It has been my honor and pleasure to know you

Yesterday marked the end of my dance studio career. It was both a long and short tenure, and this past week was also both long and short, and also quite bittersweet.

Me and my replacement ;)

I've been training the new girl, who didn't like it when I called her my "replacement" (because she thought it sounded like she was kicking me out) so we kept using phrases like "picking up the mantle" and "passing the torch". It's all good - semantics - potato, potahto. She's going to be great, but she has a little fear about her first day without me. I have faith; she'll be fine. She's got my contact info if she needs it, but I doubt I'll hear from her right away. I had a good week to train her, and anything we didn't quite get to, she'll figure out. Or, she'll be given an unclear task with unclear instructions, she'll muddle through it and end up fucking it up, and then they'll be clear in how she could have done it right the first time, which, as I've said before, is the SOP for that place. Then I'll hear from her! ;)

My last week was short in the "train the new girl" aspects of it and long in the "students are hugging her goodbye and giving her gifts and acting like they've been best friends all this time, and won't she just go home already?" vibe I felt from certain members of the staff. Tough noogies. I did make a lot of good friends, and no, we did not "fraternize" offsite while I was employed there, but yes, I did honestly say to just about every student who needed a goodbye hug, "It has been my honor and pleasure to know you".

I had wanted to take a lot of selfies yesterday. Most everyone didn't get a selfie with me, just hugs. Thanks to Julie for playing the waltz so that Dr. Joel and I could dance our goodbye.

Sweet Melissa had crocheted a lovely scarf for me, so I did get a selfie of the two of us plus scarf.

At the end of the day, most of the staff had to fly out to San Francisco for a big competition, so a handful of the students said, "hey, let's take emelle out for drinks, since it's no longer considered fraternization, since once she's off the clock, she's not employed here anymore!" to which I responded "Yee-Ha! Let's go!"

A friendly bunch

So we did. We were a small but lively group. I apologize to any present that my salty sailor talk may have offended. Ya didn't know I had a salty sailor's mouth when you only saw me behind the desk, didja? I do. I'm pretty unapologetic about having it, but last night, I may have shocked you, and for that, I am sorry.

(and thank you, Matt, for the foxtrot almost to the door.)

the lawsuit that's waiting to happen

So no more feeling like I'm going to be part of the "lawsuit waiting to happen". No more spending a day in my car for every week I work. No more feeling undervalued for the work I do. No more feeling like my position is not. actually. necessary. It was a good run; it really was. But it is time for me to move on.


When I got home last night (around midnight), I stopped in at the Chuck-E-Cheese parking lot to see if I could meet the 2nd AD of the production that's been base-camping there, and offer my services as a BG actor or PA or anything for the last two days of their shoot on Monday and Tuesday. She was in the production trailer, building her call sheet for Monday, so there obviously (or isn't it obvious? I guess only to those of us in that world), there wouldn't be room for me on Monday. But she did stop long enough to have a short, polite conversation with me, looking at me, and said that I was "EXACTLY" the sort of BG they needed for Tuesday, and wouldn't I just contact ____________ over at Central? (Yes, of course. That was exactly why I walked over to that production trailer in the first place!) So I might be working in the industry already by Tuesday, and I'll have to walk literally one hundred steps from my front door to the lot. Woo Hoo!

my apartment building on the left - base camp in the middle - Chuck-E-Cheese on the right