My usual concerns when going to Planned Parenthood are:

A)     Where am I going to park?  Parking in Center City is never easy.

B)      How long is this going to take?  The folks at the Locust Street branch are always friendly and seem pretty efficient but if you don’t have an appointment, you can find yourself sitting in the lobby long enough to watch an entire Tyler Perry film.

I’m never worried about getting stopped by protestors because let’s face it: this is 2013.  This is Philadelphia.  We’re not like that here.

Plus, my visit to Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with abortion, which makes sense because 90% of the services offered by Planned Parenthood have to do with preventive, primary care.  Not abortions.

But that doesn’t stop the elderly, white-haired man on the sidewalk from accosting me.

“Would you like some information?” he asks.  “Some options?”

Although he doesn’t use the “a” word, the message is clear.  I’m a young woman of child bearing age.  If I’m going in to Planned Parenthood, I’m obviously irresponsible, pregnant, and too ignorant to be trusted with making my own decisions about my body.

I’m too shocked to say anything other than, “No thank you.”  Only then, as I hurry past, do I notice the young woman in an orange vest standing a few feet further down the sidewalk.  The vest says, “Planned Parenthood Escort.”

I’ve read about the escorts before—I saw a notice in my Meeting’s newsletter about a training session for new escorts to volunteer at a clinic in New Jersey—but I never thought I’d see an escort in Philadelphia.  In my city, at my Planned Parenthood.

“Don’t let them give you anything,” the old man calls out.  “Don’t take anything from in there!”

I’m so angry that I can’t even open the door properly and the security guard has to tell me how to do it.  My hands are shaking as I fill out my form:

Reason for your visit?  Supply Pick Up

Will you be using insurance? No

Do you have insurance? No

I take my seat in the lobby and try to think Quakerly-thoughts like the smart people at my meeting in Trenton who never seem to get angry but only have wise things to say.  Maybe I can talk to that man—talk some sense into him—but then I recognize an acquaintance from the tap community across the lobby and think, before I can stop myself, “Her too?”

Part of me wants to call out “Hello!” but then I begin to wonder if she’d rather be anonymous, protected from those on the sidewalk by the thick blocks of frosted glass that serve as windows and protected from her fellow “clients” by the clipboard in front of her.

And that gets me thinking: I don’t necessarily want to be recognized either.  I get in and out of the clinic as quickly as possible, and whenever I have to pick up my pills, I dodge questions about where I’m really going, especially in front of my grandparents.  I’m always reminding myself that I’m a “good girl,” that I don’t “sleep around” and that I wouldn’t have to go to Planned Parenthood if I had one full-time job and the health insurance that comes with it.

As fate would have it, we get called up to the counter at the same time.  There’s no avoiding “hello” now: we’re both artists, we both work a hundred different gigs to pay the bills and we’re both at Planned Parenthood.  This isn’t something to hide, and yet, I still feel like it is.

The nurse hands me my pills and as per Planned Parenthood protocol, she places them into a small brown paper bag.  They’re already in a protective plastic blister back, a blue plastic envelope and a foil wrapper, but they (like tampons, maxi pads and most things associated with the female reproductive system) have to be hidden.

The nurse tells me to have a good day, but there’s something different in her tone than usual.  She knows the protesters are out there, and she’s warning me to prepare for battle.

I’m still trying to think of something to say to the man outside the clinic when he approaches me again, proffering a fistful of sweaty brochures printed on pastel paper.  He’s holding a rosary.

“Please take one of these,” he begs.  He looks so old.  So unhappy.  So sad and in pain and I wonder if he should even be out here on the sidewalk.  I’m sure he feels like he is doing God’s work and although he isn’t rude or abusive like some of the protestors I’ve seen on TV, he’s laid a sign down on the sidewalk that says, “They kill babies here.”

“No thank you,” I tell him.  And then, because I have an embarrassing habit of being polite to people even when they’re pissing me off, I add, “Have a nice afternoon.”

For a moment, I consider asking him to join me for a cup of coffee at the café just next door.  After all, good Quakers don’t try to talk sense into people; they listen.

But I’m not quite good enough.

In fact, I’m thinking of the summer before last, the time I went to Planned Parenthood for my annual pelvic exam and was told that I would have to go for a transvaginal ultrasound because they found “something” on one of my ovaries and since my grandmother died of ovarian cancer, it would be best to check…

I was so scared coming out of the clinic.  I couldn’t tell anyone.  I had only just met my boyfriend at that point and it was my brother’s birthday so I didn’t want to ruin our family dinner with the announcement that I might or might not have cancer.  I ended up wandering around the city by myself, finally stopping in at a café for an iced coffee only to discover that I had forgotten my wallet.

