Secret Confessions of a Smart Girl

About a half an hour ago I was in an awful mood. The dog was crying and I couldn’t do anything to help her. With each noise I’d get more twitchy, and cranky, and stressed out, and so I decided to put on my headphones and blast some Great Big Sea into my head with the idea of drowning out her sorrows for a while so that I could finish my work… it was half successful.

I forget how susceptible I am to music. It works better on my mood than any drug. I get high off of good harmony. When I’m making music with people and everything clicks and we build a cathedral of sound that is bigger and stronger than anything we could individually create it’s an almost sexual high. And when I listen to great music, there’s only so long I can sustain my personal issues before it gets deep into my bones. It might make me sing, it might make me scream, it might make me want to rip someone’s clothes off, or it might make me dance.

I think I was three songs into my playlist when the desire to get out of my chair and dance became overpowering, and it was four more before I could bring myself to sit down. There is music that it is just impossible to sit still to. It signals to something deep down in the recesses of my brain, and makes my hips twitch, my shoulders shift, and my fingers weave, and at some point, when I start dancing, everything goes away. It’s just me, and the music, and the movement, and the universe around me stills in a way I can almost not even imagine in times of silence.

I love dancing. It brings out endorphins in the same way that really good pain does. Dancing by myself, to music that moves me, is a physically arousing experience. Partner dancing, with someone who hears the music, who feels the beat, who connects to it in the same way I do stimulates some of the same feelings of connection as really good sex. There is something shared in the eye contact, the intimacy, and the creation of a shared, private world of movement, music, inspiration, instinct, and touch. Someone who dances well, who has a firm lead, holds my eyes with theirs, and makes me feel both safe and inspired to passion with their touch, is going to be sexually attractive to me - whether or not off the dance floor I’d have any interest in being skin to skin.

I fantasize about dancing in the same ways that I fantasize about sex and BDSM. And good music… if I were prettier and better about casual sex, I’d be the groupie from hell - going around trying to fuck the members of every band that has a direct line to my limbic system. Oh, and Great Big Sea… they’d all be on the top of my list with their pitch perfect harmonies, sense of humor, and sheer contagious delight. How could you not want to get close to people who can make you feel this good, feel this much, from the other side of a CD?

Gods. I want to be able to do this to people - make this kind of musical connection. I want it so much that it makes me want to scream and rant and rail every time I hit a flat note, overshoot on a bit of vibrato, or fail, in some way, to hold up the musical cathedral I’m helping to build when I am creating music with a group. I’ve never had any desire to be a solo artist, performing by myself does nothing for me. What turns me on is creating something more, connecting fragile strands of noise into solid structures of harmony and rhythm. Playing with an orchestra, singing with a group, listening and creating and making a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts and lives… it’s like visiting another world. And gods only know, I’m not good enough. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to do this to people, but I’m sure as hell going to keep trying.

Okay. Now that I’ve danced myself into exhaustion, sung myself to a place of quiet, and written myself back to harmony, I’m going to try and finish my work. I think I have to switch my soundtrack to something more conducive to the right sort of productivity, because Great Big Sea is just too distracting from logic. George Winston, here I come…

(Well… after I dance my head off one more time to Paddy Murphy. How could I NOT?)

Every day this week I’ve woken up thinking about sex. This morning I woke up thinking about Argentine Tango. It’s not that much of a stretch. I’ve done ballroom and Latin dance since I was a child. I enjoy it. I’m usually pretty good at it. But Argentine Tango…
The first time I saw it danced was at a day long workshop in Edinburgh where I was performing at the fringe. The first couple who took the floor were astonishing. It was fluid, it was graceful, it was intimate, it was a fully clothed, socially acceptable statement and acceptance of sexual desire. It was hot… and then the second man joined them in their dance.
Everyone knows the cliches about men liking to watch hot girl-on-girl action. Well that’s how I feel about hot boy-on-boy action, and watching the three of them dance together, boy girl boy, boy boy girl, just about drove me out of my head. It remains, more than 10 years later, one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. I thought to myself, “I have to learn how to do that.”
To be perfectly frank, I didn’t anticipate problems. I may not be the most skilled dancer in the world, but 8 years of ballet usually means I don’t have any trouble learning something new, or at least picking up the basics. It was different with Argentine Tango. Whereas in most ballroom and Latin dance the lead takes place within a frame - pressure on arm, shoulder, or back places you where your partner wants you to go - the lead in Argentine Tango comes from the whole body. You dance chest-to-chest, and signals you follow from your partner can originate anywhere from neck to thigh. It’s a very different experience. It was also different, for me, in that it was hard. I had experienced dance being tricky before, or requiring strength/flexibility I couldn’t achieve, but never inherently difficult. It made me love it more.
I haven’t had a lot of opportunity to study Argentine Tango since then. I want to. I like learning things that don’t come easy. I also like how, when I get it, it makes me feel: sexy, sensual, and free.

Note: Somewhere along the line I missed the obvious turning point where this post was supposed to turn into my thoughts on threesomes. Ooops.