Saturday Nights at the Rodeo
At the risk of sounding like a fountain of self-actualization assistance book boilerplate, life is one of those things best spent learning new things about yourself, a journey of self-discovery. For everyone, this happens to the greatest degree in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, but throughout an entire lifetime, there will always be events that teach us something about ourselves that we didn't know, a bit of novel information about ourselves that shocks us out of our accustomed and comfortable notions of ourselves and that we must learn to incorporate into our mental self-images.
I had such a revelation this weekend when I discovered, to my great surprise, that I can ride a mechanical bull like nobody's business.
This, on top of my discovery last year that I have some aptitude as a pole-dancer, makes me wonder if I am not truly in the wrong line of work.
Friday night was the 5th Annual Margaritafest at Laurinda's, the admin assistant for my old lab group, so I was quite pleased to be invited and able to go - it was great to catch up with as much of the old gang that's still around and not off in Connecticut.
Saturday was spent working on sewing: I'd run out to get the materials for Judy's red satin skirt for the Pirate Faire/Halloween on Friday, so I cut the pieces that morning (yay for totally making up patterns as I go!) and, somewhat to my surprise, got that completely finished, along with the trim on Joe's last black Roman tunic. I was a little later than I wanted to be getting these done, and it was by this point almost 5:00. I wanted to hit up the Garment District in Cambridge in search of, of all things, leather pants, before meeting up with my friends at 7:00, so I hurriedly threw my stuff in the car and took off to Boston. Everytime I get into Cambridge - which is not frequently - I am impressed with myself for being able to successfully navigate to not only where I want to go but also out of there as well. I got there about 5 after 6, but, it being a Saturday, had to spend a good 15 minutes driving around Kendall Square before I could find a place to park - which I did, luckily, almost right outside the store. However, I still only had about half an hour to search for what I wanted - and I could have sworn that they'd had a rack of just leather pants when I was there before, but evidently not so this time, meaning I had to ransack the many rows of black pants crazily to get what I was looking for. I ended up darting into the changing room with a pile of something like 8 pairs of pants of varying degrees of acceptability and size, with only about 8 minutes to try them all on. While a minute a pair may sound like plenty of time, for buying pants, it totally isn't. Buh. But I found a pair! And it wasn't even the $45 Banana Republic ones, but a pair from some place in Paris for the price of $12. Yup. $12. Real leather. I love consignment shops! And get this: They're size five. I have no possible explanation as to why I can fit into these size 5 pants. None whatsoever.
I then hauled it up to Medford to meet up with Em, Kevin, Jim, Brian and Jess at Jim's place, and then we headed to Quincy - after several creative and scenic detours thanks to the crap that is MapQuest and the additional crap that is South Boston traffic engineering - finally to this place called the "Waterworks." I guess it's the only club around Boston that is actually on the waterfront, and they live up that image - it's all outdoors, with packed sand beneath the plastic beach furniture, a volleyball net, and many palm trees that I'm surprised they can keep alive through the winter. It was, unfortunately, damn cold, so the place was less than hopping, particularly as we were there pretty early, but that meant no wait for the...
Mechanical bull.
Brian went first - mainly, us girls were too chickenshit to be the first ones of our group on. Brian lasted a decent amount of time, maybe 12 seconds. Jim was tossed after about 8, and Kevin barely managed perhaps 5. Jess got on then, and the operator took it easier on girls, and she managed to stay on probably 10 or 12 seconds.
Then it was my turn. I recalled hearing something about using your thighs to grip to stay on, so I put that advice to good use. The operator started me off with more bucking than spinning, so I was able to keep my seat pretty well, and when he saw that after 5 seconds I was still able to stay on, he turned up the action. And still I stayed on. Like my ass was glued down. So he turned it up a bit more, and then I did come very close to falling. He whipped it the other way, and I, although half-off and off-balance, managed to hold on with my one leg still on the bull's back and pulled myself back up on the seat. I didn't get tossed until he whipped it one way, then spun and bucked it the other while I still had my equilibrium countering the first inertia. It was a pretty spectacular toss, too: I think I did a full turn in the air before I landed, and afterwards people kept asking me if the bull's horns had whacked me in the head, as I guess they came perilously close. There was no official timer, and it probably seemed longer to me than to anyone else, but I estimate I had to have stayed on there a good 15 to 20 seconds, perhaps. VICTORY.
