The Game Dame

Consider yourself warned: This post has nothing to do with WoW, but with something else that has been a huge part of my life.

Frankie Manning, the Tony-award winning Father of Lindy Hop, died yesterday at the age of 94. May he rest in peace. The LA Times wrote a wonderful obituary for him, as did the New York Times.

I got the opportunity to take dance classes from him and listen to him tell stories at Swing Camp Catalina, a yearly event (now defunct) hosted by Pasadena Ballroom Dance Association. The sisters who run PBDA taught me how to dance. They were also the ones who brought Frankie out of retirement in 1986 to help teach Lindy Hop around the world, giving all of us dancers a chance to meet him, learn to dance from him, and hear his tales. Frankie connected me to history all the way back to the invention of Lindy Hop and, as such, I felt I could be a part of that history myself, simply by carrying on the dance.

Frankie is also bound up with my earliest memories of falling in love with my husband. On the boat to Catalina for our first Swing Camp together, my then-boyfriend gave me a card that indicated his intention to one day propose to me. I’ll never forget the thrill of feeling lightheaded while bouncing over the waves, snuggled next to him, on the way to dancing together at the historic Catalina Casino Ballroom.

Even if you don’t know who Frankie Manning was, you’ve been thrilled by his work. Remember that Gap Khaki ad from 1998? Those lifts and throws (called “aerials”) were invented by Frankie Manning. Well into his 80s, Frankie could still do a lot of these moves.

Here’s a clip of Frankie dancing with the joy I always saw in him and that he transferred to everyone he met. (Frankie is the first man you see dancing, the one with the mechanic’s hat.)

Goodbye, Frankie, and thank you so much for everything.

I need a break from the internet. I’m sure the tubes will do fine without me for a while.

Probably on Wednesday, which is the day after my birthday. Time to grow up.

I’m angry and frustrated. Mostly angry and frustrated because I’m not at liberty to discuss why I’m angry and frustrated. So in the meantime, here are some new sites I found.

Kaos War: A new MMORPG now in beta.

Bigstage: Take 3 photos of yourself and make yourself a 3D graphic avatar.

Gametrainer: Pay someone $30/hour to make you a better game player. They promise they won’t laugh. (Seriously, they do.) But they don’t promise to credit that $30 to a fitness trainer to make up for it later.

Pixie: Simple site designer. Not sure if this will work with self-hosted Wordpress blogs or not.

Project Wonderful: Advertise your website or your blog. Wordpress.com blogs not eligible (I tried).

Lush Bath Bombs: This one’s for the ladies out there. These look like so much fun! I want some for my birthday!

Mecanbe: Set your goals and let the world watch you acheive them.

Frick. Last night I slept on my side wrong and re-injured my shoulder from several years back. And guess what? Since my doctor works Saturdays, guess which day he takes off instead? Yep, Thursday. Again I say, “frick.” The pain’s pretty horrible and typing is excrutiating. Don’t be looking for an update again until I can get to the doctor tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed that he has appointments available.

I discovered this meme via one of those random Wordpress links on my own blog post. Forgive me, Labour Party bloggers from whence this came, but in fine American tradition, I’ve de-Brit-ified the list.

September 11 attacks
This is, of course, the big one for our generation — so far. (I wasn’t alive when JFK, RFK, and King were assassinated.) I live on the West Coast so I was sleeping. When the phone rang, I heard my Dad, who lives on the East Coast, talking on the answering machine telling me to call him. Since my Dad always calls at “oh-dark-thirty” to make sure he catches me at home, I rolled over and went back to sleep. (He was calling after the first plane hit.) Fifteen minutes later, he called again. (Second plane.) I couldn’t hear what he’d said so I just rolled my eyes at his determination. Five more minutes and I heard another friend’s voice talking into the answering machine and I thought, “WTF?” When I answered it, my friend said, simply, “Turn on the television. Turn it on right now.” If he elaborated I was too sleepy to understand the magnitude of what he was saying, so I turned on the TV. I had only just gotten my head around what had happened, what I was seeing, while my friend was telling me what he knew, when I interrupted him to say, “One of the buildings is collapsing. One of the towers is completely falling down.” Now it was my friend’s turn to disbelieve.
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I guess some things will always hurt.

