dance, dance, evolution!

jokes and thoughts about dance and movement. i hope you are moved by them. thanks for being here!

dear friends, fans, family, fine-feathered folks,

i’m grateful that you’re here.
if you’re new to here, welcome!
if you’re less new to here, welcome back!

today, i’m sharing some jokes and thoughts about dance, because dance is about movement, which is on my mind because rini (my wonderful girlfriend) and i (my wonderful self) need to move from our apartment next month, and it feels nicer to think about this move as a dance. we love dancing! or at least, rini loves dancing and i love rini and so with rini, i have come to love dancing!

and now, the jokes and more thoughts about dancing! thank you for receiving!

A) houston, we have a non-problem!:

"i wanna dance with somebody"
"do you mean with a specific person, or just anyone?"
"i wanna feel the heat with somebody"
"is this a separate request?"

i love this whitney houston song. (the first and third lines of the above are lyrics from a beautiful song by her. the second and fourth lines are my imagined responses to those lyrics. i don’t know what she would say to them.)

i specifically love dancing with the somebody that is rini, because she loves dancing so much. sometimes we joke about how she engages a lot with the spatial portion of the world, and i engage a lot with the temporal side of things. she’ll be like, “i love dancing” and i’ll be like “the movie starts at 3pm,” and she’ll be like, “can we dance to the movies?” and i’ll say “yes.”

B) on, dante! on dasher!:

a line that moves so slowly it feels hellish could be called Andante's Inferno.

first, for reference, ”Andante” in music means “a moderately slow tempo.” thanks for waiting patiently for that definition if you needed it. and now, on to the rest of these thoughts!

waiting can feel frustrating at times. my goal is to think of those times not as waiting for Something in the future, but as Something happening in the present. i’m not always the best at reaching that goal, but maybe i’ll get there eventually! in the meantime, i’ll do my best to enjoy where i am on the path to that goal.

i’ll think of it as a rest in music. i used to play in orchestras a lot growing up, and sometimes it was nice when there were a few measures or a few pages even where i didn’t have to play anything. i love playing AND i love resting. so maybe i can conceive of waiting in line as precious, precious resting. and then when i get to the front, it’s time to play.

“it’s time to play,” i’ll enthusiastically yell at the bank teller.
or maybe i’ll just think it.

C) i’m a dance card:

dance like SOMEONE* is watching!
* (someone who loves you and loves watching you dance)

i imagine that you may have heard the classic advice to “dance like NO ONE’S watching.” or if you haven’t, i came up with it just now! (joke like no one’s fact-checking.) i do love the expression because it does help me get out of my head a little and into my body when i’m dancing, even though my head IS part of my body. (i fact-checked that one myself.)

also, it makes sense because i’ve found, when i’m dancing, most of the time, people AREN’T watching. and if they are watching, they’re not judging. and if they are judging, they’re not people whose judgments concern me.

so, i’ve been enjoying dancing more lately than ever before. i don’t do it often, unless you count my comedy as a kind of word-dancing (a rini original description of what i do… final fact-check for now!), and then i do it all the time. i word-dance like the people who enjoy my word-dancing are listening. or reading. right now, as i type this, i’m watching the words dance across the screen. if you write a comment or a message back, enjoy watching YOUR words dance across the screen as well. it’s like we’re word-dancing together.

and those are all the jokes and thoughts for right now! thanks for receiving!

before we go, here are a couple questions! i’d love to hear what you think!:

1) how are you? what is new and good?
2) what’s your relationship to dancing? do you enjoy it?
3) how about word-dancing?
4) have any moving stories? (ones about moving OR emotionally moving stories!)
5) how are you NOW? has there been any movement?

finally, here are some upcoming headlining standup comedy shows i’ll be doing:

— May 18: 123 Pleasant in Morgantown, WV!
— May 19-20: Hip to Be Square in Knoxville, TN!
— June 1: ImPerfect at Union Hall in Brooklyn, NY!
— June 9: Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. in Chico, CA!
— June 10: Greater Purpose Brewing Company in Santa Cruz, CA
— June 17: ImPerfect at Dynasty Typewriter in Los Angeles, CA!
— July 6-8: Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse in Arlington, VA!
— July 12-15: Acme Comedy Co. in Minneapolis, MN!
— August 2-28: ImPerfect at the Edinburgh Fringe Fest in Edinburgh, Scotland!

and FINALLY finally, please enjoy this delightful art promoting the WV show i’m doing next month, created by the wonderful mckinley cox from a fantastic mindy tucker photo of me!