My Baby turns 1!

Daydreaming again, she love staring out the window

So my little girl turned 1 today. I can't believe it! I have had her for 9 months that seems bizarre in itself! I tried to do something for her, but its hard to do something special for a kitty, no wait, a cat (wow I don't think I will be able to switch from saying Kitty to Cat) but what do you do for a kitty that has way to many toys, doesn't like human food and the only treats she likes I already feed her everyday. So I gave her some salmon wet food (which I only give her once a week usually) and bought new treats, which she wont eat, wah wahh!

So I guess Gerti is not an animal that is easy to party with... I wish...but I guess holding her and kissing her over and over will do, although I think she is getting annoyed with that as well!

But I just wanted to share with everyone's Gerti's big first birthday... I think I will help celebrate by making myself some salmon for dinner tonight.

My Little love bug and me :)

This one goes out to my mom!

Lunch break in LA

So Last week I received this email while I was at work:

Hi Baby,

Just thought I would write and tell you that your blog is getting a little boring!!! Note to self: People who are uber busy should not start blogs!! ; )

I LOVE YOU!!!!

Mom

I cracked up laughing reading this email and preceded to read it to my co-workers, who then informed me that my mother is hilarious, and also has a point. That day I kept telling myself, “I must write on my blog tonight!” I walked home (yep I walk to work now! Yippie!) thinking about what I would write about had all these great ideas, but of course as soon as I walked in the door I started playing with the cat and dog, made some dinner, did some unpacking and 4 days later, still haven’t written on the blog. Then my mother brought it up on the phone informing me that my blog is STILL boring…well no one wants to be boring (mom!) so here you go, this one goes out to you! Xo

Yes, it has been about 2 months since my last post and those 2 months were full, stressful, fulfilling, frustrating and so much more. I keep telling myself that once the month I am in is over, things will slow down… May was suppose to be the month that things started to slow down, but 10 days in and I haven’t touched the brakes yet, not even tapped. Why am I not surprised?

There seems to have been too much that has gone on for me to really give a full rundown of events, but the big things that have happened:

Performance for HNDC at ODC Theater
Performance for LABDP in Santa Monica at Highways Performance space
Taxes
Apartment Searched
Apartment Searched some more
Packed up my Oakland Apt (I had 4 days from the time I got back from my tour to LA)
MOVED to SF!
Trained/ training in Yoga and Pilates (besides rehearsals, dance classes, performance, and more rehearsals)
May Issue of In Dance (our biggest issue of the year at work…so much work went into that, for those of you who read In Dance, I did all the ads and the Summer Workshop Guide!)
…

Okay, so that list doesn’t seem to be that long or crazy, but being in it felt like a whirlwind. A big change for me in the past 2 months is that I had to put others aside and really focus on me. Don’t get me wrong, I still did for others, but for the first time in a long time my focus was more on me and what I needed. I stopped focusing on others for a little while and let me tell you, focusing on yourself is hard. I became tired of myself and all my stress, I enjoy life a lot more when I can deal with other peoples bull shit vs my own. On the flip side though, the past 2 months have taught me a lot about how to monitor how much energy goes to others and how much goes to me. I think that at age 24 I still struggle with finding me time. I use to love living by myself because that would be my time, my space etc. But since moving to California I have quickly realized the impossible task of living by yourself in this city, its just too gosh darn expensive. So my house is no longer just mine, I have to worry about keeping it clean and presentable for not just me but my roommates, my animal and myself. And, when I lived by myself, I wasn’t working 50 million jobs trying to keep my head above the water, so it was easy to take some time to just relax.

My little day dream believe looking out our 5th story view for a last few moments before we moved

On May 1st, I hired movers who packed up a truck in Oakland, sat in 45 min worth of bridge traffic over the Bay and then unpacked my truck in San Francisco. (These movers were amazing and really relived stress) I moved into a cute little apartment on Henry St in San Francisco in a neighborhood called Dobose Triangle. It is on the edge of the Castro, which is were all my amazing Gay boys are ! You know Harvey Milk and the movie Milk (Gay rights activist in the 70’s and ran for office)? It all took place around my neighborhood, in fact I live just blocks for the Harvey Milk Center!

