stylish...

... but not tango.

Use your imagination and pretend this is me, standing on the street in NYC, outside of a dance studio in Manhattan on 8th Ave.  I've just come from a workshop and I'm furious.  Other tango dancers are standing around outside, talking to each other about getting a coffee (not wine??) before the milonga (it was 6.30pm, why not wine??).  They are speaking Spanish.  I just hung up the phone, speaking in French with my friend, because I was talking about how awful the workshop was.  I figured with French I was safe from being detected - this is probably a stupid thought in NYC and also among tango dancers, but whatever. 

Now before I alienate myself from the New York tango scene (not that anyone knows me anyway), let me explain.

It was boring.  Yes, boring!  Why??  Why was it boring??  I still can't wrap my head around it.  Two great tango instructors, a lot of good tango dancers (kind of obsessed with themselves), but the vibe was so low energy, and even though it was an advanced class there was nothing challenging about it, apart from controlling my neuroses and the raging ridiculousness I felt at having taken the train all the way down to 8th Ave. when I was about to take a nap.  But the scene was so familiar - tango workshop, studio, people putting on shoes, taking off shoes, talking to friends, using the same words, blah blah blah.  Half the time I wanted to scream, DO SOMETHING INTERESTING!  I was probably in a bad mood, yea ok I was in a bad mood, but why is tango putting me in a bad mood lately?

Then again, I DID come to NYC in part to get a feel for the "cosmopolitango"(can I copyright that? or do people already use this?) that a big city like New York might offer.  Instead, I left the workshop with the wrath of God inside of me, put on my sunglasses, turned up some Turkish dance remixes on my iPod, and what did I do?  I went shopping.  Because the night before someone had approached me and said, "Hey, are you a model?"  In NYC that's pretty impressive.  Or it was just a creepy guy hitting on me (but everyone needs self-esteem boosters, and often!).  So thanks, creepy guy.  

Didn't buy anything - whew.  Instead I drank wine and ate flourless chocolate cake with a friend at Wine & Roses.  Lots of wine, lots of chocolate.  Trying to forget that there are so many amazing tango shoes out there, if ever I am worthy of them...  And ultimately just deciding, "Hey, yea! I'm a model!" and pretending for awhile that I get paid to look fabulous and drink wine with my friends...  

j.a.