, high-stress IT job, finishing my yoga teacher training certificate, teaching the odd dance workshops and yoga classes, blogging, working out, socializing, rehearsing for two plays at the Montreal Fringe Fest and coming up with movement choreography, freelancing with voice acting, getting back to people about designing their websites, cleaning the house, going through the pile of books I have decided I “need” to read, making time to practice piano and getting enough sleep… no kidding I’ve been stretched paper-thin, these days.
I found out today, that one of my favourite teachers from CEGEP, Dr. Punhani passed away not nine days ago. He taught physics and calculus with an unmatched and contagious passion. He had an unmistakable quality of voice, was always, *ALWAYS* covered in chalk, and would let out small excited cheers of “yesss!” whenever he worked out a theory on the chalkboard for us to absorb. It’s been since the early nineties since I saw him last, but I miss him anew.
I’ll leave you with a great quote by him that I found on some random blog:
“Reaching infinity? Absurd! You can never reach infinity. It’s like walking on the street and meeting God.”
We may still have some winter to finish up, but today it felt fully like spring. The sun gleamed on my walk to work, the breeze warm, my jacket slightly open, and the garbagemen passing by bonjour-ing me enthusiastically.
I heard the clip-clop of a caleche behind me, which was quickly followed by “Hi there, would you like a lift?” Would I! And so the nice caleche driver and his horse called Knockout – once a very timorous beastie who had since mellowed once he realized he got food out of it – gave me a lift to work. We overtook the now-cheering garbagemen and the driver drove into Old Montreal dropping me off right where I like to pick up my coffee and croissant. What a great way to travel. Neato, that. :)
How the heck do I have time for everything? It’s a question I get asked a lot and that I am now asking myself more pointedly. Between a full-time, fast-paced, high-stress IT job, finishing my yoga teacher training certificate, teaching the odd dance workshops and yoga classes, blogging, working out, socializing, rehearsing for two plays at the Montreal Fringe Fest and coming up with movement choreography, freelancing with voice acting, getting back to people about designing their websites, cleaning the house, going through the pile of books I have decided I “need” to read, making time to practice piano and getting enough sleep… no kidding I’ve been stretched paper-thin, these days.
