Dancing fool

Last night, I went salsa dancing with CK. I was going to attend the lesson, but skipped it in favor of dinner with CK first. We had a great time dissecting the book I'm reading (page 82, y'all, it'll be wrapped up by next week) and formulating some ideas of our own. Namely, this "marriage delay" that everyone's making a big deal about? It's not new. If you go back to pre-WWII, age at first marriage was similar to what it is now. It dropped after WWII, and I can explain why, but I won't bore you with that now. Suffice it to say, we are both skeptical of the book's basic contentions.

However, while I think the book is pretty junky, it is making me think an awful lot about these issues in my own life. It's causing my mind to jump out of its normal ruts, which is the value I thought it might have. So even though I don't think there's a lot of truth there, it is food for thought, which is always good.

Back to salsa. It was great. I tried to keep track of how many guys I danced with—it was at least 10, but I think more like 11 or 12. Easily double the number of people I danced with last time. It might even be an all time high. I danced two songs with a couple of them, so it was more than 12 dances total (I am tired today). And there was not a single terrible dancer among them! Several were "basic dancers." They have good rhythm and mastery of the steps, but they don't do any fancy moves. That's fine. Basic dancers are not bad dancers. I wasn't on my best form last night, so sticking with simple moves suited me just fine.

Part of my problem was that the music was deafening. CK dug some earplugs out of her bag and my dancing worsened markedly after I put them in. The first guy I danced with post-earplugs was a good dancer, but after he spun me, I crashed into him. More than once. Very embarrassing. I couldn't get my timing right. I kept laughing and I only hope he knew I wasn't laughing at him. I had problems with the next couple of guys I danced with too and I thought, "I need to do an experiment. I need to dance with that first guy again without the earplugs. Or dance with someone who I danced with before I put them in."

I resolved the problem by dancing with Edward.

Edward is a tall drink of water who knows CK from—where? I'm not sure. But when we went dancing back in January, I was introduced to him and now we say hello, chat a little, and dance a few dances when we see each other. He is a doll. So cute. I love Edward. He is a white guy, tall and slim, dark hair and blue (?) eyes. And a thousand watt smile (CK's description). He's always wearing a white shirt and a tie. He's adorable and, oh, probably 10 years younger than me.

I danced the first dance with him last night. He said, "Would you like to dance? Are you willing to risk it?" But of course, Edward, more than willing. It was good. He always takes the lesson and I tell him I'm thinking about going back. I really should.

I lost track of Edward after our dance, but I decided that I was going to ask him dance (and I don't ask guys to dance). The next time I saw him, I marched right up to him and said, "Hi!" He said, "Want to dance?" Well, there you go. I didn't even have to ask. I had the earplugs in and I started have the same timing problems as before. Problems I hadn't had the first time we danced. So one of the earplugs came out right then. I kept the other one in and that worked fine. I was back to something like regular form by the end of the night.

When I dragged CK out at 11:15pm, she remarked that Edward seemed surprised that a cute young thing was pursuing him (yes, I'd noticed it). I said, "Really? But he's so cute! Why aren't more women chasing him?"

"I don't know."

"The thing is, I love him. But it's silly. It's just based on his looks."

"What wrong with that? That's how things start—you have to be attracted." CK said.

"You're right. But he makes me nervous. I'm too shy to chase him down."

CK just gave me a look.

"And he's probably too young for me anyway."

CK said, "If he's old enough to buy you a drink, that's all that matters." Ah, well, maybe she's right.

We said goodnight and I jumped in a cab. This time the driver actually charged me the right amount. What a good night.

Grateful for: dancing.
Drop me a line.