Note of the Living Deb

The article Life on Severance: Comfort Then Crisis really got me riled up, giving me the feeling that I'm already living in an idiocracy. It's about how a lot of people laid off with severance pay keep spending just like before, actually getting job offers but turning them all down because the jobs they're offered aren't as good as their last job used to be, and then, once they are out of money, deciding that maybe they better make some changes. The excuses for making no changes at all are that they think they'll get another job soon, they need to keep looking good and taking their contacts out to eat in order to help them find their next job or, my personal (least) favorite, they want to maintain their sanity.

The first guy they talked about got a $200,000 severance check plus had $100,000 in savings, and I couldn't help thinking to myself that if that were me, I would be done working forever. Of course he is not me but is part of a family.

If you got laid off, wouldn't you change your spending? If not right away, wouldn't it occur to you to at least think about it before you ran out of money (and maxed out your credit cards)?

**

The next day I realized that I don't actually know how I would spend differently if I were laid off. Would I sell my house and move in with my mom? No. Would I sell my car? Unlikely--not right off. Would I drive it less? I already drive it only once or twice a week.

I'd put off replacing or buying electronics (computer or camera) if what I have broke or I suddenly wanted something new, and I wouldn't travel. Other than that, my biggest fluffy expenditure is dance class. Because I take group classes at a nonprofit, they're considered to be quite cheap, and plenty of unemployed people have kept going to class, but it is $30/five weeks (times two because I cover Robin). I'd quit having fast food and try to spend a little less at the grocery store--I wouldn't start buying crap (fake whipped cream), but I might focus on recipes with cheaper ingredients (like beans or even dried beans).

In sum, I wouldn't change my spending much AT ALL, at least at first.

Clearly I would quit making charitable contributions (if I did get another job quickly, I could "catch up" if I wanted to). And I would quit contributing to my retirement savings. And all my other savings (next car, car repairs, house renovation, house repairs, health). My current savings and the payment for my saved vacation days would be gone in ten months if nothing vital broke.

I guess my biggest changes would be in job hunting. When I moved to Austin I found three jobs: one serving pizza at the student union for 19.5 hours a week and thus no benefits, one at a tutoring place for school kids for about 10 hours a week, and I did freelance tutoring of college statistics students for about 3 hours a week which all added up to $100 less than I needed if nothing vital broke. Who knows what sorts of jobs I could find if I tried now?

Baby lesson of the week - My baby niece can now sit up by herself. For several minutes at a time. Before she tumbles over, generally backwards. It's quite a struggle for her; you can see her using all her core muscles, plus other muscles such as her neck muscles and her eyebrow muscles.

It occurred to me that I can simulate this (somewhat) by sitting up straight on the bus instead of leaning back against the seat. I definitely get to use my core muscles, though not my eyebrow muscles.

Blog entry of the day - Something Good at All Mirth, No Matter - a great intro to a fun video. "Derek Hough (pro) and Joanna Krupa (model/contestant) got "Futuristic Paso Doble," which should have been an unmitigated disaster." Watch it once and you'll notice my favorite parts (the first drum ripple and the dramatic pauses at the word "stop"). Watch it again, focusing on the man this time, and notice that he actually gets down on one knee, one after the other, at one point.

Today we were learning a dance move that takes a lot of space in one dimension, but not much space at all in another dimension. Imagine two people holding their arms out to their sides and standing side by side. They could cut off all the traffic in a ballroom (like they could in a roller rink). Or they could turn that position 90 degrees and move it toward the center of the room. Then they become a pretty small target.

Pretty! (smiley face)
Small! (smiley face)
Target. (scared look) In a room full of human tornadoes, by which I mean couples dancing Viennese waltz, it is good to be as small of a couple as possible.

**

My interview went fine today, though of course it could have gone better.

I learned two interesting things. One is that 80 - 85 percent of the people who start the training program complete it successfully. That's higher than I would have guessed. Most of those who don't complete it successfully just find it too difficult, no matter how hard they try. But many don't quite have the people skills.

The other is that the competition can be fierce, but if you don't get selected, your test score is good for two years and so you can just call for another interview. I asked how competitive it was. I didn't get numbers, but I did learn that having a PhD in mathematics or neurobiology from a good school makes you look good. If you're competing against those guys in one round, you hope the competition for the next round isn't so intense.

I can expect to hear something in three to four weeks. By which time Robin says I should have another job. Hee.

One of my favorite ballroom dance partners is leaving Friday to return home after earning his doctorate. I know nothing about him except what I know about his dancing and his dance learning style.

I like dancing with him because he takes big steps (too big, actually!), leads well, knows lots of steps, is nice, and is funny. For example, he has led west coast swing while sitting in a chair.

I like taking lessons with him because of his reactions. My favorite was one time when we were doing an especially naughty-seeming move. I can't even describe his reaction, but it was clear that he felt even more uncomfortable than I did at first, but he made himself do it anyway, and now we are all fine with it.

I got to have some nice last dances with him last night. And I learned which country he is returning to: Thailand. And we got to meet his mom and one of his aunts, who took pictures of him dancing, though they didn't dance themselves. And we had cake.

