ch-ch-ch-changes

I've experienced a remarkable emotional cycle and, though I must run downstairs to do laundry and prepare for our composition on Monday (this time I'm playing Polina), I need to write something about the past week.

Week 1, pre-Headache of Death, had me feeling challenged, but basically strong and like I was making progress. Week 2 ushered in an array of rather abysmal "you're not good enough" sentiments. Week 3 featured a way out of the pit of despair and into a feeling of "I'm doing the work, I'm not killing myself, I don't suck, *and* I have a million miles to go".

That seems like exactly the right place to be.

I've played around with silent stomp and modifying my neutral position for basic 4. Gradually, the headache disappeared so I returned to full stomp, full neutral, and by that time, we'd moved to marches and the cat (forms that can only be demonstrated - there's no point in my trying to write about them here). We also did two 'dances' to Elvis singing "Don't Be Cruel". One of the 'dances' - I can't remember the name of the walk, but it's the pigeon-toed slide with a weight shift onto your front leg - began as a whimsical, absurd piece of group performance. I held back my chuckles. About half way through the song, it morphed into one of the most horrifying, disturbing things I've seen in, oh, an hour or so (I'd say we have a quota of at least 5 earth-shattering moments of pure struggle per day). People switched from being quirky dance automatons to scary, spastic, psycho warriors. The battle was raging.

Okay. That's all for now. Laundry and lines call.