Those few days were the scariest days of my life.  And I turned out to be just fine.

But what if it wasn’t just a cancer scare?  What if it was a baby?  A baby that wasn’t planned and that I couldn’t support?  What if I was still a teenager?  What if my parents were going to kick me out?  What if I had been raped?  What if I did have to make that choice?

Should I have to put up with an old man and his rosary and his signs and his wrinkled pamphlets making assumptions about me and my situation?

Part of me wants to tell him that I’m not pregnant.  That I’m good person, that I pay my taxes and that I have a job.  That I teach at a college, actually, and that I’m only here to pick up birth control, not to get an abortion.

But the truth is it’s none of his business.  Unless of course he’s there to offer his services as a foster parent for all of the babies he’s trying “rescue,” in which case it’s still none of his business but it wouldn’t be quite so hypocritical at least.

His presence there on the sidewalk does have one effect though.  Before I realize what I’m doing, I turn around and head straight for the escort.

She doesn’t look particularly tough, or brave, or even much older than some of my students.

“Thank you for being here,” I say.  “Do you need more volunteers?”

Her face lights up.  “Yes.  We always need more help.”

I’m sick of hiding.  Sick of lying to my grandparents when I’m going to pick up my pills.  Sick of worrying that little kids at soccer games are going to find that tell-tale blue envelope in my purse when they start rooting around in search of chocolate.  I’m sick of hurrying down the sidewalk for fear that someone might recognize me when I’m on my way into the clinic, sick of feeling embarrassed over the fact that I don’t have health insurance and that I can’t afford it.

Most of all, I’m sick of being afraid to say “hello” to an acquaintance inside the clinic simply because she might think  I’m here for something “worse” than birth control pills: a pregnancy test, maybe, or an AIDS/HIV screening.  And I’m sick of the way I react to seeing other women in the clinic, of wondering, “What’s wrong with them?”

There is nothing wrong.  What’s wrong is the hiding—that and the fact that women’s bodies have become grounds for political debates that have nothing to do with reproductive rights or “saving babies.”

I doubt the old man on the sidewalk will ever read this, but just in case I want you to know that I don’t hate you.  We have a broken system in this country—multiple broken systems, actually, with healthcare being just one of them—and I can only assume (since I didn’t have the courage to invite you for that cup of coffee) that you are out on the sidewalk because you feel it’s your duty.  Your tactics aren’t working though; your tactics are convincing folks like me to volunteer for Planned Parenthood.  And I didn’t stop there.  I went a little crazy in the “Shop” portion of the Planned Parenthood website as well, so the next time I see you, I’ll be sporting my new PP gear with pride because I am done hiding.

Update: Thank you to the folks over at Freshly Pressed for featuring this post.  If you feel moved to make a donation to Planned Parenthood as some readers have already done, you may do so here. Thank you for reading and for helping to shed some much needed light onto this important issue.

get offline and get into the real world as soon as possible!

Of course, some people enjoy months of correspondence with unknown pen-pals who turn out to be complete lunatics but I’m not one of them.  At least not anymore.  Which is why I’m so excited about the fact that Match.com is celebrating its one year anniversary of getting people offline thanks to Stir Events.

What is Stir?  I’m so glad you asked.  Stir didn’t exist during the days of my manthropological experiment—in fact, when I logged on during my workshop in February to show some elderly women how to navigate the home page, I was taken by surprise and had to admit that I wasn’t quite as “up” on the world of online dating as I once was— but nowadays Match.com members around the country can get together for real time, real life singles events, ranging from large-scale happy hours at popular venues to more intimate adventures like tequila tastings and DJ lessons.

Where was that when I needed it?

Not that I’m complaining.  I’m pretty darn happy with the way my experiment worked out, but I still have plenty of friends who are still single and not happy about it.  My usual advice is “Date my brother.  Or try Match.com” but now I can add “Try Stir Events!” to the list.

Stir is currently celebrating its first anniversary.  In just one year, Match has hosted 2,850 single events in 80 cities across America – including Anchorage and Honolulu!  That breaks down to 320 events each month and over 225,000 PSMs (Potential Soul Mates).

Past events have ranged from the House of Blues to the Warrior Dash (and even a ghost tour right here in Philly) but if these aren’t you’re cup of tea, now’s your chance to create your own way-cool event.   In celebration of the Stir anniversary, Match.com is offering the opportunity for singles to create their own Stir event, and if their event is chosen, to work with Match Stir event planners to bring it to life!

Personally, I’d prefer something more chocolate-themed.  Or outdoorsy.  But with less running.  At any rate, all you have to do is Visit Match.com’s “What Stirs You?” Contest Page at
http://promotion.binkd.com/Enter.aspx?id=8793
, now through Tuesday May 28^th, 2013 and tell Match.com what you think would make for the perfect singles event to be entered to win. Entries will be judged based on quality, creativity, uniqueness and geographical relevance.

