Lucy Who's Cardboard TARDIS

I work in a faraway land called Brooklyn, in a building that I have to assume is made out of cardboard. I say this because the walls are so thin that I can hear everything. Like long discussions on the merits/shortcomings of various coworkers. I also swear I can hear the occasional euphemistic "struggle" from the bathroom on the far side of the building.

While waiting to be fingerprinted I have a desk job…minus the desk. With no fixed office home, I spend the day surfing between whichever computer happens to be free for a moment. During the two hours or so in which I was at “Lucy” ‘s desk, a coworker walked in, saw me sitting at Lucy’s desk, and said, “Lucy?”

Before I continue, let me stress that Lucy and this woman are long-term employees, and know each other. But she said “Lucy?” the way you’d say it if you bumped into Lucy after she had gotten a peculiar haircut, as in, “Is that really you, Lucy? What the actual eff have you done with your hair?” (Except the second part of that is kept to yourself.) Only this time, Lucy not only got a weird haircut, but also morphed from a confident black woman into a neurotic white jackass.

The “Lucy” was one of genuine confusion. The rational response to seeing me at Lucy’s desk would be to say, “Oh, is Lucy not in today?” Not, as happened here, to stare at me as though I could be a new form of Lucy. A regeneration if you will, like the Doctor. Yes, I am the 9^th Lucy. The 10^th Lucy will be portrayed by David Tennant when the 9^th Lucy is forced to regenerate after sacrificing herself to save the receptionist from a tragic filing cabinet accident, in which the safety mechanism malfunctioned and two drawers were able to be opened at the same time, causing a tear in the very fabric of space.

Such was the conviction of her “Lucy?” that I began to wonder if maybe I really was Lucy, and I nearly said, “Yes.” Instead we had a long silence in which we stared at each other from across the room, me in a throne-like chair with wheels behind someone else’s fine wood desk and her in the doorway holding a stack of files, to the music of the ticking clock and the buzzing fluorescent lights. And I really mean staring. Intense, unbreaking eye-contact, both of us fully aware of it and not sure how to proceed.

I’m not sure how things ended. Perhaps the other lady committed hara-kiri when I finally broke eye-contact. And so I was left alone again, updating children’s medical charts and entering in the dates on which they received their polio vaccinations.

In a misguided attempt to stay sane, when I enter this information I pretend that I am personally responsible for the eradication of polio in the western world. In my head legions of men with swords follow behind me into battle to a stirring trumpet score by John Williams while I charge forward, waving a crusader cross banner and yelling, “NO ONE IS GONNA DIE FROM POLIOOOOOOOOO!” …as I silently stare at the screen and move nothing but two fingers on my right hand to punch in the numbers for hours on end, like a gamer minus the Mountain Dew.

I suppose that’s the depressing thing about saving the world. It seems like no matter how badly you want to save the world, the world always wants you to do data entry. You yell at the world, “Let me love you!” and the world responds, “Um, ok, that’s nice.” Awkward pause. “Fold this towel, I guess?”

The Brunch, Church, and My Social Anxiety

Some days I get really bored of meditating upon new things to which my body odor can be likened (today’s simile: a stale fortune cookie) and going for long sobbing sessions drives. Because these things are, of course, how one occupies one’s time (in addition to a never-ending stream of pointless job applications) when one is unemployed.

In an effort to get me out of the house and, more importantly, out of the dirty pajamas I call my mope rags, my mother suggested signing up for a class. Her reasoning is that any normal person would make friends. And she’s right, but unfortunately I’m not a normal person. I would say that I’ve forgotten how to make friends and socialize, but that would imply that I knew how at one point.

See, I’ve signed up for this theology class a local church. Before our lecture and discussion, we are expected to have dinner with each other in the parish hall, a dinner which, if you know anything about me, is complete agony. I honestly cannot remember how I have ever managed to make friends, and indeed sitting through these weekly dinners that are like a Greatest Hits album of my gaffes has made me seriously wonder whether the people I think are my friends are, in fact, imaginary.

