How to dance at parties: The Art of Moving Vertically
Once in a while… more often than I would like, a party bash rises from the horizon. And I find myself woken like a dragon from his slumber and asked to go play outside with the ducks or something. The two don’t go well together. But one rises to the obligation of the occasion all the same with their bedhead hair.
The thing they call "Dance"
And here we are where the pots sizzle and the little kiddies and old biddies drizzle on the dance floor. Now I suppose it is a good time to talk about that word: “dance.” Never understood it. Not sure what it is. Like a mammal sighted from the distance of near-sighted eyes and the lack of glasses with only a mild certainty of its arrival. And it doesn’t, because it’s already here. It has always been here, whispering at the edge of a raised finger or a shaken hip; emanating from a clap, it wouldn’t even mind a slap. Run from it; try to hide from it. The dance floor rises from under your feet all the same. Here begins the turtle arc of the story. Because that’s what I become when confronted with such possibilities.
People you’ve known all your life adapt to this new development as quickly as a dog adapts to a car’s window. It begins slowly: a twisted mustache, a neck bob, and then all of a sudden, a rhythmic earthquake hits the souls of the party peeps, and what happens next, they can’t control. As out-of-shape mammals undulate on the dance floor, I lift a finger to ask, “How?” And my action mistaken for an opening step, I get dragged on the floor.
What to Do When Someone Welcomes You to "Break it Down"
There me is (questionable grammar), a turtle unenthusiastically lifting a finger, putting it down, and repeating the action for a couple of rounds as bodies bounce, leap, and kick around like they could feel the music in their hamstrings. “How?” I wonder again and end up on the dance floor like before, resolve this predicament with a couple of raised fingers, and retreat back to whence I came.
The weirdness doesn’t end with the dance floor or begin there, for that matter. It seeps from the odd expressions of self-importance that fancy clothes can manifest in a person. Something about the party setting strangles the everyday hue. The conversations lose all the IQ and saunter along avenues named “Water! Wet, ain’t it?” taking a beeline away from the usual “Sky! Blue, ain’t it?”
How to Dance at Parties Without Being Legally Declared a Hazard
After wondering for years why the bodies and everyone’s doggies bounce while I drown on the floor, I might have finally figured out the whole dance thing or, at least, found a key to a hint that’ll lead to a lost map, which in turn would reveal the location of a mysterious cipher, but after solving it, we might just get a hint to another clue. Here is the goo.
I think we turtles might be approaching this dance endeavor from the wrong angle or from the wrong end of the body entirely. Here’s what I’ve surmised from my years of observation: if one desires to pep and zip, or bounce a little, if you will, then he/she should approach the dance floor from the bottom up. That is to say, the waltz has something to do with the legs! And the upper body just goes along for the ride like it has no self-respect or urgency of its own. Who would have thought the answer could be so simple, so plain Jane? One could conquer the world with this information, eh?
