late-breaking new year's resolution!

yeah, i know it's already february, but i'm pretending that's a perfectly normal time to make new year's resolutions, so hush. also i've technically already followed through with this in january, which helps make this seem more legit and like i planned this on purpose.

i really wish i could remember whose idea this was originally - someone mentioned this in the comments section of a blog i read normally, but now i can't even remember what the post was about, much less whose blog it was or the name of the commenter, so.. whoops! sorry, dear unnamed commenter who i cannot remember, but thank you for this fantastic idea, which is simply:

i'm going to donate to a new charity every month throughout 2010.

simple! easy! makes me feel better about being the generally fairly useless member of society that i usually am!

like most of us, i donated to the red cross in january to help with the haiti disaster relief. and recently, suburban sweetheart tweeted about volunteer opportunities with local abortion clinics, which will be targeted for 40 days starting in mid-february by an anti-abortion group. i'm hoping to volunteer to be an escort for at least a few of those days, but it inspired me to donate to planned parenthood in conjunction.

ideally, it would be neat if i could continue having opportunities pop up like this to make each month's donation relevant to what i'm doing or what's going on in the world at any given time, but obviously there is no shortage of worthy causes that can use my wee chunk o' change.

interested in joining me? you can donate to planned parenthood here, or to the red cross here. (more info on becoming an escort here.)

as of monday i'll be eligible to donate blood as well, and then HOT DAMN. i'll be available to receive my civic duty medal any time that's convenient.

(ETA: looks like this particular cause is even MORE relevant than i knew! check out marie's post today about the tim tebow superbowl ad.)

weekended! or, I HAZ A TATTOOO!

so my friends came this weekend! we tromped through the absolutely miserable blizzardy storm on saturday to see eastern market, went to the newseum, stopped for tea, then had more (wonderful!) food at indique. we went skating on sunday then gorged ourselves on (omg delicious) cupcakes.

and then they had to go back to nyc. and so i went and got a tattoo.

i've been wanting a tattoo since i was about 18, but never went for it because i couldn't think of anything that i wanted permanently imprinted on my body forever. and ever. and EVER and omg maybe i just shouldn't get a tattoo? ok.

but then last year i realized i had been having that conversation with myself for a full decade. and i STILL wanted a tattoo. after ten years of *wishing* i had a tattoo, i was pretttty sure i wasn't going to regret the decision if i went ahead and got one; i just had to bite the bullet and come up with something i liked.

i started sketching designs shortly after that. i was pretty sure i wanted some sort of celtic knot, and maybe another icon in the center of it that had personal meaning to me? one of the symbols i considered for the middle of the knot was a fleur de lis, since i've spent time in france - 10 weeks living with a family when i was in highschool, and a full year at a french university for my junior year of college. i still speak french (although, admittedly, not as well as when i lived there!) and identify strongly as a francophile.

anyway, it became apparent that the fleur de lis didn't look right AT ALL with the knot design, but i was having a hard time discarding it entirely. and then all of a sudden i decided it would look TOTALLY PERFECT on the inside of my left wrist, and i've been completely determined to do it ever since.

(rachel - after our gchat last night, i realized i probably have you to thank for that inspiration! at the time i didn't know why i was all LEFT WRIST IS PERFECT AND WHERE IT MUST BE FULL STOP, but i bet it was from the first time i saw yours at lucky bar and fell in love with it.)

so! i did NOT get this tattoo to honor the new orleans saints' first superbowl appearance, as impressive as that accomplishment is for them, go saints, rah rah rah etc. although i realize it sort of looks that way, what with the timing. but nope! it's to honor the big dorky francophile part of myself, and as a reminder that i want to keep that part of me alive and active. which maybe means more trips back to france to keep my french up, OH DARN.

i'm still planning on the knot tattoo, incidentally. that design is almost done and i'll probably bring it into jinxproof soon for some help in making it purdy. i totally loved them there, by the way - super friendly, made me feel really relaxed about the whole situation (eg First! Tattoo! Eek!), and the place was clean and lovely and my tattoo artist was phenomenal. i didn't have the wee sketch i'd done of the style of fleur de lis i wanted on me, so i looked through a page of fleur de lis designs they had on hand, and i just... didn't like any of them. so i sketched what i wanted right there on some scrap paper, and my dude took the design and made it perfect. like, perfectly symmetrical and awesome.

