Writer Recruiter

I’ve had such a productive week, I’m amazed that only a week has passed! I took the positive energy from last Sunday’s writers roulette and channeled into the new search for some “raunchy writers” for the upcoming “Expressing Your Wild Side” roulette.

I attended an open mic, a romance writers’ social, an art opening, a milonga and several tango classes.  All the while, I’ve been handing out flyers to people and leaving them places in visible places.

I even got the bright idea to contact two businesses that I thought would do well, given the theme. All-in-all, I’ve been thinking out of the box to build up the event. One thing I’m surely going to miss when school starts up in the fall is the flexible schedule that I have to do everything that I need to get done in a humanly pace rather than feeling stressed with a million things to do.

This upcoming week, I plan to pay one of the potential vendors a visit since I know the manager’s going to be present. I’ll have to call the other vendor, just to make sure that she received my email with the vendor information. Plus, there’s at least two open mics that I plan to visit.  I like the idea of seeing people perform and recruiting the artists who I want.

I’m also going  to meet a friend for a light dinner then try out a modern dance class.  Of course, I’m going to drop off flyers along the way. These days, I’m always thinking of the roulette and ways to improve it. I think I’ve got the basics covered and I even have my first submission. I’ll be doing very well if I can have all of my writers lined up during the next two weeks.  Although the first show went very well, I want to nuture it into something spectacular.

If You Wanna Do Something Right…

Last year, I dreamed of reading my original work at least once a month; so I prepared about 30 professional-looking press kits, made a list of venues and spent a lot of time driving around and passing them out. Out of all my efforts, I got 2 gigs before I abandoned the mission. This time around, I finally realized that in order to participate in the type of event that I want to be a part of, I have to organize it myself.  So, I’ve spent the past month and a half organizing the Austin Writers Roulette, a monthly cultural event of spoken word, poetry and performance.

It’s been an interesting, constructive way to spend my summer vacation. One thing I loathe about teaching is the beaucratic paperwork involved and yet, I’m now the creator of my own forms in order to organize this event. And like my students, some artists have not taken the time to read, a “short” one-page attachment about participating in the roulette as a performer and/or vendor. However, I take it all in stride since I know, just like teaching at a new school, I’ve got to work out the kinks and adjust my “lesson plans” according to the culture.

I took an 8 am yoga class just to help calm mind nerves, which worked for the first two-thirds of the class, but I became increasingly nauseous toward the end. I managed to stay in the room by doing one set of the last four postures. Once I left the intense heat of the bikram yoga room, the nausea subsided.

In a few hours, I’ll get to see my plan unfold and see where the gaps are. Better than that, I’ll get to emcee my very own event, introducing a line up who I personally recruited and whose material I’ve reviewed for an audience to whom I advertised with the help of social and traditional media.

At this point, all that needs to be done is to set up the chairs, my vending table, and the audio equipment. Come what may, I’m going to take comfort that I’ve done all that I humanly can do to make this first event of many a success. The rest will depend on other people–what a scary thought for a control-freak Virgo like myself!

Return to Civilization

Once again, I had a brush with my latent psychic skills nearly two weeks ago when I first arrived at one of my sister’s house. I normally keep certain items prepacked in my suitcase–wine opener, goggles, camper’s headlamp. For some inexplicable reason, I handed my 11-year-old nephew my headlamp. I proudly boasted that I liked being prepared for all occasions.

Fastforward exactly a week and a line of thunderstorms later, the lights browned, flashed back to normal and repeated.  I’d lived in enough developing countries to know an impending electricity blackout warning when I saw one. I raced to my suitcase and got the headlamp as the lights blinked off. While everyone else ran around the house, I adjusted my headlamp and proudly walked around, lighting the dark rooms until they found their own light source. My nephew grabbed the little flashlight in the TV room, beating his mom to the punch. My father  wore the “emergency” hat he had been given, which came equipped with two little lights built into a cap.

