First Dance Drag-a-Thon

I can't explain my recent fascination with school dances.

In the last week, I've written twice about them. Once based on my real life experience at St. Thomas school as a sixth grader. The second time, an entirely fictional account of a date to the prom, with my silver anniversary watch in my pocket. Which is weird, because I didn't get that watch until I'd been married for years. And from my wife.

My kids are starting to go to their own dances now. Tentatively at first.

The first big dance for them as Sixth graders, was the Halloween dance. My daughter was all fired up to go, my son wasn't so sure of himself. We dropped both of them off, and had to go back about a half an hour later to pick up my son. He said it was too loud. At least he tried it out.

My own first dance recollections are fairly hazy. Filled with white pants, Izod sweaters, and penny loafers that put huge blisters on my feet. And I could never get pennies into mine! Which was super frustrating. I suspect that everyone else conned their dad into getting it in there for them. But I could be wrong.

Those early dances were filled with lots of standing around, in same sex groups. Only after a little while did any large number of people start dancing. I was always terrible at it too. They actually taught us the "box step waltz" in gym class. I learned that this was special just to get us ready for the dances. No body contact was permitted. By which I mean the boy and the girl held each other at arms length. Forget the six inch rule, or a hands-breadth, we're talking at least a foot here.

I always disliked anything other than slow dancing. It just felt like a maniacal workout to me. But then, while I did have good rhythm ( I was in band dammit!!), I definitely had no moves. Didn't want any either. See the reference to working out, above.

I think I went to most of the dances at St. Thomas, I only lived a block away from school, and my parents strongly encouraged it. I might have gotten out of a few of them, I don't remember.

I didn't go to any dances in High School. I didn't date either. I just didn't want to put forth the effort I guess. Anything that put a cramp in my preferred activities, of reading, sleeping, eating, playing video games, watching television, and movies; I didn't much want to do them. I wasn't that awesome in High School.

I wish I had done more though. I'll tell all my kids that too, if it can make any difference.

I regret not dating anyone. I regret not going to any dances (Prom!). I should have taken a more diverse group of classes.

I mean, I finally shucked off Band class for Senior year, as i was done with my fine arts graduation requirement, and I threw a hissy fit. I wanted a study hall period. Basically so I could fuck off. But my folks would have none of that. So just like with bad haircuts, sweaters, and birth control glasses, they got their way. I took "college study skills" just to shut them up.

The class was a joke. My desk mate and I, were totally disruptive. We both got kicked out of class several times. We'd take turns throwing things at the blackboard when the teacher's back was turned. Then have fun pretending we were just as baffled as anyone else.

One time, I got sent to the principal's office for screwing around. So I went down to the office, and sat in reception until the end of class. I even saw the principal several times while I was sitting there. I said hello to him, and we shot the shit for a minute, then he left. Hey, nobody told me I had to tell the office why I was there, amirite?

The tomfoolery kind of climaxed with my desk-mate showing up for class drunk as a skink one day. We both kind of blew off that class after that.

I didn't get accepted to Michigan State University that summer. I guess I showed them!

When you apply to colleges, they kind of remove your grades for gym class, and Band. And my resulting 1.8 GPA, just didn't impress them enough. Who knew??!!

Oh yeah, school dances. I should have gone. I wasn't into being very social though, as I might have mentioned. And when I did do stuff socially, I tended to overcompensate for my antisocialness, by showing zero social skills in some way. Mostly by being an over the top "look at me" mother fucker. I'm sure people could attest to that, if they gave a damn to do so.

I've lost interest in this topic. Next!

Cheers

Bubble Boy: Oppose Thyself

Twenty years ago, I was a different person.

I worked at a law firm in downtown Lansing; I associated with the people there, and it helped reinforce my largely Republican conservative views. Heck, one of the lawyers there was the chief Michigan Republican party counsel.

I still rebelled a little bit, how could I not? I wore a Ross Perot pin leading up to the 1992 presidential election. Mostly based on his super fun financial presentations. But, I was still a Republican at heart.

After I moved out of my parent's house in East Lansing, I moved to Northern Michigan, living by myself for a few years. My main influences were all the people I worked with. Mostly ex-military conservatives. My political views shifted even further that way as a result. Moving almost too far in a way. I became isolationist, and a touch homophobic and racist.

Then I got married, had kids, moved to upstate NY, right next to Vermont. My political views shifted once again in response to all these changes.

I find myself now sitting very liberally. I eschew all formal political parties. Though I still am a registered Republican. My wife is a registered Democrat. We do this, in order to exert at least a little influence on politics. As the only two parties that hold general primary elections, and the only two parties who seem to ever win office for the most part: This is simply another way to participate in choosing the winner. For, while I almost never vote Elephant, or Donkey in the main election, I can at least put down a vote for which Republican bastard will win. And my wife, vice versa.

I can honestly say that I voted McCain in the 2000 Republican Primaries. I still think he was the right Republican for that job, especially as viewed in the hindsight of 9/11. But that's just speculation of course.

Nowadays, I find myself in even more of a bubble. I've "cut the cord". I don't subscribe to cable or satellite television. I do have an internet service, and that is how our family gets all of our entertainment and news. In the car, I listen to either music or podcasts of my choosing.

If you look at that, you can see that as a consequence of choosing mostly what I see and hear; my world view is much the way that I want it to be.

I took a step outside myself this morning. This was in response to a friend putting some comments on a link I posted to the Facebook. It was about the Occupy movement, and what I viewed as the exclusively heavy handed response that the authorities have had to it.

All that I see, are reports and videos that are negative to the law enforcement response. I have no balanced viewpoint. I still recoil from major media viewpoints, as I am suspect of their agenda. Which might be paranoid, but at least I can admit it.

So I've made a project for myself. As I'm laid up with a bum knee, I have a lot of sitting down time on my hands. I'm going to spend a few days doing things I don't normally do.

I'm going to check out lots of opposing viewpoints. I'm going to seek out all the examples of "Protesters Behaving Badly" that I can find. Even before looking, I can safely bet there is going to be a lot. People being what they are, there will always be some acting badly on both sides. I suppose it's an example of my naïveté that I'm not just as suspect of my primarily liberal news sources as I am of, say, Fox News.

So for the next two days, don't expect me to be sympathetic to much of anything. I'm playing devil's advocate. Against myself.

Cheers, to opposing views.