The selected winner will have their idea re-created by the Match.com Stir Events team in their city, and will receive an invitation to attend the event along with ten of their singles friends – all at no charge! In addition, the winner will also receive a free six-month Match.com subscription.  (And you don’t need me to tell you how much fun a girl can have with six months on Match.com!)

So get those thinking caps on!

This post was sponsored in part by Match.com.

For the past year and a half, I’ve been the sole chocolate-provider in our relationship.  And while I don’t mind doling out a few squares between numbers when he’s been kind enough to accompany me to some wacky venue for some wacky post modern dance concert, I do mind when we’re at his place and the dessert offerings are limited to Chips Ahoy.

The Chips Ahoy, of course, are for his kids.  And I understand that as a father, he needs to keep a certain amount of milk chocolate around the house (and whole milk, and Pop Tarts, and Chex Mix).  I’ve even come to tolerate the seemingly endless supply of Doritos (not that I would ever eat them, at least not more than 20 or 30 of them…) but even though he’s gotten pretty good at stocking the kitchen with things he knows I like, he never buys chocolate.

So I buy the chocolate.  And then he eats it.  And then his kids eat it.  And then I have no more chocolate left and when I’m playing board games based on the invasion of alien planets, I need chocolate.

I thought that my preference for dark chocolate would cut down on the multi-generational consumption.  I mean, what kind of kids like dark chocolate?

TWD’s kids, it turns out.

My next move was to start buying Lindt’s chili flavored dark chocolate.  TWD hates the stuff so I figured his kids would hate it too, just like they hated the Newman’s organic mint chocolate Oreo’s I bought them a while back, and just like they hated their vegan cream cheese.

It seemed like the perfect plan, and before you accuse me of being the most selfish person on the planet, I did buy a communal bag of Smartfood popcorn for everyone to enjoy.

But then something terrible happened.  I offered a piece to TWD’s eldest, confident that it would deemed it “gross,” “nasty” or “disgusting,” thus leaving me with an entire bar all to myself… only that’s not what happened.  That’s the opposite of what happened.

I wonder where TWD and his kids stand on ginger chocolate?

PS: In the time that it has taken me to finally write this post, TWD has finally learned to buy chocolate.  And he’s found a bar that the whole family can enjoy: Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate.

PPS: Yes, I just said “family” didn’t I?

The problem is that I haven’t been writing enough lately, and writing, like all crafts, must be practiced.  I’ve been writing exams, and lectures, and emails to my students to let them know that they’re really not going to pass my course unless they actually complete their assignments… but not real writing.

Not interesting writing.

Not fun writing.

Not good writing.

I do, however, have a fairly plausible excuse.  My tap company, The Lady Hoofers, gave four performances last week, including three on Broad St. at The Wilma Theater and one at the Performance Garage as part of DanceUSA/Philadelphia’s Presenter’s Showcase.

Having never taken part in a presenter’s showcase before, I’ve spent the better part of the past month not sleeping, freaking out about costumes, stressing about press kits and generally driving myself (and everyone around me) crazy. One evening, I dreamt that I forgot how to do a time step—a freakin’ time step!—and that we got kicked out of the showcase because we weren’t good enough.

Fortunately, none of this came to pass.  In fact, people loved us.  And I only forgot one tiny little section of my own choreography (not bad when you consider the fact that I’ve got 17 different tap pieces in my head right now…).

I’m now buried beneath emails and deadlines and costumes—so many freaking costumes!—but we had a great week and now that I’ve finally gotten a decent night’s sleep, I just might return to the world of the living and write that review.

Here’s a photo from the Showcase. (Would you believe it, these dresses actually came from Burlington Coat Factory???)  For more behinds-the-scenes photos, like The Lady Hoofers on Facebook!

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(Is my life exciting or what?)

I was reading all about the demise of agricultural states and the effects of the Industrial Revolution and thinking it’s probably just as well that TWD already has kids because I certainly don’t see the point in bringing any more children into this f*cked up world…

Actually it wasn’t quite that simple.  In truth, my thought process was a bit more convoluted:

Look, the sun is finally shining!

Capitalism is the root of all evil.

Hmmm… I’ve never had bacon on pizza before.  This is kind of nice.

We should all become socialists.  Socialists are hot.  Look at Tom Branson. 

I wonder whatever happened to that communist I dated in Oxford? Communists are hot too.  Some of them at least.

I said I was going to make dinner, didn’t I?

If I was a hunter-gatherer, I wouldn’t have to drive to the grocery first.