My new laptop was getting all grody in my backpack. I would clean the nice shiny black surface and then after putting it in the backpack it would come out all smudgy. The backpack is old and goodness knows what’s flaking off on the innards of it. But it was an expensive Eddie Bauer pack and I didn’t want to spend money on something to tote the laptop in when in all other respects, this is a dang nice backpack. The solution? Slip the laptop into something that will keep the smudges off of it while in the pack. Buy it? No flippin way. I did some measurements and used my late mother-in-law’s extra yarn (she loved blue) to knit up a nice little sleeve for the laptop. Remember, it doesn’t have to function for anything but as a jacket in the pack…

Laptop sleeve album

1. I’m tired of having insomnia. (Irony intended.)
2. I miss writing my thoughts on this blog.
3. I don’t know the difference between being compulsive and being disciplined. The things I want to do somehow I’m too “lazy” or “undisciplined” to do. Yet compulsive behaviors in opposite directions come easy. Why can’t I take my devotion to something negative and aim it at something positive?
4. I’m tired of taking anti-depressants and blood pressure meds because I’m so anxious all the time. I want off the meds.
5. I admire Hooved Shaman immensely. Most people will never understand what a courageous thing he’s trying to do.
6. I miss dancing the Lindy Hop with my husband.
7. I miss riding my bike.
8. I miss swimming.
9. I miss seeing sunrises and sunsets.
10. I miss the wind blowing through my hair.
11. I miss wearing short skirts.
12. I miss connecting with my friends and family.
13. I think TJ is one of the funniest things on the internet. She has also introduced me to some of the coolest things on the internet.
14. I’m bored with WoW. I’m not sure if I care to get over the boredom. I’m not sure Wrath will cure it. I think it is broken inside me.
15. I’m sick of my computers, the web, politicians, religious pushers of all stripes, politics, pundits, jerkfaces, phenoms, trolls, critics, asswipes, corporate lifestyles, humidity, materialism, advertising, the worship of sex, people who make sweeping generalizations, people who make lists, and television news people.
16. I need more hugs and kisses from people.
17. If I can learn how to be optimistic, anyone can. I wish more people would try.
18. I want to dedicate my life to something bigger than myself. How do you narrow it down to just one thing? And how do you eat & pay rent while you’re doing it?
19. I don’t believe in mid-life crises, except from a hormonal point of view. Everything else is just an excuse to avoid reality.
20. I wish I could adequately explain the difference between acceptance and giving up.
21. I want to wear a short, cute, fun hairstyle, even if it’s not right for my face.
22. I want to know why compassion is less valued than competition.
23. I think people are tribal animals. Emphasis on tribal. Emphasis on animals. Until we get that through our thick, “civilized” heads, we’re always going to fall short of anything resembling world peace.
24. Can you write for a blog about a game you’re falling out of love with — especially if they’re not all that interested in you writing about what interests you — just to get the experience to put on your resume for bigger things in the future? Should you even try?
25. I think atheism is not a lack of belief; it is a belief in something different.
26. I think science is as much a mythology as any religion. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But to think it is higher than other mythologies is to make an arbitrary exception.
27. Sometimes, when thinking about my gramma’s death hurts so bad that my chest hurts and my teeth grind, I try to remember that time is not necessarily linear just because we perceive it that way. When a wave crashes to the shore, does it cease to exist or does it just go back into the ocean? I try to remember that gramma and I are both in the ocean and we are waves, seeming to come and go but still part of the same thing.

I am numb right now. Calvin’s biopsy came back as a cancerous growth. We were referred to a veterinary oncologist.