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.

A cubicle dweller reflects on the concept of pregnant women

You know what I don't get? Pregnant women. I'm staring at one right now and I have no idea how she's so calm, doing work on the computer. If I were her, I'd spend all nine months screaming, "OH MY GOD THERE IS ACTUALLY ANOTHER F***ING PERSON IN MY STOMACH LIKE RIGHT NOW. HOW THE F*** IS EVERYONE OK WITH THIS?" But not her. She just sits there, occasionally clicking the mouse and humming along to the quiet strains of a muted Stevie Wonder belting something out on the office radio.

And this is not even taking into account the countless horrifying aspects of the actual process of childbirth. No, ignoring the pain, the wishing your husband dead, and the potential to crap yourself in front of strangers, I--and I say this as someone who is pro-life and completely pro-babies--find the concept of pregnant women to be completely and utterly terrifying.

I feel like it's not cool to admit this, particularly as a woman (and a woman who loves babies for that matter), but I find the concept of pregnant women about as frightening as the concept of a twin in the womb dying and being absorbed by the other twin, like I saw in that House episode. Or maybe it was a nightmare. I can't remember anymore, all I know is that it was bad, because you know it's two people, but you only see one. Pregnant women are like the conjoined twins who got their own TV show on TLC, except much more concealed and therefore much more sinister. No, even worse, it's like a pregnant woman has her own horcrux that she carries around with her in her stomach. SHE CANNOT BE KILLED.

And because the fact that a pregnant woman is actually two people in one is hidden beneath clothing and skin, then there's the problem of fat people and/or people who wear empire-cut dresses or blouses. Are you pregnant and therefore to be feared, or do you, like me, simply have a fondness of Hostess snack cakes? This is why obesity is an issue--not because we're all going to die of fat, but because I don't know who is a terrifying clandestine two-person she-beast and who just likes McFlurries. Clearly the only solution is to either make all pregnant people wear signs announcing their pregnancy or we fat people need to start wearing signs that say, "DON'T WORRY: JUST FAT."

This might seem extreme, but you'll know I'm right once you, too, spend a few hours in an office where the only person you can see from your cubicle is a pregnant woman. In the meantime, I'll just be keeping an eye on her. COME NO CLOSER, TWO-HEADED SHE-BEAST!

You're welcome, world.

The Church of the Holy Dodger Dog

As I sat in Dodger Stadium, watching thousands of people stream onto the outfield to “recommit themselves to Christ,” it suddenly occurred to me that this was an ideal moment to get up and get myself a Dodger Dog. The concession lines would probably be empty, because for the first time in about three hours those in the stands were forced to choose between getting a third helping of nachos and getting born again.

I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one thinking about food at the moment. The second I entered Dodger Stadium the first thing I noticed was a sea of people carrying what looked like shipping containers filled with nachos to their families. Once I sat down, after wading through puddles of peanut shells, I noticed that everyone around me had a crate of hotdogs in their laps. As I looked around half expecting to find a man shouting that he has Cracker Jacks for sale, I noticed the pile of peanut shells rapidly growing into a flood of Noachian proportions.

Still though, even though the worshippers were eating enough food to feed a sizeable nation, I was willing to give religion at Dodger Stadium a chance. Truth be told, I couldn’t help fantasizing what it would have been like if I had showed up with a baseball glove and a Dodger t-shirt, wandering around the stands looking really confused. Would there be a seventh inning stretch? But, really, I gave it a shot.  I laughed off the fact that we were bouncing a beach ball around the stands, and I brushed off the fact that one Christian lady cussed out her fellow Christians for dropping the ball when it came to continuing The Wave.

But then came the prayer. Some pastor took to the stage to lead some generic “just” prayer, and the stadium reverently bowed its heads. At this point I noticed that, yes, people had bowed their heads. But some, and a fair few, continued to stuff food in their mouths…while keeping their heads bowed in prayer.

How do you pray and eat at the same time? Am I just spectacularly uncoordinated that I think this would prove difficult? If nothing else it seems disrespectful. “Dear Lord, SNARF we just want to GARRR thank you for just GULP giving us today and just HAAMMM just making us URGH all that we just are….”

Looking around at people bowing their heads and closing their eyes in reverence while shoveling Dodger Dogs into their mouths was perhaps the highlight of my life. It was at this point that I started laughing so hard that I cried.

