Round about the time I was 14 or 15, there was a great conjunction in my own personal sky which resulted in my reading through the entire ballet section of the local library (remember the days when card catalogs consisted of cards, and interlibrary loan required clairvoyance and immortality?), a long-held belief that I had Made It All Up, and a sprained foot.

We shall not be speaking of that last one.

ANYhow.

1. After seeing the Baryshnikov/Kirkland Nutcracker approximately 4000 times, PBS played a different version this one by the Royal Ballet, with a markedly different storyline and this dude who dances with the Sugarplum Fairy.

“Great googly moogly!” says I. “That man looks exactly like a fairy prince should look. Lo, I am swooniful.”

Off I went to the library to dig up every grainy black-and-white picture I could find of Anthony Dowell (now Sir Anthony, an it please thee). My favorite book had plot synopses of gobs of ballets, plus photos – which was about all there was in 1985.

Over the years, I got it into my head that I had confabulated ballet photos with the Royal Shakespeare Company photos from a book at home, and no one could possibly actually have a face like something out of Lyonesse.

Not much after the Nutcracker episode, my piano teacher lent me some Stravinsky records right about the same time that I caught the movie Valentino on HBO and developed a bit of crazy for Nijinsky (and Nureyev). Stravinsky will blow the lid right off a little mind what’s ready for it.

And gosh: didja follow that link up there, perhaps notice who played Nijinsky in Valentino?

Yup.

The funny thing is, I just made that connection yesterday. Over the weekend Netflix sent me Manon, one of the many ballet videos I have scattered on my list, and I was happy to discover that Lovely Otherwordly Man was not only NOT made up in my head but in fact one of the very best dancers of his time, director of the Royal Ballet for many years, and a respected and beloved teacher.

The inside of my head is its own special backwater, I guess.

And now, thanks to the magic of YouTube and the internet, I can watch grainy low-def ballet videos all day long! I can discover how weird and out of the loop I actually was! (I was a little buried in my sheet music, notebooks, and scripts.)

And Manon, for all that it’s a ballet on The Behavior Your Mother Warned You About, is just gorgeous and brutal. Check out the partnering here, from about 2:19 to 4:30: the way the men pass Manon back and forth is beautiful but stomach-turning.

Later, in the ballet, from 1:30 to 2:55, this: lovely music going on in the background and utter brutality onstage. No nudity, no overt violence, but I shuddered in revulsion.

I don’t envy dancers. Ballerinas, I think, must accept a special level of pain to perform acrobatics on their toes.

And male dancers – well. Ginger Rogers may have had a point that she did everything Fred Astaire did backwards and in heels, but a male dancer has to be capable not only of this but also of ridiculous, insane lifts: here, again, 5:48, 6:30, 6:42, 7:02.

Here is the thing that I just now learned about my friend Sir Anthony that my 14-year-old eyes would not have noticed: the woman never wobbles.

In Month in the Country, starting around 2:24, over and over he sets Makarova down on her toe with just the slightest pause before landing so that she  lands utterly softly (see also starting around 3:18). (Ooo, I surely do hate that costume. But love Turgenev.)

In Romeo and Juliet: the one-armed lift at 4:37, the held pose at 4:55, the slow set-down at 5:27, and the Thighs of Steel demonstration 5:47 – 5:56. Look closely at the section from 6:40 to 6:57. It looks like the easiest thing in the world, but watch her feet: he’s taking her weight and setting her back upright, all from below her and at an angle.

I mean, really!

With Makarova again, in Swan Lake (terrible video quality): stillness and flow, and not an un-gorgeous line in the whole piece. See 1:48, 6:14, and every one of those perpendicular, slow turns.

And my mouth hung open during 5:28 – 5:54 of Cinderella: check out that for a lift. You try to set a woman down that slowly after carrying her down some stairs  and across the room.

I haven’t even seen his breakout role, as Oberon in The Dream, yet.

