Or ... maybe not ...

... yet.

I've just been offered three shows in two days, shows with people I like and respect as artists, projects I actually want to do. Projects in New York. Projects well into the beginning of 2006. I will even get money for them. THis is like resolving to leave your boyfriend and having him come weeping at your threshold, cajoling you to take him back, just one more time ...
And you want to.
You want to throw yourself at him, rip his clothes off with your teeth, and forget every humiliation you made yourself ever go through because of him. Because, perhaps, of what you saw yourself to be while with him -- but is that really your fault?
And you're happy. You're happy with the idea that you could have not one but three excuses to linger on, living this half-life, dreaming of discovery, and failing which, at least a six-pack with which to nab a rich husband and deliver his babies if it all came to that.
And this is the most irrational of loves or fantasies. There's not even enough money to go around in the dance industry to imagine 'making it' and being rich. Sandra Bullock worked at an ice cream palour for two years, eating ice cream day in and day out because she couldn't afford to buy outside food. Now, she makes $20 mil a movie. (Thanks, Tami Chiu and US Weekly for this information) This cannot exist in the dance world. Here, you dream of dancing your guts out, of taking a literal beating to your body for a living (honestly, this is what my quads feel like today), so you can find a choreographer who would do this to you even more. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised I attempted playing rugby in my freshman year -- both activities draw blood.
Let me do myself some justice, though, with revealing what is the real dream -- the real dream is to work with a visionary and to be involved in the production of a cultural artefact that is ... interesting, enlivening, fucking revolutionary. It's to be involved in something that changes how people see their world. Yes: visionary is the dream.
I no longer feel reactionarily defensive about my country v. American behemoth. Obviously, some dreams, like Singapore qualifying for the World Cup by 2012, or New York hosting the summer Olympics, cannot be fulfilled under certain circumstances. Can Melinda grow, *as a dancer*, amongst 4 million people, with no significant contemporary choreographers to speak of? OR DO I JUST NOT KNOW? AND I WILL NEVER KNOW, JUST LIKE I NEVER KNEW ABOUT NEW YORK, UNTIL I FIND OUT FOR MYSELF.

So ... is it time?





Oh, and I was wrong -- in our language of signage, I mistook the fact that the baby was born at 2 am for my impression that there were born two babies. There is, in fact, only one. And she and Mother are back in the home -- let's hope I might get some sleep amidst the crucifying heat and the noise.