December | 2012 | 4 0 2

Day 17: Good Neighbor

Here are eight ways to to be a good neighbor in a Minnesota winter:

1. If you’re outside walking and someone near you slips and falls, don’t ask them why they’re wearing Uggs. Just help them up, acknowledge the slippery surface and assure them that there were no other witnesses. If you’re really feeling generous, go ahead and take a fall yourself. As long as neither of you breaks any bones, you might make a new snow friend.

2. Try to convince the tow truck driver that moving your neighbors’ snow-zone-parked cars to the other side of the street is a more efficient use of time than towing them away. It’s not, and you’ll be told to scram. But at least you tried.

3. Sitting inside your warm apartment, drinking tea and watching the college student across the street try to spin her Ford Fiesta out of a snow bank is only fun for so long. Put your coat on, get out there and give her car a good shove before she yells, “Mother f**ker!” one more time.

4. If you’re stuck in the snow wishing you’d banked some better Karma by pushing the Ford Fiesta out sooner (and no, Karma doesn’t work that way), be patient and try not to swear too much.

5. When trying to befriend the mail carrier during a blizzard (which, if you’re a freelancer, you should know not to do by now), try not to say things like, “Wow, it must be awful to be out there all day!” It is. And since you’re inside listening to holiday music in your pajamas, your take on the situation isn’t really appreciated.

6. When someone helps you detach your vehicle from clingy snow, press the gas, roll down the window, yell, “THANKS!” and keep moving. Whatever you do, do not stop the car. The helper would rather see you free as a bird and rolling down the street than be thanked by you face-to-face, stuck five feet from your original location.

7. Get a shovel and offer to use it.

8. If your landlord plows your parking lot three times in 24 hours, thank him profusely and resist the urge to be irritated by the number of times you’ve had to move your car. You’ll appreciate being able to get in and out of your spot for the next six months.

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December 10, 2012

Day 16: Not About Dating

When people ask me what this blog is about, I always say it’s about everything. And that it’s definitely not a personal journal. Then, I smile and swallow the slightly bitter taste of untruth in my mouth, because sometimes, these posts are journalish. Today is a journalish day. And of all things, it’s journalish day about dating.

Dating has changed immensely in the last decade. Now, everybody meets online. Or so I’m told. A friend of mine styles hair for weddings in her spare time (she runs a non-profit with all her other hours), and she informed me that 90 percent of the weddings she has styled in the last year are for couples who met online. So, at her advice, I signed up for Match.com a few months ago. Having already dabbled in OkCupid, I felt I understood the concept and comfortably knew the ropes.

After some trial and error, here’s what I discovered: I’m just not good at dating, especially online. I’m good at other things—hula hooping, driving in snow, steaming milk, sleeping, etc. But online dating? No.

Once, I wore a nice outfit all day long in preparation for an evening date only to run home, change into a sweatshirt and show up late. I’m not sure what that says about me, but I’m guessing it’s not that I enjoy dating.

Something about my personality disables me from having fun, especially when meeting a virtual stranger (technically, a real-life stranger and a virtual acquaintance). I turn into a puddle of anxiety and cold sweat at the prospect of a date. And I’m not afraid the dude will be a creep; I’m afraid of sheer, unparalleled, anti-chemistry awkwardness. It takes an inordinate number of cells in my body to not cancel a date once it’s set.

The reality is that the few dates I’ve actually attended have been with kind, intelligent and interesting men. The dates aren’t awkward and they aren’t boring. The catch is that they do lack chemistry. Sure, two people can both love Oliver Sacks and hate dog fighting, but loves and hates do not a match make. Science has yet to invent a way to really determine chemistry through the Internet. Until then, I’m not sure it’s for me.

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December 9, 2012

Day 15: Snow Spiders

As I stood in our first real snowstorm today and watched the kids across the street laugh, make snow angels and “search for spiders” (snow spiders?), I started reminiscing about Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. (Snow > neighbors > kids > Mister Rogers.) Happily, I have “The World According to Mister Rogers,” a collection of his thoughts on everything from love to individuality.

“The thing I remember best about successful people I’ve met all through the years is their obvious delight in what they’re doing … and it seems to have very little to do with worldly success. They just love what they’re doing, and they love it in front of others.” – Fred Rogers

The neighbor kids are pretty successful.

December 8, 2012

Day 14: Food Play

There are three good reasons for the following post:

1. It seemed apt to follow a post about the nature of good art with a picture of good edible art.

2. It’s Saturday.

3. Since I’m not yet on Instagram, I have to occasionally share photos elsewhere (because what else would I do with my photos?). Back in November, a fake Chris Rock (who I thought was the real Chris Rock, but the account has since been disabled) Tweeted this:

“Blogs are for people who can’t write books. Twitter is for people who can’t write blogs. Instagram is for people who can’t write.”
– a person who pretended to be someone else

So, here is a picture of the most adorable chocolate you’ve ever seen:

It’s a beehive! Sitting on a couch! Cute.

Visit the Chicago area and you too can have beautiful and delicious chocolates to place around your house and then eat.

December 7, 2012

Day 13: Good Question

At some point, every artist is asked, “What is good art?”

Sometimes, the question arrives in the form of a supportive next-door neighbor-type, who comes to the show and kindly says it was “…really interesting!” Sometimes, it comes couched in higher education self-exploration, from a professor demanding articulation in addition to intuitiveness.

As a dancer steeped in dance academia, I’ve asked and answered it in many different ways, and at many different times. There is no objective answer, just as there is no objective art (feel free to argue with me; I love discussing this stuff).

Lately, my thought on the question is that good art makes a person want to do something. Participate, learn, read, cry, laugh, vomit, hug someone, punch a wall, eat a pie, smile, move, argue, shake and—for me—make art.

Good art makes me want to do what I love doing.

My “love doing” is dance. And I am lucky to live in a city where I can do it often.

Since I believe watching is a huge part of doing, I try to see a lot of shows. (A friend of mine manages to see nearly 200 dance and theater shows every year. That’s almost a show a day. My day-to-show ratio is nowhere near that high, but I enjoy knowing it’s possible.)

Being a watcher is an inherently judgmental position. Anytime there is a separate doer and watcher, the watcher has to contextualize and compare the doer’s actions alongside all of his/her other experiences. The more experiences the watcher has to draw from, the more inlets s/he has into the current one.

With dance, there are lots of subjective elements to judge—Do the dancers seem engaged? Do I relate to the quality of movement? Do I want to? Is the choreography well structured? How well does the lighting enhance the atmosphere? Do the costumes fit the dance (and the dancers)? Are the aural elements complimentary? Is the intention clear? Is the intention supposed to be clear? Do I like this? Ad infinitum.

Without realizing it, I’ve stopped asking complex questions and opted for two much simpler ones:

Does this make me want to dance? Does this make me want to make a dance?

If the answer is yes to either, it’s good art in my book. And the more art I experience, the richer the experiences get.

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Photo by Bill Hebert. From Tree Brain/Ice Body by Erin Cairns and Ashleigh Penrod.

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Month: December, 2012

December 11, 2012