So, clearly: stronger than the average Olympian. And I don’t know whether he has enormous hands, but don’t they look it? The women always,  always look secure with those arms wrapped around them. There is not one moment of inattentive or workmanlike partnering – every touch has purpose and care to it. Here is more Swan Lake: check out those 900 perpendicular pirouettes all in one spot starting around 3:30 (during the “anything you can do I can do better” section of the pas de deux – go back and watch the clip of the first part too: gorgeous). At 4:42 there’s a fabulous little throw.

Add to that the lips-parted, heavy-lidded “oh could be kissing you but no I’ll just fling you into the air instead” thing and oh my! One has a little Fan Moment.

Oh, and legs that span western Europe. Right, and enormous freaking talent.

Enjoy yourself some ballet.

1. Centipedes/millipedes

2. Scorpions

3. Silverfish

These three fall under the category Nothing Should Be Simultaneously So Leggy, Crunchy, and Wet. The only centipedes and millipedes I’ve met were small enough to induce only disgust and not running away. I am happy to say that I have never yet met a scorpion, and I’d like to keep it that way.

Our house is full of silverfish. GROSS. I kill them with great glee. And nausea.

4. Earwigs

They pinch. It hurts. I found this out one year in Vermont, when there was an earwig infestation in the drains, and their response to the water in the shower drain was to come running up out of it and pinch one’s feet.

GROSS.

5. Tree roaches (aka Palmetto Bugs).

They fly. And they are horrible. Also, did I mention aggressive? And horrible? Oh, and half the size of my foot? Thankfully, they only come inside when it rains, but they are the one reason why I mind doing nighttime laundry doing the summer. They are in the garage all the time. And they are horrible.

GROSS.

I have a new gadget:

It is actually an old gadget, my having inherited Dingo’s old one, but it’s new to me. I am such a Luddite to own a miniature supercomputer.

For the first few days I played Peggle nonstop. Thankfully, I’ve gotten to a stage of the game that’s annoying, so I have a life again.

And frankly, I’m astounded by the amount of music that fits on this thing. My old, shabby iPod was full, so I mostly listened to the same playlists and Runrig albums over and over.

I’m having a good time redsicovering old favorites.

That Dog’s Retreat from the Sun was introduced to me by my friend Suwi (whom I miss desperately). They have a great cover of “Punk Rock Girl” on their earlier album That Dog, but Retreat from the Sun is a far better album: more consistent, more mature. The songs are funny and fun: when Dingo and I were in a long-distance relationship, “I’m Gonna See You” was my theme song. “Gagged and Tied” is a funny riff on BDSM. It’s an album full of garage bands, crushes, and misery, all at a beat fast enough to pogo to. You need a pair of Chuck Taylor high-tops and a witty, tiny t-shirt to listen to it.

I’m a little out of shape for tiny t-shirts at the moment.

Here’s “Gagged and Tied”:

That Dog

Our new roommate is Jinx.

As of this writing, he is 9 weeks old, bitey of tooth and scratchy of claw. Also whiny of voice. He was born in the downstairs office of a friend of mine who rescues cats as her avocation. So far, his only trip outdoors has been to and from the car. He does not approve of Outside, or of cars. We are happy about this.

Um, what to say? He’s a tiny baby cat. He eats baby cat food that makes him pooty. His life is all sleep/eat/play/repeat. He lives his Dingo very much and thinks I am a giant toy, if his attacking my legs when I walk is any indication.

Kittens are pretty funny and cute. (I’m lukewarm on babies of all species.) I just hope his adult personality will be pleasant. It’s unfair to a tiny kitten I know, but mostly I just think, “well, he’s all right, but he’s no Boadie.”

Of course, we’ve had him for 10 days and I had her for 13 years, so time will help.

It’s the first summer-afternoon storm: and not even summer yet.

They roll up out of nowhere, loud thunder, drenching rain, then roll back out again, leaving everything even hotter and more sticky than before.

But it looks cooler when it’s cloudy, and the lack of sunlight means that the air conditioner works more efficiently. Result: my office goes from basement to morgue. I’m huddled over a cup of green tea, considering the addition of a shawl. Weather Underground tells me it’s 85 degrees outside.