I must apologize. I haven’t written a post in over a month. Actually, it’s been a month and a half. Today, Julian asked me to write a post. Seems he received a question on Formspring.me asking him why his mother had stopped blogging. Well…I haven’t stopped blogging. I’ve just been busy.
In fact, I blog a lot here and here (in November) and sometimes here. My posts are carried here and here, too. Plus, I have another blog here (which also gets left alone a lot of the time). Yes, I have five blogs with which to keep up, and these days that’s pretty hard. Not only do I have work to do–well, some–but I’ve been driving…a lot.
If you recall, Julian started dancing at City Ballet School in San Francisco. Well, that has really cut into my time in general. It’s a three hour drive round trip. Some days my husband makes the drive, but I’ve found that in the last few months the days I don’t drive I have something to do in the evening. So, I’m never home at night. I never get to really catch up on work. It just seems that the time driving has made my week so much shorter in general. That means my husband and I basically just drive and work.
Everything else fall to the wayside….the house, the chores, the errands…everything. We barely manage to keep up with the laundry. Thank goodness we have a cleaning lady who comes every two weeks–a luxury and a necessity.
All that said, Julian has improved tremendously in the three months he’s been at City Ballet. It took a long time for the girls to warm up to him, but he likes it there a lot and he sees how much better his technique has gotten. That’s why he switched programs after all.
The only news is that Julian is in City Ballet’s Nutcracker. He got the “big roles”: the Snow King and Cavalier. Unfortunately they have a professional coming in to partner one very tall girl who plays the Sugar Plum and contracted him to partner one of the two girls Julian has been rehearsing with as Snow King. They weren’t sure he could do the press with that Snow Queen; he can. So, he’ll be in every performance, but he’ll only have two partners. He will partner one girl as Cavalier and and one as Snow King.
He also will get to choreograph a piece for Regional Dance America with all 16 or so of the dancers at City Ballet. Iopened my big mouth and said the one thing missing from their program was a student choreography track. Well, we got one. He will have 15 hours to get the choreography down all by himself before someone even looks at it with him. He is putting the girls on point to a Pink Floyd piece. Should be interesting.
Julian and I are pretty happy at the moment. We are back in NY and frequenting the hold haunts: Broadway Dance Center, Steps on Broadway, Grishko, Ellen’s Stardust Diner, The Joyce, Times Square…We all saw Memphis tonight with my daughter and hubby. We go see Complexions dance on Tuesday. (Desmond Richardson is injured…) We are going to buy tights at the Yumiko factory. (He likes these a lot now).
We went to the New York University Faculty Performance Workshop last night. That’s why we came to NY so early; this was a way for Julian to check out the level of dance at NYU, a school he has always considered one of his top college choices. We always come to Upstate NY on Turkey Day to see my family. (Of course, my daughter is at NYU now, so we are more inclined to make the trip or come earlier.) The Dance Department told us this would be the best way for Julian to check out the program. This show featured pieces choreographed by the faculty and performed by the first and second year students.
Julian wasn’t too impressed. His Dad and I weren’t too wowed either; one or two were good. It wasn’t anything I would write home about. I think Julian’s first choices remain Juilliard and Fordham/Ailey, but City Ballet pushes kids into companies; no college. I hope he doesn’t go that route. But we’ll see. He is leaning towards a ballet career, and that usually means going straight into a company.We’ll see…
This week while we are in New York City Julian is hoping to take one class at American Ballet Theater and to hear whether “they” think his technique is improving. Remember: They sent him back to California to work on technique. They didn’t want him at JKO until his technique was better. He had hoped also to take class at Steps on Broadway with Whilhelm Burmann, but he is away. He did take one class already at Steps. We are headed to Broadway Dance Center tomorrow for tap with Michelle Dorrance and to Steps for another ballet class, this time with David Howard. Tomorrow hopefully he’ll dance at ABT and then go to Broadway Dance Center to do hip hop with his favorite teacher there, Luam. We leave on Wednesday; he might fit in one more class Wednesday morning.
Other than driving seven–yes, seven–days a week to San Francisco, life is pretty much the same. Things are progressing sort of quietly. And…I must admit…the fact that I said the next post would be one based on my interview with Joey Dowling has kept me away from this blog. I’m still working on transcribing that mp3. I will, however, get it done! I promise. She offered such great information. But I have been embarrassed that I didn’t follow through on what I said I would do. I was hiding…but I’ve come back out.
I will say it is awfully nice to be walking around NYC rather than sitting at my desk or sitting in my car!
Happy Thanksgiving. And thanks for being faithful readers…and thanks to the Formspring reader who asked for me to continue blogging.
Wow – three hours – that is dedication. We only drive about 15 minutes, and I feel like I am always in the car! Sometimes I miss having realxing family time at home, all sitting down to a warm dinner (at the same time) but at the end of the day, I know my daughter is happiest dancing, so that’s what we do. And I have just decided my house will never be clean, and I should probably accept that!
It is dedication, and I didn’t say I like it. I just know it’s what my son needs. I try not to complain. My house is a disaster area. The one thing I treat myself to is a cleaning lady every other week. I have to pick up for her to even clean…we clean for the cleaning lady. Otherwise, our house would be totally trashed. We have clean laundry piled on chairs most days. We do eat together a lot, but it’s late. And we don’t cook as much….it’s a lot of easily prepared foods. This week is Chanukah, and it doesn’t feel festive. I’ve had to learn to deal with it. When my son is a successful dancer, I’ll be glad I helped him get there (and put up with his often less-than-appreciative behavior–although I know he does appreciate all we do for him).