Myra’s getting ready to run another promotion. One of those, “Haul your friends in here and blackmail them with whatever you’ve got on them until they sign up and we’ll give you a T-shirt” deals. My friends are either already dancing their little hearts out, have been and refuse to go back (for various ridiculous excuses like ‘the surgeon told me I can’t yet’), or they live out of town. I won’t be getting that T-shirt (or whatever), and I suspect that most of the current students face the same dilemma.

But I have a better idea for Myra. Change the name to reflect what we really do in there. Women go to Jazzercise to let their hair down and dance. We shimmy, we bump, we grind… we shake what our mamma’s gave us. And we take these talents home with us. Our husbands are lucky men. If the sign on the door said “Myra’s School of Pole Dancing,” the men of Greer/Taylors would be signing their wives up in droves.

Now, granted, their may be some fallout from local churches. Greer/Taylors is definitely a conservative area. And, as I have said before, Myra is a Christian woman, as is… well, everybody that I personally know. So the sign would have to reflect the fact that we use our skills only for the entertainment of the men we are legally married to. Maybe, “Myra’s Christian School of Pole Dancing and Marital Therapy.”

We might need to play with it a little bit. Y’all let me know what you think.

Note: In response to several questions, I would like to add that at no time do we remove any of our clothes while Jazzercising. Well, except for the occasional sweatshirt. This is completely wholesome pole dancing.

Peace, out…

Okay, I missed Personal Torture this morning, but I had a good reason: Jim’s flight got delayed, and he called to tell me he was coming back home and picking up breakfast on the way and what did I want. Now, it would have been rude of me to tell the man who pays for the Torture that I was so sorry but I could not take the time to sit across the breakfast table from him because I had to go squat against a wall and whine.

I did, however, make it to the 9:20 class. Myra, aka the caring and nurturing alien was on stage to sweat all those weekend calories out of us. She did a good job. We learned to tone a previously unknown body part: the back ta-tas. Back cleavage. She claims this is caused by a bra that is too tight, but if this is the case, why do we have to tone that particular area? It makes no sense. Also, she had us doing what looked like some sort of weird mass birthing exercise. We were sitting on our mats (all facing horizontally on account of her OCD), with our knees bent and spread wide pressing our inner thighs toward each other (in my case, not too far), and she was chanting “push, pull…push, pull.” It scared me. I was having flashbacks from ** years ago when I gave birth to my only son. Childbirth is a beautiful experience. So beautiful, in fact, that I only needed to endure it once to fully appreciate it. They say you forget the pain, and I can only tell you that although I did not participate in natural childbirth, and encouraged them to pump me full of every available drug to make the process more pleasant, I REMEMBER AND IT WAS PAINFUL. So Myra, kindly take the birthing song out!!

She must be on some weird tear, because she also had something in her set that sounded like Russian folk dancing, but she swears is a German chick singing French. Oh, and Honky Tonk Badonkadonk, the country equivalent of Bootylicious. It was an eclectic set.

Gotta go write something… Peace, out…

I have OCD. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I do things that ordinary people don’t do. For example, when at home, although we have four bathrooms in our house, when I need to go potty, I always use mine. The one next to my bedroom. Not the closest one, mine. Towels are only used once (this drives my sister crazy–I think she’s reported me to the environmental police). Also, things in our house have to be kept in their place, or I become very upset. I never claimed to be normal.
One OCD can pick another one out of the crowd at fifty paces. I love Myra, but I have always known that she shares my disease. If ever there was any doubt, it would have been removed this morning when she stopped dancing in the middle of Wendy’s class to match up the hand weights.
At Jazzercise of Taylors, there are two racks of handweights, one on each side of the stage. There are only a few sets of 3 lb weights, because most people use at least 4’s. This morning, there were 3 3-lb weights on one side of the stage and 1 3-lb weight on the other side. Myra stopped in mid-shimmy to repair this rift in the fabric of the universe. I so understand…
Wendy’s just back from vacation where she claims to have over-indulged, a sin for which we are all paying. She hurt me this morning. Lord, save me from Jazzercise instructors trying to burn off vacation eating. Or those getting ready to go on vacation or get married…you get the picture. I guess it worked out though, since I have way more to work off than she does. There are desserts from 1987 riding around on my hips.
My dream is to someday be to the point where I can only worry about working off what I ate last week. Peace, out…

Friday Morning I over slept–due to studying great literature late into the night–but managed to drag my sorry tush to Myra’s class (9:20). Myra, who discovered quite accidentally that she has been blogged, professed feeling pressure to perform, but delivered her usual entertaining fare. I should also mention, for the record, that, like all of the other instructors at the Taylors Jazzercise Center, Myra is–in addition to her talents with colorful language–also obnoxiously gorgeous. Inside and out. She’s not like one of those blind dates that you go on where the person fixing you up tells you what a great personality the other party has (code for homely at best).

Every Jazzercise instructor has their own stage personality, which is usually a revved up version of their regular personality. I (like probably every other Jazzerciser) like different things about each of them. Every Jazzercise instructor at the Taylors center (the best Jazzercise center ever) is fabulous, of course, but they are each unique. My favorite thing about Myra, whose class I took this morning, is her colorful Jazzer-talk. I don’t mean colorful in a vulgar way, not at all. Myra is a Christian woman, and not prone to vulgarity. But her brand of Jazzer-talk is entertaining, and helps keep our minds off the pain. Keep in mind, the following Jazzer-sayings are delivered in a room full of women. (Despite what I told Jim when I tried to get him to go, I’ve never seen a man at the Taylors center except on Valentines Day when they have a special sweethearts class. Men were few but regular at the center I used to go to in faux-Greer.) Anyway, here are my favorites of Myra’s Jazzer-sayings: 1) Keep those headlights up now. This one, obviously, helps us remember not to slouch. 2) I’m not bitter. This one usually is pulled out when someone is going on vacation–which requires the instructor’s permission, so that we can a) live through the traveler, and, b) talk about her while she’s gone (only in an envious way). Myra’s last vacation was to Dollywood, and I think she said that was five years ago. Bless her heart, she’s dedicated to her vocation–and her children. 3) Hold that pose. Myra is also dedicated to flair. 4) Life’s too short–shimmy. This is my favorite, and, I think, good general advice.
So, I made it to Jazzercise this morning. Yeah! And, I wrote for 6 hours, give or take. No rejections in the mail, so, all in all, it was a good day. And, for the record, I did not have a Mega Moo Mocha Moolatte last night, although I was sorely tempted!