I envy the way some people - so many people - manage to look graceful as fuck or sexy as hell when they're shaking their booty/what their mother gave them/their moneymaker/their tail feathers on the ol' D-Floor. For me to jump up and flail my limbs with gay abandon (because I can't help that think "dancing" is too loose a term to use ... "flail my limbs" seems far more accurate), a number of things need to have occurred before that. I need to have consumed a number of alcoholic beverages. That, or I need to have been inspired to leave my seat/corner in which I stand clutching my beer by a song that can't not be danced along to. By this, I mean I need to hear "Blue Monday" or "Dancing in the Dark" (I'm serious) or some sort of surf rock classic (or Patsy Cline, but honestly when is that ever going to happen?). If the two of these things happen concurrently thanks to some fancy footwork (see what I did there?) amongst the stars' alignment, then you've got yourself a gosh darn tootin' dancing Reb.
That being said, you'll have a dancing Reb, but you're sure as shit not going to have a graceful Reb. I've grown to accept, dare I say it, I've grown to embrace how dorky I am at most given moments. More often then not, I'll be saying something awkward, or getting tangled up in my own bag, or be tripping over something. But still, even while I've come to terms with my dorkiness, I can't help but feel self-conscious a hell of a lot of the time I happen to find myself dancing. As a result, I always find it worthy of noting in my brain the moments in which I manage to have myself a rip-snorting unselfconscious boogie. The moments in which I'll still most likely be getting looks that seem to ask "What the hell is that girl trying to do? Is she in the throes of a conniption?", but I won't give one iota of a shit about it.
Behold, the first of a few examples of times I have enjoyed dancing.
1. With Alice.
I'd say "With every one of the Uni Girls", but it'd be a crime not to single out dearest Alice in particular for closer analysis and praise. When Alice dances her long limbs sail through the air, her hair whips around and seems perpetually suspended mid-air. She manages to look slightly mesmerising throughout every song, an incredible balancing act between endearingly sexy and absolutely hilarious. So much so that our pal Immy has at one point even drunkenly felt the need to remind Alice that "subtlety can be sexy too". During a discussion in Mornington a couple of weekends ago, it was decided that Alice's animal equivalent was not so much the giraffe we'd always thought was appropriate, but that she could be more accurately described by way of a llama.
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| "Well, it's got these kind of graceful long limbs, but the rest of it's pretty dorky" |
The weekend after I got back to Melbourne, we found ourselves at the Toff in Town, in a dance floor barren when usually we'd be surrounded by fellow revelers. The DJ was spinning Wings. That could have turned into a fun-impeding problem, as much as I do enjoy myself a bit of McCartney. Not so however, given the company I was keeping. It was time to Get It Done. I felt like I was back in Melbourne in earnest at last. If Journey Night out with the Girls were a film, it wouldn't be complete without a montage of us jumping, flailing, with hair flapping, fists pumping with little to no regard for what people around us could possibly be thinking. Legs and arms and hair being thrown every which way. Glorious.
Last night I caught up with a friend of mine, a guy I met in Chile who returned to Australia about two weeks ago. I convinced him to come out with the girls and I after our initial catch-up beers were consumed. True to form, we ended up trouping over to the Toff. It has to be said that the expression on his face when "Backstreets Back" hit the speakers and we hit the dancefloor was one between utter confusion and extreme amusement. While we jumped around and screeched along and did our best boy band-esque moves Steve alternated between an applaudable effort to join in and complete puzzlement.
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| Artist's impression. |
What was noteworthy about that particular night was the fact that I completely forgot how awfully dorktastic and awkward I look when I dance. I couldn't possibly ever dance in any way remotely close to "sexy", so I suppose that's why I enjoy dancing completely outrageously. When I'm attempting the former, I'm fairly sure my facial expression is one of intense concentration mixed with concern and maybe pain, while my feet shuffle around and my hips move completely separately and my arms don't know where to go ... I can't imagine it's particularly attractive. Any occasion in which I forget to be completely self-conscious about how alarmingly awkward I look on the dance floor, it's a unique moment worthy of celebration.
And that is why it was a time I enjoyed dancing.
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