i came to dance, dance, dance, dance...

yes i happen to be a glutton for pop music, but that song dynamitejust puts me in a good mood.

al and i came to an interesting realization last week. for context, he works for some ny financial risk management company, and like any other finance company in the city, there's a fancy schmancy holiday party at the end of the year. (he's not in finance, btw, he's a programmer). so being a dude, he was super excited about this party and the prospect that it was an excuse to make me dress up, wear impractical shoes that would make me want to chop my feet off, and throw some makeup on my face, etc.

so like the good gf i should be, i promised to go the 9 yards, which i must admit i despise less and less as time goes on. so we get to the venue and find that it's fancy of all fancies. (we immediately took a bet at how much it would cost per head to have a wedding reception there. $400, he hit it on the nose.) two floors, two open bars, cocktails, buffets, deejays, dance floor ... it was a wedding without the wedding.

his only wish was that i got all decked out to wow his coworkers, though really i think he just wanted me to wow him. not so hard when my general apparel consists of athletic wear or jeans. (keep the expectations low, people!) anyways, so i met his coworkers and their wives, who were pretty cool ... we ate a crazy amount of food which was delicious. and then we look over to this hubbub of people in plastic shades, epilepsy-inducing fake ipods that blinked fluorescent colors, and glow bracelets on the dance floor.

now, neither al nor i are dancers. i think up until now we were both the type to prefer to sit on the sides at weddings and generally avoiding dancing at all costs. at least, i was. i secretly don't mind, and perhaps sometimes enjoy dancing - but only by myself. in public, only at weddings of college friends. otherwise ... just generally not a fan. i was notorious at remnant for being the girl who wouldn't dance - though honestly much of that was induced by the fact that people labelled me as such. i don't mind dancing - i just don't like people watching me dance.

al has some similar sentiments, and though i find it amusing/endearing when he dances around my apt sometimes just to make me laugh (um, it looks normal, i don't see why he's self-conscious) ... apparently it's not his thing in public.

so i'm not sure what compelled me, maybe it was his coworker and his wife who got out there and looked like they were having fun - or the fact that there were old people out there (drunk) and clearly we couldn't look any more foolish than they ... or the fact that unlike him, i knew no one at this party and therefore had no shame. but i dragged him out to go dance with me. (one advantage of the impracticalities of dressing up is that i could probably ask him for anything. huh. i'll have to remember that.)

much to our surprise - it was really fun. somewhere in the course of the night he commented that dancing is actually fun when you have someone to dance with.

huh. i guess that's what it was. perhaps that's why i didn't like dancing before - because inevitably it gets awkward if you don't have a partner. you either have to make new friends with strangers, or hang out in a group (forming the inevitable circle) or something. in any event, we had a good time.

my feet paid for it afterwards, but he's a champion foot massager. i got lucky on that one.

the prom picture:



glad i finally got some use out of that dress. bought it on sale a few years ago and thought it looked nice and maybe i'd have an occasion to wear it one day. i think these are the only times al approves of my habit of buying things i don't need just because i found a fabulous deal. but rest assured - it was one fabulous deal.