Then again, if I was a hunter-gatherer, I wouldn’t be able to sit in a beach chair reading an anthropology textbook and eating bacon pizza.

By the time TWD came home from work, I was… well, in a bit of a mood.

(It being “that time of the month” and tax season probably didn’t help.)

He started telling me a story about one of his co-workers but I wasn’t really listening.  I was still thinking about the Industrial Revolution and gender and the division of labor and the legacy of patriarchy in the modern world.

“I don’t like sitting here,” I announced.

“What?”

“I don’t like sitting here.”

“Why not?”

“Because you always sit at the head of the table and I always sit at your side.  It makes me feel subservient.  It makes me feel like one of your kids.”

“Nena, that doesn’t make you subservient.”

“Yes it does!  These seating arrangements are just another example of patriarchy!”

“But my parents sit at the side of the table when they come to visit.”

“Not your dad.  He sits at across from you at the other end of the table.”

I had him there.  When he excused himself to take a phone call, I decided to rearrange the seating arrangements so that neither of us was sitting at the head of the table.

“Just humor me,” I instructed when he returned.  “I want to see if it makes a difference.”

And it did.  For about three seconds, which is when TWD asked me what was really wrong and I found myself having a complete meltdown at the dinner table.

We had a pretty big blow up back at Casa Richter last week.  I resolved to move out as soon as possible and was feeling pretty good about the state of my finances until Tuesday, which is when I went to file my taxes and realized that moving out isn’t actually going to happen any time soon thanks to how much I owe the IRS.

Suddenly, my usual position at the dinner table came to represent every insecurity I have about my status: TWD is older than me, he makes more money than me, he owns his own house, he owns his own car and he has health insurance.  Meanwhile I’m stuck trying to run a dance company out of my bedroom, waiting to hear back from my agent and surfing the web for LivingSocial deals to go to the dentist.

I snapped.

Fortunately, TWD is getting used to it by now and he possesses an uncanny knack for keeping his cool even when I’m forcing him to play musical chairs in his own dining room and hurling insults at the Roman Catholic Church.  After a long talk, we settled down to watch Modern Family and he took me out for ice cream.  (Coldstone Creamery is, admittedly, one bi-product of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution for which I will always be thankful.)

I decided I probably won’t have to become an atheist after all, nor am I going to join a commune.  Now I’ve just got to get through tomorrow night’s lecture and SUMMA evaluation without sounding like a raging Marxist.

(I still don’t have a proper suit by the way, despite a second trip to Burlington Coat Factory.)

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In fact, every time I sit down to write something, I find myself annoying.

And that’s where the real trouble starts.  Every blog-worthy idea seems stupid.  And once those stupid ideas start to pile up, it’s like what’s the point?

Fortunately, bitchiness makes for good blogging.  And Burlington Coat Factory has just given me a very good reason to be bitchy.

I’m due for a SUMMA evaluation later this month, which means a bunch of external auditor folks will be coming to my class with clipboards and checklists.  It’s the not the first time I’ve been through this sort of thing—we got evaluated all the time at The School—but it will be the first time I’m being evaluated in a non-studio situation.  As in I can’t very well go in wearing yoga pants and a leotard.

I used to have a pretty decent “professional wardrobe” thanks to my first job out of college but then I got a little… well, artsy.  My mom has been after me to get a new suit for years but I’ve never seen the point.  I don’t work in an office; I don’t need a suit.  And even when I do occasionally need a suit (job interviews, conference presentations, etc.) I just throw something together and finish it off with a scarf, a pair of heels and two chopsticks wedged into my hair.

I like to think of it as the shock-and-awe approach to dressing professionally.  Most people are so focused on my accessories that they don’t notice I’m wearing a bargain basement dress and not a proper powersuit.

But the SUMMA evaluators aren’t most people.  And a lot hinges on this evaluation.  So I decided to finally break down and buy a proper suit.

And by proper, I mean Burlington Coat Factory (because let’s face it: the $25 gift card I got for Christmas won’t buy even half of a suit at Macy’s.)

I headed down to the Oregon Ave. store, which was perhaps my first mistake.  (There’s a reason why most people in my neighborhood claim to live in “Queen Village” and not “Sou’ Philly.”)  I selected eight or nine suits to try on only to find that the woman’s fitting room was “closed.”

Having worked as a sales associate back in the day, I know what “closed” means in retail parlance.  It means “We’re closing in an hour and we don’t want to get stuck working late because of some idiot in the dressing room.”   Not wanting to cause a scene or cost some poor underpaid associate her night out,   I politely followed her instructions to try the men’s dressing room on the other side of the store.

