the frenemy

Isn't it sad that time is fleeting?
Every moment we have can be taken away in a flash.
That flicker of happiness or spark of deep and undiscriminating love
Snatched from our fingertips
Like a pendulum-swinging life rope just out of reach.
We try to hold on.

But what is the alternative?
Pause the instant and savor it forever...
An endless spoonful of your favorite dessert.
It knows no end or beginning.
It has no past or future.
We are perpetually stuck in that precious perfection
As Sisyphus pushed the rock up that boundless hill;
A punishment or a reward.

What then?
If flawlessness has peaked, what more is there?
What less?
Maybe time is not only our enemy but our friend-
It lashes out and steals our moment of bliss
But then forgives and chances us for more.
To experience a different sensation,
An unprecedented melange of butterflies and light.

As we struggle to keep these in our memory,
The photographs greying in our brains,
Remember that the hope of tomorrow's moments
Make timelessness unfavorable
And hold the transient unsequestered.

He lies next to me sleeping...
I am happy in this minute
Yet sad for the next.
Will he wake up differently?
Who can promise the sentiment of tomorrow?
None but time
Giving us another opportunity to love.
Live now, live hopefully.

-cmb 06.21.11

WRC 2011-2012 auditions

Yesterday commenced the Washington Redskins Cheerleaders tryouts for the 2011-2012 season. Actually, auditions began on Saturday, but the veterans (weird calling myself a veteran!) didn't have to go in until yesterday. Here is a picture of all of the returning veterans this year - my rookie class is 10-strong! :)

All of the girls who made it through the first two cuts on Saturday came yesterday and will also be performing at finals, vying for a one of the 40 spots on the team. At the Finals show this upcoming Sunday, everyone will be performing one of three dances, performing the same sideline routine, walking in the opening, and doing a bikini walk. It really is entertainment, folks!

This week, we will learn a total of three dances, a sideline routine, the opening, and perfect our swimsuit walk. I don't know if you've ever walked half naked in a bikini on a stage, but believe me, it is not easy - even if you look like Cindy Crawford. Tonight, we have a swimsuit photo shoot and practice, then practice the three days following. Contrary to popular belief, we do not just automatically break into dance in perfect unison like Glee or the Brady Bunch - we actually practice about four hours per night! So I urge you to come and support me and all the girls that have been working tirelessly on their fitness, look, and dance technique for the past few months. I will post more pictures as I take them this week!!

Me and Mini Me - my girl Maya made it to finals!
Fingers crossed for her :)


K-Bun & moi <3

i came to dance, dance, dance

I love dancing. If you don't know this about me, you probably don't know me at all. I guess you could say it defines me. I don't necessarily think it's a good thing to have a single verb define your entire being, but dancing is who I am. Sorry 'bout it.

Last night, I left Life Time Fitness (AKA Globo Gym or the Best Gym in the World) after a pretty phenomenal workout. I biked, ran, and lifted! Super! Tangent time: what is the best way to approach hotter-than-Hercules guys at the gym? Honestly, I generally don't notice fellow gym-goers because I am concentrating on my workout, but this guy is golden. Do I just go up and introduce myself? Or use a really corny line? Or a really witty line? HELP ME. Regardless... after I left the gym, the endorphins were buzzing and I really wanted to go out dancing. Is this so much to ask? Now Columbia, Maryland is not necessarily the most poppin' of suburban towns. Locally, DC is where the party is at, but since I customarily have to be in DC for rehearsals every weekend, I reserve that sophisticated, cow-tipping of a good time for Friday and Saturdays. But Union Jacks had a DJ and I was sure I would see half of my high school and surrounding high schools there (to my delight or dismay, debatable) - so I put on some high-waisted satin shorts (easy to get low in, duh), a belted cropped lace tee, 5-inch wedges, my free fedora, and went in for the kill. Riding solo toniiight.

Apparently walking into a bar alone as a young female is frowned upon and/or not socially acceptable. When someone asked who I came with, to which I happily responded, "Myself!", I received the strangest of looks! Dude, why can't you grasp I just came to dance? "I just want to stand in a circle around our pocketbooks and shoes and just - I just wanna dance! DANCE!" (props to Dane Cook for getting it so right - he truly gets women). So a friendly, redheaded bartender with whom I have become acquainted got my already sprightly demeanor and endorphin-swimming head rolling on a few Vanilla Gingers and a car bomb, the DJ pumped some jams, and it was time to go get jiggy.

