Qualified and Still Laughing

Now I love to dance, but just as one might love to eat bacon three times a day for extended periods of time, it's rarely a good idea to let love get away from you like that. That's the kind of love you have to keep a strong grip on, natch? It may be laudable at times to have the power to clear a twelve-foot berth on the dance floor with one's hips, but it's been my general experience that doing so and surviving the crowd's censure usually requires a barfight, a hail storm outside, a broken stiletto, or some other natural disaster. In short, I usually reserve my peculiar mix of interpretive dance, modern ballet, and my patented roll-your-hips-around-to-the-right-and-forget-to-roll-back-down-to-the-left-three-legged-toe-hop for my kitchen, which has nicely tiled floors perfect for sliding around on.

Kim was right to be concerned, then, about the reception my dance moves would get on the Philadelphian dance floors when we popped in there last spring. I'm sure it wasn't so much that she was wary of being left alone on the dance floor with some Army recruits as much as it was her concern that I have a good time regardless of who got taken out when I bent over to the front and touched my toes, so she did what any good friend would do: staged a dance party for two in her dorm room at the time and took matters into her own hands. The first problem Kim faced? I didn't know the music. "Who is this?" "N'Sync." Can you hear the exasperation, oh my people? Second problem: my rhythm. Because I've got rhythm, yes, I do, and God said it was very good -- but He's the only one in my corner. I can still see it: we're both glistening, Gillian is nowhere to be found, we've pushed the futon back, and Kim's in control:

"Okay, have a spin by yourself. Now try to find the beat, and then just move along to it. Good. Good. Hm. Well. Is that the best you can give me, soldier? Don't answer that. Oh! That was almost -- something. Interesting. Song over."

I turned to her to learn my fate.

"Well," quoth she, "you found a rhythm. Unfortunately, it wasn't the right one." I'd like to say we got the kinks worked out, but -- y'all know me. I can't walk without falling, let alone differentiate between the two-step and the Peanut Butter and Jelly, with that last one being a shout-out to my cousin Christopher who swears that there is such a dance move in the hip halls of West Palm Beach.

So the moral is I just have fun out there and take the comments as they come. I have my moments, just like the rest of us whities (Krishnan, represent!), but it's like one of my first-graders told me a few summers ago after watching the staff practice our routine for the upcoming talent show: "Miz Jessca, you is white. You is the whitest white girl I ever seen. But you know what, Miz Jessca? That's okay, because you so white you almost black all over again." I mean, yeah. When it's just you and me and five of our closest girl friends and the music's good, we're all the same. Get your butt out there and pray they turn the lights down low -- off, preferably -- that's my motto. I have definitely heard my share of witty remarks about the matter, however. Here's the newest, straight from post-finals Friday night festivities, courtesy of Dan S.:

"You are a really good dancer.* No, shut up! Really!* I had fun at Antua Nua! What, you don't believe me? Would I lie to you?* I mean, you are a really good dancer.** No, really! Why are you laughing?* It's not funny; I really mean it!*"

Pause.*

"Okay, okay. What I mean is you're a really good dancer, considering,* you know, how you grew up in a cultural bubble listening only to classical music and Billy Graham. And, you know, are Caucasian.**"

*Interject my disbelieving laughter.
**Interject me wiping my eyes. Sometimes I love being the DD.