DANCING ONTO THE BANDWAGON

4 October 2002

I have always been a person who supports my friends, whether I've met them in person or not. Thus, I feel compelled to join the groundswell (bringing its numbers to 8) in support of Marn's suggested International Cavorting Day.

I am not a person who gives herself easily to the notion of cavorting. I would never have made a good hippie (even though I was of an age in the 60s). Running through the grass barefoot with flowers in my hair just isn't...me.

However, as I pass into my dotage and begin to find some of that self confidence I lost somewhere in 7th grade, around the time Jimmy Wohl told me I was fat, I'm thinking that learning how to cavort might not be such a bad idea.

How do you learn how to cavort at 60?

Are there cavorting classes?

I guess I have dabbled in cavorting over the years. I actually took ballroom dancing lessons once. It was my first year at UC Berkeley when I learned I was expected to take a physical education class. I'd managed to successfully avoid PE throughout my entire 4 years in high school and wasn't about to start now, but then I discovered that ballroom dancing counted as a PE class, so I signed up. Once I got past the initial awkwardness, I discovered I enjoyed it a lot. In fact, my dancing partner and I were two of the better ones in the class. I could do a mean cha-cha, baby!

But somewhere along the way, probably sitting for years on typing chairs, I lost those dancing genes. Many's the time when I'd be toe-tappin' to Lawsuit at a club and desperately wanting to get into the fray and actually dance. But in addition to embarrassing my children, it would have embarrassed me. The only time I ever did it, I was shamed into it by a guy in the audience (a stranger) who dragged me in front of everyone and made me dance. I wanted to cry because I was so big and so awkward and so uncomfortable. I'm still grateful to Tom who cut in and managed to move me out of center stage, where I was more comfortable.

Cavorting, I was not.

I suppose the closest I've come to cavorting lately is marching in the San Francisco Pride Festival. Getting out there behind a few drag queens, waving at a bazillion people lining the parade route is pretty brave for a wallflower like me.

Is cavorting something one can do alone? Or does cavorting require a companion? (See? I'm not even clear on the concept!) If it can be done alone, then I suppose hopping on a bike and letting all the flab fly in the breeze as I race along a bike path could be considered cavorting. Getting to the "the hell with what people think--I like this" stage was a huge leap for me.

But is it cavorting?

As I take off toorrow for JournalCon and a week-end in San Francisco with fellow journalists, will I allow myself to leap into activities and actually confer, cavort, and otherwise hobnob with my fellow journalists? Or will I sit in a corner and observe, hide behind the camera and record it all, and escape to the nearest computer to write about what a good time everyone else is having?

This cavorting jazz really has a strong learning curve, I suspect.

Two Years Ago
Keep the Wagon Moving
...it was very nice to have the chance to just sit, without the motor running, and to talk, watching the crows flying overhead through the open sun roof. We reminisced about our activities thus far, and talked about the time Peggy has left of her vacation here. I enjoyed it very much, and I realized what close friends we have become in a short period of time and how much I will miss her when she returns to Australia.