Projects galore.

I declared today Project Day and worked on a different project each hour. So in one day I designed a dress, started a knitted hat, worked on a crocheted hat, made a belly dancing skirt, wrote a tutorial on making a dance skirt, and worked on my quilt. I'm tired but I feel good inside that I got so much done today.

Dancing ahead of my time

I learned to belly dance in 1977 but I was also taking jazz and modern dance in college and I took ballet in the 80's too. I remember combining belly dancing steps with jazz and modern in the 70's. Of course back then people just thought I was odd. Now everyone is all over tribal fusion belly dancing.

Back in the 80's I showed up to a cabaret gig wearing a costume that combined cabaret and tribal. And once again I got snarky remarks from other dancers about how I shouldn't or couldn't wear those looks together. I just thought cabaret was a bit too 'Vegas' and Tribal was a bit too 'Earthy' for the pizza parlor we were dancing in and my look combined both. Down the road someone coined the word "Tribaret" and a whole new look was born. Or was it? I was doing it before it had a name. Not that I got any brownie points for it. Mostly I just got laughed at.

Also in the 80's we were doing fire staff, fire poi spinning, and juggling torches. I was hard pressed to find anyone to practice with. Years later everyone else seems to have jumped on the bandwagon. Of course the IJA conventions always had some fire performer workshops, but you could literally be the only fire performer in your county once you went home again.

So what's my point? We give a lot of lip service to rewarding innovators in the arts, but personally I never felt any accolades for being ahead of my time. In fact most troupes wanted nothing to do with me because I never fit in with their idea of what belly dancing should be. I learned a lot being a soloist though.

If no one wants to party with you, you just have to party alone.

What's up with Tribe?

I have been having the hardest time getting the Tribe website to open. Usually I can find some back door and get in on the third of fourth try but today I literally started at 8 AM to try to read an email on tribe, and didn't successfully log in until 4 PM. So I sent my friend my regular email address so she wouldn't have to log in to tribe to reach me and vice versa.

SCA/Gyldenholt

I went to an SCA fighter practice at Murdy Park last night and met a bunch of new people. I haven't been to anything SCA in years. But I was tired of sitting alone in my apt.

OOohh one more

See more of my parade photos on my Flickr stream here : flickr.com/photos/almos...605507114070/

Belly dancers in the Gay Pride Parade 2008

Love it.

I'm green with envy

Gay Pride Parada float

Cheerleaders in the Hollywood Gay Pride Parade

Shakin' what their mamas gave 'em.

My favorite photo of the Gay Pride Parade

Go Big or Go Home.

Gay Pride Parade Hollywood 2008

It was a great parade and had more dancers than I remember last year. I also got some photos of the belly dancers (don't recall seeing belly dancers in the parade before). Anyway, as soon as I rest up a bit and remember where I put my camera, I'll put the photos up on Flickr and a few here of course.