In which I create a post in a post in a post.

I'm all cuddled up and cozy in my bed, enjoying a morning not at work. It's been an an interesting and fun week, both working and not. As I wrap up my first year at my "new" job, I have a couple of vacation days left to kill, or I'll lose 'em. So I've taken a few days off, and Pete's outta town and so I'm just doing my own thing. Which I don't mind, of course, but it would be better if he were around and we could enjoy some time together.

Soon I'm going to get up and make some bacon, eggs and coffee but before that it's time to materialize on a couple of posts I've been turning over in my head for several days. I like posting to the blog, but I don't find that I'm very timely at it. Just like I have the best intentions to stay in touch with old friends but can never seem to do it. Does that make me a horrible person? I don't think so, but I did forget to send a wedding invitation to my college roommate of two years. Whoops. I suck sometimes.

Anyway,the longer I live in the South, the more I turn into a Midwestern girl turned hybrid Southerner. I've done a number of fairly Southern things to do this week, and I find myself excited about it. These thoughts started swirling in my head the other day when I picked up a tote bag I had monogrammed. I still get excited about seeing my "new" initial (my wedding was more than four years ago) stitched onto things. I know monogramming is a trend coming back with the retro thing, but it seems pretty Southern to me. And while I was on my way to the monogramming place, I stopped at the "historic" Whataburger in Midtown. (Whataburger has been clogging Southern arteries since 1950. Yum.)

I've had a Southern-belle-style melt-down and taken to by bed. I don't find there's anything more Southern than taking to your bed. Also, I've bitched about humidity making my pretty Southern hair look fuzzy, and in the same day bitched about "cold." If you're up North you're surely laughing at the fact that I can find 54 cold, but oh the humidity! Later that day, I did a little community involvement, volunteering at a FSU MANCC entry point. A fine Southern lady, even a hybrid one like me, loves some community involvement.

The entry point was uber engaging. The choreographer, Luciana Achugar, is conducting research and so several community members (oh, and trained dancer with an idea of what they're doing) were asked to participate. I'm always honored when Jen and Lindsay, the staff there, invite me to be a part of things. There are several reasons: first, I can't imagine how I could be at all helpful in somebody's choreographic research, and I can't think of any person less a dancer than me. I guess I love a good dance party, though, and that was just how the entry point wound up, with all the participants dancing around and having a badass time to "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough." Um, awesome.

All Michael Jackson aside, though, participating in the entry point was fascinating. Luciana encouraged each of us to explore the rhythm and ebb and flow already present in our being. To explore moving towards pleasure. To know that our own experience is authentic and important because it's ours, and that no one else will ever fully understand it because it's ours. We talked some about moving past pain to pleasure. And ever since that time I've been contemplating Lindsay's statements about how to move toward pleasure you must experience pain. Work though it, know it and accept it. Hmmm. Maybe that big ol' dramatic Southern meltdown was moving me toward a more authentic experience.

I'd better get some breakfast, boil some coffee and think it over some more.

PS: You can check out Luciana on YouTube, and I'm embedding one excerpt here. We did an exercise similar in the entry point.