With the background hum of electrical appliances and TVs eerily quiet, we could hear the threatening sounds of mother nature. We all met in the basement, where it was safe and cool. Without any of the distractions of electrical conveniences, we actually began to talk with one another–well, except for me and one of my nieces. I wanted to finish the section of the chapter that I was on.  My niece eventually received all the updated texts from her friends who were also in the emergency storm situation. The phone battery eventually wore down until she had to reconnect with the rest of the family conversation.

Once the storm passed over, we waited another thirty minutes in the basement, but the electricity did not return. My father, who has elevated napping to an art form, was the first to make the trek upstairs to get ready for bed. We were fortunate to still have running water even though we only had a limited amount of hot water. Since the basement was the only cool part of the house, my sister and her family slept on the sofa and made sleeping pallets on the floor. I just slept on my usual roll out bed in the loveseat sofa. Well, “slept” is an optimistic retelling. I was subjected to two versions of competitive snoring and a tiny flashlight, doubling as a night light…I’m a dark room sleeper.

I was pretty bitter when I finally emerged the next morning. The sight of my nephew playing a board game with one of his sisters turned my attitude around. Instead of being spoiled little brats, complaining about the electricity outage, my niece and nephew automatically switched to a nonelectronic form of entertainment. I joined them in the “TV room” to read a book after my breakfast of freshcut fruit.

While the rest of the family took showers, using as little hot water as they could stand, I boasted about being the only clean one, thanks to my habit of showering at night. Yet, the house had begun to heat up and become stuffy; so I figured I wouldn’t have too long to wait before I lost my bragging rights.

I took my father up on his offer to go to the grocery store. The first one we tried was closed due to the power outage. The second one smelled of food about to go bad and had partially stocked shelves. The third one was just right: brightly lit, fully stocked and no funny smells.

We made another outing later in the afternoon, mainly to be in the air-conditioning, wait for the return of the electricity and vie for charging our electronic devices, using the car charger. We figured out that we could charge two phones at once, but the challenge was there were 6 of us. I inwardly laughed at how we were reduced to animals, fighting over a limited resource.

By dinnertime, the electricity still had not returned; so we went out to eat. Again, we competed to charge our phones. This time, I opted out of the competition since my plan was to charge my phone at the restaurant. With my luck, there wasn’t a close outlet to our table, but I encouraged my sister and father to charge their phones near the servers’ station. I figured throughout our entertaining and delicious dinner, two phones would be out of the competition back in the car.

A few hours and too much food later, we waddled out of there. Mom and my sister just had to go shopping afterwards, but I succumbed to a food coma. Just before nodding off, I noticed that the car video monitor had a USB port. I jumped up and tested it out. One of my nieces, who was low on the phone charging list, became excited as well. As soon as her mother returned from shopping, my niece borrowed her mother’s phone cord and plugged in her phone. We all celebrated as if we’d just discovered a vital survival strategy.

We became excited when we noticed that the traffic light closest to home had resumed working. The townhouses closest to the intersection had electricity. Our hopes dimmed as we drove past the dark  townhouses leading up to our house. I anxiously looked through the house windows as we rolled into the driveway. “The kitchen lights are on!” I reported.

We raced throughout the house, turning off unnecessary lights while plugging in our nearly depleted electronic devices. Just like that, we catapulted back into being electronic slaves, abandoning the civilization we’d briefly rediscovered.

All in the Family

This year’s family reunion had a wonderful surprise: pictures of the original twelve Strange siblings, especially my guardian angel since I’ve been traveling around the world and living in Austin, my Papa, Floyd B. Strange.

And I was especially moved to see my grandmother, who married into the Strange family, was the first Avon lady in Cascade, VA, could spin entertaining stories while cooking up delicious food, Mama Bea, Beatrice (Adams) Strange.

As I studied the sepia-toned pictures of my ancestors two generations before me, I was filled with a sadness that I only had a thin volume summary, given the wealth of life experience these twelve siblings and their spouses represented. One result of the closeness of the dozen siblings is that we’ve just celebrated our 71st Strange family reunion.

