Things that stink:
- having the flu on New Year's Eve
- having the flu on New Year's Day
- having the flu on your birthday
- having the flu on the day after your birthday...

Things that make things that stink, stink less:
- having great friends and friends' parents who have you over for amazing food and birthday cake and presents and are just generally wicked cool (from Maine, of course)
- having a mom who brings over a loaf of gluten-free banana-blueberry-date bread (and thank God, because my fridge only had a head of lettuce and a pound of tofu in it), plus a box of birthday stuff
- having a super-sexy bandoneonista call you from B.A. to say "sorry you're sick, make sure you take it easy, and if I were there I would cook you soup."
- having said bandoneonista also mention that it's so hot down in B.A. right now that he's been practicing the bandoneon in his apartment window with his shirt off. Great. Thanks for giving me a visual that's totally going to make it impossible to get to sleep. Not that I can sleep anyway, because I can't breathe. Decongestant is totally not working. Hrmph.

The only one really happy about all of this is Bonita, who gets to sleep on me more, but who always looks mildly terrified at the nose-blowing.

Tonight I finally felt good enough to clean up my apartment a bit and then practice "for just 15 minutes" before an early bedtime. Except that I ended up playing for almost 2 hours. Whoops. Am vacillating wildly between thinking that my playing is fantastic (when considering the progress I've made and how good I feel when I play) and thinking that I totally suck (when compared to other, more proficient violinists). Ack. Why do I even try?

I suppose I keep trying because part of me finds the process as fascinating as the result. I think this is why I enjoy teaching; that learning process is so darn fascinating to watch.

...to do a Tango Mucha Labia photo shoot in January, outdoors, with me wearing one of Liz's flimsy little tango dresses? And how come Liz got to wear my black pants while I somehow ended up being the one with the bare legs? I suppose it was the boots. Anyway. Nathan Eldridge is very talented. He shot some great photos this afternoon. I'll soon be using them to get the TML web site up and running.

Now I'm home, eradicating the remains of my congestion with a saltwater sinus bath, courtesy of Tina's turkey baster. :-) I find the whole sinus-flushing operation mildly yucky--a bit too stimulating for my poor sinuses. It's unbearable if the liquid moves too quickly. When I get it going slowly, it's not horrible enough for me to not do it, but unpleasant enough that I'm glad when I'm done. It does work magic on my congestion, though. Last night I could actually breathe for the first time in a week when lying horizontal.

Thank goodness for 3-day weekends and dear old friends and New York City and fabulous tiny Mexican restaurants with waitresses who understand my Spanish and time for arranging new tango pieces and extreme silliness and talking wicked loud in a Maine accent and fabulous, crazy, fun musicians and total artistic support and incredible bargains while shopping for swanky clothes to wear in B.A.

Now I am home and lonely. So is E., she says. We have resolved to eat totally cleanly for 2 weeks, starting yesterday. Well, today for me, because E. made these amazing cupcakes and I had to test them before I left...

Last night's "1 to 2 inches" left at least 5 on my deck railing and several drifts in the driveway, so I got up at 5:00 a.m. to clear the driveway before my tenant could drive his truck over it. And discovered, at 5:10, that my snowblower was not going to cooperate.

Now, this snowblower has never fully cooperated, but last year I could do almost the whole driveway before it would die, if the snow wasn't too heavy. No luck today. At least today's snow was all powder, so it wasn't hard to move it with the scoop, but it took almost an hour. Should have had breakfast first. I can't get a new snowblower because this is a "perfectly good" snowblower that my dad rescued from the dump (oops, I mean "transfer station"). Hmmmmmmm.

Fortunately, I teach at the coolest school in Portland. At 7:30 a.m. I described (apparently in side-splittingly explicit detail) the noises and motions my snowblower makes before it dies to the instructor of the Small Engine Repair class. Viola! [sic] My snowblower was retrieved from my garage while I taught my classes, repaired, and at 1:30 I was in the shop with him listening to what had been wrong with it and how he had fixed it. Tomorrow it will be spirited back to the garage sometime during the day.

Did I mention how cool PATHS teachers are?

Oh, and did I mention that WE HAVE SNOW! As in, maybe Sunday I can USE MY CROSS COUNTRY SKIS!

Two thumbs up for Barlean's cinnamon-flavored flax oil. I'm actually looking forward to eating it in my oatmeal tomorrow morning. Yes.