I moved in with 2 men, Steve and Frank. Steve is a straight man in his 30s who works for a video game company testing and producing video games. He has a dog named Millie, who I love, drives a motorcycle and he is about 80% covered in amazing tattoos, he was on Season 1 episode 5 of LA Inked if you care to see him (he got his old cat, Buddy, tattooed on his leg!) Steve has lived in SF for about 16 years and has lived in our apartment for 12 years. Steve and I get along super well. He has taken me for motercycle rides, out for sushi and tonight i made dinner and we sat in the kitchen eating and talking. I really am enjoying his company and living in such a respectful environment. Frank is the other roommate. He is a Gay man in his early 40’s I’d say and is from Puerto Rico. He works at the Science of Arts Academy as an IT guy in the Lab. He doesn’t really ever leave his room so I really only have sightings of him, but he is very friendly and loves the animals. I really lucked out with good roommates, that s for sure. The funny thing is that their craigslist ad said “someone 26 or older, and no other animals” I decided to write anyway explaining that I surround myself with older people and I have the best kitty in the whole world, so I would love the chance to meet them etc. They wrote back right away saying anyone who is that confident to ignore our request seems like someone we should meet, I meet them and on the spot they asked me to move in! I accepted the next day.

Millie is our dog who loves to cuddle up on my chair. I LOVE this dog!

I have a decent size room (that is still stuffed full) but I love it. I walk to work, I walk to rehearsal, to dance, to the store etc. The worst part of it all is parking my gosh darn car. Because I haven’t spent the hundreds of dollars to get CA license plates, I can’t get resident tags, which means that I can’t park by my house because if I don’t have tags its 2 hour parking zones. Therefore I have to park about a mile away by a park that has not hour limit to park, just Weekly Street cleaning. A mile a way is a piece of cake, no problem, but then you have to ad the fact of SF land into the picture and that’s where it kills me, I have to walk a mile UPHILL to get to my car, not just a little hill but a big hill, so steep that the sidewalks are actually steps because its too much of an angle to get up without the steps! No one can tell me that I don’t exercise after climbing that hill multiple times a week.

See those houses down below, I live down there, I am half way up the hill to my car in the picture... the hill is so steep you can't even see it...I lose breath just thinking about that walk! :)

I’m currently in preparation for a tour to Chicago! My last tour for a few months at least! It will be nice to not have to travel so much, that’s for sure. It has been amazing having shows in multiple cities, but its hard being away from work and lets face it, I hate leaving Gerti behind! David Herrera Performance Company sets off to Chicago on May 23rd (well 3 of us do) with the rest of the company following on the 25th. We will be performing “A slice of Americana” at Links Hall in Chicago May 27-30. It is just an excerpt/ preview of what we will premier in San Francisco Fall 2010. Along with us will be RAW Dance, another SF company performing a duet and 2 solos. I am very excited to be back to my city performing! It’s a nice vaca to see the family, friends and dance!

My ribs are healing for sure. I am training intensely in pilates and yoga along with dancing. I feel like I am coming back stronger and smarter. I will be participating in Ledges and Bones Summer Workshops in LA and SF as well and will really get my butt in shape. Holly, the artistic director seems to be really dedicated in my healing process and getting me back to full performance capability! I feel like 2011 will be my year! I want to be healthy and strong and performing to the best of my capability.

Well, there is more to be said I am sure, but I guess I should save something for all my future blogs :) Don't want to get boring or anything! Thanks Mom for pointing out that I fail at blogs, and thanks for being patient as I get my life back together. For all you Chicagoans, I will see you in 2 weeks! yippie!

Pictures of my apartment coming soon! promise!

xo