Last year at the family reunion, I made my novel reading debut, which had been a bit nerve-wracking since I could scarcely find an excerpt that contained kid-friendly language. I chose to read a BBQ scene since it dealt with food, a highlight of our family reunion. I sold several books based on the double-entendre with (meat)balls. As a matter of fact, one of my cousins informed me that she loved reading Tribe of One so much that she completed it in two weeks.  She kept laughing about all of Salome’s antics.

This year, instead of doing another reading, I gave all members of my immediately family a Tribe of One t-shirt in order to “represent.”

Yet the main two reasons I attend our yearly family reunions are to catch up with relatives who I hardly ever talk with throughout the rest of the year and to eat too much delicious food that will take me about a month to exercise off!

Lunch with Amiri Baraka

There are some fabulously creative people here in Austin and occasionally, several of them get together and do wonderful, enlightening things. One such occasion was the special lunch that I attended this past Thursday at 11th Street Station. For the second weekend in a row, the Black Arts Movement festival had lined up a selection of Black artists, starting with political poet, Amiri Baraka.

As usual, the morning had gotten away from me. When my cell alerted me that I had 15 minutes to get to the restaurant, I raced around the apartment to get ready. I put my game face on as I walked to the back room  of the restaurant, but to my relief, Baraka had not arrived. Fortunately, I had a chance to reconnect with another writer and meet a large round table of others.

When our guest of honor finally arrived, most of us local writers, who were mostly poets, had arrived. After taking a brief opinion poll that chicken and waffles were the way to go, Baraka first asked how many of us were published. Then he asked how many of us were self-published. I’ve heard so many mixed messages, concerning self publication, but I was initially surprised by Baraka’s reasoning: institutions never published writers whose work deals with bringing down those very institutions; therefore, it was up to us to make sure that our work is published. He told us about how he had self published his own two-page newspaper back when he was in middle school, writing every copy by hand.

Baraka then wanted to go around the table and hear which poets had influenced us. Fortunately for me, the outspoken writer to my left, suggested that discussion begin with the poets on the other side of the table, which meant that I would blessedly go last. I estimated that I would have at least 30 minutes to think of an intelligent answer.  I felt like one of my students who had not done the reading all along and now the teacher had given us a pop quiz.

Name the poet who has had an influence on my writing?! Now, I occasionally read poetry, but the greatest influence on my writing has been traveling and living in other countries. I write to document significant moments in my life. I write fiction so that the main characters talk and think through the everyday drama of their experiences.

As the enlightening conversation unfolded, my anxiety of being an unprepared student subsided. I sat there, drinking in the other artist’s experiences, which were all the more interesting since we all had the additional connection of being “community caregivers”: teachers, teen counselors, financial counselors for low-income adults, event organizers, anthropology graduate students. 

Baraka led us down another conversational path when he stated that presently, there was a whitewashing of the political history of  the 60s. We all agreed that in general, the quality of education had lowered. One guy, who was orginially from Chicago, testified about the dumbing down of education. As soon as he came to Texas in 1988, he hit a huge barrier of not fitting in. Not unusual for the new kid, but he vividly recalled being teased for using big words, reading a lot and so on.

After he shared his story, I was nearly bursing out of my skin to share my background. I explained that I began writing so I could remember every detail of my Peace Corps service in Tanzania as a Biology and math teacher. I then summarized my international teaching experience and concluded with the fact that I’d taught my students outside the States at a much higher level than what is expected here in Texas despite the zealous emphasis on standardized testing.

Before the lunch had ended, I exchanged information with most of the local artists in order to send them information about the Austin Writers Roulette. The few artists whose information I had not received, I caught up with later that night at Baraka’s performance. Two of the local artists opened for Baraka and I was blown away at how I had never heard of such great talents until that day. I hope they will make time in their busy professional and performance schedules to participate in the roulette.

