Author Archives: Eugie Foster

I always seem to get these murk-mood doldrums after big, fun weekends. So here I am post-Fantasm and post “Nomadic Breezes” and I’m in a funk. It’s nothing dire, just a blah-don’t-wanna-do-anything-or-see-anyone sort of feeling. I skipped out on yoga last night and crashed on the couch instead. Tonight’s a new belly dance session. Guess I’ll drag myself to that although I don’t really feel like it.

Maybe I just need a swift, hot infusion of caffeine. Better living through chemistry. Where’s my coffee mug?

Daylights savings my red-rimmed, desiccated eyeballs, hah! I just looove losing an hour in the middle of my weekend. And still with the early morning wakefulness. Even though computer-darling says it’s well nigh 9:30, I know better. Twitch. I guess, technically, 9:30 (8:30, dammit!) isn’t all that early, but it really is when you don’t get to bed until past 4 am. Mr. Sandman = way too flighty. Someone oughta paperclip that fellah to a pillar and superglue his footsies to the rug.

But hey, the show was utter bravura! I was so a virtuoso of belly dance! Hee. That is, I didn’t trip over my hem and fall on my nose. The troupe number was fine, ‘cept it was more of a warm-up than anything else–being only like three minutes long. But the solo is what I was really intent about and that went by in an absolute blur. I’ve got snapshot memory-visuals of faces and a couple moments of my dance, but I was in such a transcendent state–read nerves/anticipation/euphoria–that not much made it past short term memory. This has happened to me a couple times before–at another dance solo in Springfield, IL and the time Matthew and I went skydiving–and it’s real funky. Brains are perplexing critters, ain’t they?

But okay, highlights, or rather the only parts I can remember:

My entrance with veil: perfect. I don’t usually dance with a silk veil, but the difference between silk and chiffon is like dancing with liquid water versus trawling for bats with three yards of butterfly net. I borrowed a silk veil for the performance; damn but I wish we had gobs of money-bucks so I could buy one of my very own. They’re decadently priced, but so much swoofier to dance with. Alas! Alack!

Next: What the Hell? Were there no men sitting in the front row?? There’s this cuter-than-belief section of the opening choreography where I drop my veil over an audience person’s shoulders and I was really looking forward to lighting up some unsuspecting XYs eyes, but there wasn’t a single male in the front row! Whazzat about? But hey it was okay. A fellow dancer-in-arms not in the show was up front and I tossed her my veil and the crowd loved it. But where or where were all the eager lads?

Penultimate: seeing Matthew in the back, watching me with a big, proud grin on his face. I just love my hubby. He got shafted into volunteering to staff the ticket counter (the poor thing!) so missed most of the show. I’m inexpressibly glad he was able to duck in for long enough to catch my solo.

Finis: A dim awareness of the crowd clapping along with the music, random eye contact (it’s all about the eye contact), the last chorus section when I knew I’d made it through nearly the whole damn thing without forgetting a step, and hey–my gawd!–I’m done. Applause and bows. I so get off on the sound of hands snap-clack-clacking for me. Bask, bask.

Sadly, Matthew wasn’t able to take pictures since he was stuck way in the back. I saw flashbulbs going off like mad throughout my solo, but I didn’t recognize any of the shutterbugs. Pook. I would have liked a memory de perpetua of that. Sigh.

And that was my grand performance. Hurray!

Now, I’m starving. Wonder if we got yummy breakfast fixins . . . .

Toodles ’till later,
Ms. Fantasm 2002 (Yep, that’s still a rush.)

I hate early morning insomnia. I’m going to be zombielike tonight when I need to have my brain on high-speed and not cranked down to clunk. Damn. But at least the dress rehearsal went smoothly last night, or as smoothly as can be expected. I screwed up the choreography on the troupe number, but that’s okay ’cause the beauty of dancing with a troupe is that there’s a bunch of other dancers that the audience might be looking at which ain’t me when I flub, and I can glance over at them to find my place. Snarf. I was just getting my choreography mishaps out of the way in rehearsal, yeah, uh huh. We ran through it twice and the second time was much better. But on a happy-joy-joy, the solo went well.

I get to shake and shimmy in front of a couple hundred people tonight. Yay! Exhibitionist? Moi?

And Matthew’s Fantasm ’02 review is up! Wish we had more pictures, though.

Aghftpth. I hate that burny-eye-I’m-so-tired-but-just-can’t-sleep feeling. Stupid circadian rhythms.

Has every chickee in the world written in a diary? Gawd the last time I wrote a journal entry about me was for some lame English class in college. Before that, I still had pink clothing, some with frills. My mother thought I was some sort of Asian Barbie doll; I swear. And her taste in wardrobing was bad enough to blind a flamingo. I seem to have recovered fairly unscathed, though. Or perhaps that explains the preponderance of black black black in my closet.

Mostly recovered from Fantasm (which ROCKED). We had so much fun Matthew threw his back out. Poor Matthew! But, on an up note, he’s been spending a lot of his down time putting together his Fantasm 2002 convention review for our website. And I’ve got a tiara! I never thought I’d own a tiara. Shiny shiny. Wonder if I can stick “Ms. Fantasm 2002” on my resume? Um. Probably shouldn’t. Down that path lies clanging metal leg traps.

Getting ready for my belly dance show tomorrow night. Had a scary moment on Wednesday when I ran through the choreography for the first time in a week for my solo number. Apparently the brain cells I killed over the weekend were those shimmies. Urk. But, thank godlettes, I do appear to have redundant neural pathways. A couple run throughs and I’m back on track. Dress rehearsal tonight. Makeup like greasepaint in bright, searing colors. Whee.

Don’t have any ideas for new stories hammering on my door. Damn. But I can’t complain. Managed to crank out and complete three of ’em in as many weeks. That counts as productive. Really it does. Maybe if I really screw up my solo tomorrow, the staggeringly traumatic experience will fuel my muse. Something to look forward to. Uh huh.

Must. Eat. Lunch.

Ta ta from Ms. Fantasm 2002! (Nope, still not tired of calling myself that.)