I am taking dancing lessons.
It was my idea.
In the School of Dance, I wear the Dunce Capezios. I take my own private small bus to the studio. When Karen, our personal instructor, tells me to put my left foot forward, I have to hop. I can't dance. I have never been able to, and I have always been okay with that. I have never desired to go out and dance. I believe it was Emma Goldman who said, "If I can't dance, then I want no part of your revolution." What a wonderful sentiment, however, my feeling has always been that if I can't sit on a bar stool and drink Irish whiskey for eleven hours, then I want no part of your revolution. I danced once, about ten years ago. It was at a Cibo Matto show at the Crocodile in Seattle, but as I recall, all I really did was jump up and down. I was high on ecstacy. I have always been a great admirer of Gene Kelly, and I love enormous dance numbers in movies. I weep with joy when I watch "Strictly Ballroom." And yet I have no desire to be a dancer myself.
That is until now. I am determined to not look like a total moron when I have my first dance with my wife. There is something glorious about watching two people move in synch, with focus and precision, and now, after thirty-two years of being a wallflower, I see that it is my time to shine. Our time, really, but this is going to be way less difficult for her. Over the next seventy-five days I will mold myself into something Swayzesque so that Angela and I will glide with style and grace to The Cramps cover of the Charlie Feathers classic "I Can't Hardly Stand It." Everyone in attendence will be blown away, while I silently pray that I don't hurt myself or my bride.
But I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Today we spent an hour walking in a box. It was really fucking challenging. There is all this lining up we have to do, and a frame for me to maintain, and muscle memory to build. And I'm supposed to lead. I don't do those sorts of things. I'd be happy just doing the Groucho dance, but I'm told it is not very romantic, so this Foxtrotting Two-Step thing will have to do. In pursuit of this, I spent the better part of an hour staring into my beloved's eyes repeating "quick, quick... slow" in my head. It's my new mantra. It is a device dance instructors give you to time your steps. I have been saying it all day. Just walking around. I want it to sink in and become part of me. Quick. Quick...Slow.
I can see her smiling back at me as I say it: quick, quick... slow. I feel it beginning to find purchase.