These are the things I missed this past year in the English Anglo-Catholic world. And how would this year have been different? I imagined a world of seminarians eating nachos while kneeling in prayer. Of half a congregation getting up during the middle of the Creed in Latin to go get another suitcase-sized bag of peanuts. Or of choral evensong in St. Paul’s being interrupted by a fat man in a t-shirt letting out an echoing hearty belch fueled by gallons of non-alcoholic beer.

But no. it could never happen in England, and not just the non-alcoholic beer part. This Church at Dodger Stadium is such an American expression of Church—not the fact that it’s a megachurch, not the greasy charisma, not the red/white/blue color scheme, not the jokes about other people’s bad hygiene, but the FOOD.

And you know what, America? This is why we are all fat.  This is a sign of the end times—Americans who bother coming to “church” cannot put their hot dogs or frozen lemonades down for the one minute it takes to say a prayer.

Aw crap though. Now my next visit to a “normal” church is going to feel sorely lacking in Dodger Dogs.

Musical Cars

People ask me what it’s like to be back in America/Los Angeles. Usually I tell them about how I spend my unemployment watching movies about Amish people on Netflix. Often I talk about how totally hollow Episcopalians are. Sometimes I mention both.

But I should probably mention how great it is to have music again. And by music I mean a car.

I should probably back up and explain to foreigners and less fortunate Americans that Angelenos have quite a car culture. Everything is so spread out, and you have to drive everywhere. Last week, during my quest to find a kiddie pool at Toys R Us (I want to vomit just writing that name), I ended up on a trek across the parking lot that took longer than did my walk from my flat in Oxford to the city center, which was in a different zip code.

Granted, I had parked on the edge of the parking lot because it was full—for some reason everyone decided to congregate at Toys  R Us at 2 p.m. on a workday. I mean, I know why I have nothing better to do with my life, but what is the rest of Los Angeles’ excuse? Are we ALL unemployed? This parking lot the size of Oxfordshire is full, and Holy Hank there are cars all over the road. Traffic everywhere. Good God, is the recession so bad that about 50% of all Angelenos at any given moment are loitering, and loitering in a moving vehicle?

Anyway, my point is that I am in the car a lot. Usually marveling at the traffic and screaming at no one in particular, “WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE GOING AT 11 A.M. ON A WEDNESDAY?!”

When I’m not screaming at the world to get a job and get off the road, I sing. Really loudly. You might know that I do not sing in front of other people, even when others are singing, instead preferring to lip sync or stand in rigid silence like a small child wanting to stay up after her bedtime: “Maybe if I stand still enough they’ll forget I’m here.” Fair enough, I can think of two notable exceptions:

1)      In elementary school I joined the choir. Not because I wanted to sing, but because my friends could sing and I didn’t want to be alone at lunch when they rehearsed. I lip synced at all the concerts and rehearsals, except when we did “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

 

      My God did I get into that song. 11 year old Sam felt born to sing that song—heck, I STILL feel born to sing that song. So into that song was I that I tried to do not only the a-wee-mo-weh parts but also the high pitched howl, even when the two were supposed to be sung simultaneously by different people. “Fuck you,” 11 year old Sam said to the rest of the choir through her singing, “I got this one.”

2)      Then there was the kibbutz laundry room. I’ve mentioned it a million times before, but in case you didn’t know, I once spent half a year of my life folding towels in a laundry room in Israel. When I wasn’t folding towels I was accidentally getting parts of my body (namely my chest) burned by the industrial iron, having my fingerprints seared off by freshly laundered tablecloths that seemed to come straight from the fire pits of Hell, and (most frequently) finding elaborate ways to avoid having to fold my Hebrew classmates’ underpants.

Anyway, my coworkers (the Women of the Wash), whom I hated and still hate with a fiery passion on account of which I am perfectly willing to go to Hell, would frequently sing along to the radio. And, this being Israel and the land of Ben Yehuda, obviously most of the songs were in English. And horribly dated. So, to them, the first two lines of “St. Elmo’s Fire” would, instead of “Growin' up / You don't see the writin' on the wall,” be a melodically daring interpretation of the lyrics “Gerrn op / You doesee a wraton a oll.” Or something. As the only native English speaker in the room, several months of nonsensical lyrics from a random assortment of 80s, 90s and occasionally medieval songs started to wear on me.

