Chicks and Salsa

If you know me, you know how much I hate dancing, or, let me refine that statement, how much I hate dancing unless I am so unbelievably inebriated that I totally think its okay to grind all up on some random sweaty bald dude in a wife beater at some skanky nightclub in Daytona Beach where bikini-clad girls peddle shooters in test tubes and oh my god that so never happened I swear. So I was more than surprised with myself when I readily agreed to go salsa dancing Sunday night. I can only imagine that it was Nate and the lovely Lauren's insistence that it really is great, combined with a hot date and my guilt over having a boyfriend that really does want to dance that clouded my judgment.

By the time we got to the salsa lesson I'd been drinking for something like six hours over the course of our pre-Wilco-concert-I-wasn't-attending BBQ. As much as you think rule number one for klutzy goons attempting to dance should be 'Drink Lots,' it isn't. Drink a fair amount, maybe.

But at the beginning things were okay. We're there, we're learning the basic step, and I am, for the most part, not falling over myself or moving too clumsily. In fact, I'm truly enjoying myself, thinking, 'hey, I could get in to this...I could be a salsa dancer,' or maybe, more honestly, 'I could possibly way down the line represent myself as someonewho has some basic grasp on how to salsa.'

But then we got to the turning part. I was more than proud of myself the first time I somehow got roped in to being the instructor's example partner and didn't wind up looking like an ass, but the second time? with the turning? No such luck. Lo, how I could not do it. Over and over again I could not do it and I felt like an idiot because it was just me that was messing us up and why can't I count right or turn right and why.am.I.still.getting.this.wrong.argh.

I should've seen this coming many miles away. We Lees, as a family, not so much with the coordination--at least the immediate family. Yeah Mom and Dad play instruments, and we all work out--we can pull and push on things without much trouble I suppose--but there are no athletes amongst us. Both my brother and I (I hope you agree Tom) were kinda pathetic at sports. I played right field softball and blamed every fly I missed on a lack of depth perception. I know neither one of us scored a goal in soccer. Ever. And its not like we were goalies or anything. When all the middle school girlies were getting excited over dance team and cheerleading tryouts in sixth grade I knew it was useless. Yes, there was the shortage of inherent girly, but moreso was the fact that over and over I tried the clap-stomp-clap-clap-stomp-turn-stomp-whatever of the 'be aggressive, b-e aggressive' cheer and not once did I come close to clapping and stomping on the right beat, or offbeat, or whateverthefuckfuckthiscrapgah!

When the lesson ended and the music started up, that's when the real salsa dancers took to the floor. And the thing with salsa is that its just super sexy. It wasn't just the reality of the paunchy 30-something who probably lives with his mom and works as a skeezy IT guy by day but is here now dancing with some hot young thing, but also that I almost found this goober enticing. Almost.

Its not just beer helping ugly people have sex anymore. Without fail every time I have watched experienced salsa dancers I have been drawn to someone I would have never normally found attractive, because really, in the end, its kinda like watching someone advertise that they're amazing in bed.

The longer we watched, the more pathetic I felt. As the minutes passed the more convinced I was that I am just some woefully uncoordinated monster oaf walking around in my day to day life and that I should just be thankful that a)people talk to me and b)people don't just burst out laughing at the sight of my attempts to navigate the world in general.

All this because I can't salsa dance.

And I'll give it another go. I enjoyed it more than I anticipated and I expect it can only get better. Maybe I can make this some new goal to aspire to. Its certainly easier than saying I'm going to run a marathon or learn a foreign language, plus there's a cute boy involved and unlike marathoning you can justify drinking, at least a little, while you practice. And just maybe, in some lame still-can't-get-over-middle-school-trauma sort of way, the girly in me is hoping to make up for the fact I never could be a cheerleader.