While inside the Venetian in Vegas, I saw a sign for Bauman Rare Books and dragged Wonderful Husband to look. We had a delightful time ogling books that cost as much as my car.

One particular item caught my eye, though. It was Emile Prisse D'Avennes' La Decoration Arabe (1885), open to a print of Egyptian dancers. (The volume in question being a mere $4200.) I was quite taken by the dancers' costumes, and took a copy of Bauman's catalog with me so that I would remember to research this later.

Taschen has what looks like his entire works reprinted in hardback for $150. I've also found the particular print that charmed me here, as a poster for $50. The book is probably the better choice.

But still. Now I have something to refer to for eventually making a bellydance outfit that interests me more than a sparkly bra....

So after dumping the lousy dance class, Tuesday Wonderful Husband and I went back to our old stomping grounds and Amy Register's dance classes. Good thing too as this is the last set of classes she'll be teaching before moving to Arkansas! ;_; We'll both miss her but she assured us she's handing the classes over to some good people. After an hour of swing dance, we decided we had enough stamina left and signed up for the subsequent hour of waltz, foxtrot, and tango as well. It felt so good to dance again! Swing and waltz are two of each of our favorites (tango too but that didn't get covered last night). Then today Wonderful husband went to ice skating lessons and I went to my writing class and turned in the (rewritten) first ten pages of The Novel. I'm ending up slightly worried because I think the teacher isn't fond of SF/F. One of the manuscripts we reviewed tonight was fantasy, and she really didn't like the concept of two people in one body, which formed a good part of the story. Ah well, I guess I'll see how it goes next week.

So LJ's prompt of the day is "what did you do for Valentine's Day?" Answer: nothing. We went to dance class after work, where we suffered the in-retrospect hilarious interlude of the teacher of the class next door bursting in and demanding that we turn off the music since her class couldn't study with it playing. Our teacher responded that ours is a dance class and thus requires music, and further that said crabby lady had already been directed to take her issues to the people who run the center, one of whom was standing between our instructor and this lady and trying to get the lady to listen to him. Eventually he succeeded in getting her out of our classroom and I hope resettled her group into a different room; our class can't move because we need the room with the dance floor. This was a smirch on an otherwise good class. Honestly, you'd think that getting old would lend you a touch of grace or class or whatever you want to call it, but in this lady's case, apparently not!

Went home after class, ate dinner, got cold (I've noticed this tends to happen to me after dance class...) and ended up huddled in bed with my sushi blanket, doing cross-stitch on the big old-style map project I'd set to the side. I'm on my sixth color now, oooh~! However, in my defense, the colors I've done thus far were the ones that had a LOT of use in the thing. Still, it's in a large embroidery frame and thus not really a transportable project; I need to find something that is so that I can take it along places. I'm guessing I'll probably pick some blackwork for that again. There's a Holbein stitch strawberry pattern I would like to try, and I have red and green silk twist....

Went to Borders and got a copy of Transformers: The Score. I love Borders. The staff there actually want to help me find the things I'd like to buy. They also send me nice coupons and see me glancing at manga series on the shelf and say things like "Oh, are you looking for the newest volume? It's on the endcap."

I also discovered a small costume museum on the second floor of the South Coast Plaza Annex. I only had time to dart through it, but the display will be there until the end of the month so I must return with digicam and notepad.

I won an argument with a story as to its format ("you will be short and not long because otherwise I will not write you") and thus started in on the October challenge for the prowlxjazz comm. Why are we all ending up doing prompt #3 first? But I also got nudgings on what I think are #1 and #4. I have informed them that they, too, will be short.

I also had some things start coming together for the next piece in the Ghost Stories series. Topics of research have included Stunticons, ghost trains, and James Dean's fatal crash, among others.

I went to dance class, where Wonderful Husband and I tango'd, revisited the foxtrot, and samba'd our little brains out. We got a new step in samba this week, one which we agree makes the dance much more fun and much more interesting to us.

And I quit lollygagging around and wrote more on The Novel. Not much to be sure (only 199 words), but the point is I wrote. And tomorrow I will write more. But for now, I am going to shower the sweat out of my hair and off my body, and then go to bed in something resembling a timely fashion.

Well, my dance instructor liked the new skirt. And I have to admit, coupled with the strappy heels I wear to the ballroom dance class (and should probably wear to the swing class), I felt quite elegant for a change as we foxtrotted, merengue'd, and tango'd. Of the three, I have to admit that the tango is my favorite. It has friction in it, sparks, love/hate relationships... and it reminds me very much of Fakir and Ahiru's relationship. I need to find a way to write it into the third story in the "happily ever after" arc when I get to it. As it is, I'm still pondering how to shoehorn in the Alice theme.

I started reaming out the costume closet tonight. Finished costumes on this side, works in progress on this side, and the tubs of scrap fabric/fabric to be used/other works in progess out onto the floor of the workroom. Which has massively diminished the available space at the moment and I /still/ haven't found the Victorian corset pieces I was looking for. Grr. But I did find my half-finished pink-brown-and-cream horizontal striped surcoat, so I've ironed the pieces for that and reconsidered some details of construction. It's cut across a 60" width of fabric, so it's going to be pleated in at the neckline and I'm considering possibly leaving the side seam open... maybe just brief ties at the bottom of the sleeve openings? Because with the center front and center back pleating having decorative lacing up the sleeve openings seems kind of silly. But I don't believe I have enough extra fabric for side gores.... Not that this is going to be remotely period, of course. *rolls eyes at self* Peri-oid, maybe. Ah well. For my next trick maybe I'll finally make a period construction white linen underdress for this era. And figure out veils, wimples, and coifs.

Oh, and my eleven-year-old cousin has apparently discovered EGL. And begged me to make her some new clothes. I countered with an offer to her father: she has ice skating lessons Saturday mornings, I'll take her Saturday afternoons and teach her how to sew. Because while I have no objections to making her some clothes, I'd much rather she help me with them and eventually learn how to make things for herself. It's a useful skill. And, hey, maybe this means I can interest her in a Hinaichigo costume....

Today, I was virtuous. Did bank things and payment things and went to Home Depot after work where I discovered the peppers I want to grow this year (Caribbean Reds) and signed Wonderful Husband and I up for dance classes, etcetera. Am sewing again (this will be a recurring theme for some time, I'm afraid), working on finishing the cuffs for this jacket. After that I get to work on the rest of the trim. I might finish it all by this weekend. And I'm really quite happy--I was able to get just under two yards of the orange silk I needed for the trim, and hoshikage was able to get just over one more for me, so I have enough to finish the outfit.

But none of this is helping me finish. *goes back to stitching*