so: i am now inked. and i LOVE IT SO MUCH. i get these occasional pangs of "OH MY GOD I JUST PUT THAT THERE FOR! EVER! AND! EVER! AM I INSANE??" but they are overshadowed with downright adoration for the tattoo. i literally keep stopping to gaze at my wrist, smitten. i think it was the right choice. :-)

weekending

thanks for the comments on the pole pics, you guys! i do have to admit that despite the wee toppling-on-my-head thing, i AM really proud of myself overall. so, thanks for saying nice things :-)

(one benefit of pole i may not have mentioned so far, by the way? wearing 5" heels makes your legs look FREAKING AWESOME. i recommend.)

so! on to things that don't involve poles! i have a wonderful friend from highschool spending this weekend in dc as a 30th birthday present from her fiancé, and i'm looking for some fun activities to do with them. they've both been to dc before so they've done the mall and the museums and the monuments. the other challenge is that she doesn't drink or enjoy the bar scene at all, soooo that kind of knocks out most of my regular ideas. heh.

so far, i think we'll head to eastern market on saturday morning, hit up georgetown cupcake at some point, and gorge ourselves at indique for dinner. anyone have brilliant / cute / exciting ideas for what we should do with ourselves in between?

i'm officially a Pole Master! (believe me, i already know all the dirty puns you can make with that title.)

so! the pole recital! as most of you know i've been taking pole for a while now. the way it works in our studio is that you progress through each of 6 subsequently more difficult levels of pole - eg, harder spins, crazier inverts and other tricks requiring more upper body strength, etc. - until at the end of level 6, you choreograph your own routine to a song of your choosing, and perform it. by yourself. in front of people.

did i also mention how with a lot of these complicated tricks, you're holding on to the pole with areas like your thighs, so you can't wear clothing that, say, covers your thighs? and instead you need to wear weeeee little shorts, in order to expose your tender thigh skin for better grippage? in front of people?

you can see where this starts leading to hyperventilation.

so our recital was this weekend, and... well. it was VERY STRESSFUL, let me tell you. saturday was a full day of Pole Recital Preparations, starting at 12:30 when several of us met to get our hairs did for the big day. my sole request to the hair stylist was "big." my hair is pretty much the antithesis of big (more "flat," "stringy," and "lifeless") so i figured if she made it huge and voluminous, it would be large-ish and with some hints of body by show time. she took me at my word, and i left the salon with about 8 lbs of hairspray in my hair and the biggest hair anyone has ever accomplished on me in my LIFE.

by showtime, i had my completely lifeless, flat, stringy hair back. le sigh.

but! the actual recital part! it was nerve-wracking and exciting and i think we had about 50 people crammed into our minuscule studio watching us. and it went pretty well, for the most part. except for the part where i fell on my head aaahahahahahahaaaaOMFG I FELL. ON MY HEAD. SERIOUSLY.

remember this handy visual display?

so, i'm actually pretty good at that part. doing the handstand is totally a mental hurdle to overcome, not really physically hard to do at all. it's the whole convincing yourself to throw your legs over your head toward a 2" wide target that's the hard part. but once i got that down, i've been handstanding to the pole like a fool. the only times i've ever not hit the handstand is when i've been too tentative and haven't kicked my legs up high enough, and then you just come right back down to where you started.

except! when doing this for FIFTY FRACKING PEOPLE, i straight up MISSED THE POLE. MISSED IT. and landed sort of crumpled in a little upside-down heap next to the pole.

i cannot even begin to explain how confused i was in that minute. i mean, i was adrenalined up to the point of heart attack to begin with, and coupled with the fact that it had NEVER HAPPENED before, i literally could not figure out what had happened. i knew where i was *supposed* to be, and instead i was somehow.. on the floor? what direction was i facing? what had just happened? WHAT SHOULD I DO NOW? holy crap, did i just FALL OFF THE POLE DURING MY PERFORMANCE??!?!?!!

i heard someone from my class yell "do it again!" and unable to think of anything else suitable on my own, i got up and threw my legs right back up, hit the handstand, and i think more due to shock than anything else, hit the MUCH HARDER move from there, which was to clamp on with my legs and hold, handsfree.

i realize this is the world's poorest quality photo, but it's basically a screencap from a grainy video that the wonderful marie was sweet enough to take for me during the performance. however, what's going on here is that from the handstand, i hold on with my feet, and let go of my hands. dudes. this part is HARD. (the handstand! it is not supposed to be hard. AUGH.)

