Yesterday was my actual birthday and Dinah left me feeling more special and loved than I ever thought possible. I woke up to a delicious (and beautiful) breakfast of waffles, syrup, homemade raspberry sauce, giant plates of fractally-arranged fruit. King for a day!
Except that I did bother to go to work. That's gonna have to stop... the revoking of internet priveleges was really a blow, and now there's really very little there to stem the neverendingly rising tide of depression. But enough about that...
I got home to find that my roommate Arlene made me an oreo birthday cake! :) Delicious! So that was my dinner... Then Dinah arrived and secretively took me off to the Half Acre Brewing Company, where Gabrielle (the founder) gave us a "dime tour" of the place. Really cool to see. Of course I had a lot of specific questions about their filling equipment, sterilization procedures, testing methods.... And of course "are you hiring." The answer to that one was "no," but I'll be keeping in touch. :)
Then we raced off to mime class, which was held at this gymnastics / circus arts gym (MSA Circus Arts) down by the Western Blue Line stop. We got there to find that two things were happening. Only one of them is worth mentioning, which is that some hispanic high school kids were practicing some type of acrobatic salsa moves using a sort of giant version of the "jumpy-jump" we used to use as kids to bounce around the kitchen door-frame. This girl was quickly stepping forward, stepping into the guy's hands (at knee height) and then pushing off into a backflip, "landing" in a sort of hug. It was really really cool/scary to watch, because she missed her landings about HALF the time and ended up either crashing into the guy's head or missing him completely and landing on the floor. They must've done this like 40 times while we were there... I can't imagine how that works on a non-padded floor OR how they survived this at all... PLUS, it's not like one just shows up at a gym and decides to run towards their dance partner, jump up using his hands as a springboard, and backflip into his arms... where did they start off?
Mime class was very interesting, but don't ask me to do anything yet. It's a completely new skillset for me, since I'm not really a dancer or actor of any kind (though tango is progressing nicely). We spent a lot of time bending parts of our body while holding a certain pivot point. It's a lot like being really into cars but then finding out you have to spend a lot of time disassembling brakes before you get to do anything like actually drive. Why would I want to study mime? Well, anyone who knows me knows that I like to be entertaining. I like humor. I've always found mime to be a uniquely pure and universal art, because it transcends language and takes acting to a completely new level. If you're not sure what I'm talking about.... take a look on youtube at anything by Marcel Marceau, Tony Montanaro, or Etienne Decroux. These guys were all influenced heavily by Charlie Chapman. But enough name dropping for now... The point is it's something I've always wanted to do and it's fun to be working on it! More later when there's more.
The point is that I'm so happy to be so in love with a girl who is so in love with me and has gone so far to ensure my happiness on my birthday! WOW. So happy.
