I would like to thank everyone for coming out to the reading last night. It was fun! Music was provided by my neighbor who loaned me that book that time. But I would also like to NOT THANK ANYONE for something else! Because none of you showed up for the Community Shim Sham Dance Class prior to the reading! I, being a man of my word, did. The instructor was very patient with me. I realize that the "ball change" is an elemental step, yet somehow it kept getting away from me. Nor was I a master of the "Suzy Q." As the instructor chanted "Suzy Q, Suzy Q, Suzy Q, Suzy Q," everyone Suzy Q'd across the stage with apparent ease, except me, and I really do blame my shoes. I was asked if I had brought tap shoes. I had not! "Do you have some less rubbery shoes?" the instructor asked. I had no other shoes! But as I say, she was patient, and allowed me to participate anyway. I proved slightly more adept at the "flap" and the "shuffle." Once the instructor asked if she could grab my hipbones, and I said "Sure!" Theresa showed up about thirty minutes into the lesson, thinking she would lounge around in comfort and mock me, but she soon learned otherwise! "If you want to stay here, you have to dance," the instructor told her. Ha! So Theresa danced. She also kindly ducked out to fetch a fresh shirt for me as the time for the reading drew near and I realized that doing the shim sham was the most strenuous labor I had performed in a very long while, my garments having become rather imbued with the musky fruits of said labor. I requested my Rudy and GoGo t-shirt (this one), which reminds me: later I was telling this story to an audience member, the part about Theresa getting me a fresh shirt, and the audience member said, "She picked THIS one?" which I took as an insult to my beautiful Rudy and GoGo t-shirt! And THAT reminds me: the instructor was trying to remember everyone's name, and one of the other students said, "Jack will be easy to remember." And the instructor said, "Oh, of course, because he has that Jack Black thing." To which I responded "!" I must say, it is a step up from Michael Moore, to whom I was once likened by a woman handing out samples in a grocery store and I wasn't even EATING the samples! "No, I meant because he's the only man," the kind student replied. Anyway, we all know I really look like Guillermo del Toro. Will I go back for more shim sham next week? I kept saying I would! And I believe I amassed a mighty army of shim sham followers through my repeated exhortations, both during my reading and afterward. But by that time I had consumed some fried chicken and wine, which were the refreshments generously provided at the event, and it may have been the fried chicken talking.
