Fall, Drums, and the Dark Side of a Plum Tree.

I feel like a significant portion of my lifetime has passed since I last wrote. School has been in session and Ive been there most of the time but my mind has been elswhere. The joy of eating plums off the tree has become a faint memory as my yard has been turned into a gory, rotting-plum battle zone. Before you even open the gate the smell of fermented fruit is pervasive, it smells like a distillery, like I've crockpots of moonshine aging behind the house.You step on soft squishy plums with everystep and fruit flies rise in a cloud. JoAnn and Claudia tried to rake up most of them and put them in the yard waste container but the having them all crushed together made the smell more intense and the flies just obscene. Im not sure Ill be as excited about plum season next year. I know my writing is a little fruit heavy, but I guess I never knew how much effect proximity to fruit bearing trees can have on a person. The final Som La Bi Joli dance conference was this last weekend. We had some trimphant and historical moments, the classes were beautiful, we had a bougarabou class, a kutiro class, Lamba, Sunnu, and of course Sabar. I was so proud of us and so happy to see all these amazing musicians in little Seattle. I hope the pictures came out well because the conference descended into petty, triflin', intercultural misunderstanding and drama the likes of which I have never been a part of before. Whether or not we will all ever dance together again remains to be seen. Really enjoy beautiful and satisfying moments as they come, because you never know whats coming next. Im sad, exhausted and a little scared, maybe worried is a better word. I hate awkwardness, I hate backbiting and duplicity, it makes me scared to say anything. The things that people said to each other this week can never be taken back, and I know underneath it all all the mistrust and self protection everyone loves each other so much. If they didnt, these kinds of feelings wouldnt be at stake. I know I havent introduced anyone from this part of my life in this blog, and i dont have the strength to do it now but if you think the beauty school kids are characters! GOod lord. I hape we all remember the good parts and I hope time mellows the unkind words that were said. Maybe Ill write it out sometime. It would be a good read! Its just so base and trivial its embarrasing. We did go see Salam Diallo and Alioune Mbaye Nder et le Setsima at Juan O reilly's (What a stupid name!) last night. It was an awesome show, Salam Diallo was wearing a giant chartreuse eyelet lace (in Pakistan that kind of fabric is called chicken. Imagine my suprise when I read all the signs in the boutiques advertising chicken suits...) bubu and is so raunchy and so fabulous. I took a little solo, all the senegalese girls and me and fran were in a circle dancing and clowning. It was fun. Salam came out in the audience after and told me I danced well. That was cool :). Nice for an american honky, but nice all the same!! School is cool, there are a bunch of new first quarter students which is nice. Firstly just to see some new faces and also to be able to see how far weve come. Im so glad to not be studying nail diseases! Although, this quarter's focus is skin. I am not a squeamish girl, i pick up spiders with my hands, wipe kids' butts and fearlessly bandage bleeding wounds. Pus though? I cant take it. Blemishes, blackheads (comodones, darling), whiteheads (milia, my dear) all of it makes my stomach churn and my skin come up in bumps to even type out the words. We had to look at everyones' skin under the magnifier... i couldnt even do it. I may need hypnosis to get through this quarter. What will I do when I have to do a facial on someone with (gulp) acne?? Zoinks. We did waxing last week, it was cool, failrly easy. I got a free leg wax, love that. Melashu is a natural, she has an eye for detail and a masochistic streak that makes her an excellent waxer. Its funny (funny dark not funny haha), after you wax and pull off hundreds of hairs at once the part that hurts the most is tweezing the stragglers. Amber and Jamaa are no longer speaking and no longer living together. I guess Amber was kickin it to some brother that Jamaa was trying to talk to. And she lied about it and got caught. Wack. I wouldnt talk to her either. Female doing other females dirty is so unflattering. Why would you put yourself and your relationships in jeopardy like that over someone so trivial? Especially if you are living with the person! I cut Amber's hair on Thursday. She had shoulder length layers and I gave her a sharp smooth inverted bob. Those kinds of haircuts are hard because you can see every mistake. It looked pretty good though for my first time. The angle was good I just need to work on my technique and not raise my elevation too high. We have a new teacher named Ms Sabrina who seems pretty nice, she's an African american woman who owned her own Salon in Tacoma until a car accident left her unable to work long enough hours to make ends meet owning her own business. She taught me some good techniques for finger position. I got my first referral from Angie who sent me a customer of hers from Animals. She was really nice and had curly hair which was cool. I need curly haircut practice. I relaxed my "black" wighead's hair on wednesday and damn near melted it off. I guess those nasty things have had so many chemical treatments already you can hardly leave a perm on them long enough to get through all their hair. Feh. I played hookey on Friday and lay in bed listing to the rain until 12. Mark took me out to some seriously wack seattle twisted "Carribean" food for dinner and we laughed about the unripe plantains and how they could put asparagus in the roti. It was fun. I will be trying to make the best of the rain but... expect some kvetching. Ill keep it to a minimum. I got two grants in the mail for Arts International NY, trying to get some dance travel paid for, wish me luck. Hopefully this week I can get my house cleaned up after the Senegalese houseguest windstorm and get back into my routine with school. I have to refocus. Oh, get this, even though I have 3.98 Average, Im on academic probation for my attendance. Good lord, I know why there are so many beauty school dropouts, I havent missed that much time. Im never late and I think I missed four days last quarter. What if I get kicked out of Cosmetology school??? This entry is so scattered. More sleep= more organized thought process. Next week, I promise.