Church Dance

My wife and I went to a church dance tonight, and we even brought our children because it was a "family" dance. For the first hour or so everybody stayed glued to the tables and finger food lines, and not a soul was dancing. There was some palpable awkwardness in the air to the point that I was reminded all too well of junior high. Well, it reminded me of the stereotype of junior high, not of my actual junior high because the dance floor was never empty at my junior high, though there was plenty of awkwardness back then as well. .

This church dance was also different from my junior high dances because when people finally did start dancing there was no bumping and grinding, or "freaking" as we used to call it. Wow, I feel old when I say things like "as we used to call it." Yes, in terms of dirty dancing, my junior high dances resembled the Viper Room--though probably not quite as many drugs, but close. I swear the school spend its entire budget on the DJ and the electricity used by his light show, etc...I was also always a little deaf for several hours afterwards.

With what went on you wouldn't have thought that we had chaperons, but we did. Sure, they were usually huddled in the the corners in the fetal position, but they were there, and they sure didn't stop the near copulation set to music. I'm sure that I had some sense of the inappropriateness of 13-year-olds trying to become one flesh with clothes on, but it was certainly difficult to avoid if you didn't want to sit on the bleachers. I would be dancing in a small circle with a group of friends, none of us actually touching, when all of a sudden there was some girl I had never seen before somehow attached to me at the leg or hip. Ah, those awkward adolescent moments.

I'm happy to say that there were no jiggy leeches at this church dance. Once all of us married folk loosened up with a nice, classic Limbo-rock things went pretty smoothly from there. It was obvious that a lot of us hadn't danced in a while, but thankfully we stopped caring how we looked after a few songs. And, hey, we got to take home some vegetables--always a sign of victory in my book.

Lock and Load.

Whenever I try to staple together a few papers with an empty stapler I must own that I get a little miffed. But then I remember that what this means is that I get to load it. Now, I'm not sure what it is, but I really do like loading staplers. There is something about that subtle metallic clicking when things get put into place that relaxes me, and at the same time makes me feel powerful. Maybe it is just the ten-year-old boy in me, but I feel a little like I am loading a gun, and I like it. There is something relaxing about loading a gun--I really probably shouldn't say this online. Now, I should say that I am a little left-leaning in most of my politics, but as far as guns go...well, I like guns. I grew up in a family that enjoyed going to the mountains a couple of times a year to shoot. For further clarification, we don't hunt, and I am really not interested in it, but we like to shoot at bottles, cans, paper plates etc...I'm not interested in creating blood when I shoot--unless of course there were a mountain lion or a rapist charging my family or myself. I actually only own one gun, and it is a WWII Russian, bolt-action, riffle. The bullets are so darn expensive that I have actually only fired my gun 15 times, and at the present time I only have one bullet. So, its not like I am going to be taking down any mountain lions or rapists with it--that would be unpractical, and I really hope to never encounter either. I just take a little pleasure in loading things.