dance lessons

those of you who have been reading the blogs will know that i am engaged. as our wedding day grows near, T and i are trying to learn a dance so we will wow our guests with our grace and elegance when it's time for our first dance. last night we went to dance lessons at the local ywca. let me just say that it was more of a learning experience than i could have imagined; little did we know, but we were stepping into a little known sub-culture that we didn't know existed.

it didn't really help that i had been in las vegas less than 24 hours before and had slept only 3 hours that morning, but the whole experience was a little on the surreal side. T and i arrived at 7:15 for the beginner's class. at first there were only a few people in the gymnasium but slowly people started filing in. it had the akwardness of a middle school dance but with middle-aged people. T and i were by far the youngest people there. the average age must have been mid 40's and most of the women seemed to be first-generation chinese. as more and more people came (there was an intermediate class at 8:15), it became clear that we had stumbled upon a serious singles scene for waltz-loving people.

on one hand the dance lessons were humbling and frustrating. i felt like i was driving stick shift for the first time in a volkswagon on the freeway as ferraris whized by me on all sides; i'm concentrating so hard on everything i need to remember (beat, count, elbow up, look down at your feet without appearing to stare at her breasts, etc.) while couples are blowing by me. once the intermediate lessons started there was a remedial lesson offered off in another room. if i ever needed an ego boost, that was it. sure i was struggling, but at least i had a clue. the three other men in there were clueless. i mean, it's one thing to get something wrong and know what that you're doing it wrong, but these guys had no idea what they were doing wrong or why.

meanwhile back in the gynasium a full on dance was going on. people were there and dressed to see and be seen. i think there was some serious scoping going on. i have a feeling more than a couple of eyes wandered over T while we were there. with exhaustion setting in, T and i fled the ywca. are we going back next week?