Believe it or not, the muscles on my inner thighs are still rather tight. Moral: Stretch before riding mechanical bulls. Your legs will thank you.
Sunday I spent sewing Em's shirt for the RenFaire this weekend - I've got a little more to do on hers, plus sewing on the rest of the 34 buttons onto Jim's coat, and then the very last thing is that I need to make some repairs to my own renfaire corset. And then? I'll be done with this wave of sewing, and can get back to working on that damn quilt for my parents.
This quilt... GR. I needed the same amount of 6 different fabrics. I got enough pieces out of 5 colors, but for some reason, I came up short on the yellow. And naturally, that fabric, which I bought a year ago, is no longer in production - I even went in with the SKU number for the cutting clerk at Joann's to check. Let it not be said that my anal-retentive habit of saving every credit card receipt and stapling them to each month's statement has not proved itself useful from time to time. Well, then. I think I have enough left that I can get the last triangles I need out of it, with some judicial application of creative cutting techniques, but I'm still rather vexed. Why did I come up short on this one? There must have been something in the way I was cutting the squares on this one. And, for the record, 2-inch by 2-inch squares are deceptively difficult to sew together. Lining up seams is the biggest pain in the arse EVER.
Once I have all of THIS stuff done, it will probably be time to get to work on costumes for AnimeBoston in April - which is actually the whole reason why I needed the above leather pants in the first place. I'll be going at least one day as Haruko *points to icon* I actually have the aviator goggles, thanks again to both Jim and the Garment District, I just need to make the vest, shirt, gloves, and scarf, as well as get the white gogo boots. I don't think I'll be able to afford the blue Rickenbacker bass, however. Once I have a job, I'll see if I can't get a cheap blue bass off of Ebay, though. Oh, I need the pink hair, too. And the insane manic temperament, but I might just well have that by the time I get out of grad school.
I had such a revelation this weekend when I discovered, to my great surprise, that I can ride a mechanical bull like nobody's business.
This, on top of my discovery last year that I have some aptitude as a pole-dancer, makes me wonder if I am not truly in the wrong line of work.
Friday night was the 5th Annual Margaritafest at Laurinda's, the admin assistant for my old lab group, so I was quite pleased to be invited and able to go - it was great to catch up with as much of the old gang that's still around and not off in Connecticut.
Saturday was spent working on sewing: I'd run out to get the materials for Judy's red satin skirt for the Pirate Faire/Halloween on Friday, so I cut the pieces that morning (yay for totally making up patterns as I go!) and, somewhat to my surprise, got that completely finished, along with the trim on Joe's last black Roman tunic. I was a little later than I wanted to be getting these done, and it was by this point almost 5:00. I wanted to hit up the Garment District in Cambridge in search of, of all things, leather pants, before meeting up with my friends at 7:00, so I hurriedly threw my stuff in the car and took off to Boston. Everytime I get into Cambridge - which is not frequently - I am impressed with myself for being able to successfully navigate to not only where I want to go but also out of there as well. I got there about 5 after 6, but, it being a Saturday, had to spend a good 15 minutes driving around Kendall Square before I could find a place to park - which I did, luckily, almost right outside the store. However, I still only had about half an hour to search for what I wanted - and I could have sworn that they'd had a rack of just leather pants when I was there before, but evidently not so this time, meaning I had to ransack the many rows of black pants crazily to get what I was looking for. I ended up darting into the changing room with a pile of something like 8 pairs of pants of varying degrees of acceptability and size, with only about 8 minutes to try them all on. While a minute a pair may sound like plenty of time, for buying pants, it totally isn't. Buh. But I found a pair! And it wasn't even the $45 Banana Republic ones, but a pair from some place in Paris for the price of $12. Yup. $12. Real leather. I love consignment shops! And get this: They're size five. I have no possible explanation as to why I can fit into these size 5 pants. None whatsoever.
