Why I don't dance...

Oh this weekend will be action-packed, dear readers, and if my weary, exhausted, insomnia-addled carcass can make it through without incident I shall be one happy (and lucky) lady indeed.  Tonight, nothing special, just a quiet night at home with my sweetheart.  Tomorrow afternoon, I join Jane and Cec and 'mystery guest' (Matt can't go, so I'm not sure who is coming instead) to watch the Jays pummel the Devil Rays at the Sky Dome (pfft... Rogers Centre... it will always be the Sky Dome to me).  Sunday afternoon we reconvene in Mississauga to watch the 24th Street Wailers play not one, but two sets at the Southside Shuffle, a gig they scored after winning the Toronto Blues Society Talent Search.  (The band promises 'two sets of entirely original music written by the band members, most of which has never been performed live', which is exciting in itself).  To top it all off, I will fulfill a small dream that evening by watching in awe as Johnny Winter plays some face-melting blues guitar.  Sounds pretty sweet, no?

'Hey darlin', can I buy you a couple of drinks?'

However, Saturday night will certainly be the party night; the night to get embarrassingly drunk, cut loose, and leave my troubles at the door for a few hours - and I will be welcoming it with open arms.  On Saturday night, I will get all dolled up - as best I can, anyways - and help Matt's aunt Maggie (that beloved, wily, blog-inducing librarian... ha ha) celebrate her FIFTIETH birthday.  How will I help?  I will join Maggie to watch the much-lauded 'Weber Brothers' and drink too much at the historic 'Red Dog Tavern' in Peterborough.  She needs help with that, because she's just so damn old now, you see... ha ha

'Lookin' for Mr. Goodbar? Here he is...'

I have never seen the Weber Brothers, but Maggie gushes about them so much, and follows them around with a fervour bordering on groupie-dom, so I am positive that I will have a good time.  Besides, any excuse to get dressed up all purdy, to drink and eat and laugh a lot, all while listening to live music, is always a good time, in my opinion, so I am rarely one to turn down an invite to such an event - I know a good thing when I see it.

But there will be dancing. *sigh*  I hate dancing.  Don't even bother asking me, because it's just not gonna happen.  Don't get me wrong, I do feel that spark induced by seeing a live band that makes you want to get up and move.  I'm not a robot; not a machine (DEFINITELY not a 'dancing machine', anyways).  I do bop along in my seat and tap my toes and all that good stuff, and I do so while screaming wildly with a big stupid grin on my face.  But dancing?  Actually getting up and gyrating or contorting my graceless body into strange unnatural positions that I would never ever make in the real world?  Not on your life.  Maybe if it's a slow one.  Maybe.  I went to middle school; I can put my sweaty hands on my guy's shoulders and twirl slowly in a circle with the best of them.  But nothing more.

'Wait a minute, I've got it... you're an Italian'

It doesn't bother me when OTHER people dance.  I don't envy them their dancing prowess or wish I could gyrate like that too... and I certainly don't criticize them or make fun of them for wanting to dance or for whatever particular steps they have chosen to satisfy this need (well... certain exceptions must be made on that one... ha ha).  But no, I don't dance. 

First of all, I CAN'T dance.  I know everyone will say 'how do you know you can't dance if you don't try?'  Well, I just know, ok?  I don't want to try.  In my opinion, if you have no actual strong desire to do something, it is unlikely that you will ever really be good at it, unless you have some sort of supernatural gift, and I know enough about my dancing skills to know that I am not gifted in that particular area.  It is not that I'm shy, either.  I'm not.  Or that I am weirded out by having people look at me.  You don't get very far in life with bright red hair and twenty-plus tattoos if being stared at makes you uncomfortable.

'Huh?  You're Jewish?  Oh... love your nails, you must be a Libra'

It's just that, watching people dance or attempting to dance myself, I can't help but laugh.  I am bound to crack up sooner or later.  I have a very vivid imagination; I always have.  Before too long, my mind strays until all I see in my head is a streaming 'National Geographic' montage of the showy, exaggerated mating rituals of so many birds - birds of all size and shape - primping and preening and strutting around their potential mates.  These mental images are inevitable, so I therefore try to avoid dancing at all costs. 

So yeah... when I'm sitting in my seat, beer in hand, smiling to beat the band, and watching people dancing, I'm really watching Blue-Footed Boobies... Lesser Prairie Chickens... Cockatiels.  I know I won't hurt Maggie's feelings this weekend when I don't dance at her party.  Maggie is a non-dancer too (maybe that's one of the reasons we get along so well)  Who knows, maybe she also has these visions... 

If she didn't before, she will now... ha ha

'Your place or mine?'

(Thanks to Frank Zappa for the captions, by the way...)