Get Off The Roads NOW

My friend Solomon recently got his driver's license. After living in NYC for his entire life and never needing to learn to drive, he decided it was time to learn a new skill! He im-d me Friday morning:






Solomon: I drove to work today

no one died

Me: It's a new day

Solomon: Crazy, huh? A couple of times I thought I was going to crash, but I would just close my eyes, let go and say "JEBUS TAKE THE WHEEEEEL!"

(Solomon is my best atheist friend. Yes, I have more than one. He likes to make up new names for Jesus and Jehovah...his current favorites are Jebus and Jojoba.)

In other Solomon news, he sent me an email from work the other day. He works for Revlon, and Revlon has created a new line of rhinestoned eyelash curlers. He asked if I wanted his, because:

Solomon: I don't use an eyelash curler often enough.

Yep, he doesn't use them OFTEN ENOUGH.

I love that guy.

Shows That I Love: New Girl

Shows that I love. We're starting with New Girl, obviously. The premise: a dorky teacher moves in with three single guys. Nick, a poor bartender. Winston, a small-time basketball star who played on a European team but since his return to the US is having a hard time finding work, and Schmidt, a womanizer with OCD. She quickly earns her way into their hearts with her lovably nerdy ways, and the four of them become best friends.

New episodes air on Fox on Tuesday nights, so normally my Wednesdays are ripe with emails, IM's, and Facebook wall posts from Melissa, Richard, Solomon and Mark R., that consists of random funny New Girl one-liners.

For instance, Melissa will email me and just say, "Why is she dressed like a woman's studies major?"  Or Mark R. will post on my Facebook wall, "I'm sorry, but that's how the electoral college works."  Or Solomon will IM me from work saying, "I'm going to have to reinstitute my ban on high-waisted shorts."

So to whet your appetites and tempt you to watch the whole season, here are some fun clips, and the lines from them that were left on my voicemail, worked into conversations, and mumbled during dance rehearsal arguments to lighten the mood (always works, by the way). Most of our favorite scenes are not available anywhere easily accessible on the INternet, so you'll have to watch on fox.com or OnDemand, or purchase the first season on amazon.com or iTunes. Or you can do what I do sometimes be a really evil selfish person and download free torrents.



"You want me to do a voice?"
"You look ravishing in your netting contraption.."


"Who washes a towel? The towel washes me!"


"I can taste my spine"


 "This is the saddest song....in the woooorrrld.."
 "cause the ice in the glass represents the tears from my eyes, dawg"


"I'm like a Dominican teenager playing Little League. It's just not fair for anyone else."
 "I'm feeling pretty twirly..."


"What if I had a croissant blog???"

 
"TWO MOONS HAVE PASSED!!"
 "Why do you start talking like a Native American when you get angry?"


"The downstairs neighbor put a password on their wi-fi..."
"I thought he was going to try to sell us something."


"Bees are dying. Don't pretend to know my pain..."


"It's like you're ripping the side block out of my mental Jenga."

King Solomon's Waltz

Solomon, who competes in the ProPro division with me, took first place in every dance in Birmingham this past weekend. My favorite of our dances by far was our waltz.

I Thank The Bank For The Money, Thank God For You

(The title? Come on y'all, vintage Sawyer Brown!)


While I'm most grateful for this cute bunch today, I'd like to take a minute to be grateful for my friends. Oh yes, I have a few of them, don't look so shocked...

First, the original and still the best, Melissa. She's the devil on my left AND the angel on my right. How else would she be able to stick around so long...


While changing their dirty diapers, I never thought that my 4 oldest nieces would grow up to be 4 of my best friends, but here we are.

the one I'd go on a field trip with any day of the week, Bonnie May

the one I love getting late night calls from, Brianne Elizabeth

the one who knows what I look like doing "Superman! BANANA!", Brooke Suzanne

and the one who feels my sweat pain, Bethany Gates.

My dance partner Richard, who became one of my best friends our first Christmas as partners when he looked at me and said, "So...I like you, you like me, we don't have to get gifts for each other, right?" And then solidified our friendship when he later said, "Um, my dead gramma in her casket can spin faster than you." And his partner Solomon, who is wickedly intelligent but still treats me like a goddess. Bizarre, I know.

Hold on, I'm going to go so far as to add two more, who over the past year have become peas to my carrots. Everyone's Sugar Daddy, John Burns, who makes this list not just because his grammar is as good as mine, but because he gets me even though he doesn't like to admit it. (I'd add his wife Karen to this list but she's prettier than I, so screw that idea...)

..and the beautiful Antoinette Santoro, who makes me laugh for real, not the fake laugh that I usually use around most of you. Her sense of humor is so much larger than her chest, thank goodness, which is basically just average....

There! See? I have friends!

(Now, to hope that none of these people comment on this post with, "What? Who are you? Do I know you??")

Variations On A Theme

My next dance competition is in Birmingham the first weekend in December. We Pros were asked to send in workshop titles that had a Christmas theme. Unbeknownst to each other, Solomon and I had sent in workshop titles based around Christmas songs (shock). We shared our titles with each other, and then spent at least 15 minutes shooting other titles at each other, spiraling deeper and deeper into our Word Lover's Hell, as we often do....

