I was not too excited about Hippie Woo Woo the other day. I was kind of rolling my eyes at the whole thing and thinking, âOkay, letâs get this over with,â when for some very exciting reason, âSuperstitionâ by Stevie Wonder himself came on and we did a bunch of kicks and punches to that. And then, awesomely, we did a bunch of very silly but very funny moves that looked like musical theater choreography from a 1978 production of Godspell at your local community theater playhouse. I canât even describe it, but the next time you see me, ask me to do the hitchhiker move or the one where you step out with the leg and flail the arm around. I didnât even flinch when the teacher was all âFREE DANCE! Dance however you feeeeel!”because boy howdy, did I dance how I felt, which was, in the following order: a) bad-ass, b) fabulous, c) bad-ass, and d) fabulous.
I am something of a booty shaker when FREE DANCING, I am happy to report. It is just one of the many benefits that come along with having a really big booty. Thereâs another member of the Big Booty Club in Hippie Woo Woo class and sheâs just gorgeous and beautiful and she usually stands right next to me and during the class I watch her in the mirror sometimes and secretly imagine what would happen if all of a sudden there was a minor earthquake and we all fell down. Probably only she and I would bounce back up unscathed, thanks to the powers of our Big Booties. I imagine us going out for a smoothie afterwards and settling comfortably into opposite seats in a wide vinyl booth.
Anyway, my fellow club member was shakinâ it and I too was totally shakinâ it and it felt pretty good to shake it, and then the song ended and I wasnât even bothering to cross my fingers that the next song wouldnât suck or be full of howling hosannas to the rising dawn or whatever it was last week, because I didnât think that the next song could be as good as Supersition. How can you follow that, right? The opening bars sounded vaguely poppy and familiarâŚand thenâŚcould it be? Could we be listening and dancing to Freedom Freaking â90 in Hippie Woo Woo class? Yes!
I donât think I like George Michael any more than the average thinking person, which means, of course, that I have a deep love for Careless Whisper if it happens to come on the radio, which it never does because who cares about Careless Whisper. Iâm just the right age to associate Freedom â90 with being about fifteen and that one Thanksgiving weekend where I think they played it four hundred times on MTV. I also have this funny little still frame image of being on a boat out in Biscayne Bay for someoneâs birthday, a whole bunch of kids all day. I know I was wearing, for some unfortunate reason, a triple oversized black t-shirt with a big satellite picture of the earth on it and some bright green shorts that rolled up at the cuffs. Probably I finished off the whole ensemble with some hightop Chucks and socks, because clearly thatâs what you wear on a boat trip. Anyway, you know how sometimes you can think about a specific day in your past life and know that you are yourself, in 2005, thirty years old with fuzzy hair and wearing a bracelet with an iridescent scarab beetle encased in plastic on it, but somehow also be able to go into that day, be able to look down and see the Chuck Taylors and feel the Miami sun shine on the water that doesnât look like anywhere else in the entire world. You know itâs a picture and that itâs fuzzy at the edges (which of the Key Girls were at that party?) but right there in the center itâs quite clear and immediate. Thatâs the song thatâs playing at the center of that image, Freedom â90.
And it turns out itâs a pretty good song to dance to in the here and now, too, as well as being one of those âI was there and then when this came outâ songs, and I donât know why I havenât listened to it since that day. I could hardly believe my good fortune and I made sure to shake my big booty extra hard during the part that goes âAnd you shake your ass, something something, some mistakes were BUILT TO LASTâ part. How is this managing not to suck, I wondered. I bet the cool-down song will have, like, waterfalls and pan pipes and dolphin noises in it.
No. You know what the next song was? Put down your hot coffee right now because it was FATHER FIGURE. Can you believe it? And can you believe that the cool-down choreography involved things like sinking to the floor and then rising up to the balls of the feet while making fluttery motions with the hands during the âMeet me with the eyes of a childâŚâ part? And then bringing those fluttery hands all the way above the head and bringing them down slowly, slowly past the face as if to say âDonât make me CHOOSE, George! You know I love youâŚwhy canât that be enough?â during the âMAH BAY-BAAAAAAAAAAYâ part? I mean, you know, Nia class is sort of ridiculous and itâs really not that great of a workout but damn, when you get to do moves like that to Father FigureâŚI was this close to throwing myself on my knees with my hands all clenched up into fistsâŚwell, who cares about your cardiovascular health. I sneaked out of class five minutes early (everyone else was in corpse pose so I donât think they saw me) just so I wouldnât be disappointed by whatever came next because there was no way I was going to harsh that vibe, man.
You might think that I am going a little overboard with the writing about my stupid Nia class that kind of sucks and how happy I was to be able to dance to three good songs in a row. That is only because you donât know how quickly I bought those songs on iTunes when I got home, and how often I plan to dance to them in my living room this weekendâŚhand gestures and all, my darlings. Hand gestures and all.