I wish I knew how to show these people how desperately I’d love for them to tell me about their day, using a method that does not involve asking accidentally personal questions about their work in a voice several octaves higher than my actual speaking voice. I try to fill our many awkward silences with a friendly smile to show how open I am, but instead I smile the near-hysterical forced smile of someone who has just farted in polite company and is hoping to God that no one heard it. When conversation has been paired away from me, I drink obscene amounts of water simply so I have something to do with my hands. Other times I give up and pick a spot on the wall, stare at it with a forced serene expression on my face, and wonder why this is supposed to be better than sitting at home in my underpants and crying.

The worst is when one of the priests comes to the table, because they use a Scream movie entrance rather than a Jaws approach. That is to say, none of them wear clerical gear, so you don’t notice them slowly but surely making their way towards your table, which would allow you to prepare for their arrival.  Instead you casually look to your left, jump about five feet in the air, let slip an expletive, and say hello to the priest that was definitely not sitting next to you just a second ago. But why would you need warning for a priest anyway?

Well, only a minute before you were treading water in a sea of people with actual social skills, and then all of the sudden without warning the priest, who as a priest is naturally the only other person in the room whose social ineptitude can even begin to compare to yours, comes up and starts talking to you. There is at least some hope of normalcy when I talk with the other people, but now suddenly the conversation becomes the verbal equivalent of two fat people trying to come through a doorway at the same time.

If dinner isn’t alienating enough, the post-lecture discussion does a great job of making me feel more foreign than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m not entirely sure which country I think I’m from, but I think we can safely assume no one has heard of it. It’s not just my social awkwardness, it’s also the content: they talk about heaven as social justice and replace God with a vague “higher power,” apparently everyone’s been canonized, and we listen to the Gospel according to Maya Angelou. It’s all so foreign to me that I would have an easier time if they instead talked about Malian butt hygiene.

I could have given up socially, but I’m stubborn. Pioneer spirit, American can-do attitude and all that. I like to think of myself as a one-woman Titanic band, if the Titanic band had sobbed hysterically while nonetheless sticking to their guns by going down with the ship. And so what does the one-woman Titanic band do?

She signs up to serve at the parish brunch. I figured I would have a purpose, and I could make small talk but would also not be weird for being quiet. And, best of all, I’d have something to do with my hands. THIS would be my social in, I declared.

When I walked in to serve brunch and discovered my role for the morning, I am convinced that Satan and Hitler were sitting on a couch somewhere in Hell, having a fantastic laugh about it. Hitler actually laughed so hard that he snorted, got really embarrassed, and had to tell Satan to stop making fun of him. See, I had been placed in the position of “kitchen runner.” That is, I had to stand awkwardly (well, the awkwardly part was optional, but I like to go big in all my roles) to the side and watch other people serve other people. Should any buffet server run out of food—which, I must stress, did not happen—I was to go to the kitchen to bring more out. But mostly I was to just stand awkwardly to the side.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re uncomfortable and have nothing to do with your hands you suddenly turn into an octopus? It’s like all of you is just a blob of hands, knocking into things, touching your face, shaking violently. It seemed like every time I tried to casually ignore one of my hands it would suddenly become five hands, and if any of those new hands were ignored they would then turn into even more hands. Hands everywhere, but what do I do with them?

This pretty much sums it up.

I tried standing by the silverware station with my hands in my apron pockets, but there were two problems. The apron pockets were in a quasi-vulgar place, and also a parishioner thanked me for my work. Having done literally nothing to enable the fine buffet spread besides putting on an apron, this was more than I could bear. I figured I could reject the gratitude and explain that everyone else had done the work, but it seemed like I would waste too much of her time in explaining that this was not false modesty but simple accuracy. After all, she just wanted to say a quick thanks before shuffling away to eat her breakfast—she wasn’t asking for insight into my social anxiety. So instead I died a little inside and said, “You’re welcome. Enjoy!”