This is how it goes: I meet a new leader at a practica or milonga. We have a beautiful dance. He holds me almost reverently. What about me is not OK with this? What makes me say something to diffuse this tension-filled longing? Tonight:

"I'm having trouble finding my center tonight because I'm full of parsnips."

Ack. I think maybe it is not the goal when dancing tango to make your leader snort with laughter?

This was totally true, by the way. I was full of parsnips, cooked by Liz and eaten during TML rehearsal. And it did affect my center. I believe I also used the term "parsnip gut". Sigh.

These days I need The Magic Forehead just to get through a day, to keep my mind from overloading from all of the things that are floating around in there, jockeying for priority. Fortunately I'm back from teaching tango at Bates and quickly succumbing to exhaustion, which will at least shut off the thoughts for some hours. On my mind:

- improving my violin teaching
- improving my tango teaching (needs lots of improvement, trying not to stress out about it)
- did I just teach the right stuff to those tango students? Oops...see above.
- improving my violin technique
- learning Spanish
- getting ready for trip to Buenos Aires
- exploring new/old relationship with past sweetie: good idea? Do not think too much about this
- but I miss the aforementioned past sweetie...whoops, see above.
- doing next arrangement for tango band
- how to improve tango band's technique
- finish those blue pants before I go to B.A.
- can I get a lesson with Ramiro Gallo when I'm in B.A.? And can I learn Ojos Negros in time to work on it with him?
- need to hang out with Mom
- need to hang out with Dad
- need to rewire my furnace thermostat with Dad
- finish J.'s Web site
- do TML's Web site
- improve Java curriculum
- how to get this student engaged in school? Can we talk in HTML code? And how would that work?
- finish 5 posts in the works for Violin Alchemist
- do I need to get certified in Math to be able to award Math credits if we have an Arts Academy?
- how can I feed myself during the week with no time to cook?
- how can I sleep more so my face isn't asleep all the time?
- need new socks
- need a top to go with my new skirt because the season just changed and now I can't order the top I wanted

Argh.

Clearly the answer is to quit some of these things...the only problem is that I love all of them. And doing different things means when I'm frustrated with one I can think about something else.

Tonight's "Milonga into the Light" at Portland Yacht Services was definitely a success. Beautiful space, live music (by ¡Tango Mucha Labia!), food, great decorations...and we broke even. All good things for the Portland tango scene. I personally was not happy about my violin playing, nor about my dancing, (though Tina came over and said I looked great, I didn't feel good at all). In general the band's ensemble felt a little off. We played much better during the sound check. Thinking back to our last performance, though, it's a huge improvement. Next time we have a gig I will try to take a nap in the afternoon, I think. Especially these days, when I'm completely fried at the end of a week.

Now, time to start planning my trip to Buenos Aires and to keep working on my intonation. Ack. I'm a little afraid that I won't feel good and won't dance or play well when I'm down there. But hey, hold on, my body is moving. I'm dancing tango and I'm playing the violin. Yow.

I had a moment today when I couldn't figure out if what I had just said was inappropriate to say when in the presence of a student. Is mentioning erotica inappropriate? It's pretty tame compared to the stuff my students are telling me about... Context:

I was eating lunch in the guidance office, talking to S., when my student, M. walked in to talk about the Web site he's been working on for her in class. Somehow we got on the subject of seed catalogs.

I said, when I was in the hospital in San Francisco, somebody brought me an issue of BUST. The last article was a "one-handed read". I thought it was kind of ironic, since at that time I couldn't move my left hand at all, so the entire magazine was a one-handed read. It came to mind the other night when I was sitting in bed, reading, and I thought "Sheesh, now I have two hands, and what am I reading? The "Seeds of Change" seed catalog. I am such a moron."

And then I couldn't figure out whether I should have just said that or not. Huh.

On Sunday I was talking to D. (yay, $.02 to Argentina on Skype!) about having too much to do. We both have too much to do, both of us being outwardly easygoing but inwardly Type A. Right after I said "I don't have time to practice," tears just started streaming down my face. Reality check. I need more Valerie time, or just more time to sleep and feed myself. I enjoy everything to do, but I need to remember to manage my health on top of everything else.

So, no more tango teaching for me. When I had to prioritize, that fell off the list. Maybe in the future, but right now I'm spending too much time thinking about tango technique when I want to be thinking about violin--or simply not thinking about anything at all, for once. I told M. tonight.

Sad, but a good idea.