Well, wouldn’t you know, the men’s dressing room was “closed” too.  The entrance was blocked by a clothing rack and when I managed to locate another sales associate, I was told to go back to the woman’s department.

By now, I wasn’t feeling quite as compassionate.  Suits are heavy.  Eight suits are really heavy.  Especially when you have to carry them across the entire store.

“So what you’re telling me,” I surmised, “is that I can’t try these on?  Anywhere?”

“No.”

“But this is a clothing store.  People come here to buy clothes.”

The sales associate just shrugged.

I was tempted to drop the suits on the floor and storm off but I didn’t want to be rude so I defiantly hung the suits on the wrong rack (take that Burlington Coat Factory!) and headed towards the exit.

But then I thought of my brother.  My brother wouldn’t take that kind of bullsh*t.  My brother would ask to speak to a manager.

So I went back and uttered those seven magical words: I need to speak to a manager.

Except I added an eighth word: please.

And that was probably my second mistake.  Disgruntled customers don’t say “please” if they want results.  But I did.

The “manager” was sitting on the ground looking about as authoritative as a kid in sandbox (I’m still not convinced that he actually was the manager) and when I explained my plight, he replied that the dressing rooms were closed.  That was it, end of story.

“But why?  It’s still over an hour until the store closes.  I could understand if it was already 9:00pm but this is… this is unacceptable.  I mean, this is a clothing store!”

He rattled off some sort of lame excuse about “spills” and “maintenance” which I immediately recognized as “We close the fitting rooms early so we can get out of here early but I can’t tell you that because it’s against the rules.”

I was ready to spit nails at this point—I don’t have much free time for shopping these days!—but I resisted the urge to raise my voice in the hopes that he might offer up one of many obvious solutions that presented themselves.

You know…

Like open one of the dressing rooms?

Or point me in the direction or the restroom?

Or offer to hold the suits until the following morning when the dressing room “construction work” would be done?

But no.  Let’s just say Mr. Manager won’t be winning Employee of the Year any time soon.

I wished a good evening before I could stop myself (sometimes I wish I could have my brother on headset during times like these.  He’s much better at being a bad ass than I am) and stormed off.

Evidently it’s okay to browse at Burlington Coat Factory after 8:00pm but God help you if you need to, you know, actually try something on.  I mean, seriously, did you think you were shopping at a store that sells clothing?

A while back, TWD mentioned that he would like a scarf.

“Are you kidding me?” I replied.  “I was at the flea market this weekend.  There were tons of scarves!  I could have gotten you one then.”

“I don’t want one of those scarves.  I want a nice scarf.  Like… you know, like in your blog.”

Right.  The Is He Scarf Worthy? blog post I wrote during the early days of my manthropological experiment.  How could I have forgotten?

TWD wasn’t even a blip on the radar when I wrote that post but now that he’s been in my life for the past year and a half, it seemed a reasonable request.  And one that I was happy to fulfill.

Only it’s been a while.  And it takes a while.  I love getting involved in overly ambitious textile projects but they usually end in tears and my mother begging me to just “use a glue gun” or—even worse—“wear last year’s dress.”

(As if!)

Not wanting a repeat of the Great Junior Prom Meltdown of 2002, I took a look at my calendar, factored in all of my rehearsals, classes and deadlines and came to the rational, if disappointing conclusion, that it would be physically impossible to weave a scarf in time for TWD’s birthday.

I still had plenty of other good ideas, though.  And with three weeks to go, I was feeling pretty good about the state of things.  I had the Sake set I’d bought during our trip to NYC over the holidays, my sexy birthday underwear all planned out (complete with my thigh highs, san garter belt though…) and an entire afternoon during which to finish shopping.

That’s where it started to go downhill.  I won’t go into details—frankly, they’re embarrassing and I’d rather TWD not know just how close I came to completely striking out—but let’s just say the part when I bought a coffee maker only to discover that TWD already has a coffee maker wasn’t the worst part.

My back up plan was sushi lessons-for-two.  Then I realized how much sushi lessons cost, let alone sushi lessons-for-two.  I spent hours trawling the internet looking for something more affordable and was finally forced to go with sushi in a box.

Or rather how to make sushi in a box.

I purchased a boxed set complete with an instruction manual, DVD, chopsticks and various other implements, which, in my ignorance, I have to come to refer as “those little things you put your chopsticks on,” “those slightly bigger things you use to hold your soy sauce in” and “that placemat looking thing that you roll your sushi with.”

Wanting to give TWD the complete Asian experience, I decided to throw in a Tai Chi DVD.  Never mind that sushi is Japanese and Tai Chi is Chinese, or that TWD doesn’t really want to start doing Tai Chi until he’s retired and has a koi pond… I thought it would make a nice touch.

