List Item #5

I'm not embarrassed to say there are a few things I want to do before I die that aren't exactly...macho. Admittedly, I feel like I could probably also use a touch of culture in my life.

Maybe it goes back to watching Gomez Addams dance with Morticia on The Addams Family. Perhaps it's an indication of my closet romanticism. Whatever the reason, I just really want to ballroom dance. Is that weird? It looks weird on the screen. It's all true, though, I want to learn a bunch of different dances.

I would take dance lessons. I wouldn't even be embarrassed to let people I've never met know I'm interested in the grace and elegance of the medium of dance. When I was just a boy, trying to survive the hardships of elementary school, getting picked on, and being chosen last for most sports, one unorthodox teacher decided to prove the time-tested phrase, "it could be worse."

He had our seventh grade class learn to polka, foxtrot and waltz, and then perform them on a stage, for parents, students, and staff alike at the Christmas pageant. Maybe you've had a similar experience in your young life, I can't be sure, but I feel like dancing the polka, on a stage, for others' amusement and against your will is sort of a unique brand of childhood trauma reserved for the socially cursed. Not everyone gets to live like this, you see.

Somehow, overcoming adversity, I have developed a soft spot for the same type of dance that had forsaken me years before. So much so, in fact, that I am running the risk of further jeering by admitting that I would like to tango, waltz, foxtrot and maybe even cha cha. Polka, on the other hand, I can do without.