January 3, 2017

I did P90X "Kempo X" this morning, then I rode my bicycle four miles round-trip to deliver 220+ postcards to the post office in Melbourne Beach. On the way home, I stopped at the address of the massage place I found online and it wasn't listed on the building's marquee, I called the number and left a message. When I got home, I emailed the addressed listed on the website, and I received a "permanent failure" response. Clearly, the place is out of business.

​As I approached the RV park, there were County Sheriff vehicles flanking the entrance to the park. A helicopter was circling over the river. I stopped in the office to inquire about extending my stay until April 1st. One of the employees told me that "the man with Alzheimer's" had gone missing. Through Sherri, I know who he is. He and his wife walk a lot because he likes to get up and go. This wasn't his first escape: the last time he was found two miles south near Publix. Apparently, his wife has trouble sleeping because she fears he will leave their park model in the middle of the night. At this point, he needs to be institutionalized He needs a team of people and a huge security system because he is a danger to himself and those who might have to rescue him from the ocean or river. Keeping him in the park is a source of stress for his wife as well as the other tenants (who drive their carts around looking for him).

I went to line dancing tonight. Sherri talked me into it. I never, would have gone without her suggestion, and I told her that on the way home. I had a great time. There were probably 25 to 30 of us. Some were new like me, whereas others were seasoned veterans. The Dutch couple (the wife of whom I offended) taught the class. He is the lead instructor, and he first taught us how to do the Electric Slide. We learned two other line dances, then he taught us how to rumba. THAT, completely messed me up. The woman in front of me couldn't get it either and started dancing like a crazy person. I laughed out loud and it disrupted the class. My problem was this: the two-step is a box dance whereby your feet move left, right, left, right, right, left, right, left in a square of sorts (if you are fancy it can be just a parallelogram), but the rumba moves left, right, left, hold, right, left, right, hold, creating an H-pattern which fucked with my two-step muscle memory. I learned this after class when I explained my two-step problem to a seasoned dancer. It was interesting to me how steps like cross-overs and three-step turns are natural to me as a non-dancer, but some very simple small steps like rocking are difficult. Perhaps it's because moves like cross-overs are used for training athletes. The other thing I noticed is that as an athlete the length of my stride was always an advantage, but in dancing just because you can step three feet doesn't mean you should.

The Dutch man has a lazy eye, so when he speaks with someone he turns his head to align both eyes to the person’s face. When I speak to him (and other with lazy eyes), I am always trying to vector into which eye I should speak. Tonight, eye contact with him was not a factor because I was looking at his feet. I quickly realized that he was wearing two different shoes. They were both black, so he had not made the “I-have them-in-two-colors-and-grabbed-one-of-each” mistake. It turned out that he was intentionally wearing a dancing shoe and athletic shoe because he has a pulled groin muscle. All I could think of was Eugene Levy’s character in "Best in Show" who had two left feet! If he taught the rumba it would be, left, left, left, hold, left, left, left, hold! And, which left foot would lead?

I assumed the other night that the Dutch woman was offended because I guessed that she is German. Tonight, during the break, she came over to me, pointing her finger, and said, "You, you said that word!" I replied, "Yes, I said I thought you were German (the “word”) and I apologize if I offended you." "No! she countered, "You said that bad word in Dutch!" "Well, you asked!" I replied in my own defense. I was struck that she was more offended by me taking the "Lord's" name in vain than me mistaking her for a German of a certain age, and therefore a Hitler Youth. It was yet another unnecessary conflict (albeit minor) over religion. I suppose if we were all atheists, we’d fight about something more important – like water.

When I left, I asked the Dutch woman if she and her husband know how to disco. She said no. "You know, "Saturday Night Fever? I bet everyone here has seen the movie?" She said, "Sure, I love that movie." I told her that the Hustle is basically a line dance and that she should YouTube it. I think we'll be hustling before I leave the park in March.