I figured I could just do this to anyone who said thank you, but my hopes were dashed against the rocks when I met the eyes of the 8 year old standing between me and her mom, who  (lucky bitch) was assigned to serve the scrambled eggs. I swear this 8 year old girl in a sunflower-patterned sundress could see into my soul as her eyes seemed to sentence me to Hell with a, “YOU DID NOT DESERVE THAT THANK YOU!” For all I know she didn’t even hear the thank you exchange and was just appalled by how ugly I am, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

Absolutely terrified of what this 8 year old girl with flowers in her hair would do to me, I swapped my creepy lurking by the silverware table for falsely purposeful surveying. I floated around the parish hall, pretending to do mental calculations of how much orange juice we had left (enough), patrolling around like a soldier visually verifying that every table had a pitcher of water (they did), and, perhaps most stupidly, putting on an official census worker-like air to ask the buffet servers if they needed anything (they didn’t).

Still though, I wasn’t as bad as the Brunch Nazi. She was in charge of ensuring the smooth running of the parish brunch, and she clearly thought the day was the culmination of her life’s work and existence. Indeed, she was called by God to manage THIS particular brunch, which I guess to her turns every scone we are short of into one concrete slab in the sidewalk to Hell. Someone served an old lady about 30 seconds before Parish Brunch Go Time, and Brunch Nazi reacted as though someone intentionally shat in her jacuzzi.

She also used the word “need” more often than I use the word “just.” Just about every sentence took the form of “I need you to do X” or “We need to do Y” or “You need Z.” And you could tell that she really meant the NEED, you could hear the urgent desperation in her voice every time she opened her mouth. The “need” seemed to suggest a WE WILL DIE IF THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I found this amusing because, actually, we don’t need to do any of this. We could actually just say screw it to all of this and go back to bed. But instead we got “I NEED Hallie to serve this much potatoes. I NEED you to go to the kitchen to ask them about this. We NEED , We NEED, We NEED, You NEED, I NEED.”

Lady, you know what I need?  I NEED you to calm the eff down. You’re like my dog  when the mailman comes, and you know what we give to my dog? Prozac. You should look into it. Because you know what happens when the parish brunch is running a little short on scrambled eggs?

Everyone dies.

Oh wait, no, that’s what happens when there’s a nuclear holocaust. Sorry, I meant to say that some people don’t get scrambled eggs. And if having to suffer through scones, potatoes, ham, and unlimited coffee and juice without scrambled eggs at the parish brunch is enough to make someone abandon Christianity and join some kind of pagan cult, then so be it. They’re probably better off there than here anyway.

My Acceptance Speech

Announcer: AND THE AWARD FOR MOST UNEMPLOYED PERSON GOES TO....[*pauses while opening the envelope. flashes a cheeky smile to the audience*] awww, you don't really want to know, do you? Haha, oh all right then...SAM BERRY!

 

 

[*immense applause as Sam gets up from her seat, awkwardly and unintentionally shoves her butt in people's faces as she scoots towards the aisle, and accepts her award on the stage*]

 

 

Sam: Wow...oh my goodness...[*applause starts to gradually die down*]...wow...[*inspecting award*] this is just...wow...thank you, thank you [*applause finally dies down completely*] thank you.
 

This is such an unexpected honor. I never thought I'd be up here, winning this prestigious award when I was up against so many amazingly unemployed people on welfare.
 

You know, growing up on the mean streets of Cheviot Hills, a hood where a slim majority of people can only DREAM of upgrading their BAs to doctorates, I never thought it would be possible to win such an amazing award. [*running left hand through hair in stunned amazement*] This is like something out of a dream. Um...wow...I'm speechless, but I'm gonna keep talking. [*the crowd chuckles*]

 

 

I mean, as I watched kids graduate Brentwood and go off to college and grad school and become successful lawyers and doctors and what have you, I always felt that the world of sitting in one's underpants all day and sobbing sometimes quietly and sometimes violently while questioning the worth of one's existence was something that only happened in fairy tales, something that couldn't happen to me, Sam Berry, just some poor nobody in upper-middle class suburbia. But you know what, America?

 

 

[*raising award triumphantly in the air*]
 

DREAMS. DO. COME. TRUE.

