Dancing in the Dark

So much has slipped by since last I wrote, and it's clear that what I thought was recovery was still only shock. A great blow to the psyche is no different, I think, than a physical wound:

First, numbness, curious detachment: "Look, how funny! My arm isn't there any more!"

Next, the pain starts. Realization is far away, but now you know things are awry. At the same time that the effects of the blow are spreading, agents of healing--white blood cells, friends with casseroles--are speeding to the wound site.

Then, the top most visible layer resolves itself into a delicate, protective surface, easily broken, but it keeps the body together. I am here, veneered with a few microns of composure.

Those microns needing shoring up, I cast about for distraction, something healthier than the deadly combo of scotch and brownies I had been utilizing when my father died. Yes, I learned to down Scotch neat in a single night! With a brownie chaser.

I hadn't eaten anything that wasn't beige or brown for weeks, so I began trying to eat a brighter variety of things--fruits and vegetables. And I found FIT-TV, a channel devoted entirely to exercise. Ordinarily I'd have watched those wiry grinning rubber people bouncing on their yoga mats from a reclining position, but a certain program attracted my attention, and it did not star wiry grinning rubber people, it featured lovely curvy slithery rubber people belly dancing.

Belly dancing! Belly dancing on purpose, rather than the impromptu gravity-inspired riffs inspired by scotch and brownies. In the privacy of home, where only my little husband, who loves a shimmy no matter how uneven or how much is shimmying, could see.

So I have become consumed with enthusiasm for Oriental dancing, not just for the spine-tingling, strengthening hip circles, or the Goddessy, fertile-women-have-curves-and-shake-them overtones, but also for all the sparkly, jingly, flowy stuff you get to wear.





It all plays into one of my credos: If You Can't Hide It, Decorate It. And After You've Decorated It, Wiggle It.


So I've been painting belly dancers, and,



THIS JUST IN FROM THE FILTHY LUCRE DEPT:



YOU CAN BUY THEM!



Yes, all two readers besides me, I crumpled in the face of demand and made my blog more commercial. I opened a cafepress store, which means somewhere in time and space are a lot of blank T-shirts and mugs and such-like, which you can order with Snarkopolitan artwork on them (Click on the button at the bottom of the page). Right now, it's rather belly dancercentric, but I'll be adding all kinds of mischief. Yes, I'm flying in the face of half the stated purpose of my blog (frugality) to promote my own welfare by trumpeting a fledgling commercial enterprise to benefit me, your author. Please feel free to revel in the unstated purpose of my blog, blind, unthinking consumerism.


But, shameless commercialism over, I must tell you that if I've ever appreciated the warmth of blood flowing through my veins, I never have done more than now. That is good reason to dance.