Reminiscing, Chapter 2, addendum

I forgot to add one of my favorite Gina/Sarah/Gus stories...

Before I went away to business school, I spent four years working in LA in advertising and in tutoring, roughly 70 hours/week altogether, but I also spent 30 hours/week or so ballroom dancing competitively. Over the course of those four years I had two different dance partners, each with her own flavor of drama.

The second one, Debbie, and I eventually made it up through 5 levels of amateur competition to compete at the highest level you can as an amateur dancer. We danced the 5-dance International Latin event: Cha-cha, Samba, Rumba, Paso Doble, and Jive. We only danced two competitions at the highest level before our drama as a dance partnership and our separate directions in life killed us, but in that second (and last) competition together we made it through quarterfinals and semifinals into the finals, where we placed 6th. It was a national level competition, and that was as far as we ever got. We basically got to the point where we could compete with any American couple, but we were nowhere close to being able to beat Russians, who dominate the sport (yes, it's a sport- if something as lame as golf is a sport, ballroom dancing is definitely a sport).

Some Debbie&Gus pics from the vault:

One of our first competitions. That was Debbie's first competition dress.










This competition must have been even earlier- Debbie has no dress, and I'm in a purple shirt. And a bolo tie. Eek.




But it took us 2.5 years to get to the top level, and I was dating Sarah for that entire period, so she had to go to a lot of ballroom dance events. For one of them, Gina decided to come also, and I was particularly excited because Gary and Diana McDonald were going to be flying out from NJ, where they lived and taught, to compete in the Open Professional International Latin event. They were generally regarded as one of the top 2 Latin couples in the US, and I had taken classes from each of them at ballroom dance camp. In fact...

This one time, at ballroom dance camp, I was taking a class from Diana McDonald, who was hothothot, and the TA was helping someone with the step we were doing, which was some kind of chasse into a double reverse spin in the Quickstep, and she wanted to demonstrate the step again, so she quickly looked around the room and then pointed at ME and said, "You- get out here and help me demonstrate this."

I'm just going to go ahead and admit it- I froze. I half turned my head to see if some taller, more obviously skilled guy had sneaked in behind me, but there wasn't anyone. Fortunately, my dance partner (the first one- Maria), put her hand in the small of my back and literally shoved me out there. For the record, this is what was waiting for me out there:


Diana McDonald. And Diana McDonald's legs. I used to weep every time I saw them flex. In fact, I think I'm tearing up now.
















So I nervously walked out into the center of this giant room, with all these people around the edge watching me, and I held up my arms into dance position.

Now, one thing you should know about the standard dances- slow waltz, tango, viennese waltz, slow foxtrot, and quickstep, is that the three fundamental partner positions in these dances all involve the woman's hip being pasted onto your hip, and you are in part judged on your ability to maintain this connection through all the moves that you do. As I held up my arms, I expected that we would chastely demonstrate this move, with plenty of space between my obviously unworthy mortal body and her blonde dancing goddess self. So I was caught offguard when she immediately grabbed my hand and came into dance position like the D-train, fully pasting her body onto mine.

At that point, I felt a powerful urge to do what anyone would do in that situation- faint dead away. Fortunately, that powerful urge was trumped by an even more powerful urge: Preservation of Male Ego (PoME). My PoME reflex filled my brain with images of the mortification I would suffer if I did in fact faint dead away, so I managed to focus and execute the move perfectly, after which she sent me back to my spot. I was careful to walk back with all due swagger. Maria and I had gone as part of a much larger group, and for the rest of the day, the other guys in the group would come up to me randomly and say "I heard you got to dance with Diana McDonald... can I- can I just touch you?"

So, it was exciting to think that Gary and Diana would be coming to LA; they normally did not come out for the West Coast competitions, and so Debbie, Sarah, Gina, and I all went. By this time we were dancing a higher level, so we'd acquired better competition clothes:

A very well-centered picture, obviously.



















Ballroom dancing is so expensive- and we were so poor. After every competition we'd scour the floor for rhinestones that had fallen off other people's costumes, and Debbie made all her rhinestone stuff, plus glued a bunch on a regular belt I had to make the belt you see in this picture, out of the stones we picked up off the ballroom floors of America.

I don't remember how we did that particular day; I don't think we won, but we probably placed. But later that evening, the event we'd all been waiting for arrived- the Open Professional International Latin competition. Debbie went to go sit with her crazy stalker boyfriend, whose name I don't remember, though I think it might have been Eric, but it doesn't matter anyway because I always referred to him as "Clownboy", or "CB" for short.

Clownboy literally stalked her, and was a big part of the drama that characterized our dance partnership. Although she broke up with him early on, he never really accepted that, and even though she made him give back the key to her place, she would still come home sometimes to find him there. He also would follow her around sometimes, etc. She would frequently wonder aloud what she was going to do, and I would frequently respond to that by suggesting calling the police, charging him with B&E, getting a restraining order, etc., but she always demurred, saying that he really wasn't a bad guy and that he just had "problems".

Duh.

Eventually, she adopted a different strategy altogether- reward the behavior by taking him back. This decision was baffling to everyone on planet Earth not named Clownboy, but I suppose we all have to make our own decisions in life.

Sarah and Gina and I had a table at the far corner of the dance floor, and we were standing with me on the left, Sarah in the center, and Gina on the right. Here are two photos from the evening:


Me and Sarah. Ah, to have hair again...


















Me and Gina




















Note two things: Sarah is wearing a velvety dress, and Gina is wearing a satiny dress. This is important for reasons you will soon see.

As the highlight of the competition, the Open Professional Latin event came near the very end, so we had been at the competition for several hours. And, it's a five-dance event, so it lasts about 15 minutes or so. So, about halfway through the event, during one of the dances, Sarah, who was getting pretty tired, sat down in her chair, which was right behind her. I didn't notice this, since I was fixated on the competition, and we were wedged in pretty tightly. Being a pretty physically affectionate kinda guy, at some point soon after this I instinctively reached out and put my hand on Sarah's hip, and slowly, sensually, drew it up the side of her body.

Now, 99% of my consciousness was focused on the event. That 99% was like a farmer working way out in his field, totally focused on what he's doing. The other 1% of my consciousness was like the farmer's wife, who comes running out of the farmhouse yelling something. The farmer can't really hear what she's saying, but he can tell by her body language that it's something important. So he starts coming in from the field. Which is to say, I slowly, reluctantly, started to shift more of my consciousness from the competition to my hand, which was continuing to slowly move up Sarah's body.

1% - something's wrong
5% - something's wrong with my hand
10% - something's wrong with the way my hand feels
15% - this feels smooth
18% - and satiny
25% - what does Sarah's dress feel like?
50% - velvety
75% - whose dress is satiny??
100% - GINA'S!!!

And that's when I turned and saw the following things:

1) my hand is now on Gina's upper body
2) Gina is looking at me in shock and horror
3) Sarah, who is sitting down and therefore has an eye-level view of all this, is looking at me in shock

And so I yelped.

Sarah and Gina, bless their souls, upon seeing how shocked and traumatized I was about it, decided it was actually quite funny. I got to that place too- like 2 days later. But that's the story of how I accidentally felt up a good friend in front of my girlfriend's face.

So, sorry Gabe, for feeling up your wife.

But, at least she hadn't yet started dating you then...