 

 

Of course, there are so many people to thank. Obviously the schools, the private families, and the countless faith communities both here and in many foreign countries, for not employing me. But you know, I couldn't have done this without the behind-the-scenes help that I received from hundreds of more qualified individuals who, with Christ-like attitudes of self-sacrifice, willingly succumbed to employment in my stead. I could not have achieved this without you guys.

 

 

Most importantly, I want to address any children who might be watching this, yes you children whose eyes are big and Bambi-like with the hope of unemployment. I'll tell you now what I would have told any young person, had I actually come in contact with one since last June, and that is this: my success here tonight was not without effort. Only if you work really hard and stay in school will you, too, one day be able to baffle and annoy the living shit out of your Oxford tutor by being the one student in his program who is still unemployed. You need faith in yourself and in God, children. That faith will give you the strength you need to wake up in the morning, apply for a job you're either ridiculously under or over qualified for because it's the only one out there, and then spend the rest of the day crying into some cake. Faith will give you the courage you need to carry on in self-pity in spite of the nay-sayers who call themselves "friends" who try to weigh you down with things like "hope," or the promise of a job one day, or their prayers. Faith will give you the determination you need to cry like a little bitch every day. You need to believe in yourself. Yes, in the words of Dr. Maya Angelou,

 

 

"Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride
Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh-no."

 

Faith really is the most important thing, children. And adults. I would like to take this opportunity to thank God, who has blessed me with the totally off-putting complete lack of social skills without which I could never have bombed so many interviews. You see, not so many people are lucky enough to be born with the gift of having no idea how long or short appropriate eye contact is, giving me a shifty, serial rapist-like quality when under pressure. Only a loving and personal God would inspire me to take the successful gamble of actually shimmying at a headteacher during an interview. By God's grace alone do I misunderstand interview questions, awkwardly interact with other candidates, and laugh when no one else is laughing. Yes, it takes a lot of work to be stuck in this state of permanent adolescence, but with God all things are possible.

 

[*orchestra starts to play*]

 

 

Oh dang it, I've turned into one of those people that the orchestra has to play off the stage. Sorry I've spoken for too long! Um...oh crap oh crap...there are still so many people to thank...um....thanks to Carol, Susan, Charlie, Jeff...um....Hank, Laurie, Jeff...shit, I already said Jeff...um....OH MY GOD I NEARLY FORGOT KEVIN! Um...oh the band's getting louder, they really want me off. Ok okay, um, thank you America. [*points at sky*] Unemployed to the glory of God!

 

 

[*exits*]

You don't know me but I've been in your bedroom.

The other day at a party I met somebody new. I shook his hand as we both assured each other that it was lovely to meet, and suddenly a horrifying wave of realization came over me.

I’ve been in this guy’s house. And he has no idea.

I’ll spare you the details so as not to incriminate anybody, but let me just assure you that I was there legally, with a few other friends who were there legally. We needed air conditioning as it was the middle of summer, this guy’s house had it. Beyond that I won’t say anything.

Normally the first few sentences with new people are totally easy. You can ask about where they live or what they do, a simple exchange of facts before the difficult task of meaningful conversation needs to start. I wondered if he wondered why I was so rude and didn’t ask him these things, but then I thought it was probably infinitely ruder of me a few months ago when I read through his job’s paperwork that was sitting on his kitchen table. And no one wants to hear a stranger say, “I live in Cheviot Hills, but I won’t ask you where you live because I already know. And I love what you’ve done with the place!”

I had genuinely no idea how much information I could politely be assumed to know about this guy, who was after all a friend of a friend. Normally friends talk about their other friends, but I was so paranoid about the fact that I had been in this guy’s house that I made a mental note to just pretend like his name had never been uttered by our mutual friend. It reminded me of being a freshman in college, when overly enthusiastic dorm mates friended each other on facebook before we even arrived and when we met in person we had to awkwardly pretend like we hadn’t studied each other’s facebook pages. “Oh, wow, I didn’t know you also liked Liverpool FC,” you’d recite after someone responded well to your very obvious and awkward attempts to get the conversation to turn to this mutual love. Except knowing things about a stranger because you’ve been in their house without them knowing is less socially acceptable and exponentially creepier.

