Not to Dance

Today, I was supposed to audition for another dance team, but last night I decided not to instead.

The team was Paradime, a collegiate crew based half an hour away at CSU Fullerton. Alfonso, Kevin, and another two of our friends Jamie and Angela checked out the audition workshops last week. They all decided that they wouldn’t audition after the second day of workshops, but I was still wavering. I liked the audition pieces, but I didn’t really “feel” the people themselves.

Yesterday, the day before auditions, I finally decided that I wouldn’t audition. I hadn’t thought the family aspect would be as important to me as the dancing in a dance team, but, I gradually realized it was. Without (publicly) passing judgment on the team itself, I’ll just say that I couldn’t picture myself in the Paradime family. I explained this to Alfonso and he accepted, saying, “If you’re not feeling it then it was never meant to be.”

In other dance-related news, it looks like I’m actually going to have to cut back on taking dance classes because of money. I had told myself that I could sacrifice shoes, clothes, and chocolates but that dance would be the ONE thing that would remain unaffected, but, with the start of a new quarter coming up, I need a replacement parking permit, $225. I plan on paying for it myself, and I have $250 in my account.

I’m going to need the remaining $15 and my last paycheck from Pippin to support myself until I get a refill on cash from my relatives for Christmas, and honestly, the hours at the Education Academy aren’t too great right now. My shifts so far are either one or two hours long each; I hope my manager’s just giving me a little at a time to ease me in.

Well, I hear picking up choreo from watching youtube videos is a helpful skill. Time to work on that.

One other thing I need to worry about once I buy my parking permit is what I’m going to tell my mom. My account is connected to hers so she’ll be able to see the $225 missing from it. If I tell her that I used it to buy my parking permit, I won’t be able to convince her to not pay me back with the money she scavenges in coins from water fountains. Maybe I’ll just learn hella dope choreo pieces on YouTube and show her and tell her I spent $225 on a week of endless dance workshops. She’ll talk shit about me with my dad when I’m in bed, but whatever, she’ll be $225 richer in the sense that she will not have lost $225 by her maternal instincts.

---
“For My Parents”
Written March 16th, 2007 (Excerpted)

I remember a year ago when I was going through my gay teenage angst rebellion phase, I didn’t give two shits about my mom or dad. [I wrote on the night of 3/28/06,] “I think if I still had any respect left for them as my parents, I would've been quick to apologize. But sadly, I hardly even care anymore.”

That [same] night, my brother came into my room to lecture me again, basically telling me, “Look, I used to be where you are now. But one day, you’ll realize how important it is to you that you make them as happy as possible. I know that you get annoyed when I play along with mom and dad’s corny humor—I think it’s dumb too, but I do it for a reason. So, just go downstairs and apologize to Mom already, whether or not it hurts you.”

I called his policy absolutely bullshit and retorted with some shit like, “Fuck no. If they can’t make me happy, how can I even begin to reciprocate?”

God, did I really mention that when I look back at sophomore year, I really hated every thing about me? Well, fortunately, within one year, I’ve gone a long way, along with my parents.

My original plans didn’t happen today, so I wounded up dining out in Milpitas with my family and relatives. Normally, I would skip out on these kinds of dinners and just go to Oakridge, but it was my mom’s 50th birthday today, so I figured that I should be nice for once. I’ve learned from the past year that even though me and my parents hardly ever interact together during family gatherings, my presence is still important to them.

Towards the end of the dinner, I stood up to stretch, and my little cousins asked me to flex my muscles again. I heeded, and this ended up catching the attention of all my relatives at the dinner table. Vy, Hannah’s mom, singled me out.

“Wow, Brian, do you work out?” she asked me.

“Yes,” I answered timidly with a bit of pride just beginning to sprout out of its seedpod (yeah, I’m a lot more modest around my relatives than I am around my friends).

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she inquired.

Upon hearing that question, I tensed a little bit, so I looked at my parents for any kind of visual cues. They were leaning over their plates and staring down, forcing themselves to keep up their smiles.

I let out a deep breath and then regained my posture. “Nah, I don’t.”

“Oh, no, why?”

“Oh, well, I just keep on rejecting them.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, rejection after rejection, they finally figured out the real me, so they stopped trying altogether.” I smirked. At this point, I was actually kinda amusing myself by seeing how long I could dance along the crater of the volcano.

“Oh, is it your mom? Does she say ‘No girlfriends’?”

“Nah, trust me, she doesn’t say ‘No girlfriends’.” With a quirky smile, I sat down, and as I prodded the grains of rice on my plate with my spoon, my grin relented back to a timid smile.

I glanced over my parents, and they were sitting back in their chairs, breathing a small sigh of relief.

Whenever you guys are ready.