Widdly Wack Bellydance Night!!

Okay, this is probably gonna be a long post, some of you may not read the whole thing, cuz maybe you hate LONG posts but it was a very busy night and mucho crap happened so there is just no way I can shorten it down, any more than I already have. Hopefully my blog friends will give it a try...it was a ...difficult adventure.

Tonight Katie had 3 bellydance gigs and the first 2 she really wanted someone there with her, since they were big time gigs, one was a silent auction benefit, and the other was for a polish wedding. So I went with her, hey she offeres me 20% of what she makes and she was expecting $400 total, so that meant $80 for me, not bad for keeping stalkers (the real kind) away and helping her change, setting up the music, and what not. And after tithng that's $78 free and clear, plus she calls me a business expense so she can put me on whatever forms you put that crap on.

Anyway we get to the first gig. There's only valet parking for "the event" and the guy wants the $5 fee. Katie is like "uhhhh...can you get Dusty because I'm the performer so...", and then he's like "oh! So you're only here for a little while? Then we'll just park it for you close by so you can leave" and he took our car and drove it away. Neato!! We get inside and we find the bathroom on our own. Katie usually needs a few minutes, fix her hair, make sure her make-up is right, remove the caftan, get "the wings" out and the Zills (finger cymbals), etc. However Dusty is needed because we have to get to where the DJ they told her about is, she needs to see what space she has to work with,etc. While someone goes to look for him, Katie is first greeted by her student, an older woman who got her the job, and then by her good friend Berud(totally have no idea how to spell it, she is Arabic), who she was totally not expecting. I wish she hadn't been there, I'm not sure how I feel about her, but it's not good feelings when Katie asked her if Katie had gained weight and she goes "a little. Just eat less food." Katie was already emotional and feeling fat (rolling my eyes) because she has her friend on top of three jobs and a very hectic week at school, so this just pissed me off. I was trying to keep my little sister calm because Katie loves this so much, I think it's half of why she is so good. The audience can SEE her love for what she's doing! Anyway, Dusty stops by...very briefly...and so the student shows us into the room. We have to struggle through the crowd because apparently even though Katie was supposed to go on NOW, they had decided to serve the food, so the people were in a slow-moving massive line. They KNEW she had a gig in an hour and a half in another town, 30 minutes away and was doing a 30 minute routine here, but did it matter to them? Of course NOT. And guess what else, there was NO DJ. All they had was this tiny system made by Brookstone. Katie was shocked. Because anytime there is no DJ she borrows a Bose from her friend and fellow belly shaker Gina. They are such good machines, they don't skip on cd's...ever. Only a DJ's pro system also does this. This did not make Katie happy. She told her student what she'd been promised but it didn't matter now. And what's really irksome? Katie should have charged $300 for this type of gig, especially since a month of lessons with her, she donated for the benefit. So this was like an unexceptable thing. She would have brought it if they had only told her! So we go over to see how to work this. We see there's a cd already inside so I pick up the remote and press open, and Katie is pressing open on the machine, and it goes open shut in a second. We were like WHOA. I pressed and she pressed. NO time to remove the cd, it was that fast. So we thought okay maybe because we were both pressing something, so I put the remote down. Was it us? Nope. So Katie finally timed it so she removed the other cd, but it tried to break her fingers when she put hers in...usually if something feels a resistance it will open again. Not this piece of crap. Then we look around. There is NO room to dance, she is going to have to slither between the tables the entire time. Then Dusty shows up and tells her he wants her to dance in the hallway too, where they are serving the food. He says there's a boom box UNDER the table and to just turn it up and dance to that music. He has no clue, bellydance music is very specific, has to have a very specific sound or beat that Katie can follow, but we at that point were both like whatever. We both figured we'd just have her music so loud she could hear it in both places. Man that Brookstone player sucked! It skipped ALL over the place AND it's loudest, wasn't loud enough to hear at all in that other hallway, so I had to run and go under the table and blare this hokey sllllooooowwwww music. So Katie would go from drums to zzzzzzz music, which is really hard. And then someone went up to me and asked me to turn the music down...seriously...Katie was close enough that she understood what I mouthed to her, and she said LOUDLY (patience was wearing thin I think) "Sorry. I need to HEAR the music to dance". I mean really, these old people this woman said she was asking for, must be deaf, turn your hearing aids down. The music was barely audible over the crowd of at least 200 people talking...and NOT paying attention! They are richy rich kind of people, so apparently if you are rich, you don't have to bother to pay attention to the entertainment. Then Berud goes up to me, with the smell of cigarettes so strong on her, and leans close and says "your sister needs louder music to dance", like I don't KNOW this! I'm like okay and try and keep pressing the volume up button but it's at it's loudest! And she keeps going up to me until finally she GETS it, that is as loud as it goes! Finally after she was done, she was fed up, she had me skip the last song, we headed to the bathroom. Why do people persist on thinking the dancer wants them to follow her there and talk to her. She's trying to cover up because we NEED to leave, we have exactly a 1/2 hour to get to Bristol. So Katie is trying to be wonderful, with the women praising her, while she is trying to dry the sweat off (bellydance REALLY makes you sweat, I know! Who knew?!) and get into her caftan. The women are talking to her during this with the bathroom door open, so Dusty goes up and hands me her money and is praising her...and then pulls an old man forward and introduces his dad!! In front of the ladies room!! Freaks. Katie rushes to say goodbye to Berud and I haul her suitcase and hanging case towards the door. We HAVE to go. Thankfully they had her keys all set and we booked it.

