The Real World

I now have the unequalled pleasure and honor of working in the basement of Walker Museum as a little computer person. I clean up 3D models of statues like "squatting monster human head," which involves me looking at several different shells of the same area and deciding which one looks the best in which part, and then deleting what doesn't look so hot. It's sort of like a trip to the eye doctor in a 3D photoshop setting. "Tell me which is better...A or B? Now B or C? B or D?"

So I hope you understand the reason for my silence. Not much happens in a basement. In fact, not much is happening above-ground either. I got some new face cleanser, did some laundry, got 3 NEW BLISTERS, and that's about it. A peg-leg is actually sounding pretty appealing at the moment.

Oh wait just a cotton-picking second.

One thing did happen.

I discovered Dancing with the Stars. I'm sort of taking this personally, everyone, that NO ONE has ever recommended this show to me. Every other show under the sun has been rudely thrust apon me with the introduction "You're totally going to love this." And have I? NO. Because there were no elaborate costumes, because they had names like I "heart" New York, but first and foremost, because there was absolutely no ballroom dancing. I suffered through One Tree Hill, through My Sweet 16, and through other shows I don't even remember, but my suffering has ended!

I've always had a soft spot for ballroom dancing. A long time ago, when my dad was buying Hungarian movies as if all the cool kids were doing it in great quantities, a series of do-it-yourself ballroom dancing movies found their way into the collection. (We now own such a large quantity of old, mostly awful Hungarian movies that if our house were to collapse about our ears, we could reconstruct it using solely these movies). This series of movies would be my guilty pleasure for a long time.

In it, there would be a group of teenagers going to dance school who would learn a new dance every day. First a professional couple would come in and show the dance of the day to them, and then the kids would try it out with a teacher helping them out step by step. All the boys and girls dressed and looked the same. It was all delightfully Communist. The boys would have to stand just so and the girls too. For each lesson there would be the desginated dancer who sucked and would do everything wrong: he would ask the girl to dance in a very sloppy manner, his hand would be too far down her er...back...yes, back, his elbow would not be up high enough, or (God forbid) they might even be standing too close together. Because you were supposed to treat this weird creature as if she were a lady and not a WOMAN. Part of me just always wanted a couple to bust loose like 2 very drunken strangers at a frat party who just happen to feel that horrible reggaetone beat in the very fiber of their beings and watch with horrified fascination at the mayhem that would undoubtedly ensue in the class. What would the school m'arm do? Join them? Bring out the trusty ruler or switch? Call in the army?

So these kids would dance, and would never accidentally mess up. Because they were Hungarian and they were all Communist, damnit, and this type of person never makes a mistake! Ever!

The long and short of this is that I really like ballroom dancing. If a man ever asks me to take lessons with him, I would be out the door before the sentence even left his mouth. Because while some people fervently believe that there is a core of good in the cruelest, most barbarous human being in the world, I go for a different angle and persist in believing that everyone has a little bit of Fred and Ginger in them.