Friday, August 31, 2007

Memories (like the phone booths on my block)


I was riding the Metro back fro Silver Spring today when Sinead O'Connor's I Want Your Hands on Me came up on the iPod playlist.

I just sat their on the train flashing on a memory that has to go back maybe 18 years or so. Jon and I were invited to a wedding reception for a nurse who worked with us on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.

Actually it was Janice's second marriage....to her ex-husband. Eat, Drink and Remarry said the napkins and matchbooks. Janice was fun. Her husband/ex-husband/husband was kind of a douche. Not that we really knew. They were getting remarried - and for all the wrong reasons: she was preggers. Honestly, isn't that the worst reason to get hitched? Because your father has added two goats to your dowry is a better justification.

Janice was a fun chick. She and another nurse, Noreen, Jon and myself performed twice at the Oncology holiday party. Once doing Julie Brown's The Homecoming Queen's Got a Gun and the following year doing a weird take on Sisters, from the movie 'White Christmas'. We took 2nd place the first year and was robbed the next. And that year we had choreography with fans and everything.

I'm sure I was drunk - though I cannot speak for Jon. We hijacked the reception. Jon made me go out to my car (oh....Pteri, you had a good life) and get one of my mix tapes. This wasn't Hi-N-R-G music. No No...this was late New Order, Depeche Mode, Sinead and the likes. But it wasn't enough just to get the tape and queue it up. No - we had to take over the dance floor. Together.

Yes, it was Jon and myself ON the dance floor shakin our groove thang to I Want You Hands On Me. Naturally, people just stared! Two men. Together. I'm pretty sure none of these people had seen man-on-man dancing before. Keep in mind - this was before cable.

...and this is how I know I was drunk. I was dancing. Sure, I dance around the house and make up moves that just annoys and enchants my man. I do it to get a reaction. But I was never one to go out at a bar and move to anything they put on that was 168 beats per minute. Ruckiry (not Jon's boss), I used to drink a lot and would inevitably find my way on the floor. If I could dance or not was irrelevant. Sometimes being the only one out there when something like a B-52's song (NOT Love Shack) came on.

I'm sure we had our fill of the place and the people, just as the clock turned the bewitching hour of 'time to hit the gay bars'. I'm also sure we were talked about the rest of the evening.

It sure is amazing what a song on the iPod and a 25 minute train ride will do to bring back memories.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember Janice, I remember "Eat, Drink, and Remarry", but I have NO recollection of dancing at the reception. Oh, I'm sure it's true, it sounds very much like us. And Thank G-d we did.

And you were always on that dance floor at The Garage: "Mia Bocca", and ANYTHING by Samantha Fox turned you into a Dancing Queen!

Blobby said...

correction: Samantha Fox with Full Force! Thank YOU!

"Mia Bocca" LOLLL. g-d....how do you remember THAT?