Mary Bellamy

Sigh. Is it time for another one of those "so sorry I haven't written in a while" posts? Once again I'm out of excuses. I was busy getting ready for the holidays, experiencing the holidays, experiencing the holidays all over again when my Christmas gifts arrived on Dec. 27, getting mentally ready for Texas, blah blah blah.

First: My parents rock for listening to my Christmas desires: No knick-knacks to clutter up my cabin, and an iPod, please. I finally joined the iPod generation (I've had mp3 players, but never an official iPod). I've spent the past few days browsing through my 2,000+ cd collection, trying to select music for it. At first I was being choosy, not wanting to take up precious space with songs I only sort of kind of liked. Now that I'm three days into the process and still have about half the storage left, I'm just throwing songs in willy-nilly. Plus, I got the Belkin car charger/FM transmitter, which leads to this:

heard in the car

Yeah, good stuff. It was Bollywood, by the way.

So now I'm getting ready for Texas. By my rough estimates, it will be 4 days, 11 workshops, 2 performances and 2 parties. Throw in an overnight visit to Boise (Town motto: Yeah, it's in Idaho. You got a problem with that?), a night spent in a Motel 6 near DFW to try to avoid a 4 am taxi ride to get to DFW and a 7-hour layover in Seattle, and you've got my trip in a nutshell. Fortunately, Heather is moving to Seattle on Jan. 1. I presume she won't have a job by Jan. 8, so she can meet me and we can roam the city together. I'm saving money by shacking up in Fort Worth with some strangers I met over the Internet. Sounds kind of sketchy, so investigate them if I die. Here's what I know: Kyla Khan of Phoenix, Zuza/Valerie of Minneapolis and Andrea of Dallas. I also found another stranger in Boise to meet up with. Ah, the powers of the bellydance network.

As I often do, planned my trip around food. To be specific, I found an Indian lunch buffet in Boise. I shall eat my fill, and then some. Remind me not to have breakfast before the flight.