November 30, 2003

The girl was electric on the dance floor as her brilliant eyes and smiles compelled my body to match her rhythm. Our bodies moved in strange unison, touching and gently colliding, eyes, hands and loins alive and burning with strange energy. For endless minutes the room dissolved into a steady beat, and there was only her, me, and the dance.

I was shaken back to reality when the music stopped and somebody announced that we won the ad-hoc dance competition. It was a pretty boring Saturday night until somebody at the party decided to host a dance competition to liven things up. They needed six couples, and before we went on the dance floor my dance partner sternly told me not to fail her. I obeyed. Even though I never danced before, she made my inhibitions melt as I tried to match the crazy energy she exuded.

Somebody mentioned that the prize was booze so we danced like devils for ten minutes straight, elbowing people in the back and dominating the dance floor. She was amazing. By the end, I was breathless and sweaty but I felt wonderful. We won because of her, but we got no booze — only t-shirts. And I also got all sorts of terrible pictures of me dancing.

The dance competition was the climax of a beautiful day. Earlier in the day I took my Americans down to Toronto and we spent the day watching fishmongers and wandering through the streets until the cold got to us. Beauty was everywhere. Between trips to Toronto and midnight dancing, I managed to be totally unproductive this weekend. And it felt good.