I don't like dancing with boys. First off, it gets awkward real quick especially if you're not drunk enough, they generally can't keep up, and then they ultimately think I'm trying to holler. Pass on all accounts. Dancing with girls can be slightly more appealing but then it kind of morphs into some lesbionic mesh of butt-jiggling and hair-tossing which kind of makes me want to vomit if I ever spend more than two solid minutes participating. So, what a relief that I came by myself - or even better, that there were two dancing-machine gay guys on site, Aqua Boogie and Frenchie! We partied like it was 1999. Dougie, cupid shuffle, pop lock & drop it. Me and the gays and the jams. Burning calories the fun way. Life was good.

I can't stop thinking about how great of a time I had last night, despite the fact I was in a mediocre bar in a family-oriented town and out by myself. On his way out, a tall and handsome stranger stopped me and said, "I'm leaving now, but I just wanted to let you know that it's a shame I didn't talk to you earlier, because you look like you have a lot of fun." I think that's an even better compliment than cajoling a girl's physical features or clothes or beauty! Granted, the characteristic "having fun" is not a difficult one to master, but it does seem comparable to proving the Pythagorean Theorem to some. You're in a bar! Have a good time! Let your hair down then proceed to whip your hair back and forth! No one is judging you. And if they are, then they obviously don't matter.

Going out alone is not always a bad thing. Do what YOU want to do. Meet new people. Project certainty in yourself and people will view you as poised, sure, and ...fun! I absolutely love social scenes with friends but sometimes, me? I just wanna dance.

fun & fundamental

Kenneth Josephson, 1988

I never understand why under "Favorite Books" on Facebook (obviously the only official way of listing your Favorite things), people purposefully write: "I don't read." Facetious or not, this is like standing on a rooftop in a crowd of all of your closest friends and obscure acquaintances and shouting, "I am ignorant!" If you don't read, you claim to not have enough time to read, or your reading selection is limited to Sports Illustrated and/or Cosmopolitan (don't get me wrong - there's a time and place for everything and I am NOT slandering the female "bible"), you probably shouldn't publicize this fact. At least list some generic novel you were required to read in your Honors 11th grade English class like The Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird. Even if you only quickly glanced over the CliffsNotes the period prior in order to pass the "pop" quiz.

I don't think being a so-called bookworm has ever been of a detriment to me. I began reading when I was three - my parents read to me every night and day and I could read all of the books on the Kindergarten shelf as soon as I began school at age four. Chapter books started that year. The weekly trip to the library resulted in large stacks of books that I would fly through effortlessly, a children's dictionary nearby in case there was a big word I didn't recognize. I was already lightyears ahead of my classmates but I suppose I never fully realized this continually developing margin until recently. At the bar, I will be drunk and rave about how I love reading and spelling and words and grammar. Probably a terrible topic in inebriation, but I can't say that anyone has ever been turned off by it. Believe it or not, most people enjoy speaking with seemingly smart people - weird, I know. Have you ever heard a guy say he wants to date a stupid, illiterate, ditzy, uneducated girl? I guess as long as she's a smokeshow.

In America, forty-two million adults are illiterate. Fifty million adults are limited to a 4th or 5th grade reading level or can only recognize a few printed words (Source: www.readfaster.com). To further this, the majority of people I know are in the midst of completing or have completed a secondary education. It's pretty difficult to get through college without reading. Yet most still struggle between the correct forms of your/you're or their/there/they're. HOW?! This is extremely disconcerting to me. Perhaps it's the informality of social media, but even if your coveted career is not a professional one, communicating well both in the written word and orally is of the utmost importance! If not anything else, these skills can be attained through reading. And actually paying attention when you read. Spelling, grammar, vocabulary - it's all there.

Even beyond the added credibility reading gives you, books can broaden our horizons. In the movie Pleasantville, all of the kids were in awe when words began appearing in the books and the library became the jumpoff. What lays outside of circular Main Street? Applicable to us, what lays yonder - away from the small, incestuous bubbles where we exist? Our world is limited to the events and people we encounter - believe it or not, things of note happen elsewhere. Whether fiction or non-fiction, reading extends our views, curtails geographical and cultural gaps, and tugs at the right-side of the brain, the place where childlike and boundless imagination live. Icksnay the narrow-mindedness of the old and welcome the well-roundedness of the new.

