I don't belong many places, but I know I belong here.

The past few days have definitely had their high highs, low lows & fair shares of craziness. I guess when your days are this long, there is a lot of time for twists & turns. Friday wasn't my favorite day ever...It was a textbook example of how powerful our minds really are...unfortunately it was incredibly painful. One of my favorite parts of the show happens in NYAC, (New York at Christmas) when we dance on a double decker bus...so cool. Less cool was learning the exit off the bus...Grab the pole in the door with my right hand & swing out of the bus on 1, 2, 3, 4....My sassy big moment! Wheeeeeeee!......?.....No?......$#%@...Ow. Why can't I do this right? It's simple. Why do I keep smashing my shin on the door of the bus? I'm so awkward. I can't do it. We ran Group A off the bus on the upside of 20 times...Still no success. (Mind you no one is correcting me or telling me I look bad...it just feels awful. & Yes that is my battered leg on the right with the black boots...The other girl is the girl opposite me getting off the bus...We decided we must not be doing it right.) I was having such a good day before that too.

Eventually we moved on into the number, Deep breath, here we go. Until we went back to run the number from "Group A off the bus" again. It was about 8:30 @ night, hour & a half to go. We get back on the bus, we're waiting for the music to cue...I loose it.....tears. Merry Christmas Meltdown...It happens. (Thank goodness no one saw, except my bottom of the bus girls :) Took a deep breath & 5, 6, 7, 8....Holy crap, I was a mess...the harder I tried, the worse I danced. All of a sudden I was hopping a left double pirouette, my center was gone, my depths were unclear & I imagine I was dancing like a damn fool. And I swear, I was trying so hard to be positive & let it go. Just move on...but every time someone addressed me, I could feel my eyes well up again...even when Andrew, one of our Stage Managers asked to take my NYAC gloves that I apparently had been wearing for an hour after everyone else has already given him theirs...I managed to barely keep it together for the remainder of rehearsal until I immediately bawled my eyes out the entire car ride home. How embarrassing.

Here's the thing, in actuality, the people watching said I looked perfectly fine, good in fact. I have no idea why I felt like the worst dancer that's ever lived for that hour and a half. I'm sure it wasn't nearly as bad as I felt. (Well except for my shins...we're work shopping new ways to swing ;) In tech, we work long hours, we get tired, we're all crazy perfectionists, things just layer & layer until you feel like a can of coke that someone shook up. Sometimes you just have to cry, it cleans your soul. Trust me, I get that some people may not understand, that's okay. There are aspects of my job, my life really, that may sound completely illogical, & crazy. I'm definitely crazy, so that makes sense to me.

Saturday was so much better, despite the grey skies & endless downpour. How could I not be happy on bigger is better day? I put on a pair of my garish, over sized earrings & some equally as large rings. (I love gigantic jewelry. I always over accessorize, it's kind of my thing.) Little did we know, bigger is better day had so much more in store for us. About two hours into the day, Santa & the little boys were on the stage working some lighting, giving

us a rare moment to relax. I grabbed my book (The Book of Laughter & Forgetting by Milan Kundera) & sat on the floor near the hallways with our dressing room (the locker room) & a load in door for some light. About 10 pages into my reading, (I'm so close to being done with the book, I just keep going back & re-reading. Kundera is so epic it takes a lot of re-reading to fully absorb) one of the security guards addresses me, "Excuse me...miss...you may want to move...ummm...." I look up & there is a steady, fast moving flow of water coming in from under the load in door.

The arena was flooding. I couldn't believe it...A couple of the other girls & I took off running into the dressing room, pulling everything up off the floor. LaDuca rehearsal shoes are not cheap....By the time we had finished the hall was flooding, we had to run through backstage & jump to higher ground in some of the arena seating. By then nearly the entire stage/backstage/entry way of the arena was completely flooded a few inches deep with yucky dirty rainwater. There is a lot of wiring & electronic stuff backstage...power down time. After a quick meeting up up in the dry second bowl, in catering, we were released until dinner...@ 6:00. Three hours to get paid to play? Thank you very much janky, busted, soggy arena. Keltie, David (our Santa swing) & I wandered through some nearby outlet stores & eventually made our way into three cozy armchairs in the

corner of Starbucks with a soy chai latte. I finally found time to read the news paper!! By dinner they had managed to clean & dry everything so we had three hours of working through Santas on stage. Even more exciting was that one of my very good friends was pulled from a different cast to come replace a girl we lost. Brittany had really bad Achilles tendinitis, I had really bad Achilles tendinitis once, I almost had to leave my cast. It's such a painful thing, I'm very glad she is taking good care of her body. I'm also very glad Sam is here. Welcome back to the A-Team Sam:)

I was in such good spirits Saturday that I even went downstairs for a hot second to be social! Yesterday was a day off, & boy did we all need one! Nothing too terribly exciting: mandatory Target shopping trip, of course. I love Target, they sell so many things I didn't realize I needed until I wandered every aisle. Adventured with Keltie: Michael's, Joann Fabrics, & Marshalls...needed some crafting supplies. Then laundry, days off go by waaaay too quickly. I always feel guilty for staying in bed all day, but when I'm a busy bee I just feel like I should be sitting in bed relaxing. I just can't win!!

Today there were no crazy, facebook status update worthy events. It was just a good day:) I had a moment sitting in the dark of the arena listening to our DC, Hannah giving notes, looking up at the ensemble working through a piece of choreography in the bright lights of the stage. It sort of balanced all the negativity I was feeling only a couple short days ago. Sometimes I wish I had a camera in my left eye. When I blinked it would take exactly what I was seeing, hearing, smelling, feeling, & file it away in neat little compartments in the back of my mind, that I could pull out & relive whenever I needed them. They'd never fade, or fuzz around the edges, I could still feel it just as strongly as I did in that very moment. (I honestly wish this a lot, about a lot of different things..this would be my superpower if ever I had a choice.) But this was one of those moments, I don't know what it was that triggered it exactly but I was elated to be exactly where I was. Most times & most places I'm never sure if I exactly belong, I'm a hard puzzle piece to fit, but I know with every fiber of my being that I belong here.

New project: I was so focused on getting the slipper I was knitting finished that the day sort of flew by. It's cute right? Coming soon to the feet of a Rockette near you!!! I'm really proud, I just started the sole of the left one. Once I start something I get incredibly motivated & don't want to stop, in fact, as soon as I finish this post I am going to go right back to knitting. I need someone here to pry it out of my hands so I don't stay up all night stitching away...