I bet that you look good on the dance floor

Ryan told me last weekend that I couldn’t live my life just to write about it. She’s right, in and out of context. Perhaps I should start living more, right? I decided to do something this weekend that I would not write about but here I am about to write about it.

Friday was Casey’s birthday party. I was not feeling one hundred percent but as Casey is that friend who would do anything for anyone I felt compelled to celebrate the fact that she had gone three hundred sixty five days without falling off the planet. Her party was a huge affair in a tiny house and she had enough food to feed everyone in Phoenix and enough beer to drown their sorrows.

I usually feel awkward at these parties because while I can spin a yarn on paper I cannot tell one in person. I am a dreadful conversationalist. Worse yet, this party was going to be populated with other teachers and that makes my conversation worse because most teachers do not appreciate stories about the foibles of my students – which my repertoire for conversation is. Most teachers want to talk about clever folder games they have made up or hear from people who wonderful they are for being in our (cough) noble profession.

Thankfully, this was not the case. One of my coworkers rolls her own cigarettes and I assumed it was marijuana. I figured if she was lighting up a joint no one was going to judge me if I told a story about one of my students feigning retardation. At least I think he’s feigning. Apparently, she is just part Amish and they roll their own cigarettes. I’m not sure, but she gave me my opening to be recalcitrant and offensive.

Let it never be said that I claimed my student’s quirks and eccentricities were somehow sacrosanct or otherwise immune from mockery. The people who are not teachers at the party were surprised that teachers would tell these stories about their students and laugh at them behind their backs. Casey and I, to our credit, laugh at them then and there as well talking about them later. The stories were all well received and soon all the teachers were adding to the hilarity, each story better than the last.

Apparently, the myth that teachers leave school to spend their evenings in fervent prayer in a monastery somewhere persists. I am here to tell you that this is not the case. No one lets loose like teachers. There is only so long we can hold it all in before we burst, and people were certainly bursting that evening.

After Casey’s party we went to what her cousin calls the Vampire Bar. It is a Goth Club in Phoenix. I went along because it was Casey’s birthday and I am a reliable designated driver. I had no intention of dancing. I am trained to dance in formal situations but I cannot dance informally very well. It looks like I am constipated and having a seizure. I did not want to make a fool of myself so I tend to just hang back.

Casey had other ideas and I went out on the floor with my friends. Gothic music is nearly impossible for me to dance to. I could not discern a beat and the dancing of others was so erratic that I could not emulate it. I asked Kirsten what she was doing and she said, “I am just running in place, I can’t dance to this.” Next time I am going to Fox Trot with myself or listen to my iPod and dance to that. Luckily, one of Casey’s friends who teaches Kindergarten had passed her limit and kept on going got on the floor and decided that dance where you butt bump people until they fall over was dancing. This gave me an out to leave the dance floor.

I had intended to just dance and enjoy it. It was going to be an evening instead of a vignette or morality tale. I was going to enjoy myself for the sake of it but what I learned out on the dance floor was not how to throw down like a vampire but instead that if I have a soul I have the soul of a writer and my purpose is to tell stories to entertain people. The moral of the story, then, is that I have no morals and while Ryan is right that I should not live my life just to write about it I cannot get away from the fact that I eventually will.

Comments

[Suburban Island]

And we, your faithful readers, would be devastated if you did not. Write on, my friend. Write on.

[Margaret]

All of life is a story, Christopher. You have a gift for making it real for us, and funny--so, keep on with your tales, as SI says! And no one lets loose better than teachers. I think it's because we have to be around all those people at school, and "play" nice while we're there.

[liz]

Write on!
And Happy birthday!

[Presencia]

People should read this.

[casey]

That is a good memory!!