Tips on Where to Buy Shoes

Shoe Diva.com will give gret advice and cheap prices.

Sewing Lesson

I am past thinking that it's clothes that get you the dance. Clothes are the glitter on the spun-sugar filigree on the frosting on the cake. It's the cake that gets you the dance.

Nevertheless.

Everyone at the Tango Colorado Hot Summer Nights milonga had better admire my top tonight.

I have been working on it since noon. I bought it at Goodwill, a short and sheer, black minidress with stars and vines embroidered on it in ivory thread. Very vintage. Very fragile. I'll wear it over a camisole and slacks. Very casual. Very elegant.

(The invitation to the milonga specified "casual-elegant" attire. Only in Colorado ... or on Project Runway.)

But the sleeves. When I reach up as if into the embrace, they go all cockeyed. Way too tight. I will slit them right down the middle, hem them back, and -- uh-oh. They look just like what they are: sleeves cut in half.

It's 2 p.m. It has taken me 2 hours to get this far.
6.5 hours to go until the milonga.

I know the effect that I'm after. Butterfly sleeves, fluttery things. I try pleating around the shoulders. Halfway down the sleeve. Gathers. Folds. Shirring. Cursing.

4 p.m.
Countless times in and out of this tight, fragile dress. If I am not careful, it will tear. Cursing is OK, but my touch has to be tender. If you've ever had a colicky baby brother, you know this routine: Gently singing, gently rubbing his taut, tiny back, gently begging him to please shut the hell up.

5:30 p.m.
Three hours until I have to leave for the milonga. It will take half that time to shower and primp and putz.

My buddy Marcus used to throw parties to watch Project Runway. When dark fell, he'd haul the big-screen TIVO-TV onto his oversize deck, and all 20-30 of us would pull up our chairs.

We liked audience participation: critiquing and gossiping and speculating on who would get the ax next. We also liked this game:

Every time they showed the clock, we raised our drinks, shouted CLOCK! and drank. It was exactly as sophomoric as it sounds.

5:38 p.m.
I wouldn't mind playing that game right this minute.

***

6:00 p.m.
Actually, Project Runway comes in handy as I'm altering these sleeves. Between CLOCK!s, apparently, I learned how to mess around with clothes.

Rule 1: Persevere until Tim Gunn says "Time's up!"
Rule 2: It's OK to tear out the stitches as many times as you like.
Rule 3: Or don't like, but must.

The umpteenth time I am standing in front of the mirror, disappointed in the results, this comes back: The Project Runway designers altered the clothes while the models were wearing them.

I grab a needle. This is a little different; I am playing both roles. There also is this: The least coordinated woman in the world is about to attack herself with needle and thread.

6:30 p.m.
Fronts of the sleeves are done. Now for the back. Clothes are not symmetrical, you know. Damn.

As it turns out, the backs go quickly. What I learned from doing the front applies in its own way to the back. How cool is that?

7 p.m.
I've been at this 7 hours.
1.5 hours left to shower and primp and putz.

Perfect!

Canyengue!

Randy Fisher workshop, very cool. To come. Soon.

Tayari Tag: I Need Your Help!

Time for a little grown up tag courtesy of Tayari Jones! (We writers will do anything to put off actually writing.)

There are rules for this game and here they are:

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

It would be good if the facts were interesting. Scintillating--that would be great!

Hmmmm.

I can't think of 8 interesting or scintillating facts about me. Here's your chance!

Click on the Comments link below to tell a fascinating (or interesting ... or at least entertaining) fact about One Heart Dancing. I'll pick the 8 I like best and post them.

Feel free to play by writers rules: You can use creative license, poetic justice, freedom of speech. In other words: As long as you tell the truth, you can lie. Make it good.

While you're doing that, I am going to round up my 8 favorite tango bloggers, including the Shoe Diva and Tangospam, so they can play too.

Meanwhile, here are two other Tayari Tag players: Pajama Gardener and The Merry Peri

The Love Songs of J. K. Rowling

I love lots of things about the Harry Potter books, especially the inventiveness. But the thing I love most of all is how JK Rowling reveals her own heart. Every book is a love letter to her own kids. Every book says over and over; "Growing up is hard. You are strong and precious. You will be OK."

****

So Here's the Plan

This morning I go to Mary Alice's deserted house. She is out of town for a long weekend.

I will avoid the neighbor who is coming to play with the cats. There will be no radio, TV. No Internet, no phone calls, no mail or e-mail or voice-mail. I will not go anywhere, not for a drive, not for a walk. I will not even look out the window.

Sometime today at Mary Alice's, amazon will deliver He-Whose-Name-Is-Everywhere.

By opting for home delivery, I am delaying the start of the book for several hours. But I couldn't risk this: Standing in line to buy, someone who has just picked up their copy flips to the back page and shouts: HARRY DIES!!!*

I will not say hello or even thank you to the person who delivers it, lest they let something slip.

While I am waiting for the book I will practice. I will turn the volume down on the stereo before I turn it on, lest Mary Alice have it tuned to a radio talk show that is analyzing You-Know-Who.

I will dance only to DiSarli. I trust him to be too much the gentlemen to let slip a spoiler.

When the package arrives, I will not open it. I will take my one big risk, drive to Melinda's a half mile away.

Melinda will open the package, tear out the last 20 pages, send me away. Under no circumstances am I to be trusted.

Sometime on Sunday I will drive back to Melinda's. She will hand me the pages one by one as I read them. If she talks, I will crumple up the pages I have read and stuff them in her mouth.

Tango class begins at 7 p.m. Sunday. Will I make it?

I read about 1 page per minute. The book is 780 pages. That's 13 hours. Add a few hours for sleep and showers and drinks of water and driving back and forth to Melinda's. A few hours more to put my socks back on every time Rowling knocks them off.

I need 24 hours.

Amazon promises my book will arrive no later than 7 p.m. Saturday.

Nina, I might be a few minutes late to class.


*I SAID yesterday I am making that up. I am not a spoiler!

Never Has There Been Such a Dilemma

Merc tonight. Daniel Diaz and Jose Paris.

I want to go. But I am not sure I can work up the courage. I dread what could happen.

It would be easy to go if I could be sure that the leads would keep a certain something to themselves. People in general these days seem eager to share things they should keep private, or even secret.

I know what you're thinking. What could be worse than the dance of 7/17?

Here's what I fear most tonight:

It is nearing midnight. The crowd thins and quiets. The bandoneon and piano sing of nostalgia and loneliness. If you have any heart at all, it must go out to them.

Regretfully, I prepare to remove my shoes. Like Cinderella, I must be gone before midnight.

But as I bend to unbuckle, a man catches my eye. Handsome, dashing, charming.

He approaches. I stand. He takes me into his embrace.

Off we float on the lush, romantic strains of a melancholy vals. The floor opens before us. Mr. Diaz's bandoneon sings only for us. Our every step is perfectly attuned. We are goregous. We are the envy of the gods.

Of course I am carried away. Of course my lead knows it. He gathers me close and closer. This is bliss. And he whispers ...

I READ IT ON THE INTERNET!

HARRY DIES!!!!