Finally I could bear it no longer. Neil Sedaka’s “Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do” came on the radio, probably right after Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

 

And as I sat there folding yet another dishtowel, I decided I needed to show the Women of the Wash how it’s done. THIS is how we sing English, you kibbutznik bitches. So I went big. I sang along with Neil as loudly as I possibly could, hoping even the Jordanians could hear my crackling voice. They’d think to themselves, “Well, I can tell the lyrics are Sedaka, but the tune is unlike anything we’ve ever heard…” Who cares though--my musical ability wasn’t what I was trying to prove, but rather my ability to speak English. See how clearly I enunciate the lyrics? See how I indisputably know how each sound I sing fits within the boundaries of a coherent, English word? Enjoy the free English lesson in this one-woman concert, you rancid communists.

Anyway, my point is that with these two exceptions (and a few others over the years, like the time in senior year when I was driving a freshman to school, forgot she was in the car, and ended up performing a noisy duet with Elton John), I don’t sing.

Except when I’m by myself in the car. When I got back in my car on August 1, there was eight months of pent-up diva that needed to be released. I’ve since then driven hundreds of miles around LA, singing at the top of my lungs.

Car song of the moment?

 When I’m in the car, I feel like Fun. need my help. And I’m happy to oblige.

Now, it’s nearly midnight. Diva needs her sleep.

Further proof that Americans are terrified of old things.

Some people like to use their tourism to live their failed dreams. You know, where there are tourist photo opportunities where you can stand with a drum kit at a replica of the Cavern Club to pretend as though you were a Beatle and not the boring insurance salesman that you actually are. Other people have slightly grander dreams, such as the dream to live like interwar British aristocracy, which brings me to today’s post.

Basically right now, in my stay in some ridiculously large room in a manor-house-turned-hotel, I’m living out the dream to live like a 1930s BAMF. I fully recognize that I am privileged to be staying in such a nice place and to have a room to myself. The only problem is that I have never had the dream to live like a 1930s BAMF, as I’ve been stuck watching far too much Poirot this year. If there is one thing I’ve learned this year about ANYTHING, it’s that everyone with that much money at that time was constantly murdering or getting murdered. And, quite frankly, I am just too damn lazy for that right now.

Lazy, but also terrified. Terrified to the point where I just peed with the door open so that I could still hear the comforting sounds of the BBC warding off evil spirits in the bedroom. Like a character from a Jane Austen novel*, the door seemed concerned about a potential breach of the boundaries of propriety in my leaving the door open, so it kept trying to close itself. I solved this problem by propping open the door with a tin that was filled with dusty shortbread biscuits that smelled like someone else’s grandma—was this a recent gift from the hotel or an actual relic of the manor house?

*Yeah, I know Jane Austen waaaay predates Poirot. But that’s the thing with this place. WHAT YEAR AM I? I am in a confused time warp. I found myself checking the closets for Zombie Mr. Darcys and also checking the wardrobe for a portal to Hell Narnia. I checked under the bed to see if I could find the body of the great-grandmother who decorated this room, someone else’s fussy, WASPy matriarch with a penchant for smalls prints of Victorian girls picking unsettling blue flowers.

My mother is similarly creeped out by her own hotel room, and (ignoring the fact that I’m not only a grown woman, but also a grown woman who involuntarily kicks the living b’jeezuz out of anything else in her bed while sleeping) has offered to let me sleep in there as well. I turned down the offer as their room has a canopy bed, and I feel like if I were a ghost with a  taste for blood I’d be more likely to haunt a room with a canopy bed. She’s tried to comfort me by encouraging me to think of our stay in this terrifying manor house [that smells of every unpleasant memory of reading Charlotte Bronte (and also of dusty biscuits)] as though it were a camping trip.

Truth be told, I’d rather be camping. At least in the woods there are no faded, long-ago trendy Japanese prints of flora and fauna. At least in the woods there are no fussy cloth Kleenex holders. At least in the woods there are no terrifying portraits of long-dead rich girls who used to live in this very building and who might be looking up at you from Hell and resenting the fact that you are sleeping in HER bedroom and also have indoor plumbing now.

How many people have died in this room? Why is the ceiling so high? Why the hell are there so many goddamn chairs in this room?

This place is nice, and I am massively spoiled, but oh my God I just want to be in a Motel 6 right now.

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.