The conversation was very interesting. We talked about something I knew we would talk about, because I already leafed through books on it from his personal library. And as eager as I was to continue the conversation, I found eye contact near impossible because I knew that he didn’t know that I knew what level of grime he has in his bathroom (relatively minimal for a guy). God help me, I know where he keeps his shampoo. I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him while screaming, “I HAVE PEED IN YOUR TOILET! ARE YOU OKAY WITH THAT?!”

This was definitely some kind of punishment for my trespassing. I had literally no idea what to do with my eyes or my hands or indeed any other part of my body. I wanted to drown myself in the party’s sea of Harvard graduates. I wanted to tear off all my clothing in repentance while screaming, “I HAVE BEEN IN YOUR HOUSE—AND I AM SO SORRY!!!!!” But instead I just stood there hiding behind a red solo cup of Coke.

I am wondering, should our paths ever cross again in the small town that is Los Angeles, at what point I am required to disclose this information. But I’m kind of hoping I’ll die before it comes to that.

This one time I almost died in St Pancras

Okay, so the title might be a bit of an exaggeration. Let's back up a bit.

I took refuge in St Pancras.

Okay, again, a bit of an exaggeration. Basically I'd been walking around London for far too long, saw a church, and thought, "Ah, there's a place for a good sit." Because, and I think this is something people of all creeds can agree on, churches are great places for sitting. And, as an added bonus, sometimes they even have toilets.

Maybe that's why American tourists seem to always flock to churches in Europe. No, it's not our religiosity or our interest in European ecclesiastical history or even a penchant for fine architecture--it's just that we are a people used to having far more public toilets around. People frequently ask me, because apparently I'm the only American they've ever seen, what my biggest source of culture shock is. Can I finally admit it? Quite honestly I'm shocked by the lack of toilets. I'm not talking about in touristy areas, I'm talking about "real people" areas.

Anyway, you shouldn't have let me get onto the topic of toilets, because actually there's something else I really wanted to talk about.

So... I wandered into St Pancras. It had the feel of a hotel lobby, complete with some unseen person whose piano tinkerings gave me flashbacks to a childhood spent sitting in hotel lobbies around the world, waiting for that travel agent who went on family vacations with us (I seem to remember my brothers addressing her as "Mom") to come back from her tour of the luxury suites.

And then I saw the pews.

Box pews!!!!

The last time I saw pews like this I was a small child on a family vacation to New England. I remember standing in a church somewhere in Boston and seeing these boxes that families would sit in, and being in absolute awe. The height of the box, the size of the door, and the fact that a family would be shut into a box, all reminded me of a roller coaster car. At age nine, just as I was doing now at age 24, I imagined WASPs dressed in their Sunday best, throwing their hands in the air and screaming with fear and excitement as their pew went around a loop and into a corkscrew.

Well, 24 year old me couldn't help herself from living nine year old me's fantasy. I looked both ways (only a man on a piano and a woman praying in the corner) before dashing across the aisle to a particular pew that seemed to be waiting for me. Like a giddy idiot I slid into the pew and closed the door with a satisfying CLICK.

For a while I didn't even realize that I had violated some rule that probably got deleted from an early draft of the Chronicles of Narnia, something about not shutting pew doors shut unless you are absolutely certain how to open them back up. Instead I sat there imagining that I was on the roller coaster at the pier back home. Does that one even have doors? Who the hell cares. All I know is that I sat in this pew, trying to lean from side to side pretending to be on a roller coaster as quietly as possible so as not to disturb people in the church doing actual church things. I figured throwing my hands up and screaming, "WOOOOO!" would probably be frowned upon, so I made do with swaying slowly enough that the creaks of the wooden pew were hardly audible.

After a while I decided it was time for me to grow up and head out to the British Library, so I gathered my things together, pushed the pew door open, exited, and walked along the road.

Oh wait, no. That's not what happened.

