Perhaps I am not a woman after all

Why is it (why?) that most women who take up the ballroom dancing thing love everything about it—the dance, sure, but also the sparkle and get-up, the false lashes, the fake tans, the glitter cheeks (not those kind of cheeks), the form-fitting spandex, the low-plunging neck lines, the high-cutting thigh lines, the razzle, did I mention the shoes?, did I talk about the spotlight?—and I personally cannot summon enthusiasm for anything but the dancing itself?

About which I am plenty enthused.

Another way of putting this:  I'm supposed to dance in a showcase on Sunday, this coming Sunday, and I still don't have anything to wear.  So that there I sit, in a studio abuzz with talk about tailor-made dresses, hand-stoned dresses, new satin shoes, fine hair, sequined headbands, items that require tape measures and pins, thinking:  I haven't even been to the mall (which is not, by the way, where the fine ballroom dresses are known to live).

I didn't grow up thinking about beauty the way most girls did.  I grew up wondering how hard I could kick the ball, how fast I could run the race, how well I could rhyme my poems.  I am, therefore, at a deficit.  And perhaps am no woman after all.

To the mall I go.  You can picture me there.  And I don't want to hear a thing come Sunday about the ruthless wild country that is my hair.  There's only so far I am willing to go and besides, my clients need me to stay right here, near the desk, on this side of invisible, where clothes don't matter one bit.