Gig number two...would it be any better? We hoped. We get there, the Polish League of Bristol and find the restrooms and find a stall that is just for changing, yay. Katie freshens up and another student, the one who hired Katie, entered and we followed her and they had a DJ!! Yes! He took the music, and all I had to do was tell him when Kat was ready and he'd play it....on his PRO equipment! So we go back, Katie puts on the wings, gives me her cane (they use canes in belly dance) and says to hand it to her when she goes near me. This place is set up for DANCING, Katie has more room than she knew what to do with! So I go and say, she's ready and the dancing begins. She does awesome, these people are awesome ( the woman who hired her had half the women in coin hip scarves, that jingle when you shake your rump), they tip her, the way bellydancers are supposed to be tipped (Katie is an awesome teacher, her students KNOW the proper way to pay homage) and many got up and danced with her! There was one tiny problem. Mister I am so Drunk got up and started to strip. Seriously. He had his tie off and his jacket off before someone took him by the shoulders and seated him. Then he was trying again, and was thrusting and gyrating, and got half the buttons undone before a younger girl took him and brought him BACK to his seat. He tried this 2 more times, along with the gross thrusting and thankfully the girl kept on removing him. It was really gross. But they loved her. She ended it with a Shakira song, because the lady asked her to, so ALL the women with hipscarves could shimmy. Again we were followed back to the bathroom...*sighs*. Katie's student had some presents for her, things she didn't use but thought Katie could use, and her granddaughter had given Katie a lovely necklace DURING the performance, just because! How sweet. And the other women were asking where do you teach and how old (Katie teaches ALL ages, she did a mini lesson for some tiny little girls from our church, who were all cousins, so they could perform it at their Pop-Pop's 75th birthday party!!) and what not. I had cards on me so I gave some out and went and gave the DJ one, hey they get asked if they know of one so I am smart! Then when I returned I noticed a ...smell in that bathroom. One reserved for bathrooms, but it was so strong and soooo foul I could barely breathe. And the women were still talking up Katie. I was like, am I the only one, is my nose so sensitive that this bothers NO ONE else??! When we finally leave Katie was like I KNOW!! I was trying to get out but they wouldn't stop talking to me and I hate to be rude. It was a smell only the person making it should smell. Or if you have chosen to be a Mom, then that was YOUR choice so change that diaper before we die of stench I cannot quite describe and yes you can say "Thank you Wendy for not trying to be any more descriptive!".

So now we have to drive another 30 minutes to get to New Haven to meet up with Gina at Medditeranea, which is a hookah bar. I call it "the crack den" because that's what it looks like in the back where everyone likes to be. It's dark and everyone has a hookah, which smell horrible. It's nicotine you smoke through these big ornate, but beautiful instruments that are flavored with flavors like grape, watermelon, and so on. Do you smell the fruit smells? NO. It is a smell worse than plain cigarette smoke, I know hard to imagine that, but it's true. Everytime I go there...everything I am wearing MUST be washed, the smell clings. And while supposedly there is only nicotine in these hookahs, heated by tiny coals, I swear it sometimes has "other stuff" in it. Omar though is apparently really strict on this and can TELL. Gina told us once when she was dancing there, Omar suddenly looked up "Yelled HASHISH!!", and ran into the back! And he was in front in the kitchen cooking!! He dragged the two boys out and kicked them to the curb, cursing in Arabic. I wish I had been there that night!! The hooka bar is mainly a hang out for Yale students and for arabic/middle eastern people. The Arabic people know better, they are very respectful of people they consider their own, that includes the bellydancers. Yay for the nice arabic and lebanese and etc. guys at the crack den!! It's the bloody Yale students that cause the trouble!

