Let me start with admitting; I'm about the least knowledgeable Mormon I know. I attended church moderately my entire youth. It wasn't my favorite thing to do. My parents found a way to twist it into a punishment, namely; if you didn't go to church on Sunday you were grounded until the following Sunday when you got the opportunity to redeem your freedom by, you named it, attending Church. I was a fairly obstinant child & if something didn't make sense to me, I wasn't going to do it. I didn't care what the repurcussions were, it just wasn't happening. I started a career of sticking it to The Man fairly early in life.
So that being said. My knowledge on any & all things LDS; extremely limited. At times i'm hesitant to even admit i'm Mormon because A. i'm not the greatest example, & B. if they ask me ANY questions that really delve into the religion with any sembelence of depth, I CAN'T answer it. However on the flip side of that they sometimes pose a fairly thought provoking inquiry that I then too want to know the answer to. So theres that. Little things folks. ONWARDS.
So NYE 2015. I naturally am at my Picard family's house. Gearing up for a fairly chill night of Just Dance, copious amounts of chocolate, & just all around good times. When my cousin Sara gets an invite to go to a mass YSA dance in SLC. She then extended the invitation to me. Generally speaking I'm a pretty poor wingman UNLESS there is dancing involved. Then i'm the greatest person to have within an vicinity of your wing cause it's guaranteed you will ALWAYS look better than me. Blame it on the excitement of the impending year to come; we decide to go for it.
People this is my FIRST experience with any YSA thing EVER. So I mean we really went for it. We went big. It was up at the Institute building on the University of Utah campus & it seemed as though it was inclusive to any single youth in the entire state of Utah. Getting there was a little bit of an adventure. Luckily not a bad one, we learned 'there are no turns so wrong you can't turn around from', & eventually we arrive.
Then parking. Driving aimlessly thru the lot, having no luck BUT not yet ready to admit defeat & start perusing the upper (further away) levels. ORRRR just bagging the whole idea & going back home to the warmth & comfort of our elastic waistbands.
I know, I KNOW, it sounds so incredibly lazy! Give us a break though it was 11:00 pm on the last night of the year. It was FRIGID!! Then finally, when all hope was seemingly lost, on the outskirts of the main lot we see what seems to be parking. We get closer. INDEED it is an actual patch of asphalt dedicated for housing non-moving vehicles. Thanks Boy Scouts of America. Sorry we didn't park there during actual business hours. What can we say. The spirit of 2016 made us do it *insert 'Bad Girls SNL skit".
So we hop out the car. YIKES. So cold. Literally every time I'm cold, & i'm not exaggerating here, I think of what a suckass pioneer I would have been. However my walking tempo becomes markedly more upbeat, so once again, little things. We cross the parking lot. Nearing the doors. Kind of getting excited, mostly wondering 'what the hell we had all gotten into.' We walk in. GLOW STICKS! To better identify what ward boundaries we fell into?? Cause THATS going to make it easier to find someone you take any amount of interest in???? 'Ya so he was pretty cute, didn't catch his name, but he was wearing a purple wristband, so I mean that pretty much narrows it down. Consider him found. I can hear the wedding bells now!!.' ....... ??? I don't know.
So from there it was straight to the dance floor. No wait, bathrooms. Always bathrooms. I pee more than anyone I know, barring pregnant broads. They had a coat hanger on the back of the stall & a lovely sign above it that read 'Please sweet ladies ONLY for hanging clothing.'.. ?????? This is off to a great start. Pee break, broken, we head for the dance floor.
No words. There are literally no words to describe OR explain what I saw taking place. It was crowded, it was hot, it was awkward. I have never been so distracted in my life. But the group I was with pushed their way RIGHT into the thick of it. I've always been okay with being an observer. On the side. Where i'm safe. Not tonight. Tonight was different. So we begin dancing. At least they were dancing. I'm not even sure what I was doing.
My cousin Sara has GREAT rhythm. Like everything she does on the dance floor just. looks. GOOD! And she's got this great eternal tan (half native American) so she even has that extra bit of street cred that being, people will trust whatever moves she's putting out there because; BROWN.
So everyone around us, myself included, would just kind of mimic whatever Sara was doing. To some extent. At first it was mostly subconsciously. Then later when you were aware of your shameless copycatting you would at least try to put your own spin on it so it wasn't quite so obvious. It was still pretty obvious. So anyways. The music was actually REALLY good. Like that DJ knew what was up. And not once did he play Cotton Eye Joe. Holla.
