Hey guys! Hey! Hey! Hey!

[breathedout]

I went to that Aerial class I mentioned last week, and it was MUCH FUN. TIMES OF GOOD. WERE HAD. It was also at a time when I am normally winding down for bed rather than climbing and spinning around on silks, and now I am! Keyed up! But still must get up in seven hours!

What should I do should I online shop for lamps? Take a bath? Do a face mask? Read more about Richard Burton's possibly-apocryphal lost report to the East India Company on the male brothels of Karachi, and whether the rumor of its creation was a piece of propaganda designed to shore up the myth of the omnipresent Colonial panopticon? Have some tea?

*Bounce bounce bounce*

What's happenin', friends

Comments

[greywash]

I know you don't really care about my dumb fandom but: Margo Hanson/girls, discuss.

[breathedout]

Feminist brain says: I haven't really seen enough of canon Margo as a developed character to have strong feelings, but triangulating her through memories of Janet, your portrayals in fic, and what I've heard from you about the show, I am all in favor both from the standpoints of both characterization and queer representation.

Lesbian brain says: Yeaaaaaaaaahhhhh baby. MARGO/GIRLS! *Long, slightly plaintive whistle*

[digsdigsdigs]

oh gosh so I've been binging that this week (caught up through S2 right now) and all I could think in S1 was that Margo was NOT baiting and bantering with Alice in a straight way. "Jealous" of her "magical brilliance" ... SURE.

[greywash]

they've STRONGLY implied Margo's bi (Eliot's Thai food metaphor, her exchange with the pirate king), but I'm bummed about how underdeveloped it is, still :/

[sylvaine]

Heee, I'm glad you had fun <3

[breathedout]

Thank you!! I did, it was great. I was going to skip next week because I have a massage scheduled just before the class, but now I'm considering actually going after my massage, it was that fun.

[thatyourefuse]

I mean, I always advocate any research that includes brothels and the Colonial panopticon (... n.t.s. type up one of my favorite bits from The Hamilton Case here tomorrow when J's not asleep) but consider: face mask during?

[breathedout]

Luckily I managed to shut off my brain last night, but this is such a good suggestion that I immediately decided to implement it at some point this weekend. Burton, tea mask, AND tea perhaps.

[thatyourefuse]

That sounds like an EXCELLENT afternoon's relaxation.

(Also:

It was not her intention to deceive. There is an old instinct, at work in bordellos and the relations of East and West, to convert the unbearable into the picturesque. It enables a sordid existence to be endured, on one side, and witnessed, on the other, with something like equanimity. A visitor to Lokugama would have seen plaster that peeled like diseased skin, sagging rattan, the mildewy bloom of wood unpolished for decades. A horn at the gate would send Maud scuttling from the verandah, hissing for the bungalow keeper. That same evening she could sit at the dining table, its scratched varnish sticky along her bare arms, and evoke the intoxicating scent of jasmine or the emerald flash of a parrot's wing. The prose that thousands before her had applied like antiseptic to the island gushed from her nib. Rats thundered in the rafters. Did you know, she found herself writing, that according to legend this was the Garden of Eden?

So not very much related, but I'm fond of that bit.)

[clarasteam]

thatyourefuse makes an excellent point. :)

aerial class sounds fun!

[breathedout]

It was delightful! Even if I looked every inch the flailing beginner I am.

[tellitslant]

Tell me about the lamps you are looking at :D

[breathedout]

My bedside lamp, which I inherited from my grandmother (this makes it sound more sentimentally precious than it is; really she was downsizing and it didn't make the cut to get into her smaller place, so she offered it to me) has been gradually dying for the past year or so, and it finally gave up the ghost completely like two months ago. I was putting off getting a new one because what with the holidays & finishing paying off my moving debt, it was an avoidable expense. But it does mean that once I'm in bed I can't read unless I do it on my computer or phone.