Instead, I pushed on the pew door and absolutely nothing happened. I paused for about five seconds, hoping that in that time the pew door would sort itself out, and then I pushed again. Nothing. Again. Nope, still locked. Again? Nope. Nope. Nope. A horrifying realization then dawned on me, namely that I had no idea how to open the stall I had locked myself into. Basically my roller coaster fantasy had come to full fruition, and now I would have to wait for the ride operator to come release me. Except churches don't have ride operators.

At this point I let out a sigh and thought to myself, "Well, this is where I die." Because, let's face it, starving to death locked in a church pew is the preferable option to asking a priest/pastoral assistant/verger/parishioner/passing bishop to release me, an idiot who was pretending to be on a roller coaster in a church. I mean, there are worse ways to go. Just trying to look on the bright side here.

I briefly considered vaulting over the wall and hoping the man on the piano and the praying woman didn't see. Would I get arrested? Then again, is vaulting over a pew wall even an arrestable offence? Can the Church arrest people? Oh man, this is what happens when you let Jews into churches...we accidentally lock ourselves in.

Then I thought about hulking out of the pew. I've [accidentally] hulked out of a t-shirt before. Once. Could I do it with wood, too? Well, it was certainly worth a shot. I tried to think of things that pissed me off, and thoughts of the RE GCSE exam flooded my mind. I AM SO ANGRY ABOUT TEACHING TO THE EXAM...........................BUT WHY AM I NOT TURNING GREEN AND ENORMOUS???

Aw crap. Looks like I don't have the ability to hulk out of things at will. A disappointing discovery...

For a brief moment I looked down at my left hand, resting next to me on the bench. Just beyond the chewed nails and the faded notes to myself I caught sight of a little button. Now I was ready to cross over to the other side. I pushed the button and I was liberated!

I left St Pancras a changed woman. A woman who now realizes that even the hideous stack chairs at St Paul's Cathedral that look like something from a high school multi-purpose room, even these have hidden beauty and benefits. Specifically that they will not try to hold you hostage.

Footloose, Justin Timberlake, and Sam's Goodbyes

One of the most disappointing things about this year is the realization that I’m no less socially inept than when I started. After moving away from home to go to college, then moving away from college to go to Israel twice, then going home again, and then finally coming to England, I feel like I should be an expert in social interaction by now. After all, I’ve had to try to make new friends pretty much every nine months, much like professional surrogacy, minus payment/babies/giving birth/everything.
No, it doesn’t matter that I’ve had to meet an entire cast of new people and try to befriend them more often than some college boys wash their sheets—put me in a room filled with people, even people I now know, and I will still make strategic retreats to the restroom. Yes, if you’ve ever suspected me of going to the bathroom far too often, it all makes sense now.

Mostly when I retreat to the toilet I stand at the sink and think to myself, “Oh God, what if someone I don’t know particularly well tries to hug me?” Because, obviously, that would be the end of the world. Even worse, I panic about the prospect of people talking about boring things, simply because I think I’m physically incapable of pretending to be interested. And then everyone will think I’m horribly rude. No, much better that they think I have some kind of tragic bladder condition.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few days. Along with Footloose.

See, Footloose comes in because I’ve been a bit sad saying goodbye to yet another group of people I’ve surprisingly come to like. And for some reason listening to “Footloose” more times than I’d care to admit in a public forum has been my way of dealing with the sadness.

On the plus side I’ve forgotten about the number of “GOODBYE FOREVER!”s I’ve had to endure this week. The downside, however, is that I have realized something that destroys Footloose for me. As a completely shit dancer I find myself more confused by movies like Footloose than I do by the concept of the Trinity. Yes, Footloose. You are more confusing than the idea that God is both three and one. You are more confusing than flawed math.

See, how can teens in a town that for most of their lives had outlawed dancing still dance better than me, someone for whom dancing has always been legal and often encouraged? Either the premise of Footloose is flawed or my natural dancing abilities are so sub-par that I should seriously consider seeking advice from a medical professional.

Anyway, thoughts of my social crapness and dancing crapness led me to remember something I wrote back in Israel three years ago. Here it is, in edited and censored “glory”:

Tonight in a bar some Justin Timberlake song came on. I wish I could tell you the title, but I know it only as “that song that embarrasses the shit out of me.”

