I am SO BRAVE

I just went to the Ellington Hall Friday night swing dance party BY MYSELF scary scary scary but actually it was fine. They start off with a lesson, and there's about sixty people there, and it's fun because a) you're guaranteed a partner, since they put everyone into two concentric circles that just rotate around one another, b) there's a hilarious variety of ages, from 11 up to about 70 (not a ton in the mid-thirties, sadly, but meh, you don't go to these things to be picky) and c) you sort of get to know people a little bit in the lesson, so by the time the dance party itself starts, you don't feel quite so horrifically shy about finding partners. The only guy who asked me to dance was someone I actually semi-knew from forays into Internet dating who I like, but he's a little strange and also a fantastically good dancer, so I didn't feel I could inflict myself on him more than a couple of times. Boo: I did not get asked to dance by anyone else (all the guys who are beginners seem to be very tentative about asking people to dance, and all the guys who are really good go for the girls who are really good (natch)). But then I thought, the hell with it, and so I started marching up to random dudes and dragging them out on the floor, and ended up having a reasonably grand old time. Also I love love love old swing music. They played Aretha, and the Dusty Springfield song, "Son Of A Preacher Man," and "Frankie and Johnnie" and Nat King Cole, and all sorts of lovely oldies without any schmaltz at all. So points for me for being brave.

fried milk!

true to my new years' resolutions, i am steadily working my way through my spanish cookbook. i don't think i'll be able to finish these, however. they're delicious, but it's a little icky to feel my LDL actually climbing into the quadruple digits. i burnt the patatas bravas, but they were still so good they didn't last long enough for a picture to be taken...

fort ross trip, january 1-3 2010

sonoma coast near fort ross
baby cow
playing karate kid on the rocks at stillwater cove
two seconds away from being hit by a wave
big fatty wave
view from cliffs above stillwater cove
water up close

new years' rezzies

Here's my list, most of which i came up with last night while sitting at the grove waiting for the meeps, but i added some more this morning when the sunrise woke me up (happy 2010 everyone!):

1. repaint my kitchen, including kitchen cabinets and trim, and spackling the one wall that it looks like the surface of the moon at this point from all the nails i have so incautiously whacked into it over the last year or so. i'm thinking robin's eggy blue for the walls might be fun, although i haven't completely ruled out a different colour for each wall (parental units, you are invited to withhold your disapproval for this idea, please). Also finish painting the trim outside the house.

2. cook every recipe in my new spanish cookbook (there aren't _that_ many, i don't think. big print and lots of pictures).

3. hire someone to prune my apple tree (this one has a deadline of february, i think), and hire someone to come and weed and mow regularly (yes, I know this one is overdue. i keep having delusions about being able to make myself do it. those delusions are almost dead. almost.)

4. exercise 30' a day six days a week. one hour of cycling or two hours of brisk walking may be substituted for the half hour jog.

5. fix the portraits that need fixing as best as possible, finish the master copy i'm currently working on, get myself up to an even thirty portraitsoffriendsandfamily, and do a master copy either of a vermeer or a john singer sargent (probly either madame x whom i love, in either her fully-strapped-in or in her racy-strap-falling-down state i haven't decided yet OR the daughters of edward darly whosit)

6. EITHER go to a multi-day tango workshop, if i can find one, OR rent a cello and take cello lessons, OR learn a schubert sonata all the way through

7. make two new friends (up to the friendship level of being able to ring them and say, hey, do you fancy coming to see a movie or something with me and having supper with them on my own)

8. find an adult literacy program to volunteer for

9. write 12 essays (about what, i have no idea. books? painting? past blog entries fair game if i can find any coherent enough) and get them as good as i possibly can to the point where i do not feel embarrassed about sending them to my friend Emily's agent to try and get published (Emily remains the only person who has read - or will ever read - my effort for National Novel Writing Month three? four? years ago, and was ludicrously encouraging, for which she is paying the price of being mentioned in my New Year's resolutions

10. either chuck, donate to Goodwill, or finish mending all the things in my clothes-needing-to-be-mended pile.

woohoo! we'll see how much i manage.