ANYWAY. aside from that one teeeensy little hiccup where i FELL ON MY HEAD HAHAHAHAOMGKILLMENOW, it went fine. people still seemed to enjoy the routine, and despite my utter mortification, seemed somehow IMPRESSED with the fall, like it proved what i was doing was hard enough to, say, FALL ON ONE'S HEAD by accident.

(are all the caps adequately conveying my horror at this? i think probably. i'll try to lay off now.)

anyway. if i just apply a nice little mental block to that portion of the evening and pretend it didn't happen, i'm actually pretty pleased with how everything else went. i DID hit all the actual hard moves, i only blanked on my routine once mid-performance, and managed to cover it well enough that i don't think anyone noticed. plus, it was honestly fun to get to show off for my friends.

how about a few more grainy, hard to make out screencaps so i can show off to you guys a bit too? it's hard to tell, but here i'm about 4 feet up the pole, with both legs held out in a wide V to either side. (you can see the reflection of my right leg in the mirror.) one of my favorite parts of the routine was right after doing this: with my legs still out in that V position, i dropped straight down the height of the entire pole, landing sitting on the floor with my legs out to either side :-)

ok, turns out it's hard to get screencaps of any of the spins, since.. you know.. i was moving all fast and spinny and stuff, but this is in the middle of a spin appropriately named the "flying body:"

so overall: this has been a super, super fun thing to do over the past year. despite the falling on my head bit (HAHAHAHAAAAA OMG STILL MORTIFIED) i'm really proud of myself for doing this, and i can't believe the amount of strength i've built up - doing this stuff is HARD, yo, and you need some serious upper body power to get through a 4:30 min routine of high-aerobic strength moves. upper body strength that i most certainly did not have going into this endeavor, incidentally.

for all you locals - they're opening up a new studio in falls church in march. you should look into taking a class :-)

MOOOOOSE-TAASH

hello my lovelies! it's been crazy around here. i've been travelling for work, covering for coworkers, and even covering for my boss while she's out. and, uh, i'm not much of a computer-at-home-r, soooo with every moment of my workday jam-packed with actual WORK (wtf!) i've been fairly absent from the online sphere. alas.

however, there is nothing like an awesome moosetash to get one back into the swing of things, and that's just a fact.

turns out i won a freaking awesome moosetash from the always-lovely hillary, and hot damn is it ever sweet. see?

one of the things i find so entertaining about the moosetash is that it can be worn pointing up, as in the photo above, or pointing down, which makes me feel very judgy and also like i need a monocle.
i also found that i was much more confident on conference calls when be-moosetashed.

taken during an actual conference call!

all members of the household were thrilled about the moosetash.

ok, so MAYBE "thrilled" isn't the right term, exactly.

even if SOME members of the household refused to wear the moosetash as it was meant to be worn. ingrates.

in other Big News, i had my official pole dancing graduation recital this weekend. i started to write it up here, but pole dancing AND moosetashing was just too much for one post. Pole Dancing Escapades to come tomorrow!

#spinstertweets

my cats made out almost better than i did this christmas: they received gifts from 3 different parties over the several days i was home. one such offering was a pair of catnip toys - one for each cat. bella, for whatever reason, has never shown much interest in catnip. it doesn't seem to affect her much. oliver, on the other hand? omfg. it's like he's on cat cocaine. and it's HILARIOUS. he brings the definition of spazzing to a new level.

he DOVE at my hand the second i took the toy out of its wrapper, then instantly began rubbing it on his face and drooling, while rolling around the carpet on his back. he'd then bat the toy away from him, and instead of trotting over to it like normal, would drag himself - still on his back - across the carpet until he could hook it again with a claw. rinse and repeat, for about 3 hours.

and because my parents' friends who gifted the catnip toys have a good sense of humor, and because i am a nerd, i sent them a thank you note... from oliver.

from: Alice
to: the Pointskys
date: Wed, Jan 6, 2010

subject: I CAN HAZ CATNIPS!

