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Just gotta dance, if only to glance, at reality in a memory

2006-09-17 - 1:20 a.m.

I've been finding out that, beyond loving most of his music, Tupac and I have a lot in common. We were both on welfare most of the time we were kids, both grew up in the 'hood, both clawed our way up out of that shit despite the apathy or disagreement of everyone around us, and we never could quite leave or get beyond behind our roots as they wrapped along our chests and necks. He's dead, of course, but I still appreciate the continuity of his pulse, the rhythm of blood through refrains and chorus. That and I love the fuck out of a good beat.

Yeah, I like classical and Renaissance and prog rock. But what can I say: a good beat is a good beat. Been loving hardcore metal recently. I s'pose I'm just in a mood for what seems real, and that seems to involve a heavy bpm and some phat beat.

* * *

Just tonight I went out with Brian and his wife Abby, who's been visiting since friday. It seemed like he was silently annoyed at me or something for most of the weekend. He'd made plans friday and saturday, and I'd just gone out by myself on the first day to watch The Illusionist. And as the lights collapsed I began to relax. For the first time in months I lost myself in a story that wasn't my own. It was a lovely period piece, and I desperately wanted the doublet and surcoat that the protagonist wore. I love anachronistic dress. I'd go around like a banker or an architect from the 19th century if I had the money to get the threads.

Sometime later, maybe.

But today our plans converged after I'd meandered over to the lab to do some assays. That itself proved to be far more hastle than I thought. I figured, "oh hell, I'll just finish my grad student web page, get there kinda in time, process the blood, and just head on back." Little did I know there was a football game. Given that my lab is within 10 blocks of the stadium, there was not a drop of parking anywhere. I had to drive clear over to the south side hospital and walk 2 1/2 miles both ways--which is great for the constitution but still somewhat annoying. I cursed the vexing idiocy of a sport that compelled so many people to act with such foolish fuckery. The plastic beer cups, painted like red ducks, like a long wide line of stochastic gay men continually penetrating one another in a never-ending conga line of catcalls and team patriotism.

Smack the ass of the jockey carrying you indeed. I need no excuse to smack the ass of people I like, thank you.

So I processed my blood, sweated a bit heading back, then logged onto chat to wait awhile, to see if I'd see T. No dice on that count, but Brian mentioned that there was a cookout at Lindsey's old place. Sounded like fun. I still had some reading to do but I figured what the fuck.

So I headed over with Brian and Abby. I recognize Liz and Lindsey, but that was about it. Apparently most of the people were environmental science folk that someone or another knew. They brought a pug and a miniature labrador something, both of which were absolutely adorable. I felt bad for the pug since it had a bladder infection and all too often stooped to relieve itself. But beyond that I had some soccer hijinks with the old familiars, some stout, some mixed drink pseudo-wine cooler, and then a short jog back to the house to potentially do some reading.

Never did.

Later on everyone decided to convene at Bob's, which may be Tropical Bob's or Caribbean Bob's or something islandish. It's bigger inside than I suspected. We drank, I danced like a fiend, and other people felt compelled to kind sorta vaguely dance. You know. That hands up, sorta shuffling crap. I can't stand dance floor antics like that. When I go to dance, I go to flow, to get into the rhythm and lose myself. But all too often at the Inferno and here it's like I'm either the only or one of the few people at first who are fine with potentially making an ass of themselves. I don't much care, myself, since I just love moving. It's like everything somehow feels right, as if you could go down a list of calculus equations and know the answers by merely flitting your fingers in this or that pattern. I don't know calc, never took calc, but I do know the simple elegance of matching your mind and body to the acoustic explosions across the air.

I left early about 30 minutes ago, partly because others were leaving but mostly because I'd just stopped feeling it. I like bringing others into that framework, to see what I see on the dance floor (if not elsewhere), but it just didn't work. Too much simple wanting for ass grinding or OG wobbling or whatever else.

I just dance to dance. Really I think that's the problem with a lot of shit. People do things for an entire web of peripheral circumstances. Dating. Fucking. Careers. Going out. It's some Machiavellian machination after another. Things can't just be how they are.

And I'd like to think that, maybe just once in awhile--especially when the excuse of drink percolates through our blood and oxygen--we can breath some eternal simplicity within a finite time, and remember what it means to be an animal--out there, dancing beneath the starlight to some weathered tune beyond the mood and canopies, beneath the trees and lantern light to find a spark of disembodied embodiment.

I ask for that without words every time I finally let go and make peace with my realities.

And all too often, seldom few come.

Maybe I'm just a fool. Maybe I'm not shouting loud enough. Or perhaps it is simply something manifested at the odd hours in odd ways, and my method just happens to be public.

But I'd like to think there's some hope for naked expression. If we cannot turn our ass to the world, we become an ass to the world at some point.

I know I am often enough; but when no one is really looking, I get on down to fly on up--way up, and for a moment scrap the firmament with my middle finger and a smile on my face.

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