But what keeps it fascinating and fun, in a visceral way? Costumes. I belong to an amazing website<\/a> that has a costume swap meet as well as all the bellydance conversation you can eat. Every day some diva lists a costume she is selling, and it goes something like this: “hot pink, all sparkles, circle skirt, gauntlets, made in Cairo…” If it is my size, I am in trouble. When I first joined Bhuz, I bought one pale pink costume<\/a>. A second, a pale green, I swapped immediately because it was not flattering, and I bought my hot pink and coral Hanan<\/a> with that money. Then I ordered my Safti<\/a>, custom-tailored.<\/p>\n I was happy with those for awhile, and still I love them and I rotate each one when I perform (Ned and Nat are my audience. Nat is an unabashed fan; the other two boys stay far away.). But variety is the spice of life, n’est-ce pas? And yet, guilt is the meat of life, or perhaps the vegetables, the conscience. So I kept telling myself, “You can’t buy anymore costumes because you are not a real performer.”<\/p>\n Then I realized that that was as stupid as when I used to say to myself, “You’re not a real writer because you are not published;” or “because you don’t get paid.” Why do we set ourselves up for undermining?<\/p>\n I have an audience of two. I perform seriously for them. Right now, that is the best I can do. But why not treat myself to a new cossie every now and then?<\/p>\n So I satisfied my voracious hunger for new colors and beads and I bought this turquoise number that is totally over-the-top (and yet fits perfectly on-the-top). They say you have to feed your soul. I have no problem with that; sometimes I feel like I have to put my soul on a diet, it has become so gluttonous. Aside from hanging out with my boyz and my man, my friends, my sister, my laptop, and my fleurs, the thing that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-ea","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/susansenator.com\/blog\/uploaded_images\/cossie-778852.jpg\")
<\/a>It has long fringe and tons of chunky beadwork. A long, trumpet-shaped crocheted and sequined turquoise overskirt and frothy blue chiffon circle skirt underneath. Turquoise crocheted gauntlets (sleeves). It is a vintage Dahlal<\/a>, the very best costume designer. Only I did not pay Dahlal prices, because this cossie is gently used. But aren’t we all, in one way or another?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"