Check boxes

I apparently crush a little on dance instructors.  Even way back when with my swing instructor in Berkeley, and it wasn't even a romantic crush, but a sort of giddy admiration.  I've had a crush on K forever and now she's a dance instructor, so it's not that I like the people who teach me dance, but I like people who want to teach dance. 

C is tiny and quiet, not prone to extravagance or big movement.  She wears dark, muted colors: burgundy, forest green, gray.  She's quiet and serious enough, that every time I ask her a question like, "can we try that again slower?" and she says, "no," I am shocked for a minute before she laughs and says, "This is where you're supposed to tell me that sarcasm isn't becoming on me."  I am trying to get better at learning the names for steps.  I asked her why there is an "under-arm turn," (the lead raises their* arm and the follow turns underneath it) when there isn't an "over-arm turn" (the lead lowers their arm and the follow turns over it?).   C said she'd make one up for me.

She asked me if I had thought about private lessons, and I told her what I'd said before, about how I'd love to, it would be great to have a syllabus and check things off, and she said, "I can get you a syllabus and check things off!"  So we did.

This is my American Smooth Syllabus as a lead, with things checked off:

Do you see?  I love this woman.

I still sometimes start on the wrong foot, especially in Tango, but I'm feeling a little more natural leading, I almost never step on her feet anymore, and I'm getting better at navigation, although that's mostly in lesson where there isn't anyone else to complicate things on the dance floor.  I'm not ready to call this a win yet, but it's coming. 

Also I hit 185 this morning.  I can't even express how THIS NUMBER is the important number.  When I was doing this in 2009, my goal was to get from 245 to 135, and 185 was my half-way marker.  (Technically, slightly more than half, but that was what I picked.)  I needed to think of the weight loss in sections because otherwise I'd get overwhelmed by the scale of what I wanted to do.  Ten pounds is not nothing, but it feels a lot like nothing when the goal is over 100.  So I made myself two goals, attained one of them briefly, and then lost it again.

This number means I did it.  It's not settled yet, since I have to keep it until Monday, and not bounce back, and given the upcoming trip and fair, and then school starting, there will likely be some rebound.  But I am now setting a new goal at 150.  At 150 I will re-evaluate to see where I want to be.  I don't really know what my target weight is, because my only reference is from twelve years ago, so my plan gets a little nebulous at the end. 

I feel as if there were a third thing to say here, another checkbox, but I can't think of what it was.



*Given the options, unless I am talking about a specific genderqueer person with pronoun preferences, I will use the plural.  I hate it, but I hate it less than the other options.  For those of you who hate it more than the other options, I understand, and I apologize.