bad metaphor

I’ve been out dancing for the past two nights, and though it is fun, I do feel a bit like a fish trying to hitchhike across a desert. I admit I had wanted nothing more than to spend my Friday night in pajama pants continuing the adventures of Rumo, but instead found myself lured out to support a friend’s hip hop show. I’m used to dancing in less well-lit, more crowded and less being-in-the-front-row type situations, and though I tell myself “hey no one is even looking at you, get over yourself” – I am still acutely aware of the table watchers, the people who sit at the tables and make catty comments about the people dancing. I know this happens, because I have sat with these table-watchers before (and was relieved at the time not to be the target of their gaze). But I try to fake a carefree attitude and it starts to work, I’m into the music, it’s pretty good and my friend is working the crowd – and then someone comes up and starts dancing with me. He looks like he’s fifteen years old, and he’s sporting a novelty metal grill. I am momentarily mortified by the thought that I might actually be the embarrassing one in this duo. Mercifully my friend’s show ends, soon after Grillz dances away with another victim, and I turn into a pumpkin – what old ladies often do when they are out too late.

As for last night, Krissy had called up a bunch of friends to go out dancing at The Tapeworm. So we get dolled up, which for me entails “not having my hair in a pony tail” and “wearing something that is at least 90% free of cat fur or food stains.” We sit around for drinks first and I get up to put my coat on the stairwell. When I reach for the handrail, I find that I have accidentally grabbed the bouncer’s drink, which is balancing on top of the post. I regain my composure just in time to prevent knocking it onto the stairs. Phew, I think, as I go back to sit down with my friends.

I’ve had maybe two sips of my first drink – I’m gabbing with an old friend whom I haven’t seen in ages, a difficult feat when we both live in Lawrence! – and for some reason, I don’t know why, my hand decides on its own whim to smash into my glass, knocking its contents onto my jeans. My friends all laugh at me, and then decide RIGHT THEN that they want to go to the dance floor, so I have to stand up and can’t hide my gin-and-tonic jeans under a table. Flustered, I go retrieve my coat from the stairwell – and this time, succeed in knocking the bouncer’s drink onto the stairs, and probably onto other people’s coats. “Oh my god, I am so sorry, I will buy you another drink,” I say to the bouncer in a rush, and he’s like “no, it’s cool,” and the overapologetic part of my brain says get him another one anyways, and another part says you fool, bouncers get drinks for free! So I just grab my coat and flee the scene.

I really did enjoy my weekend and especially last night, despite the ominous start. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought that new pair of super cute glasses that, while super cute, are smaller in lens area than my old ones and therefore cut down on my already limited peripheral vision. Or maybe I shouldn’t blame the glasses for my innate lack of grace. I have this theory: like how truly experiencing joy isn’t possible without having also known pain, we can’t appreciate beautifully graceful people if every plain old Joe or Jane flitted about like a gazelle. Some people turn out to be Mikhail Baryshnikovs, and some people are Elaine from Seinfeld. From now on, every time I knock over a glass, stumble over air or bump into the same table corner for the fourth day in a row, I will feel like I am doing my part to keep the Baryshnikovs in business.

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