Musings on Dance, Food, Geek Stuff
Wise words from Bay Area house dancer Lauren Benjamin about entering dance battles: If I feel the drive to do something, I just do it, before I can talk myself out of it. Maybe it’s not always about me. Maybe somebody else needs me to be there at that time. Lauren Benjamin
I don’t tend to set “resolutions” for the New Year, which feels a bit too confining and unrealistic. Instead I do like to set “intentions” to give me direction and motivation. These are more like things I am very interested in and want to explore, but without set quantitative goals or deadlines. So not “I…
Well I finally finished the oral history of Yehoodi.com, a project I started back in May 2023. It’s not perfect, but I think it does a good job of highlighting the many ways that Yehoodi touched people’s lives over the past 25 years. This was the biggest personal writing project I had taken on for…
Japan Disneyland Bucket List Trip The biggest highlight of the year for me was getting to go on a bucket list trip to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea last May. Getting to visit the two best Disney theme parks was a dream come true. Of course, I had a lot of other lovely adventures in Tokyo,…
I was honored to be asked to be a subject in this journalism student Tam’s photo essay on skating that she was preparing this month. Tam was so fun to work with, bringing enthusiasm, technical expertise, and flexibility to the shoot. Excited to see her final project. Here’s her pics of me that she shared.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a complete newb at a dance! Okay, maybe not a total newb, but definitely felt out of my depth attempting to lead the waltz at The Great Dickens Christmas Fair.I did fine with my friend Aurelia Santos for the first waltz, which had set sections and moves that…
I get to the 6th Avenue Skating Place a little after noon. The spot is already hopping with skaters and music, courtesy of my friend Alex and their very loud bluetooth speaker. A newer skater Cassidy is there and she wants to work on “the Smurf.” So we review that footwork and drill it together….
This was in some ways one of my easiest costumes, but also my most performative: “Cake Week” on “The Great British Bake Off!” I was a little stymied about what I wanted to be this Halloween, until the week before. And then it came to me in a flash: I wanted to be a baker…
This week I fulfilled a dream: skating for my colleagues at work. This was the culmination of a conversation I had with my co-worker Debbie about six months ago, where I asked her, “What would it take for us to host an open mic?” She replied, “Someone to organize it.” Six months later, I’m in…
As I try to summarize 25 years of Yehoodi, I realize that Yehoodi has been a lot of things to a lot of people over the years. Yehoodi has been…. But that seems a little backwards. Yehoodi has always been its community, the many thousands of lindy hoppers who have connected through this site, in…