Once Baraka came to the stage, three local jazz musicians accompanied him–a pianist, an upright bassist and a drummer. Their music provided an aural backdrop that rose, dipped and punctuated the selections Baraka read. He started off with about 20 “low-kus,” which was his variation of haikus. The short pithy poems did not follow any numerical format. My favorite one dealt with the fact that rich people ate more than poor people; so rich people are full of more sh*t. He ended his hourlong performance with an epic poem about 9/11, which occurred when he was poet laureate.  

As beautifully packaged as Baraka’s political, poetic messages were, I also experienced nearly the extreme opposite when I attended Paul Mooney’s performance on Saturday. My friend had wanted to sit closer to the stage, but I did not want to tempt a comedic berating from a man infamous for his raw humor. Although Mooney dabbled with some polticial jokes, such as the ridiculousness of Trump questioning Obama’s citizenship (“Trump forgets that he and Obama both came from a white vagina!”), my personal favorite was, “My grandmother told her granddaughters ‘Don’t you come back home broke ’cause a dry purse and a wet p*ssy don’t go together.'”

Although Mooney never once mentioned Tupac, the bandana around his bald head caused me to recall the political messages of the slain rapper. I don’t believe that association was coincidence.

This weekend was a fantastic reminder that despite the grimness of politics, be it work, local, state, national or global, I can always write about it and share my observations through artistic expressions.

Writers, Writers Everywhere!

Just as touted in my all-time favorite book, The Alchemist, when you pursue your life-long dream, the universe conspires to help you. As soon as got the idea to organize a monthly cultural event, the Austin Writers Roulette, I found myself immersed among people who, in some capacity, could help me achieve this goal.

I quickly got a business partner to help me with the design and social media.  I secured a location and then started recruiting writers to participate. I immediately found writers at parties, art openings, at capoeira, in clubs and just this morning,  at the yoga studio.

These people have always been here. I’ve just not been paying attention, especially when other people are talking and I just happen to be in the near vicinity. Some may call it eavesdropping, but there’s no reasonable expectation of privacy whenever people have a conversation in public. I just politely  introduce myselfand let the writer(s) know about my event.

Every writer who I’ve spoken with thinks I’ve got an interesting event idea, but there’s a distinct mixed reaction about the opportunity to read. Some jump on board and are ready to perform. Others are very interested, but want to watch to see how the event goes first. As much as I’d like to have submissions in advance to choose from, I see that this first show may turn out to be a play-by-ear event. I’ll prepare for as much as I can, but the rest is out of my hands. Both exhilarating and maddening at the same time!

Nonetheless, I’m so grateful that I will have two shows before school begins in order to get my event together.  I’m sure that it’ll take more than two shows before I’m a seasoned event promoter and organizer, but it’s a start.

Even little things, such as typing people’s information into a list on my cell when they don’t have a business card, is a vast improvement. I lamented to my business partner that I’d given my card to several writers who had not emailed me yet so I could send them the information.  My idea was to keep a post-it note and pen on me at all times so I could have them write down their information.  She emailed me back that I should keep a list on my cell.  Brilliant! I already keep a list of books, movies, groceries and paintings, so why not a list of writers? At least this way, I don’t have to wait on them in order to give them the information.

My goal is to get everything all set up as far as the logistics and people before I go out of town in two weeks. As many things that I’ve figured out so far, I’m banking on the fact that the upcoming weeks will be just as productive.

Graduation Day 2012

Usually I only attend a high school graduation if there are a significant number of seniors who I know are walking. After teaching at the same high school for the past three years, my advisory class has finally grown up and walked across the stage. For some seniors, they had one of my science classes for three years in a row, thanks to my ever-changing teaching schedule.

Since I was one of the sponsor teachers, I got to wear the cool black robe, but longed for the magic wand like the teachers at Hogwarts carry! Nonetheless, I was the first teacher to arrive at the Frank Erwin center, where we held the seniors in a holding pen as if they were bulls, waiting to be released. I took advantage of moment by taking pictures with the members of my advisory class who I could find.

If I thought being in that room was a long wait, sitting through the actual ceremony was mind-numbing as different people made speech after speech.