And then the anthropologist in me said, “WTF?”

Do Asian people buy their boyfriends pizza in a box?  Or hamburgers in a box?  Or apple pie?

Do they “throw in” square dancing DVDs just for kicks?

Words like “authenticity” and “transmission” began to flash before my eyes.  As I decorated the dining room table with origami cranes, I found myself wondering how Japanese folks feel about sushi in a box.  And how would TWD feel?  Unlike my last boyfriend (who called someone “Oriental” in front of my anthropology professors), he actually knows a lot about Asia.  He loves Korean pop music—and loved it before Gangham Style hit the airwaves.  He’s basically a walking encyclopedia when it comes to kung fu and he never believes me when I tell him that no, I really can’t hear the difference between Chinese and Japanese.

Would he think sushi-in-a-box was… lame?

Well, fortunately TWD is pretty good natured most of the time and like most men, he’s also easily excited.

He loved the sushi-in-a-box.

And the Tai Chi DVD.

As his girlfriend, I was extremely relieved.  But as an anthropologist I still can’t help but think there’s something weird about boxed-up culture.

When that happens, I go chair-to-bed-to-floor but never the bare floor, mind you.  I’m way too civilized for that.  In college I used to carefully position everything on my area rug.  Now that I no longer have an area rug, I just line up my various pocketbooks, dance bags and laptop cases to make a nice little shelf.  Then the piling begins.

TWD, on the other hand, loves folding laundry.  At least I’m pretty sure he does.  He seems to fold laundry all the time.  And he’s very fastidious about it.

One time, a while back, we were hanging out in the living room at his house; I was working on choreography for my students and he was folding laundry.  He’s very methodical but having spent my early twenties studying LMA (that’s Laban Movement Analysis for those of you not cool enough to know that on your own…) I’m very into looking at the way people move and saying, “There’s a better way to do that, you know.”

He had one pile on the couch and one on the ironing board.  Except he couldn’t reach both piles from where he was sitting so he’d stand up, reach for a new shirt to fold, sit back down on the couch and repeat the process.

I watched him do this several times, saying nothing (after all, I’m not exactly winning any awards for the state of my bedroom) but after a while, I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Sweetie…”

(“Sweetie” is such a good word, isn’t it?)

“Sweetie, you know if you put the basket on the other side of you, you wouldn’t have to get up every time you finish folding a shirt?”

He paused, surveyed the situation, and agreed that my suggestion was a good one.

But that’s not what I set out to write about today.  What I set out to write about was what happened on Saturday night.

I was kneeling on the floor of my room packing costumes for Sunday’s shindig with my tap company, The Lady Hoofers.  If there’s anything I hate more than folding laundry, it’s unpacking, so the costumes we’d worn for our performance two weekends ago were right where we’d left them.  I pulled them all out to make sure that nothing had gone missing or needed repair.  That’s when I noticed that one pair of bright pink skinny jeans were wrinkled.

Horribly wrinkled.

In fact, they were still cuffed at the ankle from two weeks ago!

“Who the hell did this?” I hissed.  “I love my dancers but, like, is it that difficult to un-cuff a pair of pants and FOLD them?  Do I have time to sit around ironing people’s costumes between performances???”

A few weeks ago, TWD took a look at my master spreadsheet (which contains everything from our annual budget to master class registrations to costume inventories), shook his head and spent the next three hours reformatting my ill-fated attempts at number crunching so that they actually crunch the way they were intended to crunch while I sat on my bed numbering costumes.

The pants in question were Pants #5.

I grabbed my copy of the spreadsheet.  “WHO wears Pants #5??? Who did this???”

Well folks…

Surprise, surprise.

It turns out that I wear Pants #5.

I can tell people how to fold their clothes; I just can’t actually fold them.

I wonder if I could hire TWD to do it for me?

Earlier this year, my partner-in-crime took leave of our tap company, The Lady Hoofers, in order to pursue other projects.  A few days later, I found myself at a Young Adult Friends Retreat (i.e. a weekend-long Quaker slumber party) at Swarthmore Meeting wondering how the hell I was going to pick up the pieces and keep things running on my own.

The Lady Hoofers with Roxane Butterfly

The thing is I wasn’t quite as lost as I’d originally feared.  Every job I’ve ever had, every boss I’ve dealt with, every company I’ve danced for has been a lesson in the way to do (or to not do) things.  I didn’t realize it—in fact, I never really thought about it back in college when all of my friends were attaching “Dance” to their last names and forming their own “companies”—but my entire life has been a crash course in how to run a company.