Anyway back to meeting up with Gina. Gina is one of Katie's closest friends, they met through belly dance, they are like attached at the hipscarf...yeah I know lame joke. And Gina has become a friend of mine too, she is adorable. She's not Mormon so she has a lot of interesting things she can talk about, though sometime it can border on TMI Gina, TMI! She swears like a trucker, but coming out of her, it just makes me laugh for some reason. She's a petite little Italian spitfire who takes crap from no one! You call her fat while she's dancing (she is SO not, she's gorgeous, but I told you women can be such....um...witches) and she will stop and rip you a new one. LOL! It's so fun to see! I love this girl, seriously. Some of you remind me of her, minus the swearing and Mormon part. It's that funny sarcastic wit. I must be attracted to people like that. I'm like a moth to a flame...hey...which means you're all gonna kill me if I get too close!! Hey now!! Anyway Gina did the first set herself, used lit candles, I hate it when they do that, especially at the hookah bar, I can SO see it all going up in flames in .001 seconds. I feel so sorry for Kat and Gina, dancing barefoot around hookahs, and little pieces of fire float to the carpet...carpet...stupid CHOICE!! Gina has put flames (tiny soot ones ya know?) out with her bare feet and I yell at her, STOP doing that! And it's weird too, because I'm a germaphobe, but Gina is one to the nth power. She uses paper towels to open doors, she got excited that her boyfriend got her a trashcan for Christmas that opens it's lid when you wave your hand over it...now that's a true TRUE germaphobe! So after she finished, there were a few Arabic guys who were like Noooo! And she said she'd be on again in a few minutes with another dancer. One of the guys they have known for awhile and adore, Abdul, and he leaves for home in 2 weeks, his visa is up, so they wanted to dance with him plenty. And there was some of his friends including Muhammed, I call him Muhammed number 2, because Muhammed number 1 works there. Cute too. So when Katie AND Gina danced they were in heaven. Kat and Gina even extended their set, a) the guys and b) an older woman was there who had started taking bellydance lessons so her daughter brought her to the hookah bar to see bellydancers and smoke hookah obviously. And while Gina was talking to them, they asked if we wanted to go clubbing with them.