Finally, the ceremony got to the part we’d all been waiting for, the famed walk across the stage. I was so proud as I watched my students walk and I remembered all the times I had to call home just to get them back on track. As a matter of fact, some of the most notorious students I made hug me since, whether they knew it or not, my constant monitoring of their behavior was the only reason they even passed.

It’s almost going to be a brand new student body for me since most of the students I taught this past year were seniors. Of course I don’t know which classes that I’m teaching in the next school year and I’m certainly not curious enough to return to school to find out.  I figure that getting the email with the master schedule will be good enough for me later on in the summer.

Until then, I’m going to take the advice that I gave to the graduating seniors and make the best of what’s to come.

What’s in a Name? Austin Writers Roulette

http://www.facebook.com/events/303758879712204/

Back in December 2010 when I self-published my first novel, Tribe of One, I naively thought that after seven years in the making, the book would be easily promoted through email, blog and readings. I enthusiastically bought audio equipment, talked with my friends, Monica and Gustavo, at Esquina Tango about hosting my reading debut, “Cupid’s Naughty Secrets,” and dropped off press kits at several locations around town to set up future readings.

Although I managed to arrange two other readings at other locations, the whole hustling around town and not hearing back from most places wore me down. Not only that, but the more time I spent trying to arrange readings, the less time I was working on new material and reading/researching. After my third reading event in Austin, I stopped hustling and concentrated on writing my second novel and enjoying the unstructured time of a three-month summer vacation, including making a research trip to Utila, Honduras, where most of the next novel takes place.

School began again in the fall and a lot of my time and energy went into teaching. I still wrote every day and after Christmas when I bought myself a kickass blender to make smoothies and cut down my prep time for my weekly cooking, I discovered that, for once, a time-saving device actually had saved me time. I then began my morning routine of getting myself ready for work,  then sipping my smoothie while writing before work rather than waiting until the evening.

That slight change in schedule truly made a tremendous difference. The need to eke out writing time and headspace after a full day’s activities was eliminated. More of my afterschool time could be dedicated to other pursuits, which felt more natural.

During this past spring break, I took another “stay-cation” and enjoyed a week’s worth of my life as full-time artist. One of the things on my to-do list was file my taxes. I took a deep breath and created an account with a popular on-line tax filing service.

Although I’d paid someone last year to prepare my taxes since I wished to file as a small business owner, I felt confident to do the deed myself this year. By sheer luck, I had chosen to use the “perfect” credit card for charging all my businesses expenses. That particular company made things tremendously easier by offering customers an annual spending report, which broke everything down into categories.

My very Virgo sense of organization also helped. I’d kept nearly every receipt in addition to having the charge accounted for through the credit card report. After I finished going through every tax deduction scenario, I happily saw that I’d receive a refund. I exclaimed to the heavens, “Why aren’t I a millionaire?”

Then and there, I decided to adopt a more business-minded approach to my writing. Instead of reliving the energy-draining hustle of setting up readings, I’d invest my refund in brand Mathdreads, the name of my company.

A few weeks later, the capoeira group I train with provided the first opportunity. Every year, Capoeira Evolucao has a batizado e troca de corda in order to give the first cord to the beginners and the next higher cord to the continuing students. This huge ceremony usually  involves higher cordas from other capoeira groups, including my capoeira teacher’s mestre, Rodrigo.

We raise funds for plane tickets and other accompanying costs to host the batizado. Sponsorship is just one of the ways we raise money. So when I received the email with the sponsorhip information, I immediately filled it out. I then emailed my book’s cover art so it could be added to all the promotional flyers and the official 2012 Capoeira Evolucao batizado t-shirt along with the other sponsors.

With left over refund money , I had Tribe of One t-shirts printed up just in time for the batizado. I set up a table and enjoyed watching my fellow capoeiristas spar higher-level capoeiristas to earn their corda. At the end of a spectacular batizado, a few people bought a book and a t-shirt.