I did end up ordering a replacement last night! It's this body from Target, but I want to get a more exciting shade. I was looking around Etsy & found some cool William Morris print shades, but at that point I was actually getting sleepy so I put off making a decision. But I'm excited to be able to read books in bed again, with an attractive new lamp!

[tellitslant]

Hooray reading lamp! I was lamp-less for a while (due to circumstances too long to explain) and it was so annoying.

I'm glad you enjoyed the aerial class! Those look incredibly cool. Looking forward to hearing about more of your adventures :D

[starshipfox]

The Richard Burton and brothels story sounds the most immediately appealing, but I've read that tea often calms people down.

[breathedout]

The Richard Burton brothels story is indeed fascinating. I was trying to isolate a passage to excerpt from it, but it's all so context-dependent. I may try again this weekend, though.

[chestnut_pod]

I cannot wait to hear about the mythic colonial panopticon in this context, if this is a piece of pre-bedtime thought-bouncing that sticks around!

[breathedout]

Oh well credit where credit's due it definitely doesn't originate with me; it's the subject of the second chapter of Anjali Arondekar's For the Record: Sexuality and the Colonial Archive in India, which I am so far finding FASCINATING. But I am going to try to excerpt some key passages from it here over the weekend, because yeah, very interesting stuff!

[chestnut_pod]

Also, by the way, The Vespertine Circus is doing what looks like a deeply weird zombie sex/death acrobatics performance in the City later this month. Not… my thing, precisely, but their events are always hella queer, a little creepy, and attended by an audience costumed to the nines. Might be worth a look!

[breathedout]

WELL THAT LOOKS LIKE GREAT FUN, omg. Thanks for the link!!

[teaforlupin]

I am SO interested in the Richard Burton thing; looking forward to excerpts. Although I was initially puzzled to discover a hitherto-unknown to me side of the film actor; then I was like '...hang on, the East India Company was done with by the 60s? wasn't it?' although as this comment spectacularly evinces, what do I know

;P

[breathedout]

Ahahahaha yes, I always have a moment of self-doubt, with pairs of figures like that. Wait, I'm confusing two people, I must have the name wrong... as it turns out, no, it's just that two radically different people are named the same thing. Anyway, it is indeed super fascinating, and at least your confusion made me laugh!

[sarahthecoat]

Aerial class, like trapeze? way cool!! There is a circus school somewhere around here too, I have heard people say they went there for an afternoon or a class series, but have never been myself. I get dizzy too easily now to even do contra dancing any more, and I haven't been able to climb trees since I became an adult (was a proper monkey as a kid), so I say, use it while you have it!

[breathedout]

Yes, like climbing & spinning on long pieces of fabric suspended from the ceiling! (And also some more traditional trapeze, as a matter of fact, which was way scarier for me personally.)

That's a bummer about your dizziness. :-( Is it treatable at all, or just what you're stuck with? I'd never heard of contra dancing but just looked it up & it looks like fun.

[sarahthecoat]

I think the dizzyness is just from getting older. I assume so anyway. At least i can still do couple dances with turning, cos i'm holding onto my partner and not turning so fast. Contra dancing is great fun. Around here there is a lot of it, some geared toward families with kids, nearly all with the first hour for beginners, some gender-free, very inclusive. A lot of the bands also welcome extra musicians to sit in the back on stage and learn to play along on the tunes.
Aerial class sounds amazing, i will have to go look up pictures!

[lovepeaceohana]

Oh my gosh this is basically EXACTLY how I feel after circus-y stuff, haha. I've learned it's best to do it earlier in the day as a result, or at the very least to put a long drive between whatever-it-is and home if it's going to run late.

It's probably not relevant anymore, but I'd have picked "do a face mask" because then you can sit with that on your face while you read more about the male brothels of Karachi, which sounds like one fascinating rabbit hole.

Or chat more about aerial! What kind of skills are you training?