I then hauled it up to Medford to meet up with Em, Kevin, Jim, Brian and Jess at Jim's place, and then we headed to Quincy - after several creative and scenic detours thanks to the crap that is MapQuest and the additional crap that is South Boston traffic engineering - finally to this place called the "Waterworks." I guess it's the only club around Boston that is actually on the waterfront, and they live up that image - it's all outdoors, with packed sand beneath the plastic beach furniture, a volleyball net, and many palm trees that I'm surprised they can keep alive through the winter. It was, unfortunately, damn cold, so the place was less than hopping, particularly as we were there pretty early, but that meant no wait for the...
Mechanical bull.
Brian went first - mainly, us girls were too chickenshit to be the first ones of our group on. Brian lasted a decent amount of time, maybe 12 seconds. Jim was tossed after about 8, and Kevin barely managed perhaps 5. Jess got on then, and the operator took it easier on girls, and she managed to stay on probably 10 or 12 seconds.
Then it was my turn. I recalled hearing something about using your thighs to grip to stay on, so I put that advice to good use. The operator started me off with more bucking than spinning, so I was able to keep my seat pretty well, and when he saw that after 5 seconds I was still able to stay on, he turned up the action. And still I stayed on. Like my ass was glued down. So he turned it up a bit more, and then I did come very close to falling. He whipped it the other way, and I, although half-off and off-balance, managed to hold on with my one leg still on the bull's back and pulled myself back up on the seat. I didn't get tossed until he whipped it one way, then spun and bucked it the other while I still had my equilibrium countering the first inertia. It was a pretty spectacular toss, too: I think I did a full turn in the air before I landed, and afterwards people kept asking me if the bull's horns had whacked me in the head, as I guess they came perilously close. There was no official timer, and it probably seemed longer to me than to anyone else, but I estimate I had to have stayed on there a good 15 to 20 seconds, perhaps. VICTORY.
Believe it or not, the muscles on my inner thighs are still rather tight. Moral: Stretch before riding mechanical bulls. Your legs will thank you.
Sunday I spent sewing Em's shirt for the RenFaire this weekend - I've got a little more to do on hers, plus sewing on the rest of the 34 buttons onto Jim's coat, and then the very last thing is that I need to make some repairs to my own renfaire corset. And then? I'll be done with this wave of sewing, and can get back to working on that damn quilt for my parents.
This quilt... GR. I needed the same amount of 6 different fabrics. I got enough pieces out of 5 colors, but for some reason, I came up short on the yellow. And naturally, that fabric, which I bought a year ago, is no longer in production - I even went in with the SKU number for the cutting clerk at Joann's to check. Let it not be said that my anal-retentive habit of saving every credit card receipt and stapling them to each month's statement has not proved itself useful from time to time. Well, then. I think I have enough left that I can get the last triangles I need out of it, with some judicial application of creative cutting techniques, but I'm still rather vexed. Why did I come up short on this one? There must have been something in the way I was cutting the squares on this one. And, for the record, 2-inch by 2-inch squares are deceptively difficult to sew together. Lining up seams is the biggest pain in the arse EVER.
Once I have all of THIS stuff done, it will probably be time to get to work on costumes for AnimeBoston in April - which is actually the whole reason why I needed the above leather pants in the first place. I'll be going at least one day as Haruko *points to icon* I actually have the aviator goggles, thanks again to both Jim and the Garment District, I just need to make the vest, shirt, gloves, and scarf, as well as get the white gogo boots. I don't think I'll be able to afford the blue Rickenbacker bass, however. Once I have a job, I'll see if I can't get a cheap blue bass off of Ebay, though. Oh, I need the pink hair, too. And the insane manic temperament, but I might just well have that by the time I get out of grad school.