On the moving debate

Since our little moving debate has become somewhat public, I thought I'd post my thoughts here.

My husband is miserable here, and I definitely don't want that. He seems to be happy with the idea of moving back to alabama and I have really been thinking about this. I would love to go back to my old dance classes and my pilates teacher and all the cute little local businesses in homewood and crestwood and hoover, etc. However, What I keep coming back to is this: I don't want to work in alabama again. Why? First and foremost, I don't want to leave this job because it is an incredible match for my skills and temprament. Second, if I have to leave this job, I would prefer not to work somewhere where there is no such thing as a non-christian agency and very few non-christian anythings.

There are lots of Christians up here, but I feel like everyone pretty much keeps thier nose out of your business unless you put it there. In alabama, I feel like I have to pretend to be Christian unless I want alot of wierd looks and questioning of my mental stability. This also ties into the general attitude difference between the two places. I just danced in my underwear in front of the entire populace of sandpoint in a show where everyone performed in their underwear or sang about their underwear or thier body parts or something otherwise lewd and funny. More than likely, such a show would not exist in the south. If it did, there's a good possiblity there'd be protesters. Also if it did, I would not ask my employer if I could be in it or even acklowledge that I knew anything about it because if I did, I would get alot of strange looks and quite possibly people would start questioning whether or not I was the type of person who needed to be working with clients.

I just want to live somewhere where it's okay to be me. I'm willing to sacrifice alot at least on a temporary basis to be somewhere where I can be comfortable with being myself. I'm also willing to sacrifice alot to be able to have a job where they appreciate me for me and don't just constantly ask "WHY DON'T YOU FIT OUR MOLD?!?!?!" a thousand times a day in various forms. Finding a place that has a mix of those two things is going to be difficult. It's also very difficult to figure out what's what unless you live somewhere and work there for a couple of months.

At this point, I'm kind of like "damnded if i know what to do" because there is only one birmingham and chris wants to be somewhere alot like birmingham. I've looked at some other cities and it's damn difficult to find the right mix of factors for both of us. The more I think about it, the more I'm like "fuck it, let's just go back there since it's the only place that meets Chris' Criteria." I just don't get a good gut feeling about working there again.

If there's one thing I've learned to trust in making judgements, it's my gut. You may think, I'm crazy, but your gut is the thing that gets you through almost everything in social work. The LCSW who's training me told me how to assess suicide by saying "I ask them thier plan, etc., I spend about a half hour with them, and then if at the end of the half hour, I will be able to go home and sleep, I go home. If not, they go to the hospital." If I can use my gut to assess whether or not someone is going to be alive in the morning, then why not for where not to move?

It's not that I don't love my friends and family and that I wouldn't absolutely love to go back to my dance class. It's jsut that, I'm not as invested in being near them as Chris is if they're going to live in a place where I would feel stifled and out of place.

All this speculation leads me to speculation of what it would take for me to move and be happy. One thing that I keep coming up with is the ability to sit in the house and do nothing/work on the jewelry business until I find a job that suits me correctly (or forever...). The problem with this is that I have no money saved up because i spent it all on beads and clothes and christmas presents. I have no grounds to say "hey, uh, why don't you support me in a place where we definitely need 2 full-time incomes and that has an unkown job stability while I doodle around the house and figure out what I want to do when I grow up" without being able to add "Here's three months rent, and I will take care of the phone bill and groceries".
Of course, there's also the usual junk like regular dance/nia/pilates/whatever classes, availability of craft shows, a good bead store, etc. However, most of that stuff can be dealt with one way or another by me.
The only other big thing is the whole political/religious/general attitude climate, which is something there's absolutely nothing I can do to change.

I'm just kind of rambling and musing in circles at this point, Do I should stop.
Anyways, that's where I'm at on the whole moving debate.

*frustration*

I've made numerous posts about how muc I love it here because of the attitude of the people as a whole, because of my awsome job, and because of the beautiful scenery. But there is one that *almost* makes me want to go back to Birmingham, which is a pretty strong statement considering how much I've come to hate any place below the mason dixon line in the last 7 months. I cannot keep a regular dance schedule to save my life. I know that there are only 7,000 people here, but it should not be this hard. I danced with the one school I really enjoyed but when it came time for the school year, all the classes were at 3 and 4:30 which does not work when you're working a regular workday. So, I started taking NIA classes. I was taking two a week when the tuesday evening one got cancelled. So I called the other dance school in town and started taking a dance classs there on tuesdays and continued NIA on saturdays. Now the dance teacher for the class I just performed with left me a message stating that they already have all their routines set for the rest of the year and won't be doing anything new until september or october. I don't care about routines, I JUST WANT TO DANCE. Blah. Anyways, I'm going to try to do *something*. There's a place here that rents space for like $10 an hour (Although they have carpet) and i know some of the NIA teachers also dance, so I was going to see if any of them would be interested in doing a rotation or something so that we could get a class together. That way even if only teachers show up, we'd all get to take sometimes and teach sometimes.

Debauchery at it's best.

I am not a drunk, do not show my boobs to random strangers in hopes of getting beads, and I'm on wieght watcher's. Which makes it difficult to do much of anything during the mardi gras season. You would also think the fact that I live in a tiny town in northern Idaho would make matters all the worse, but you'd be wrong. Tonight I danced in my underwear on stage with a blowup doll as a part of a show where lots of other people were in their underwear or singing about their underwear or the parts therein. We brought the house down. I had an absolute blast, got some beads without having to show anyone my tits and did not drink any alcohol (not that it wasn't plentiful). After the show it was very cold, so I did what any logical person would do. I proceeded to walk across the street in my underwear with my blow up doll and got asked if i was "looking for a replacement" for the doll. I then proceeded to do the club dance floor thing for an hour and a half straight. By the end of the night I was worn out with a big fucking grin on my face and still prancing around in my underwear. This is what mardi gras sin and debauchery is supposed to be all about--alcohol or no alcohol...

My new career as a burlesque

So I went to a dance class and they said "hey we're gonna do this performance, do you want to join us?...Acutally, why don't you watch the dance a couple of times and see if this is something you can do." So I watched. What I saw could on be described as utterly amazing. There were women in heels dancing around and doing everything but fucking a bunch of male blowup dolls. As I watched all I could think was "uhh... wow." SO the teacher said "What do you think? would you like to join us." So I said "What's the costume for this number?" "Nothing, underwear." "I am so totally in."

I love the idea of parading around in my underwear and doing lewd things to blowup dolls on stage. Considering that I am generally a private person when it comes to lingere and sex, this may seem a little out of character for me.
So why is it that I am so thrilled about getting to practically expose myself to the adult populace of the city? Because I can.

When I used to live in Alabama, I pretty much had to pretend that I didn't have sex, didn't know what it was and neither did anyone else. This is kind of awkward for me, not only because I am pretending that a very natural biological process is something that needs to be hidden and ignored, but because my sexuality is a large part of who I am--probably a larger part than the average person. Pretending that sex doesn't exist is denying a large part of me--it's like walking around with an arm held behind my back pretending that it was chopped off in a mill accident or something just becuase society says having two arms is bad.

In Idaho I can have two arms, and not only that, I can use them for some pretty interesting things without having to worry about who will find out. So this month I will use both arms to zip up some boots, put on some slutty underwear and thrash a blowup doll around stage. How fucking cool.

*whine*

if i could I woiuld forbid my husband to go on an airplne ever again. Two out of the last three times he's flown, he's gotten sick. I no likey sick husband. No likey not being able to do anything and no likey hearing unhappy coughing all day. NO LIKEY!