(Strangely enough, 24 year old me knows what the song is...)

Back in 9th grade, 14 year old me took a dance class at school. I wish I could make my dear loyal readers proud (all four of you…); I wish I could tell you that I’m a great dancer.

And, wish fulfilled, I’m going to tell you that I am indeed a great dancer. A fantastic dancer. 

In my room.

At home, by myself, I am the greatest dancer the world has ever seen. My moves range from the smooth to the silly to the obscene. The problem is that the second anyone else can see me, I can’t dance. I freeze up. I’m embarrassed to even tap my feet to the beat in public. People who might not know me as well would say that I don’t like dancing, based on how they see me freeze up in clubs or at dances. This is a lie. Secretly, deep down, I have to stop myself from jumping on tables and going all out when I hear music in public. Especially if it’s a Mika song. Maybe it’s because I’ve done lighting/stage managing for too many musicals, but I even find myself struggling to refrain from dancing to the PA music in seemingly innocent places, like on the bus or at a pizza parlor or at Aroma. Basically, I’m a closeted Breslover, except with a larger arsenal of dance moves involving my ass.

So anyway, I thought taking this dance class would teach me some basic stuff so that I wouldn’t totally freeze up when I’m around other people. I’d still probably never fulfill my (then) dream of breaking out into a song and dance number in the middle of the bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but I figured that there was some kind of healthy compromise I could reach. I figured a Level One class would be filled with beginners, like me, who had never taken a class before and who knew nothing about dance.

Boy, was I an idiot. The people in that class…. Let me put it like this: it was like being in a Level One French class with only native Parisians.

“Beginning Dance” consisted of me, my two friends, and apparently the entire cast of the film “Center Stage.” And my two friends, those fucking traitors, turned out to be halfway decent.

I’ve blocked out most memories of that class from my head, but when I cringe in utter humiliation at the mere thought of being in a dance class as an awkward teenager, clear moments of extreme embarrassment come to the front of my mind. I remember doing an interpretive dance about the creation of the universe (complete with dialogue: “Expand…expand……revolve revolve revolve….wither….wither….wither……..apocalypse. The End.”) I remember doing an exercise with the entire class that involved leaping like graceful gazelle across the wild grasses of the Serengeti. Okay, that’s what it was supposed to look like, and somehow everyone else in the class actually managed to pull it off. I on the other hand managed to look like a polio-crippled elephant jumping up and down in frustration.

…

But the worst part by far was the Justin Timberlake dance. This was what the teacher really focused on. A dance to a Justin Timberlake song. Needless to say, I was terrible at it. For one thing, I couldn’t remember all the steps—sure, remembering long passages of epic Roman poetry in its original Latin was a cinch for me, but the second you try to get my feet to remember anything besides how to walk…well, you’re in for trouble. And even when I could remember the steps, I couldn’t pull them off. A lot of the moves involved trying to look, for lack of a better word, “sexy.” You know, for example, you can’t just move your ass from Point A to Point B in a straight, efficient line, but rather you gotta put some attitude into it. Or something. Don’t ask me, I’ve never really understood this stuff. 

Frankly, the mere thought of me trying to act sexy is appalling enough to turn even the straightest of men gay. As a favor to the general public …, I decided that the best thing I could do for the dance would be to do try to be as unsexy as possible. I tried imagining that I was dancing in a church. And also that I was a nun. I’m not sure which church would have played a Justin Timberlake song in the middle of services, but oh well. This is what got me through dance class.

So anyway, every time I hear that song, my head always goes back to 9th grade dance class. That song was the background to all those memories.

When it came on in the bar, I realized that the song would now also be the background to the memories of this night. This song is what I heard when I was interacting with people. 

It made me start comparing the two experiences. Here’s Justin Timberlake singing as I stumble my way through dance class way back when. And here’s Justin Timberlake singing as I interact with people in a bar setting. Justin Timberlake and Me, the dancer. Justin Timberlake and Me, the person interacting with other humans.

I gotta say, of the two ……I’m a much better dancer.