At any event, during the retreat, I decided to attend a workshop led by Thomas Swain.  The Quakers amongst you will know exactly who I’m talking about and if you don’t, you should totally get to know him because he is one of truly inspired people who can look you in the eyes, as you a simple question, and have you in tears three seconds later because he’s caused you realize something about yourself that you never knew before—something that’s going to make everything else seem possible all of the sudden.

At least that’s what happened to me.

The workshop was all about gifts: identifying gifts, cultivating gifts, nurturing gifts, and so on.  The notion of “gifts” (meaning God-given talents, skills or abilities) is a popular one in Quaker circles, especially young adult Quaker circles when you put a bunch of eccentric, self-aware 20-somethings who went to small, private liberal arts schools in a room together.

Everybody sits around stressing about what they’re meant to do with their lives; if you haven’t quit your job and gone off to join the Peace Corps, you feel like you’re not doing enough and if you have joined the Peace Corps you’re wondering if you did it for the right reasons and trying to figure out what to do now.

It’s almost comical, but everyone is so damn sincere in their intentions and honest about their insecurities that you can’t help but feel a little better about the state of the world.  Now that I’m one of the older “Young Adult Friends” I look at all of the poor undergrads who are freaking out about declaring their majors and the poor post-grads who are freaking out about what they’re meant to do with their lives and I just want to them to relax—the answers will come—but then I remember how I was a few years back (heck—how I was a few months back!) and I know that nothing I can say will convince them.  They’ll have to come to these things on their own.

At any rate, during the course of the workshop, Thomas steered the conversation from gifts to needs.  Needs, unlike gifts, aren’t something to be proud of.  Needs aren’t something you want to admit to other people.  Needs are something you’re meant to hide, to compensate for as best you can—at least that’s what I used to think.

“Needs aren’t signs of weakness” Thomas told us.  “Needs are opportunities for other to utilize their gifts.”

I can’t remember if that’s exactly how he phrased it but I’m going to put it out there again because it’s important:

Needs aren’t signs of weakness.  Needs are opportunities for other to utilize their gifts.

I don’t know about you but I had never, ever thought about it that way before.

And suddenly, asking for help didn’t seem like such a horrible prospect.  So I talked to my friends who work in arts administration; I met my old boss for coffee to pick her brain; I scheduled a meeting with the director of Philadelphia’s DanceUSA office.  “Talk to me about non-violent communication,” I asked one friend; “Can we swap marketing support for studio space?” I asked another.

I toyed with the idea of trying to adopt the Quaker business method to suit the company’s administrative needs but after further consideration, I realized that a spirit-led, consensus-driven decision making process wasn’t going to be the right course for us.

So I called my brother.  “Tell me about the different types of leadership structures you learned about in your business courses.”

“The best businesses are run by a single, strong leader,” he told me.  “But not just any leader: a leader who takes ideas from his or her employees.”

I could do that.

I know all directors think their dancers are awesome but mine really are.  Most people don’t think very much of dancers—everyone assumes were rather dimwitted, albeit talented, and certainly not capable of doing anything beyond performing—but between the four dancers of our First Company and our four Apprentices, I’ve got “binders full” of smart, creative, multi-talented women.

I knew enough to survey our dancers about their “related skills” before last fall’s auditions even began so I really do have binders full of their qualifications: costuming, video editing, graphic design, social media—and that’s before you rope in the boyfriends/husbands!  One dancer’s significant other made lunch for the entire company after our outdoor performance at the Headhouse Farmer’s Market last December; another’s took the morning off work to lend us his band’s sound system.  TWD ran interference at last month’s Master Class and when I was complaining about my inability to glean any useful information from the surveys we’d distributed he got quiet for a moment then said, “About those surveys… I was going to tell you this sooner but you seemed so proud of them.  They weren’t… well, Nena, you have to write the questions differently to get the kind of data you want.”

It never occurred to me to ask my boyfriend—who writes test questions and crunches numbers for a living—to help us with figure out how to ask the right kinds of questions.  Duh.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve appointed a Rehearsal Assistant (who also serves as our secretary at business meetings and one half of our social media team), a Treasurer (who also serves as the other half) and an official Apprentice/Student Representative to make sure that the concerns of our Apprentice Dancers, most of whom are students and don’t have their own cars, are heard at our business meetings.

This doesn’t mean that things don’t fall through the cracks once in a while.  I forgot to tell the students, for example, that they have an official representative now, and even though I proofread the flyer for our next Master Class about a hundred times, I still transposed the numbers in the studio address.  But this is the great thing about working with people who are passionate about what they do.  One of our First Company dancers realized it right away; she texted me to let me know about the mistake and I fired off an email to all of the dancers, asking them to correct the typo before distributing the flyers.  Problem solved.