Books can make you laugh out loud, they can make you silently cry. They can make you think until your mind turns raw, or make you cringe until your heart explodes. They can fill you with wonderment from otherworldly desires, or curiosity from the unknown - your cup can never be full. They will fill your every day speech with adverbs and adjectives that make a dream of conversing with you. The English language is one of the largest in the world - about 1,022,000 words and consistently growing - yet in every day language, 1/3 of our vocabulary is limited to 22 words... 22 = 1/3 of 1,022,000?! That's some fugged up math.

Language is our every day. Embrace and appreciate its essence and necessity. Go read a fuckin' book.


An abbreviated list of some favorites:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Wasteland by Francesca Lia Block
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo/The Girl Who Played with Fire/The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
How to Be Single by Liz Tucillo
On The Road by Jack Kerouac
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
About a Boy by Nick Hornby
The Street Lawyer by John Grisham
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

I could ramble on forever but won't for brevity's sake... please leave me some titles of your beloved books!

wanted: spontaneity!

I need somewhere to go this week. WRC tryouts begin on Sunday for me and I need to stop thinking about dieting and being skinny and get away. I also need something to occupy my mind other than my fruitless job hunt. Ultra is in Miami this weekend and I can't go. :( Everyone and their grandma is going. So I will visit you! Yes, you. This week! Tell me where to go. Give me something to gush about and excite me. I am easily excitable.

My world is better without walls. I will take advantage of my "unemployment" and fly freely. An adventure is not desired, it is necessary.

like the moon

I meet him at the bar.
His opening line is something awful but I make fun of him and laugh and he's hooked.
Or am I hooked?
I buy shots for my friends but they're far away.
So I take shots with him.
His friends think I'm legit for buying him a drink.
We talk throughout the entire night.
The music plays, we flirt and giggle and talk.
I dish it out and he toughs it out and reciprocates.
Are we really connecting?
Lustful.
The conversation is endless and intriguing.
No awkward pauses.
Witty banter and thoughtful opinions.
It takes two to tango.
I study his handsome face.
His smile implies true happiness.
His style isn't forced.
Three hours later and the bar is closing.
Time flies when you're having fun.
He asks for my pager number and AIM screen name in jest.
I give him my phone number.
He showers me with compliments, saying they're all from the heart.
I blush and say I don't believe him.
I really do.
He gets down on one knee and pretends to propose.
We kiss in the streets and his friends cheer.
My friends have all left me.
Thanks - and thanks.
Looks like I'm staying at his place.
The stipulation is no sex.
He obeys.
We enjoy a make out session and snuggle.
I wake up and he's left to hand write directions for me cause my phone is broken.
What a gem.
We walk together and get coffee.
He pays for it, just as he paid for my beverages last night.
How chivalrous.
Or was it an investment?
Conversation in sobriety is even better than drunk conversation.
It's because it's exactly the same.
That tells you something good.
He kisses me goodbye.
We walk around the park the next day and chat.
He tells me a funny stories and says there's more substance to him than people imagine.
He kisses me goodbye.
He leaves town.
Why do the best ones always live far away?
He tells me to come visit.
He ignores me.
He contacts me sporadically.
I feel like I'm walking on eggshells.
Do I text?
Do I call?
I don't like playing games.
So I don't.
I never feel like this.
I hate feeling like this.
Vulnerable.
Why say you'll call when you won't?
Maybe I'm used to being in control with boys, not men.
His sense of humor seems to have faded with each added mile between us.
What happened to those bright moments?
Is alcohol really all that it took?
My mind darts back and forth.
If a guy likes you, he will make time to see you.
Never be naive again.
Words are just that.
Feed me fallacies, it's easy.
Men are only after one thing.
Even if they say it's from the heart.
From the bottom of his heart, he wants to have sex with you.
I'm glad I'm newly celibate.
I guess I'm a tease.
He could be anyone.
I could be anyone.
Like the moon, the glittering glows then wanes.
Special is tough to find.
Don't go looking.

operation WRC tryouts

Here is a little sample of WRC prep classes from the class that our very own Abby taught. That's Emerald, me, and Marisa from left to right in the beginning. Come out to FedEx Field to take classes with the cheerleaders - auditions begin Saturday, March 26!! We start with some snippets, then a warm-up, pirouettes, kickline, across the floor technique, and learn a new dance every class. Off to take Sabrina's class tonight... wooweee!! Get ready for some booty poppin'.

Visit www.redskins.com/cheerleaders for more information on tryouts! :)