Who'll play with me on saturday afternoon

July 22

Too much time is passing between entries, but I have an excuse: I just haven't given a damn.

Is it all that unusual to have absolutely nothing visible going on in your life, but to know that a lot is happening all the same? I spend a lot of time thinking these days, wandering around in a daze, slightly frowning and muttering to myself. If I wore a black turtleneck and smoked Gauloises, I'd resemble a German philosophy student, except of course that I think philosophy is crap.

So what is I'm actually doing? I can only compare it to a sort of heavy lifting; it feels exactly like I'm moving large boxes around in my head. Boxes of what, exactly, I can't explain. Old baggage. Old ideas, insecurities, random bits of rage and jealousy. A preoccupation with unimportant things. Leftover obsessions. Stuff that seem to have been holding me down.

I have been writing a lot, just not here. Not in book form either, which is where my energies are supposed to be going, if I'm really a writer. But since that is still an open question, barring the sudden completion of an award-winning novel that makes Jonathan Franzen crap his pants from envy, the writing I've been doing has been in a paper journal. I've been scribbling the kind of things you have to write, but can't show to other people because they will then know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you're insane, hateful, self-obsessed, and neurotic.

Which we all are, but because we have to live with each other in this world, we keep it under wraps, mostly. And that's smart. I was never a fan of the people who wanted to share their every angst. I have too much of my own to deal with.

So while I continue (cue violins) the Magic Journey of Finding Myself, I am not writing here as often as I would like. Don't take it personally.

***

Since I'm here, though, I'll give you some of the less esoteric details of my life.

1. Bellydancing. Yes, I'm taking bellydancing. What? It's one of the three forms of dance that don't require women to look like 12-year-old boys. The other two being hula and flamenco. It's good to be able to use your hips, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, I took my first two bellydance classes this month. It was fun, and more of a workout than I anticipated. However, it did reinforce my impression of myself as a giant among midgets, someone who looms over the gajillion tiny, slim, olive-skinned and dark-haired women of New York. If we were a herd of animals on the veldt, I'd be the lone hulking wildebeest among 8,000 Thompson's gazelles. I worry about accidently snapping one of them in two with my elbow. Blame my Viking (well Northern European of some persuasion) heritage, which bequeathed me broad shoulders, good birthin' hips, and a truly awesome ability to store fat for the winter. I have long legs too, all the better for striding along around the fjords with a baby and perhaps a basket of dried cod on my back, helping my husband Jurgen prepare for the upcoming Berserker raid. Sure I'm uniquely adapted for long hard winters, but now I'm paying the price, and the tiny thin people have become the better-adapted ones. Such is evolution.

Anyway, our instructor was of the tiny and fragile-looking persuasion, except for her belly, which seemed to be entirely made of muscle. It was a hypnotic thing to watch her demonstrate the moves. She's nice enough, but an indifferent instructor, or maybe our class was just too big for her to do much. It doesn't matter. I'm not there to become a professional, but for fun and a little exercise. She shows us a move, then we're on to something else, bam. Supposedly this will all end up as a complete routine after the sixth class. At the end of our last session, she hawked a practice CD and bellydance geegaws...the glittery hip scarf with little plastic coins, the finger-cymbals, finger-cymbal covers (?), earrings, etc. I get the feeling Bellydance Instructor is not a high-paying gig.

2. Reading. I've been reading like crazy. Haunting the library, though New York libraries are a bit more of a hassle when you have to schlep books home without a car. In the old days, I could end up taking 10 books home. Now I have to worry about not checking out more than I can carry.

My current obsessions are Sara Maitland (Three Times Table=excellent) and Jonathan Carroll, but I've also been reading Salman Rushdie and some of A.S.Byatt's more obscure collections. To be productive, I also read the Tour de Testosterone selection Absalom, Absalom, and the review will be forthcoming. Right now I've also got Portnoy's Complaint waiting for me. After that, I'll nearly be finished with my expedition into Great White Male Literature and can go back to reading angry feminist rants and books about the more obscure corners of science and history.

3. Hair-cutting. I have bangs now, real bangs, because I got sick of hairdressers not being able to cut them for me. I don't know why, but they would always fight me on this. I'd ask for bangs, and they'd give me these wispy strands that made me look like I was going bald at the front, or else cut a long shaggy fringe that got tangled in my glasses and yet was still too short to pull back. So last week when I was up late and couldn't sleep, I liberated myself, took a pair of scissors, and went to town. And it's kind of cute, if I do say so myself, a set of straight-across thick bangs that can be feathered a little or stay straight. I think next will be some new blonde highlights.

4. Site fixes. I've updated my Read/Delicious page, and I think I've resolved all my broken links, but email me if you find one I've missed. I'm going to JournalCon next month, and I decided it behooved me to clean up a little around here, on the off-chance my fellow journalers decide to read up on me. I also have some of my ancient 2000 entries rescued from Diaryland limbo, the rest will get put up as I update again.