I'm a Dancer...the house down.

The house down is my favorite new catchphrase...I learned it on RuPaul's Drag Race. It's like adding extra exclaimation points to the end of a sentence.

I'm thrilled to be writing my blog on a hot ass day...the house down.

Yes, I am a dancer. I have always been a dancer and I will always be a dancer. There is a gypsy in my soul.

So, if I haven't mentioned it on here yet, I am dancing with members of my hip hop dance class at a charity event for City of Hope next weekend. I started taking hip hop dance classes seriously soon after my break up.

Background: I had studied dance in college, after a lifetime (up to that point) of wanting to dance. I had taken my first dance class at the age of six...maybe even before that. I think I had taken ballet at Montessori when I was four. And I really wanted to be a dancer. We had weekly classes in my Catholic grade school until I was twelve. Then I did musical theatre and all that jazz so I could keep dancing. But my parents would never pay for classes for me because they didn't believe that a boy should dance. So when I got to college, I really took dancing on with a vengeance. Then I gave it up after college because I wasn't going to go professional in my mind. So there's another example of me giving up something I loved because I felt like I already had something I loved but might not get paid for...writing. I couldn't possibly be an artist in all areas of life! That would have been too much happiness. And fast forward to now...I'm reclaiming my life because I had given it away at several important moments. Hence...the blog.

Okay, so I've been taking class and one day a couple of months ago, our instructor asked us if we would participate in this City of Hope charity event. And of course I said yes. And now I'm dancing. It's awesome and I love it. I'm claiming my love of dance all over again. And I'm pretty good. Well, at least I love it.

The interesting thing is that the ex told me several times in the course of our relationship that I wasn't a dancer. He felt he had to tell me point blank that I wasn't a dancer. Like if we were out clubbing. Or if I talked about how I was a dancer in college. He would say to me, "You danced in college. You were never a dancer."

Why didn't I get it then?

And for me, that was stomping out my soul, like a cigarette. I always believed I was a frustrated dancer in the body of a writer. And now I'm in the body of a dancer...the house down.

I just realized something...that small gesture of having to take hip hop classes every week is a direct reaction to that statement. To the fact that several people in my life over the course of my life have said to me in one way shape or form:

YOU ARE NOT A DANCER

I am a dancer. I'm a dancer and a faggot and a beaner and a chink chink and a lefty and a lisper and a duck walker and a sissy and a lady and an ethnic and a loca. I am all of those things. I claim all of those things. I love all of those things. I'm a nerd and a weirdo. I'm a showgirl and a Liza lover. I'm a dancer. Maybe not the greatest dancer...but I went wow anyway.

And shortly, I will be a dancer for money. But a very, very, very public one. There's nothing private about this dancer no mo'.