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Thursday, June 24, 2004

it's just not the same anymore.

Watching Dirty Dancing as a mother is so very different from watching it as a 13-year-old.

Then: Ooh, that dance move is so sexy. I am going to imagine Patrick Swayze doing that with ME.
Now: Anyone even thinks about violating my wide-eyed innocent daughter's "dance space" in that manner and he'll be emasculated. By my fingernails.

Then: What a loser that Neil guy is. Loser loser loser.
Now: What a loser that Neil guy is. Loser loser loser.

Then: Ooh, that dance move is also very sexy. I am going to try to arch my back over like that. Hmm, not quite.
Now: Ouch.

Then: I will practice for months until I figure out how to shake my maracas like Cynthia Rhodes does in that gazebo scene.
Now: Ouch again.

It has been -- holy cow -- more than fifteen years since I watched this movie so many times that I wore out my pirated Beta videocassette of it. And yet, tonight I still knew exactly what everyone was going to say next. Why the heck couldn't, say, World History stick with me like that? Maybe if World History had starred Patrick Swayze (I don't think he frowns enough. Do you?) and involved a strangely satisfying combination of early 60's and mid-80's music, it would have worked better. I wonder if the California State Department of Education has a suggestion hotline for their curriculum standards division...