.i should have gone into advertising.

I was in Orlando for work for the last several days and was stuck eating all of my meals at a mall which was awesome let me tell you all about it - three days of mall salads, which around day three my body roundly rejected all of.
By the time we got to the airport yesterday I was glucose deprived and probably crazy and devoured half a bag of Swedish fish, which got me wondering about the history of Swedish Fish, which got me searching, which eventually led me to this:

And that about made my week.

.fortune cookie.

Which I did not get to eat, coincidentally....

.sketchbook.monday.

Drawing on a plane is not so easy. Also I had chips and gummi bears for lunch - because even though Charolotte NC has a ginormous airport, I still don't trust the food.
The sugar high should hit me at any moment.
Maybe I need some coffee too...

.segway.

Having been gluten free for over three years now, I've reached a point in my kitchen experiments where recipes come in three categories:

1. foods that are naturally gluten free (unless you're being stupid about it), 
2. foods that can be gluten free with minor modifications, 
3. and alternate reality recipes which require 12 kinds of flour and I refuse to touch with a ten foot pole.

This is coming up because I'm home with family and my cousin asked if I'd seen all the gluten-free recipes on Pinterest, and was surprised that I really don't give a shit. I think of whatever it is I'm wanting to make, I find a recipe, I modify the recipe if I have to and if the modification will involve more than three types of flour*, eff it - surely there's a box of frozen something somewhere I can use in the meantime. Because it's food, and I'm not a baker.
And I really don't bake. My mom makes me homemade gluten free cake once or twice a year, and there's La Petite Rouge for all of my cupcake cravings, and Udi's for toast, and Amy's for pizza.
Beyond that....eh.
Because it's not that hard, once you get used to it.** Because you don't need it, and there are so many other wonderful things that I'd be so much more sad if I had to give up.
Like mangos. And avocado. And ice cream. And wine.
Srsly.

But srsly, you people who are going gluten free to lose weight...

*I use soy, buckwheat and almond flour as flavor dictates.
**Also, this tumblr is my favoritest tumblr OF ALL TIME! This is what it's like IN MY BRAIN. As far as gluten is concerned anyway...

.first.friday.adventures.

My sister's in town so everything has got a bit hectic, but somehow we managed to get ourselves out to June First Friday. The sky was beautiful...

And we did a drive-by of the Other Gallery, where some of my work's been hanging; only to find it was closed, on First Friday, which is sad. I also finally noticed the sign on the door that said "By Appointment Only", which is useless.

And after 20 minutes trying to find parking we were almost trampled by a peace march. I took a really horrible photo.

At the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center there are two particular exhibits which I wouldn't mind owning pieces from. The first was Acts of Selfishness and Devotion by artist Jane Almirall, where I took another horrible picture...

The room after was a group show, Terra, with artists Victoria Reed, Shannon Sullivan, and Ellen W. Wolf.
A.MA.ZING.
Victoria was our favorite.

Just a short jot upstairs was show by Clint Metcalf. I'm not really one for impressionistic abstract brushstrokes, but I really liked his work despite all of that. His paintings look like painting feels.

And over at Windhorse Tattoo is Head Games, a solo exhibit of new works by Alicia Ross. The Mister almost did buy me something from there, but we really don't have the wall space at the moment. And half of the work was already sold anyhow.

Somehow after we ended up in Zona Rosa at Bo Lings - I got the Pad Thai which was awful, but Mister got something delicious served in a pineapple.

We saw a comedy show at the Improv, and went home exhausted.
All in all and excellent First Friday!

.boycott.tuesday.

This is the Thai-tini from Lulu's, awesome local to Kansas City glutard-friendly Thai restaurant.
They also carry Glacé ice cream.

And seriously, if you haven't had Glacé ice cream....something is wrong with your brain.

.about.icing.

I've been obsessing a lot over costuming lately.
Mostly trying to go through and re-home costumes I don't wear or don't fit anymore; meanwhile ruminating on what I'm going to replace them with.

