All She Wants to Do is

DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!

This pic was posted on the Facebook wall of a friend I'd made while working at Arthur Murray, a year ago. It was part of a collage, celebrating her Danciversary, and I loved it on So. Many. Levels.

Did you know that I love ballroom dancing? Do you know when I fell in love with ballroom dancing?

MANY years ago, I was married to a dude who'd been a good husband and good father to his daughter from his previous marriage. He let the little girl slip away in a custody NON-battle, "in her best interests", but which led to her biological mother beating her, and when custody was granted to us, we had no clue how to raise a completely broken child, and so the ex-wife killed our marriage.

While we were drifting apart, I was working in a very corporate environment, and there was a corporate Christmas party that my spouse had no plans to attend. So I invited my baby brother to be my date, because I knew he'd had ballroom dance lessons and would often participate in his own neighborhood dance events. He was, basically, the best dancer I knew, and if he wanted to attend, I knew I'd have a good time in spite of my marital woes.

Boy, howdy, did he EVER want to attend! Free dinner? Free drinks (even if it was a two-drink maximum)? DANCING? You betcha! So he drove the distance from his home a state away, and we went to my company party.

I was inappropriately dressed. I had the wrong shoes, and my skirt was either too tight or too short or both. Didn't matter. Baby bro led me as if I knew how to follow. We didn't dance EVERY dance together (he danced with whomever he did/I danced as much as I was able), but we both had a good time, and he planted the "ballroom dance fever" seed in my brain.

Fast-forward almost a decade, and Mommy has just died in a horrible car accident. I'm in Los Angeles, making my film life work for me, and while I have some debt, none of it is particularly unmanageable. What's the one thing I could do with my portion of the small insurance settlement we've received? Who is the One Person who would love to see me dance? Who is the One Person my brother had danced with more often than any other, up until she died? What would She want me to spend that insurance money on?

You guessed it, kids. I paid for an intro package at Arthur Murray, because Mommy made it possible. After the intro package, I paid for more lessons. I took lessons at Arthur Murray for almost three years, advancing through the skill levels, figuring out which were my fave dances (TANGO, waltz, foxtrot...) and which were my not-so-faves (salsa and East Coast swing, primarily because of lazy partners who just spin you 'til you puke). I competed ONCE, after which I realized that I'm just not competitive.

Last year, I got that job as an admin at Arthur Murray. It was a good gig, and I got to dance with the students quite a bit. Prior to that gig, I'd shifted to group classes at the Y, when I had a membership. Then we moved across the country a couple of times, and before I got the gig at Arthur Murray, I was trying to figure out how/when/where to dance.

Now that it's 2016, I think Stephen and I are going to check out a dance hall a couple times per month. We gotta get him comfortable enough to let someone other than me back-lead him occasionally, and if we get friends to join us, that should do. It's not exactly a short drive from here, but really, what is? Do I wanna DANCE? Or not?

go ahead and play this in the background - there's no actual video here, just THE SONG

What is "All YOU Want to Do" for 2016?