Solomon: My workshop titles for Christmas In Dixie are:
Do You Hear What I Hear? Finding the Rhythm in your Cha-Cha
O Little Waltz of Birmingham

me: lol
Mine were Two Steppin' Around The Christmas Tree
and It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like East Coast

Solomon: I love it

me: great minds

Solomon: I was trying to think of something with What Child is this
Like "What West Coast is This?"
But I thought it might be too obtuse

me: yes

Solomon: There was also "Triple Two is Coming to Town"

me: lol

Solomon: Oh Holy Lead
Jesus Christ, you call that Night Club?

me: Come, They Told Me Po-po-po-po Polka

Solomon: Shall I Schottiche for you?
Oh Come All Ye Pony Swingers

me: lol
lol

Solomon: We Need A Little Compression

me: LOL

Solomon: Hark the Heralds Like to Swing

me: LOL
I'm Dreaming of The Right Footwork
I Saw Mommy Leading Santa Claus

Solomon: I'm scaring my dogs with my laughter right now

me: Lol

Solomon: Waltzing in a Winter Wonderland
We'll Night Club 2 Christmas
Dreidl, Dreidl, Dreidl, a class on turn technique

me: All I Want For Christmas Is To Not Be Pulled

Solomon: All I want for Christmas is for you to move when you're supposed to
:P

me: Lolplolololol
I'll Be Balanced For Christmas

Solomon: Joy to the world, you didn't fall

me: LOLOLOL
Deck The Halls With Golds With Honors

Solomon: LOL
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, May no one ye disable!

me: Lol

Solomon: Go Lead it on the Dancefloor

me: LOL
We Three Queens Of Orient Are, Stealing Your Wives And Dancing Them AFar

Solomon: (Although, to be fair, of all of us - I'm the only one vaguely oriental)

me: Let It Lilt, Let It Lilt, Let It Lilt

Solomon: Where are you, Connection?

me: LOLOLOL
someone should pay us for this

Solomon: I think we should shop around the concept
I'll work on a powerpoint presentation

me: Excellent
Theme based workshop titles, has to be a huge market for that

Solomon: Yes, people would be willing to pay big pennies for it

me: Perhaps even quarter sized pennies

Solomon: Oooh!
Okay, got to go do laundry

me: There's No Position Like Contra For The Holidays...
or...Come On It's Lovely Weather For A Syncopated Feather With You!!
*Ending on a high note*

Solomon: Definitely! I was teaching one of those last night!
You even got the meter right

me: Of course

Feel free to leave your own Christmas song themed dance workshop titles in the comments section. And fellow pros, feel free to steal a workshop title or two, but you must give Solomon and I credit. We put many minutes of effort into coming up with these...almost as much effort as we put into our Pro-Pro routines.

Jiffy Two Step

Pro-Am is a dance division I've explained briefly in the past. But there is a subset of Pro-Am that I didn't mention, and that is Pro-Pro. Pro-Pro is a division for a professional dancer who doesn't have a partner but still wants to compete. That dancer can ask a higher ranking dancer to compete with them in the Pro-Pro division. Only the lower ranking Pro is judged, just like the Ams in Pro-Am. This division lets professionals compete against each other.

Solomon, my partner Richard's boyfriend, asked me earlier in the year if I would take him on as a Pro-Pro "student". I love dancing with Solomon, so of course I agreed. Our first time out we just social danced most of our dances, we didn't have time to put routines together. We danced an old Cha Cha and Waltz routine of Solomon's, and I threw together two phrases of Two Step.

In Boston, I wanted him to have a full two-step routine, so I was determined to choreograph one. The trouble is, we only had 2 hours on Friday afternoon, and we had to compete Friday night at 6. Pressure is the best motivator, so here is the Two Step that I choreographed for Solomon in one hour. We had someone videotape us practicing it so we wouldn't forget it by 6pm that night...!

Not only didn't Solomon forget it, he earned a Gold With Honors with it, and took 1st place in this dance that night.

Welcome Back To America

What a crazy, crazy day yesterday....seeing my friend Clive completely unresponsive and barely breathing in the car was quite a shock. St Peter's Hospital in Albany, NY did a nice job treating him and releasing him in a timely fashion. Turns out he'd had an allergic reaction to a painkiller he'd taken 10-15 minutes before.

All has ended well, and once we all sleep for 3 days, we'll be back to normal.

One Ride & The New Normal

So, I'm a friend snob. And by that I mean, I tend to only have friends who are either ridiculously talented, unbelievably intelligent, incredibly funny, gut-wrenchingly beautiful, or wickedly edgy, and most are a combination of all the above. Two of my friends who were born with waaaayy too much of all of the above are performing in shows in NYC this month.

My best atheist Solomon Singer will be performing in Robert Royston's "One Ride" in Queens October 29th through November 7th. Being a Robert Royston production, you know it's going to be filled with amazing choreography. Click here for tickets.

And if that's not enough talent for you, my best Nell Mooney Makenzie is playing the leading role in "The New Normal" at the Wings Theater in the West Village, from October 13th to the 23rd. She plays a young Southern woman who survives breast cancer. Click here for tickets.


So if you're in NYC this month, I'd strongly suggest you see both of these shows. Not just because my friends are in them, but because, as I stated above, my friends are insanely talented. They will never disappoint.

My Posse

Lemington, my costume designer and friend, shows us the move he feels should be in every country dance routine. When he hears a country song, this is the way he feels like moving his body.




Lee and I got caught in a torrential downpour walking back to the car at 1am on Sunday morning. Drowned rats...