OH HAI JUS WANTID TO SAY THANK U FUR MY CATNIPS I LOV IT ALMST AS MUCH AS I LOV BREAKIN THINGZ

OLIVR

my week in phonepics

technically this is over more than the past week, but "my past 3ish weeks in phonepics" just doesn't have the same ring to it, you know?

first off, we had a COMPLETELY AWESOME team holiday party just before christmas that was held at a laser tag place. (it was my idea. i know. i'm awesome to work with.) so apparently i got a little, uh, "into it," shall we say? and was ducking down onto one knee a lot to shield myself from incoming laser fire. which resulted in a leg that looked like this - but blacker - for about a week:

i can haz hotnass?

then new year's eve happened, and we had to work, but we worked from my coworker's house so that his girlfriend could feed us delicious dinner and so that we could start drinking as soon as we could stop working. it's sort of a long story, but we ended up drinking champagne out of frisbees.

just a sort of helpful fyi? that's a pretty terrible idea. i spent most of the remaining weekend doing a lot of lounging in bed and on my couch, in pjs, accompanied by my cats.who, by the way, are total assholes. i think i've mentioned before how EFFING COLD my bedroom is. my place is overall absolutely amazing, but they skimped haaaaarrrd when it came to installing the windows, because jesus h. if i stand in front of the closed - LOCKED! - windows, the hair around my face physically lifts and blows back due to the breeze that comes DIRECTLY THROUGH the closed window. and with windchills below zero recently, this has not been fun.

so! i got that crappy plastic insulation stuff, the kind you put up on your windows, then use a hair dryer on, and voila! U R INSLATEDZ. except wow is that stuff a pain in the hoohah to put up. to be fair, it might have been because i was trying to install the double-sided tape onto windows that were probably about 30° to the touch, so that could conceivably have killed some of the sticky, but damn. i put up the tape, and pressed the plastic sheet up against it - which is more or less the consistency of saran wrap - and the shit would just drop instantly off, like i was trying to adhere it directly to the wall or something. and not, say, to ACTUAL TAPE designed for exactly that purpose.

so i was a little cursey and stabby by the end of this project, and did not wake up in a bubble of warmth and unicorns, so i stomped off to work the next morning annoyed that i'd spent 45 minutes wrestling with the stupid stuff the evening before.

but then! i got home from work the next day, and walked into my room, and.... i wasn't buffeted by a wall of frigid air. (i am not exaggerating. that is literally what happens when you walk into my bedroom in the winter.) THIS WAS VERY EXCITING, YOU GUYS. the insulation was WORKING!

....and then this morning, exactly one day later, i woke up to the sound of oliver ripping the plastic to shreds. sigh.
that's one of the gaping holes my insulation now sports. i'm guessing that will render it a little less than effective.

auld lang syne

it's that time of year! sundry's new year meme:

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
attended a presidential inauguration. took up pole dancing.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i'm not actually big on resolutions. i make (and fail to follow through on) various resolutions throughout the year (see: failed pushup challenge; taking up running; etc.) so pooling them all in january just seems depressing.

while not a resolution for the entire year, i am giving up alcohol after tonight... until my pole graduation at the end of january.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
yes! my friend and former roommate, olivia.

4. Did anyone close to you die?


no. thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?


London , the Dominican Republic, and the Czech Republic, Hungary and Croatia in October.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
hmm. i feel pretty content right now, actually. i did meet a nice boy, though, and i'd like to keep him for 2010 please.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
the inauguration was probably the most momentous/exciting. spending my birthday in prague was pretty neat, too.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?


it sounds kind of silly, but pole dancing. it's not something i would have thought i'd ever do, and it's HARD, YO. i'm stronger and more confident and more comfortable with myself, and i'm proud of it.

