The Fatslayer Chronicles

Today's Fatslaying Workout Nothing - too lazy!

Today's Weight 201.5lbs

**********

I have one of those little page-a-day desk calendars that gives you a piece of ‘good advice’ every single day of the year. My parents bought it for me for Christmas, as patently they think I’ve never received enough advice from them in the past. Yeah, whatever. Anyway, today’s little homily has got me thinking, ‘cos it says: ‘Never ever pass up an opportunity to dance.”

Hmmm, now dancing is a bit of a sore point for me. My elder sister Linda loves to dance, and when she was in her late teens she’d put on her Motown records and bop around the room on Saturday afternoons, pulling me and my other sister Jinty up off the couch to be her dance partners. Jinty must’ve been about 4, and I must’ve been about 2 when this started, and I recall we used to have a hella good time. Sometimes I’d get so excited I’d pee my pants, but that’s a whole other story!

I reckon we were about this age at the time...

I'm the one in the blue hat and specs, my big sister Jinty is in the orange. Our chaperone is our mega-big-brother John (our hero, who passed away last year). Any excuse to show this photo, which is always makes me smile. Notice I had fat rolls even at the age of three, and this was probably the last time I ever wore a bikini!

Anyway, suffice it to say, this was just about my all-time favourite way to spend an afternoon, and I used to shake my little booty and jiggle and wiggle my hips and sing along to my heart’s content, without a jot of self-consciousness. I was a model of uninhibited abandon…until the day my mom commented that (unlike Jinty, who had ‘natural rhythm’ and ‘the voice of an angel’, and thus took after her) I was a ‘hopeless’ dancer’ and ‘totally tone deaf’, and therefore must take after dad. [Needless to say, theirs was not a match made in heaven].

Boy, parents can just kill your confidence, can’t they? D’you think they teach these put-downs at ante-natal classes or something? All I know is that all parents seem to have them in their armoury, to pull out when their offspring are exhibiting any evidence of self-assurance. But I digress…

Anyway, after that one off-hand comment, that I’m sure my mother forgot almost as soon as she said it, I stopped dancing and singing. I didn’t sulk about it (uncharacteristically), but I just stubbornly refused (also uncharacteristically) to be swayed from my decision. I’d sit on the couch and cheer on my sisters and laugh like a drain to convince then I was happy being a spectator, and from that day to this (36 years or so later) the only other person I’ve only ever danced or sung in front of is Kim (and even then I have to be plied with copious amounts of alcohol, and I’m still as inhibited and shy as a nun at an lap-dancing club).

So now, after reading today’s homily, and reading posts like this I’m wondering what I’ve been missing out on all these years. I fear my life has been greyer and duller because of this ridiculous inhibition, ’cos I’ll let you in on a secret - I love to dance! I love the way it makes me feel alive and sexy. I love how it makes me feel happy. And that's just in my own living room!

So I'm thinking that maybe my life might have been enriched if I'd thrown inhibition to the wind and gone clubbing instead. I could have got myself groped in dark corners by desperate pimply youths, and how ego-boosting would THAT have been? I could have danced round my handbag with the rest of my generation, doing my Olivia Newton John grooves and pretending to be one of the Pink Ladies. Damn, 'cos I let my bloody mother get to me, I've missed out on all that FUN!

But I guess I shouldn't blame my mother, 'cos I guess I'm just one of life's inhibited people. I've never been a joiner, never had the assurance to dance like nobody was watching.

Take exercise as another example. I’m one of the few women in my age bracket who’s never owned a pair of leg-warmers and matching sweatbands. I’ve never areobicced, stepped, pumped, toned, flexed, legged-bummed-or-tummed, salsa’ed, yogaed, callanetted, circuited, or otherwise done any form of exercise that has necessitated the wearing of a pair of pants outside a leotard in the presence of other people. What exercise I’ve ever done has either been with my ‘significant other’ (cycling, squash, tennis, walking) or on my lonesome (swimming, gym-work, rebounding).

I was always too shy, too afraid to make an idiot of myself, too worried people would look at me and snigger.

I've realised I'm missing out by being such a shrinking violet. I need to expand my horizons and get in touch with my sexy, sensual side. I want to (quote) "touch my own spandex-wrapped ass in front of other people". I want to bump and grind and get jiggy with it! Hell, I want to stop sitting on the sidelines, and leap into the heart of the action!

Have you ever read the poem The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock ? It's my all-time favourite poem, and I suspect T S Eliot wouldn't have worn leg warmers and joined an aerobics class either. Well, more fool him!

Well, it's time to dare to disturb the universe! I'm going right this minute to check the Yellow Pages for belly-dancing classes - I've always wanted to have a bash at that. So what the bloody hell am I waiting for.....?