Yet, I knew I could do better. After mulling things over and talking with a friend later that night who also trains capoeira, I came to the realization that in order to get where I wanted to be, I had to organize my own event. I’d no longer waste good energy chasing after venues and events. I’d no longer set up a vendor’s table at events where I wouldn’t read, perform or emcee. After discussing my intentions with two friends, one became the co-organizer and the other a performer.

The three of us knew that in a happening town such as Austin, any night we chose to have the event, we’d be in competition with other cool events going on. I felt that Sunday was the best day for me, especially for a monthly event. Then the phrase “second Sundays” popped into my head. Not only did that fit well for my personal schedule, but it was also a good time to book the capoeira studio in the evenings.

Unfortunately, “second Sunday” was a popularly used name as my co-organizer, Carmen, pointed out. We both wrestled with names and volleyed each other possible names that the other politely shot down. I thought my best one was “Mariposa Verbosa,” which Carmen thought was funny, but one problem with a Spanish event name  is that it may mislead attendees that the event would be in Spanish.

I confessed to Carmen that I had far more success naming books, poems and short stories than I did this event, primarily because the theme would change every month. As both a surrender and compromise, we settled on the name “Austin Writers Roulette.”

Now that we have an event name, we can busy ourselves with recruiting talent and advertisting. I love unleashing this creative entity just in time to fully enjoy my summer.

A Circle Has No Corners

Recently at a party held for capoeiristas, a Brazilian martial art form, I overheard one of our capoeira instructors giving advice to someone who was new to the practice. The instructor explained that each player must travel around the roda (circle) without stopping or else he/she will become an unmoving target. Since capoeira is played inside a circle of people, mostly other capoeiristas, who are singing, clapping and playing instruments, the two capoeiristas must outwit and out maneuver each other within that space. One of the newbie’s problems was that he kept getting pushed outwards toward the edge of the circle and crouching down like a trapped animal.

The instructor burst out with a brillant wise smile and told him, “A circle has no corners.” The immediate lesson of that advice is that when playing capoeira, you should never be trapped since you can always find a way out of the situation. I loved the mathematical correctness of the logic.

Just a few nights after the party, when faced with another bout of insomnia, that expression returned to my sleep-deprived mind. Within life, there are many circles. From the small circle of my morning routine to the big circle of  human development, passing through stages from newborn to elderly. Even the irritating circles of my behavior where I wind up in the same deadend places after seemingly doing things differently.

Insomnia is one such place. Despite popular belief, I work out at least five times a week not merely to stay in shape, but to sleep well at night. I’ve never resorted to using sleeping pills, pretty much for the same reason I’ve never drank coffee to wake up. I figure if there’s something challenging my sleep/wake cycle (another circle!), then I need to change some aspect of my life.

A circle has no corners…what a beautiful analogy! My mind filled with life’s challenges that had me along the sides of the circle. I thought through what maneuvers I needed to do to return to the center. I’d be lying if I said that THE SOLUTION came to me in a flash, but I fell asleep and stayed asleep until my alarm went off.

Refreshed, I daydreamed about some different directions I could take my life, especially writing. A few hours after being at work, two writing opportunities came to me via email. One I dismissed after further investigation, but the other, I pounced on. Just like when playing capoeira: sometimes you feint, other times, you follow through.

As long as you keep moving or making progress, then you will never be trapped. The circle can enlarge or shrink. You can be inside the circle, part of it or an outsider. Just like a capoeirista can manuever her way toward the center of the roda, you also do not need to surrender to the marginalizing mechanisms in life. The “corners” only exist in your mind.

2012 Batizado e Troca de Corda

For most capoeira groups, the yearly batizado e troca de corda is their biggest event. A batizado is a capoeirista’s official induction or baptism into the Brazilian culture of training capoeira.  A troca de corda is a change of cords, going to the next highest one as recognition for all the training that a capoeirista as undergone to advance his/her game, including singing and playing capoeira music for the more advanced students.

