Perceptions are a strange deal. I think we all perceive ourselves different from reality. This just might explain those folks in the Walmart emails so festively dressed. There are days when I too, think I am the cutest thing on two legs only to happen upon a mirror or a window and be slapped with the brutal truth!
I blame cheap faulty mirrors to a great extent.

I have been taking Zumba classes for going on 2 years now. Every Tuesday and Thursday I trudge up to the Y for the 8:30 class. I make the effort to go even though I dont care for the instructor on Tuesdays at all! I bet she was a mean girl cheerleader in high school. She looks the type; tiny, impatient and snappish, flinging herself around with reckless abandon, not having to worry about someone else's flailing arms smacking her in the face and not understanding our real fear of the unexpected elbow sandwich.

There is an extremely nice older black couple in the Tuesday class that have lost a combined 100 pounds in the past year. We all celebrate their success and think they are pretty darn brave considering the class mostly consists of young white yuppy mothers trying to lose baby weight and there are just a couple of us over 50. This couple always shows up early and speaks to everyone. Most times he is the only male in the class yet they are very good sports, shaking their booties vigorously with the rest of us. One day last summer Deena told them they really needed to see The Help. Seriously? Thankfully they still come to class.

Deena has been out for a few weeks though and from what I understand, she has plantars fasciitis and is not expected back for another month. While I know that is a tremendously painful problem and I really shouldn't be happy about her misfortune, I'll just go ahead and say I am really enjoying the subs teaching in her absence.

All my musicality must have leaked out when I hit my head 10 years ago because I swear I used to have a modicum of rhythm. At home I'd turn up the music and dance around the house, cleaning as I wiggled and swayed to the beat. I never realized how prevalent this particular practise was until an old roommate told me she does the same thing only nekkid while listening to Barry White! I say "TMI" to that and shudder at the thought of her dancing with the Hoover to "Cant Get Enough of Your Love"!
Why, in the early 90's my dear friend, Dee and I were asked to be in a music video by our friend and fellow artist Dottie Whiplash.  It was an interesting adventure going in for our cave women costume fittings and the rehearsals. The video was shot in a club in Deep Ellum on a Saturday morning when it would be closed to the public but there were quite a few invitees to witness this event. Judging from the hootin and hollerin we must have looked pretty good or perhaps the audience was still one-eyed and legless from the night before. After several "takes" success was declared and we wrapped it up. There were lots of cat calls as we snuck off backstage and into the dressing room. Why, it was downright scary, that little bit of enthusiastic hysteria. It was at that time I decided it was probably a good thing I wasn't famous because all that attention would be unnerving.



So, you see, its no wonder I perceive myself to be able to dance, at least a little, and at least enough not to embarrass myself. But thats where perception and reality come to a screeching halt. Why, this morning at Zumba there was just a scant smattering of us instead of the usual packed house. I guess some are still out of town or perhaps in a turkey induced coma and just didn't feel like shaking it all up. Anyway, there were so few of us that I had a full unobstructed view of myself dancing in that dreadful wall of floor to ceiling mirrors and I dont mind telling you it was not a pretty sight. Lurch comes to mind. Maybe a combination of Lurch and Elaine from Seinfeld. Let me just say I will not be dancing in public.... ever again. You can thank me later.