[breathedout]

Yes, hopefully long-term I will be able to shift earlier in the evening. There are higher-level and all-level classes at more convenient times, but first I have to get through the beginner-level stuff.

Re: specific skills, I actually want to take ALL THE CLASSES that this circus school offers, which has made it difficult for me to narrow things down & choose just one to start with. Probably the thing I'm most interested in is acro-yoga or partner acro, but I've been hesitant to just show up on my own, without a partner (though they say you don't have to come with someone). Now that I've been to one class at this place, that prospect seems a little less daunting, so I might give it a try. But the aerial class itself was super fun & felt very welcoming and communal, so I'd like to continue in that as well! My plan at the moment is to try out several things and see what is most fun & what works best with my schedule. I'm excited!

[lovepeaceohana]

Partner acro is so much fun!! I've done it for a couple years now and yeah, the classes I've all taken made a point of rotating pairs anyway, so that you get a chance to work and train with a wider variety of partners - I think you'll be fine without bringing your own second.

I'm so happy for you that you've got a nearby circus center too :D We've got a couple, but the closest local one doesn't offer the variety of classes I want (they do mostly aerial, when I want tightrope and stiltwalking), and the ones that do offer more classes are over an hour away (but uuuuuuuugh what I wouldn't give to take regular classes at SANCA and/or Emerald City Flying Trapeze!). And then there's the question of how to afford it all, haha, but that's true for anything.

[breathedout]

Ah, I see, the issue of rotating partners hadn't occurred to me but that makes sense, it's like a partner dance class. That actually adds another little level of hesitation for me because I generally don't like being touched by men. But I should probably just get over myself and give it a try.

[lovepeaceohana]

Well, trying it anyway is one option for sure - but I've definitely seen partner acro classes offered for specific groups in places like Portland and Seattle, so depending on where you live, maybe it's worth looking around to discover whether there might be ladies-only classes? Or possibly getting in touch with the instructor ahead of time, to get a feel for how consent around participation is handled in the classroom (the acro community at large has been undergoing its own #metoo fallout, so consent has become hugely topical and finding out how that applies in your class is never a bad idea imo) and what your options are for participating while also not having contact with dudes.

[breathedout]

These are good points! I should send them an email and see what's possible.

[lovepeaceohana]

Yay! Here's hoping that you find something that works :D

[dcbrierton]

Nice!

And yeah, the struggle of bedtime circus. For awhile this fall I was in a partner acro class that ended exactly at my normal bedtime, which was not super great. I was very excited when the teacher told me I could move up to the next level, which happens earlier in the evening. Sleep is the best.

[breathedout]

This is exactly my long-term hope for the aerial classes. There's a Level 2 class that meets an-hour-and-a-bit earlier, which would be much better, and also some multi-level conditioning classes that meet at more convenient, just-after-work times. So the late-evening class is a limited-time proposition, with rewards if I can just get through it.

And aaaaahh, I've been meaning to try partner acro and/or acro-yoga (actually my whole "in" to the circus thing was coming from yoga & wanting to try partnered poses), but I keep wanting to go with someone I already know, and so far I have no takers. But this same place offers acro-yoga classes, and now that I've been to the one aerial class it seems less daunting to just show up & be partnered with whoever is there. So maybe I'll give it a shot.

[dcbrierton]

Yeah, the "partner" aspect of partner acro & acroyoga can be challenging. I find my current studio/community really good on that score, but I've tried others where I failed to gel, or had a bad experience and never returned. And I know there are people who find that a barrier to participation in my current place, too. I hope your place turns out to be a good fit for you!

YES conditioning classes! I found aerial conditioning classes a really good way to make progress in getting, like, actually better at the discipline vs. just knowing more skills to struggle through. I'm kind of sad my current studio has very limited offerings in that regard—that's one of the reasons I've gravitated away from aerial stuff lately. I think other people probably cross-train instead, but I've had very limited success getting myself to do that.