Today I learned two hints about which way to point your head while dancing.

In west coast swing, we learned to just face two or three directions at all times. It's a slot dance, so you should usually be looking ahead at the end of the slot in front of you or behind you at the other end of the slot. Women can also look ninety degrees off to the side when they are facing the side. Otherwise, either gender can look where you're going, or you can keep looking at what you were just facing for a bit before switching to where you're going, or you can look where you're about to go. Each technique has a different effect. Although the teacher demonstrated that even the followers can look where they are about to be going, I am not going to be doing that. Because I do not know where I am about to be going. Yes, some leaders are a bit predictable, but not totally.

This definitely improved my dancing in the "new" style; it has the effect of making one's head snap dramatically from one position to another. However, I was automatically doing this using my current "old-fashioned" style of doing west coast.

In waltz, I learned that you should always point your nose the same direction as your chest is facing. Trying out this technique makes me much more conscious of which direction my chest is facing which, as one can imagine, is not generally on the top of my list of things to be noticing. (Let's see, partner actions, musical beat, obstacles, feet, cuban-motion/rise-and-fall, arms, shoulders, skirt whooshy-ness, whether glasses are in position to get knocked off...) So that was definitely interesting and gives one an added incentive for keeping the body facing the way it's supposed to be facing, especially in those pretzel-like positions, such as during the continuity ending of silver-level steps.

This technique has the effect of making the head move in a very gradual and graceful way. We also got to see that just keeping your chin up (or level, really) and pointing your face this way while in contralateral positions makes it look like you're practically doing a back bend even though your back is perfectly straight.

I already knew how to change head positions when switching between closed and promenade position, but the rest of the time I think I have a habit of looking down or off to the side or other more random places. Currently, trying this new thing makes me feel a bit robotish and Barbie-doll-like, as if I have a plastered-on smile. We were told that a neck brace would make this very easy. But it's still kind of fun, and I'm sure it can become more natural with practice.

Today Robin and I went to a wine and west coast workshop at Go Dance, where we've never been before. There were two one-hour workshops. One had some pretty good steps, the other not so much. The teaching was mediocre. The students were all great. The building was great, though the dance floor could have been bigger.

"You're doing a coaster during all the anchor steps." Oh. I had decided that when they said "anchor" they meant coaster. I guess not. "When you step back just stay back. When you step forward, you can't do anything from there." Okay.

"You need to have compression and expansion. You're doing only compression." Yes, I'm doing only compression, which is a less popular style. It is not wrong. Nevertheless, I tried doing it their way.

Preceding each workshop was a 15-minute wine tasting. People brought wines and so you could taste all different ones. This was of no interest to me. There were snacks, too, though, that were nice. Fruit, cheese, bread, hummus--all the food groups.

Afterwards was a dance of all west coast. Watching the other folks dance, Robin and I got completely different impressions.

My impression was that those people were all much better than us. On a whole different plane. I could recognize their dancing as west coast, but there's no way I could have followed most of that stuff. Not that I tried. Most of it looked leadable, but so alien to me that I would have been standing there wondering what to do.

I tried to figure out what it was that made them so awesome. They were doing so many things. They were matching the music--if there was a dramatic pause in the music, they were dramatically pausing. If there was a slow sensuous part, they were making slow sensuous moves.

In comparison, my dancing feels formulaic. Wooden. Mechanical, even.

I saw two couples dancing like us (just one dance each). One had a lot of the moves we have, plus a few I didn't recognize. The other couple was made up of two women who were very deep into their conversation and thus clearly just doing the easy robotic steps.

Finally I came to the conclusion that this is more like the way I first learned Argentine tango than like the west coast I know. The way we dance west coast, whenever you do a coaster step, you have some room for interpretation. This would also be true for anchor steps. However, they have lots and lots of places for playing around with the music.

While I was downstairs talking to a beginner, who I later saw doing things I can't do, Robin was upstairs dancing with everyone he could. He specifically picked out people he had liked from the workshops who seemed good.

His impression was that about half of them were better dancers than him and half were worse. Some of the better ones were much, much better, but many of the dancers were not very good followers. He did decide that one of the dancers was not getting enough freedom to play around like she likes to, and he didn't know how to give her that freedom. I asked if she did a lot of interesting coaster steps. Yes, she did.

Robin thinks a lot of the moves look unleadable and therefore memorized. He thought the reasons they looked so good were that they had learned a lot of long routines and that they were on their home turf, so they knew the music quite well. They probably have figured out which routines work perfectly with parts of the songs they like.

Robin's inspired and wants to take lessons here. I felt the opposite. I had thought I knew maybe 20% of steps in the dances I'm good at, and now I see that it's no more than 1/2 of 1%. After almost two decades of lessons. And this is our best dance. I felt deflated. I had trouble even having fun anymore. Hey look! I'm 44 years old and I'm still writing on that lined paper with an extra dotted line in the middle to show you how high your lower-case letters should go! And look how pretty my textbook letters are with no personal style whatsover, except little hearts over the i's and j's! Ugh.

I'm sure I'll get over it. Later.