9. What was your biggest failure?
i let my credit card grow a balance again, after being SO PROUD about paying it off. that will be my resolution, actually - grow a pair and just pay that effer off.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
well, there was the time i fell playing frisbee and gave myself what is evidently a huge permanent scar on my shoulder (it's still there!) AND patellar tendonitis from bruising the bone on my right knee so severely... or the time i passed out while driving... but, uh, other than that? no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
ooh. hmm. i recently finally bought a nice huge 5 qt pan for cooking, which i can't believe took me so long and has literally changed my (cooking) life. or, well, any of my trips / any of my big expensive meals.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
no on really comes to mind. i haven't had any coffee today.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?


tiger woods. i know i should have expected it / shouldn't care / whatever, but i really was disappointed. CAN NO MAN NOT CHEAT? REALLY?

14. Where did most of your money go?
given where i live, most of my money has to go to rent. HOWEVER, after that, it's definitly food and travel. i ate at komi, restaurant eve, and nobu this year; aside from my out-of-the-country trips i also flew to atlanta, chicago, and cali (though that was for work), and drove to new york, dewey beach, the outer banks, and new york again.

15. What did you get really excited about?
um, probably getting to see the giants play. twice. AND WIN BOTH TIMES. :-)

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
anything by lady gaga, holy crap. i first dismissed her, then listened to her songs "ironically," then gave up the pretense and just admitted that i pretty much love everything she writes, which coincidentally is on every radio station ever at all times of every day.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

(a) happier or sadder?
(b) thinner or fatter?
(c) richer or poorer?

(a) i think probably happier. i didn't do this meme last year because i'd done it for 2007, and that was the year i'd met karl and subsequently thought i'd met the man i was going to marry blah blah blah, so i knew my 2008 answers were going to sound pretty depressing after the "I'M THE HAPPIEST I'VE EVER BEEN! SQUUUEEEE!!" of the year before. so! we'll go with happier :-)

(b) almost exactly the same. to the pound.

(c) probably richer, but oh-so-barely.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?


hmm... my favorite thing to do is travel, and i definitely did a lot of that this year. i also put myself out there, dating-wise, despite some angsty floundering about it a few times, and i think i would have wished i'd put myself out there if i hadn't. so.. um.. save money? i guess?

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?


stressing about my job situation, especially given that nothing actually EVER HAPPENED with it.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
with just my mom, dad, and sister, just like we always do. i love it that way.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?


HA. trick question. i'm not answering this one any more, i learned my lesson.

22. What was your favorite TV program?
so you think you can dance? bones? criminal minds? meh.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

no, although i will say that i hate karl LESS than i did at this time last year, which is kind of nice.

24. What was the best book you read?


the girl with the dragon tattoo. which reminds me, i need to go get the second book...

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

i don't really "discover" music. i mean, i "discover" music when they start playing it on the radio all the time. ooh, i did see Blind Pilot in concert earlier this year and thought they were pretty awesome, though.

26. What did you want and get?


cheesy, but: a sense of peace about my life, and where i am in it. i was a little discombobulated for longer than i wanted to admit to myself after the trials and tribulations of 2008, so it's nice to feel sort of.. settled back down, now.

27. What did you want and not get?

heaps of money..?

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
i'm sort of blanking on what i saw this year. avatar was the most recent, and DAMN was it awesome, so we'll go with that.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
i landed in prague! however, my friends also gave me a small surprise party a few days beforehand, because they're awesome. i turned 29.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?


immeasurably?? i... don't really know. i feel like i had a pretty decent year.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?


hmm. "attempting to look put together," i suppose.

32. What kept you sane?


my girls. ALL of them, whether in person on weekly girls' nights or online listening to me whine / stress / schmoop.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
meh. boring, i know, but i'm not a big celebrity-fancier. and taylor lautner doesn't do it for me, I'M SORRY YOU GUYS.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

boy, kind of a lot of them this year. it seems to be the one everyone says, but still: healthcare.

35. Who did you miss?


my sister. i wish she lived closer.

36. Who was the best new person you met?


marie and makarlin :-)

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.


this is getting hard and tiring. this thing is long. pass.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
i hate this one. sorry guys.

hey look, all done! THANK GOODNESS.
have a very happy new year's, all!