The year got off to a rocky start, but we’re building momentum.  Yesterday, we performed at a festival in Chestnut Hill and next month, I’ll be getting interviewed by a local student who wants to write a report on the company for one of her classes.  We’re expanding our repertoire, buying new costumes, recycling old ones and moving into a new studio.  And—not to brag, but I’m so damn proud of us that I can’t help it—we’ve made it to Broad Street!  I just signed a contract for a performance at The Wilma Theater.  We’ll be featured during BalletX’s home season this coming April.

I doubt any of my dancers will read this (probably better if they don’t—I think most of them still view me as fairly sane individual…) but if they do, can I just say how inspired I am by everyone’s willingness to step up?

Amazing what can happen when you ask for help.

Upon returning home from tonight’s lecture, I discovered that I had a huge double run in my stockings.

So much for my Jomar’s powersuit.

I wonder if I can cram a spare pair of tights into my new laptop suitcase?

Speaking of suitcases, I had the sad duty privilege of escorting my grandparents to the airport yesterday.  My parents had departed for Miami the day before, so it was just me and los abuelos.

Even though their suitcases were already packed, their toiletries already stowed and their “important” documents already protected in a clear plastic envelope (we love clear plastic envelopes these days), my grandfather cornered me after I returned from dropping my parents at the airport to “go over a few things.”

There was nothing—absolutely nothing—to go over.  My mother had taken care of everything before she and my dad left, right on down to the clothes that my grandmother was supposed to wear on the plane.

But was that good enough for my grandfather?  Oh no…

To give you an idea, we went to Puerto Rico a few years back so he could take us around show us where he was born.  It was just my brother, my grandfather and me, all with matching pajamas, as is now customary in the Richter household.  My mom planned the whole thing as a surprise for Christmas and booked us a hotel near the beach with an afternoon flight coming back from San Juan specifically so we could spend our last morning in the sand.

My grandfather, however, had other ideas.  He decided we should do a “dry run” to the airport just in case so we took our dry run around 9:00am and arrived less than an hour later.  Despite the success of our venture, it was decided that we would remain at the airport rather than risk a return to the beach.  I was beyond livid.

That said, I knew full well that my grandfather would want to “go over a few things” before departing for Miami but what can say?  I’ve never really gotten over the fact that I was robbed of my morning at the beach.  (He also told the bartender at the Bacardi tour that my brother was too young to drink.  Who does that???)

I decided to let him stew for a while then headed downstairs for the security briefing.

Of course first he had to show me how he had “modified” his suitcase to hold his cane.  Then he had to show me his clothes for the flight, unfolding each piece like we were on an episode of Project Runway except with way less flair and way more plaid.

Then we got down to business:

• The medications (both those to be taken to Miami and those to be left behind)
• My grandmother’s clothes
• The hundred dollars hidden on the inside of his belt (in case of encountering any “real problems” in Miami)
• The keys to his car (in case I needed to move it while he was gone)
• The keys to the safe (in case I needed to access whatever it is that’s stored in the safe)
• The keys to his “document” file (in case the IRS came knocking to inquire about the financial history of a man living on a UPS pension— over the weekend I might add)

He went so far as to open every compartment of my grandmother’s pill case to show me that they were full, except of course for the days of the week that had already passed…

Then he showed me how to take apart his cane for inspection in case the security folks suspected him of being a terrorist.

When it finally came time to leave, my grandmother started complaining that he pants were too tight (anything more form-fitting than a Snuggie is “too tight” in her opinion) and my grandfather nearly tripped over his own cane (which was being held onto the outside of his suitcase by a series of elastic hair bands).

My mother had ordered an escort to get them through security and to their gate.  She had all of the confirmation numbers typed up and printed out for me but unfortunately I wasn’t made privy to the fact that in order to qualify for an escort, one must be—or claim to be— wheelchair bound.  My grandfather is practically wheelchair bound (as in bound to end up in a wheelchair if he keeps strapping his cane to his suitcase rather than using it like a proper octogenarian) but when asked if he needed a wheelchair, I answered honestly.

“No, he doesn’t need a wheelchair.”

“Then you can’t have an escort,” the US Airways lady replied.  “But they can give you a gate pass instead.  This way you can go with them.  That will probably be better anyway.”

“Okay,” I shrugged.  “Where do I go for that?”

Better, I soon discovered, is a relative term.

Escorting my grandparents through US Airways security was better, perhaps, than being mauled to death by a pack of rabid pugs but spending three hours at the airport wasn’t exactly at the top of my list of preferred leisure activities.

And it wasn’t just dealing with my grandparents—it was dealing with US Airways and TSA and those damn Ziploc bags.

“Shoot me if I ever get too old to travel on my own,” I texted The Wedding Date.  “I mean it.  Seriously.  SHOOT ME.”