The three days of workshops with guest instructors, including the day of the big event, is an intense time of high energy and anxiety. Our capoeira teacher’s teacher, Mestre Rodrigo, comes into town along with other respected capoeirista teachers who are either part of our lineage, trained with us or who invites our higher cordas to their batizado. This is all to ensure that students are given plenty of opportunity before the event to sharpen their skills and pick up at least one new movement out of the sea of new things being presented in the workshops.

This year was the first time in the three years that I’ve been a member of Capoeira Evolucao that I’ve been in town during the batizado. Due to a myriad of reasons, mostly excuses, I’ve not been motivated to train as seriously as one needs to in order to receive my next corda. As a matter of fact, I usually attend class with the attitude that I want to maintain my physical and mental health in a social setting with positive people. Not a bad ambition, actually!

Yet this year, as one of the proud sponsors of Capoeira Evolucao, I set up a table where I displayed my book, Tribe of One, along with t-shirts that had my book cover on it. As the event unfolded, many people stopped by my table, seeking batizado t-shirts–some even handed me their money and told me what size they needed!  I know in the future that we need to have all available items for sale in the same area. Although I sold some books at the very end of the batizado, I could tell that some people were a little confused that my book had nothing to do with capoeira. I’d tell them that I was a sponsor and also a capoeirista myself, which cleared up the confusion.

As fate would have it, I’d spent nearly a month and a half getting my technological act together in order to accept credit cards and everyone paid in cash! In the long run, I’m better off having the capabilities to accept both forms of payment, but a part of me is a wee bit disappointed not to play with my new business toy during our big event.

Outside of the intense training and the exhilarating  batizado, we capoeiristas had a good time just socializing. For me, that started Saturday morning for the waffles breakfast, which two capoeiristas who used to train with us hosted.

Several of the other sponsors were restaurants, which the group visited on different nights for dinner. So, I was the first one at the sponsoring restaurant after the batizado. As other people showed up, all of the instructors who tested the batizado participants, sat in a private room in the restaurant while the rest of us filled the tables on the patio, snacking on complimentary yucca fries and pão de queijo (cheese rolls). Delicious appetizers, but my hunger wasn’t fully satisfied until I finished devouring my entree: rainbow trout fillet with mashed potatoes, spinach and cream sauce.

I caught wind of some female capoeiristas’ plans to “get hoochie” for the after party, hosted by a fellow capoeirista and his roommate. I never like being the ugly stepsister; so I put on one of my favorite slinky salsa/tango dresses, pulled back my hair and took the trouble to wear jewelry and lipstick. Every now and again, I enjoy playing dress up. People hardly recognized me!

Although I swore I’d not stay out until 2 am, I lost track of time. I was highly entertained by all the batizado war stories, dancing and even a game of limbo broke out. I finally snuck out a little after 2 without making the customary round of kissing cheeks. 

Amazing enough, I still made it to my 10 am bikram yoga class. Fortunately, the room wasn’t extra hot. I felt the effects of drinking a bit more than my usual glass of red wine from the night before. At least I had the opportunity to detox…just in time for the capoeirista BBQ.

Another capoeirista and her family opened their wonderful back yard to us. The smell of BBQ hung in the air and as people arrived, we had a stream of new buffet side dishes. My “Mexican style” cornbread didn’t last too long and the yogurt parfait station that I helped set up was a big hit as well. I knew not to stuff myself because what my capoeira teacher normally barbeques the best cut of meat last–after people have eaten a lot of other food so he can take most of the good stuff home. It’s still an effective game plan since we usually come hungry.

Many capoeiristas took advantage of the opportunity to practice playing instruments and singing. Others relived exciting moments of their childhood by jumping on the trampoline and playing with hula hoops. I stuck with eating, drinking and socializing. I didn’t want to challenge my digestive system any more than overeating and sipping cachaça (Brazilian sugar cane rum) were already doing.

Well satiated, I gathered my glass casserole pan, which was full of cornbread crumbs, kissed cheeks on my way from the back yard to the kitchen to clean my pan and left.

As much as I’d indulged this weekend, the best remedy to set things right will be training capoeira on Monday. It’ll be glorious to be among all the shiny new cordas.