DWTS, weeks one and two

I missed the first episode of Dancing With The Stars due to a freak occurance on my VCR. I'm not sure what happened, but I ended up with two hours of CourtTV! Anyway, my first exposure was the Friday results show on the 6th, so it was difficult to get a feel for the dancers. I did get to see the current US champions dance to music by Burt Bacharach; unfortunately I can't remember their names, but seeing as their dance was pretty forgettable, that's not so surprising. It seemed like they were good dancers, but they didn't do much actual dancing. It was like watching a ballet piece composed mostly of chassés and arm waving. I also didn't like the way the woman's line broke at the wrist.

Last week I saw the Thursday show but not the results show, again due to trouble with my VCR. (Tivo is looking better all the time.) Stacy Keibler stood out for her Rumba; some of the other women were pretty good but didn't have the lines she did. From her bio it appears that she had a fair amount of dance training when she was young. You can see it in her upper body, that is if you can tear your eyes away from her long legs! This time around I actually recognized some basic steps in the Rumba. I do wonder if the dancers were told to stick closer to basics than the last group did, because this seemed to be true of even the pros who were in the competition for the second time. Speaking of which, it's been really nice to see more of Edyta this time around. She's really a good dancer, quite the opposite of Tatum O'Neil, who got voted off the show last week. Her Rumba was painful to watch - it was almost completely graceless.

The men were pretty good doing the Quickstep. P. Miller wants to keep his rapper look while dancing, and it just doesn't work for him. If he would put on a tux and dance shoes, his score would probably go up 5 points. That's an intruiguing idea, though, mixing ballroom and hip hop. I think it would actually work best in the Quickstep and possibly the Cha Cha. When Mr. Silvershoes and I took the hip hop class, the instructor gave us a brief demonstration of swing dance executed with hip hop style. It was amazing.

Seeing stars

Yesterday I was on a flight from Atlanta to Houston. While getting on the plane, I noticed a rather flamboyant gentleman sitting in first class. I immediately wondered if he was a stage performer. While waiting for the boarding line to move up the aisle, I witnessed the guy in front of this man babbling excitedly at him about someone he knew who got him his first job on Broadway. Gears...turning... It suddenly occured to me that the man must be actor, native Texan, and tall guy Tommy Tune, who is starring in a production of Dr. Dolittle in Houston starting tomorrow. Having graduated from Lamar High School in Houston, Mr. Tune was happy to lend his name to the Tommy Tune Awards for high school musical theater productions in the Houston area.

Might as well face it

I'm addicted to blogging.

Last night I was thinking about a new book I'm reading on human sexuality and wanted to record some thoughts. Naturally I thought of blogging, but science doesn't fit in well with the theme of this blog, and my dog said that she's a little tired of writing about it. So, I thought, why not start a new blog? Thus was born Silver Science: Musings on Science, Anywhere. Damn Blogger for making this so easy. If you have an interest in science and want to read some technobabble, check it out. I plan to make it a more casual blog than this one; sure, I'll still check the grammar, but posts are likely to be shorter.

Happy New Year!

On a personal note, I would like to wish "good riddance" to 2005. Since 2005 was, undeniably, the worst year of my life, I look forward to 2006, knowing that whatever happens will be an improvement over last year. That's not to say that good things didn't happen last year, and since I'd rather dwell on the positive than the negative, here are some of them:

-<>- I got to know some friends a great deal better through sharing my problems, and also received a tremendous amount of support and love. -<>- I had a "leading lady" role in a production. -<>- I performed on pointe for the first time since my ankle surgery in 2000. -<>- Mr. Silvershoes and I celebrated our 11th anniversary. -<>- I started studying a new kind of dance, ballroom. -<>- I got Mr. Silvershoes to go to several dance classes (tango and hip hop - we cool now). -<>- I started lifting weights and greatly enjoy having some upper body strength. -<>- I bought my first new car (a Prius!). -<>- I went to Hawai'i for the first time.

2006 is full of opportunities for new experiences and new friends - more on that later. For now I'm just happy to put 2005 behind me. Aloha, and the best of all possible wishes for you in 2006!

This is how bad my year was - when I went to Hawai'i, which should have been totally relaxing and enjoyable, I ended up going to the hospital in an ambulance! At least the EMT was cute.