Princess of Irony

Tone Loc�s "Funky Cold Medina" would act like some sort of homing device for my girlfriends and I.

Issue Date: Monday, Nov. 08, 2004

Very interesting.

Whilst in the staff kitchen this morning fixing my breakfast, our web specialist walked in to mix his normal healthy juggernaut of granola/berries/yogurt and a bamboo hut* or something.

I greeted him and he said, �How was your weekend? Did you stay out of trouble?�

I said, �Of course, I never get into any trouble.�

He responded with, �That is not the rumor that I heard.�

Now, this sort of threw me. There I was, stirring warm water into instant grits of all things. I had just gotten back from a weekend spent at the home of my parents and apparently I have the reputation of being some wild woman?

Hmmm.

Is it because I am fairly young? Is it because I share an office with another fairly young woman? Is it because she is single? Is it because he is just teasing me? Is it because I work with a bunch of accountants and direct eye contact may be seen as wild behavior?

I know, I know� IT guys are sometimes shy and they go to opposite extremes to tease when they just want to make conversation. I know he really didn�t mean anything by it because he does the same thing to my officemate.

It just got me to thinking about how wild my little band of women were in college.

Close your eyes and picture this. Oh wait, if you close your eyes, you can�t read.

Then let me paint a picture for you.

Regardless of the club scene or the week or weekend night in the early 1990�s you would find loud music, smoke, beer and the promise of a connection luring upwards of fourteen of our closest girlfriends out of the dorms and into the clubs. Even after we moved out of the dorms and into apartments we would gather to primp and preen before the mirrors, shouting over the loud music to be heard that this guy or that was on the phone making sure that we were going to be there that night.

The Greek fraternities are just formal groups of the same types of gatherings, just in male formations... with more organization and a residence to throw parties in after the clubs have closed their doors for the evenings.

We always had our plans for the night. Which club to start out at and which dirty spoon to end the evening with, and who was supposed to hook up with whom.

�Let�s walk over to Crossroads, Three�s A Crowd is playing for Happy Hour� then we can go to Bullwinkles' for dancing. The Pikes are having a party, so are the KAs� we can always go out to Jitterbugs� isn�t Sterling City playing? And if we want, isn�t that guy with the mustache having a party too? Lets meet up with everyone over at the Hot Biscuit after everything closes� Kay? Oh, waiiiiittttt�. Aren�t the Phi Delts throwing some big bash too???�

That wasn�t the best part, no� not by far� for me the best part was the music. Whether it was the sweet seduction of a waltz with an older gentleman in the smoky interior of Cotton Eyed Joe�s, or the upbeat heartbeat pounding jitterbug (normally a very fast and upbeat song) and having my partner toss me so high into the air that my boots knock out ceiling panels over the dance floor at Bullwinkles... or the best, the dance music thrown into the country mix to break it up. Bass shaking the very air and techno rocking the house while a bunch of men in cowboy hats get out on the wooden dance floor. Hee!

If you haven�t ever seen this� it really is a sight to behold. It happens in Texas quite a bit. Country music clubs have the best dance floors, hardwood and usually scattered with sawdust for sliding. Just to break up the sets of country and western music, they play hip-hop and techno every 30 minutes or so. Cowboys get out on the floor and some of them can really get down. Heh.

The first few drumbeats ba-da-dum-dum-da-dum-dum of Tone Loc�s "Funky Cold Medina" would act like some sort of homing device for my girlfriends and I. You would see our heads pop up (not unlike prairie dogs) from whatever conversation we were engrossed in, whomever we were already dancing with, or whatever drink line at the bar we were standing in and we would automatically search for the two tallest members of our group so we could converge on the dance floor en masse.

It was like some sort of primitive ritualistic call to shake our hips, heads, necks and rib cages to the beat.

Sir Mix-A-Lot�s �Baby Got Back� had the same effect, Technotronic, C&C Music Factory, even Clarence Carter. Our group was a multicultural mix of young women with rhythm and grace; music spoke to all of us, although� Stacey never really heard the call of Country and Western. :: smile::

Most of us never even left the dance floor, spending our nights worked up in a rhythmic frenzy, two-stepping, three-stepping, waltzing, jitterbugging, fast dancing, slow dancing, polka, you name it, we did it often or tried it at least once. It was a beautiful thing. I really wish I could have captured that in a bottle.

Anywhere to dance, it was almost a drug.

We would go to the lake on Monday nights when the bars weren�t open. We�d park our cars and turn our radio stations all to the same stations, leave our windows down and dance in the parking lot. We�d get hot and sticky and more often than not end up in the lake. Sometimes� nekkid. The park ranger would run us off after 10pm only if we were drinking or if the sheriff was patrolling.

We danced in the hallways of our dorms and the parking lots too. We danced in the parking lots of our apartment complexes. We danced in our bedrooms. One of my dear, dear friends (a friend I need to tell you all the story of) D�Wayne taught himself how to dance in his dorm room before venturing out onto the dance floors of the bars. He is one of the smoothest waltzers (is so a word) I know.

I miss dancing so much; it has always been a huge piece of my life. I never thought of myself as a wild child in college, I just liked to dance. I was a virtual never-ending supply of energy where dancing was concerned, and I still love to dance, I just don�t want to brave the bars to do it anymore. They are loud and smoky, the drinks are expensive and I feel fat.

How could anyone mistake me for wild anymore? Hmmm?

*I typed �and a water buffalo� first, because it was funnier, but seriously� it didn�t make any sense, and because he is the web guru, he may be reading this, and in that case, Hi Wayne! Don�t get me fired, kay?

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