I'm not sure if you're aware but most white people DON'T know how to dance. And really aren't comfortable with it. BUT you're at an event where you want to LOOK like youre fun, & open to trying new things, & like you like to dance. Because apparently dancing is synonymous with all of those things. So you see a lot of uncoordinated bobbing & weaving.
Occasionally you see that couple that has caught one anothers eye, & so they attempt to pair off BUT the only kind of dancing they know is... GRINDING.. which they do for about 3 seconds until the remember the venue they are in. Then it's just awkward. They try to make it work. They can't. They part ways.
Then you have the weirdo's. You know what i'm talking about. The lurkers. And sometimes they travel alone, other times as members of a creeptastic pack. But EVERY party has them. Tonight was no different. Tag teaming seemed to be the big thing. You'd be dancing, finally starting to feel good about your moves, life would be good, & you'd look up & see them on the edge of your posse, & all the good feelings would be gone.
Then you'd see them start to size up the situation. Do they try to take on the whole group at once, or do they pick off one of the weaker looking stragglers towards the edge. They usually went for the weaker one. BUT occasionally you'd see them get ambitious & go for the whole enchilada. No one was safe.
Also the ONLY dance moves that white people are even remotely comfortable with is line dancing (obvi) & jumping. Which technically shouldn't even be considered a dance move. It shouldn't be. But anytime it would even start to drop, the bouncing would commence with reckless abandon. Thank God for dubstep. And Single Ladies. That was like the highlight of the night. We ALL went BERZERK when you heard those beginning notes. Every female in there was like 'THIS MY JAM!!!' & it's like 'we know. we're all singe. Hence the ONLY reason any of us are here.
So i'm trying to dance, & I was just constantly distracted by my environment. I didn't even know where to look 90% of the time. And my dance moves went from bad to worse. Eventually the midnight hour was upon. FINALLY. Our sentence was almost up. 10 SECONDS!! The verbal countdown commences. 3,2,1, HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!! Then they attempt to release a plethora of balloons from up above us. Only the release mechanism was poorly constructed & instead of dropping them it made the net anaconda squeeze around them. So they kept pulling it harder & HARDER, hoping that doing the exact same thing would eventually yield different results. Eventually we all grew tired of waiting & began tearing at the netting, eventually enabling ourselves to release balloons 1 or 2 at a time. It was anti climactic. But maybe all the more memorable because of it.
ALSO i'll have you know. My New Years countdown came from an IWatch. Not my own , mind you. But I felt just SOOO friggin' Utah in that moment. Thankfully I have a really permanent white trash anchor to keep me connected to my Wyoming roots.
YAY for poorly planned, impulsive tattoo's in the most conspicuous areas!!!
So we stand for a moment like. Whelp. And then immediately it turned to 'but is there any food.' So we ditch the dance floor in hopes of finding some nourishment. I help myself to some quality, albeit picked over, vege trays. They were so good. I was in rabbit food heaven. My night suddenly all worth it. Then I begin to look around noticing all the people around us were weirdo's. Makes sense that THAT is where I would end up I guess?? Maybe not??? I'm normal I swear!! So after gorging myself on fresh fare we head for the door.
As we walk back to the Jeep, & its awe-inspiring back seat butt warmers, aka one of the highlights of my entire nights. FUTURE HUSBAND, we WILL have back seat butt warmers. They are like the pinnacle of adulting. We all were kind of like.. 'well, not what we planned to do with out night. cant say it was better than we originally HAD planned to do.. BUT at least we did it.'
So we climb in. Turn on the seat heaters. And then Brad (Sara's friend) took us on a lovely tour of his old stomping ground up above the city. I'm telling you, it was awesome. So informative. People are so interesting. And he knew all of the most interesting stuff about the most interesting people. If the whole grown up thing doesn't work out Brad should definitely consider a career in tour guides. I think I speak for all other passengers in the car when I say he would come highly recommended from all of us.
So eventually the hours keep getting later & we begin our journey back down south, to home. Eventually reaching our different & various destinations tired but with a tiny small sense of accomplishment. And so goes the beginning of the year 2016, the year of;
At least we did it.
(she gets it)
PS. If I wasn't motivated before to get married, I sure as hell am now. I'd be pretty okay with taking myself off the eligibility list for attendance to those YSA dances for like the rest of forever. One & done folks, one & done.
Ames OUT
