You should be dancing. Yeah.

Well last night was a friend's birthday, and since he has been on a huge salsa/swing dancing kick over these past few months, he had people meet him at The Copacabana. I had never been there before and technically have never gone Salsa dancing either. One time I ended up at SOB's for a promotion last winter and even though I was working I got to dance a lot too. On very few occasions do I get to do any of that kind of dancing, but when I do I always love it. Depending on who I am there with I generally find that there are plenty of guys around who are looking for dance partners and suddenly I feel like I have stepped back in time to an era when people went to dance clubs to dance with each other, face to face, her hand in his and his arm around her back, leading her around the floor. It is so very different from the generation I was brought up in where you would go dancing and stand in a clump with your friends shakin' your ass and having a ball. If a guy wants to dance with you he just grooves up behind you and starts grinding. If you are interested in anything about this person and are drunk enough, you grind back. If you are not interested, you politely remove your ass from his pelvic region. I also spent a great deal of my best memories dancing at raves not too long ago. It was here that I really understood the value of my own dancing and how much I enjoyed being all alone while doing it. I didn't need my friends around me on the dance floor to enjoy myself, though if I had a bunch of my brilliant dancer friends nearby, it always made life that much more fun to have them to look up and exchange smiles with. You could always tell when you were around people who just didn't get it when you would be there in your own world getting your groove on and having more than enough fun when suddenly some skeevy guy would start grinding up against you. He wasn't dancing AT ALL the way that you were and you gave no indication that you needed or even wanted a dance partner and suddenly he would throw off your whole moment. I would just have to keep removing him from my body and sliding over hoping he would get the hint. I didn't come there to grind against anyone at all. Even if a guy was hot, that was immediate grounds for dismissal, since he was obviously stupid. There was only a very short time in my life that I welcomed that type of behavior in a club, and it has long since passed. So being at places with people salsa or swing dancing is like a whole other world in a totally different time. If you aren't dancing, no matter who you're with, there is a good chance a guy will ask you to dance. Imagine that...they ASK you if you want to dance. Weird. I don't get the feeling that they are asking you to dance so that they can ask you on a date or get your drunk and sleep with you. They are generally asking you to dance because they actually want to dance. They have some moves, and they want to twirl you around the dance floor. I have found myself dancing with lots of people I would never grind up against, not even in a nightmare. I have had husbands whose wives are perfectly alright sitting out while they twirl me around the floor. I don't really know what I'm doing, but with a guy who does, they just toss me around and give me a twirl and suddenly I feel like I'm a pro. A smile permanently across my face and wishing I was wearing a twirly skirt, I am happy. I wonder why more men don't know how to dance like this and why more people don't go dancing to this music. Sure the other stuff's alright, but there is nothing like this world where it isn't implied that you want to fuck a guy just because you allow him to twirl you around the dance floor. It's a place you could go alone if you just felt like dancing, and you would never have to worry about filling the next spot on your dance card.

To anyone who will listen...

On my way through the subway station this morning where I usually see Midget Michael Jackson Man flailing his tiny manparts (that didn't sound right), I saw a lady shouting out something about God. It was strange, because she was standing there with her purse on her shoulder and her jacket on, and looked as if she was just passing through when she suddenly felt that she just HAD to preach. So she did. No one was stopping to listen, but she kept shoutin'. I have a lot of things I feel like shouting at New Yorkers, but I have yet to do so. Why is that? Am I insane or is she? I assure you that what I have to shout out people need to hear a lot more than they need to hear that God created the universe, and that gay people are evil. I need to tell people to stop being so fucking rude around here. I want to scream at people who just throw their trash on the ground right next to a trash can. I want to have people actually attempt to move out of MY way sometime instead of barreling through me on the street. If you fucking knock my freshly purchased iced coffee out of my hand because rather than turning your upper body just a smidge, you prefer, instead, to ram it into the hand that is holding the coffee...maybe you could look back and apologize as you keep walking...since I now have to go buy another one. I love NYC and I don't think it is just here that people are so rude. I was raised to say please and thank you, and I'm sorry. I say it when I haven't done anything that warrants it. I have some strange syndrome where I automatically default to polite. Most of the time I am proud of that, and happy with the way I was raised...but more and more lately I'm just irked with myself and wish I didn't automatically move out of other people's way or hold the doors when they refuse to acknowledge it or say "thank you, have a great day!" to the people I just handed my money to at Dunkin Donuts who can't even make eye contact with me. Then I get a little sad to realize that being here with people like that changes me a little bit and I find myself making a conscious effort to stand my ground on the sidewalks instead of shifting for everyone else. This makes me sad since I don't need to change or adapt to this rude world...it should be the other way around, but it isn't. Anyway, kudos to this random woman for getting things off her chest to anyone who will listen. She's got balls. But I'd rather see Midget Michael Jackson Man.