Nor Can I Unclasp a Bra with One Hand
Posted by Moose on May 16th, 2007. Filed under: Nice Things.Everyone who works with me thinks I’m a burlesque dancer. I’ve never danced burlesque in my life – and not just because I can’t take off a sweater without tangling up the arms and strait-jacketing myself. I’ve never corrected my fellow employees because, well, it’s funny. Just this afternoon, the deputy director cleared all the broken file cabinets and lopsided desks out of the front room and exclaimed, “I’ve made a performance space! Next, I’m putting in a stripper pole for you!”
Is it wrong to let my coworkers believe I’m a mild-mannered editor by day and an exotic dancer by night?
Last year, our organization had its 30th anniversary. We put on a big gala at Beach Blanket Babylon. Fabulous community supporters that they are, Beach Blanket did a full show for the gala – including a song written especially for us. Staff members were mocked in high style. By “high style”, I mean “by a Barbra Streisand impersonator with Freddy Krueger talons she used to flip her Anna Wintour wig off her shoulders.” The executive director was skewered for the path he’s worn in the pavement to the nearest Starbucks, references were made to zoos, gay men and, yes, the entire theatre community of San Francisco now thinks I’m a stripper.
Full disclosure: I was in a show a few years ago that featured burlesque dancers. Little known fact: There were two sets of dancers, one of which took their clothes off. I was in the OTHER group. But let me tell you, sharing a stage with hot burlesque girls is the best diet ever. It’s the diet of TERROR. I didn’t touch a cookie for months. But dancing with burlesque girls did not actually make me one, I’m sorry to say. Another featured performer was the squirrel lady. I shared the stage with her too and, sadly, I’m still not a squirrel.
My co-workers misapprehension is a valid one, and one I hope follows me for the rest of my life. It’s far more glamorous to spend your Friday nights on a Prohibition-era stage vamping it up for the adoring crowd instead of what I actually do, which is eat a bag of Doritos and fall asleep on the couch while the dog licks my orange fingers.
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May 17th, 2007 at 7:52 am
You’re not?
When you’re in Italy, watch out for the woman that pole dances for money on the metro/tube/subway system. She’s got it going ON! (No one’s paid me for doing it yet. Not even Crunchy boy.)
May 17th, 2007 at 11:19 am
LOL. I know what you mean. I was in Las Vegas a couple years ago watching “La Femme” with the husband and another guy friend and when they did the topless ballet barre number, they both asked if my ballet classes were like that. They were dissapointed when I told them no but I think that is how they will forever picture ballet classes from now on and I’m ok with that.
May 18th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Live the dream, baby! Live the dream! (no, I have no idea what that means either, but I’m going with it)
(and yeah, it’s totally okay for your coworkers to think you’re a burlesque dancer by night)