Now, even if I weren't Mormon, I am not a "clubber". I don't dance, crowds bother me (hello disorder) and I am totally not used to hanging out with guys. But today was Gina's anniversary with her BF (they are on a break...he's an idiot) so she really seemed to want to go and it looked like Katie did too. I had been in a club in New Haven once before with Kate and Gina and Gina's friend Timmy. It was for like 5 minutes and really freaked me out and we left, minus Tim, and went to eat somewhere. I was not comfortable but didn't want to ruin anyone's good time either. I told Katie it was up to her. Katie was like are you sure? I told her I just worried about being by myself, looking like an idiot, while they were off dancing and Kate said she wouldn't leave me alone so it was decided...mostly. We were all hungry, it was like 12:25 am by this time. And Katie was like, I don't know what do you think Gina? I'm tired and hungry. Wendy? And I was like it's up to you guys (I tried to tell myself it would be okay) and then they were like let's tell them not a club, we'll go to one of the bars for a little while with them and hang out, then we will go have dinner at a diner. This totally made me feel a bit better. Guys I just met and clubbing? Ummm I am so lame, it just isn't me. So we tell them that and they are cool with it, and we begin walking...and walking.Gina was up ahead with Abdul, Kat and I were talking with Muhammed Number 2. He's 24 and is in graduate school for forensics. Apparently in Dubai he is already a Lieutenant in the police, and when he graduates, he will be a captain when he goes back. *jaw dropped* The FBI was interested in him, but he was told he wouldn't be able to retain citizenship from his home, he'd only have American, so he refused. It's hard to get back into his country without citizenship. Too bad, he really seems to like America. Doesn't plan on having to go through with an arranged marriage, like Abdul has decided to do when he goes home. Abdul says it's time to be married, even though he wants to be in the U.S., Gina was like marry me and stay (in name only). Knowing her she'd be tempted to do it if things don't work out with her BF. They really like this kid, they don't want to lose the "nice Arabic men" they have befriended. They actually love it when they get hammered because Katie and Gina will be virtually ignored as they smoke hookah and then they start to sing in their native tongue which is what the girls love to hear and wait for. And way we were STILL walking, it was freezing out, and we had walked 6 blocks!! Finally we get to a Bar. I had no idea why we had walked this far for this specific place. We'd passed a dozen bars on our way. This area of New Haven is door to door, attract the Yale students! So we get inside, we all get carded (thank you whoever gave me the gene where I still get carded) and we enter. At first it seemed okay. To the left was a crowded bar scene, to the right was booths, and I was like yeah okay I can do this. Then Gina and Muhammed 2 began leading us through the bar to a hallway...which led to a BIG flipping CLUB. Katie whispered to me, just squeeze my hand if you need to leave and we'll go. The problem was this...as soon as I saw the pulsing lights and could hear the music, I was ready to go. But I didn't want to ruin anyones time. I tried to tell myself, this is that therapy where facing your fears will lessen them. Those people? They're flipping liars. Gina got a "drink", Katie and I got water, Muhammed 2 high-fived us both because he doesn't drink either. And then we are led further into the room, people kept pushing by me, knocking into me, no one says excuse me or looks apologetic. Not that you'd be able to hear it. *Okay here's a new fun fact about Wendy, I'm partially deaf in one ear apparently. We learned this when during a summer a few years ago I got dizzy and it didn't go away for 3 months or so. So hearing was checked and I was told about the hearing loss in one ear.* But even to me the music was loud, even louder than my one and only concert, which was VERY loud, but this? I could FEEL the sound. Even in my heart which isn't great because of my tacchycardia. And then strobe lights kept going on, and the disco ball was making the light bounce everywhere, light from the strobes and pink and blue lights that flashed. And even though I was standing still, it felt like the room was spinning. I held on tight to my water and sipped on the straw, trying to look like it was the best water on earth. I felt like such a loser. People my age should have been doing this stuff for years. I was not going to squeeze Katie's hand, I was going to do this. Only problem was I could feel the panic and anxiety rising and rising, and my heart beating faster and faster. I wanted to run. I felt like crying. Why am I such a freak that I can't do this? They're all dancing to the music, smiling, somehow talking to each other, I could barely hear when Gina or Kat or Muhammed screamed into my ears. I wanted to leave so badly but someone my age should be able to do normal things like this, without being on the verge of tears. It was getting so bad, my anxiety, and then Gina screamed to me and Kat, just let me finish my drink and we'll go. And I thought okay, it's almost over, you can do this. Breathe, breathe. But Gina was sipping at it. Finally, Katie and Gina talked, Gina wanted to stay. She wanted to get the sad feelings about being not with her BF on their anniversary, out by clubbing and dancing. So Katie led me out and we began the long trek back to Omar's place where our car was. We made sure Abdul would walk Gina back to her car when she was ready of course. Gina's our girl. And as we walked I tried to gulp in air. Katie started to get that I wasn't okay, and now knows that I wanted out immediately and is mad at me. Apparently she didn't WANT to be there. She was tired and hungry, and if she'd known, she'd have dragged us out of there. And I tried to explain that I didn't want to be the person who ruins things for everyone else. She still can't really understand why I didn't squeeze her hand. It's hard to get it through, that I don't want everyone to see what a freak I really am. That even after going to the diner and having a nice quick meal, and finally arriving home, I still couldn't shake that fear, that panic I felt while in the bar, which isn't just a bar, THAT'S It's NAME...BAR!! So that's why when we finally got home just before 3 am, I knew I needed to tell my mom-ist (mom as a therapist) and thought that maybe getting it down on "paper" (this is sorta) would be cathartic. It has helped a bit, though way too long I know. If any of you have read the whole thing...wow...and thank you. As soon as we walked through the door, there was barking and then my perfect little man trotted to us. And I hugged him hard.

This bellydance night had been the oddest, most annoying, and scariest of my experience. I'm so tired of feeling like a failure in life, the end of the night was supposed to be the enjoyable part, but for me, it was my nightmare come to life. That went through my head at the club. This is my worst nightmare. That's why I call it Widdly Wack. Maybe I'm the one who's wack...I don't know. I just know that I can't ever do that again...and it makes me feel like I have failed in some other aspect of life. I'm sorry if this is sounding like a pity party now. I'm honestly just being honest with my feelings. It's actually 7:37 am right now, I am not a speed typer, I use 2 fingers...I failed keyboarding (technically I passed but I SO cheated). Not sure if I can comment on blogs tonight, I mean today...well this early today. Depends on if I can sleep now. Have I scared off my stalkers?