In my classes I go on a lot about cake -vs- icing. Cake being your actual dancing, while icing is your flair: your costume, jewelry, makeup, etc. To me, the dancing is supreme; after all, that's what you're doing. Everything else is just what your wearing. But that doesn't mean that costuming isn't really really important.
Costuming is extremely important, as it's your first communication with your audience before anything else even happens. It's sets the mood, the tone; and in a way it sets the audiences expectations. We see a magnificent costume, we're going to expect magnificent dancing. We see a mediocre costume and well...you get the picture.
On the one hand this can work to your advantage - spend more time on your dancing than your costuming, and you're probably going to wow them. Ont he other hand, we are a simple species that is attracted by shiny objects. Put two relatively comparable dancers side by side, one in a simple costume and one decked out to the nines, and the decked out dancer is going to grab the attention.

Back to cupcakes.
Two pictures below, one of a tasty looking but undecorated cupcake. The other with icing and strawberries. Given a choice (and an assumption that noone has diabetes), most people would reach for the icing cupcake first.

 

Same cupcake, extra stuff.

So something to keep in mind while your preparing your performance - is your icing adequate to your cakey awesomeness? And if it's not, what are you going to do to fix it?

Meanwhile, here's another beautiful cupcake of the gluten-free persuasion, as it's Celiac Awareness month and I do love my cupcakes.

 

Recipe of awesomeness here!

yay stress!

At this time tomorrow I will be on a plane to Rhode Island for 4 days of dance awesomeness at Waking Persephone. Any time I go to a workshop, let alone a workshop I'm teaching at, there's a certain amount of stress involved. This being my first workshop experience (that I'm teaching at) on the East Coast, my old stomping grounds, I am a little extra stressed.
Layering on top of that the workshop I'm teaching here in KC next week, plus the already layers cat-mischief, and the possibility of an art show in May...my body is freaking out a little.

This happens - I get stressed, and my body freaks out.
So I'm doing what I can to be extra nice to myself.

I put the painting aside for the moment - I need to focus on one thing at a time, and the immediate thing is Waking Persephone; not Warrior Weekend, not the cats, not the Art Show.
I'm going to bed early - one of my stress reactions is extreme fatigue. Can't for the life of me pull myself out of bed levels of fatigue. And it's usually complicated with "Can't Get to Sleep" as well.
I'm being extra super careful about what I put into my body - nothing I didn't cook myself; less fat, meat, dairy, and no alcohol. More veggies and fruit, and lots of nettle infusions and ginger tea.
And when that overwhelmed feeling starts hitting me, I sit back for a moment and love on a cat.

Here's the rub - as a dancer, my body is my medium. It is with my body that I create this art.
And unlike my brushes for painting, or my pens for illustration - I can't just go pick up a new one if I don't take care of it properly.
As a asthmatic celiac dancer prone to kidney stones - the choices I make in particular have both immediate and long term effects on my appearance and my overall health.
It's a well documented fact that stress effects the immune system, and that the immune system effects almost every function of your well being - skin tone, energy levels, alertness, mood...make a list.

Super awesome, yes?

It's all just one more piece of the puzzle. It's not just maintaining your costumes, and keeping your makeup fresh, and knowing how to pile your hair. You've got to, as a dancer, take particular care to maintain your medium - your body. Not only technique and conditioning; but proper nutrition, adequate rest, and keeping your stress levels to a minimum.
You've got to feed your body, your mind, and your spirit.

.tots.of.doom.

Last Saturday Dharma and I went to the Foundry before her gig. We both love the Foundry - excellent food which they serve until 1am, and they have a fairly decent glutard-friendly menu (to borrow Nanda's term) although they do not have a dedicated kitchen.
Because nobody has a dedicated kitchen.
It's a risk I take every time I eat out. Sometimes it works out; other times, not so much. Especially when it comes to fried food. I know better. I do. But we were out and I wasn't even hungry, but Dharma was eating and I thought it'd be nice to have something to snack on, and I was craving salt, and I ordered a side of tots.
A side.
A small plate.
Tiny.
If I could have ordered 5 tots I would have.

But I guess the waiter, bless him, thought I was starving or something, and he brought me the giant plate of tots.
Tots.
The comfort food of my generation.

So of course I ate almost all of them.
Not because I was hungry. Because they were sitting there right in front of me.

 This is a giant plate. It was covered with a mountain of tots. And they went to live in my belly.

 

And of course Dharma and I had to make tot-art from the leftovers. Meet Totter McDoom-instein - so named for the reaction my system had to his gluten contaminated deliciousness. 

Will I go back to the Foundry?

Yes, of course I will. They have what is probably the best gluten free pizza in Kansas City. 

But in the future I probably ought to avoid the tots.