le ballet, c'est magnifique!

dudes.  i totally did it!  i went to my first ballet class since reagan was president.  i wasn't the worst one in the class.  i didn't injure myself.  i dressed cute -- completely appropriately and not conspicuously.  can we just say it?  i rocked.

seriously, it was really, really fun.  i'm taking it at this place, a real honest-to-god dance studio, and just walking inside, what with all the dancey-looking chicks prancing around the place in their adorable leotards and cute-as-a-button updos, was intimidating.  but by god, i didn't walk back out to the parking lot.  i stayed, dammit, and i danced my ass off.

it was hard.  i'm coming in midway through the semester, so the five or so other hausfraus in my class already knew the combinations and danced them nicely in their well-worn slippers (mine, meanwhile, were glaringly new).  i kept up, mostly, and was only singled out by the instructor a few times.  i held onto that barre as if my life depended on it (it did, kind of), and had to be reminded once or twice to stand tall and suck in my gut (a dainty ballerina would probably refer to it as my "core"), but ohmygod, it was so much fun to be pointing my toes and doing plies and leaping across the floor.  and though it was jarring to see myself in the mirror in my leotard, cutoff sweats and pink slippers, when i examined myself objectively, what i saw staring back at me, trying hard to balance and not fall on her face, was not all that bad. 

and she had some pretty nice arms, i might add.  probably from lugging around her 25-pound 8-month-old all day.  just a guess.