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2001-10-21 | 4:34 p.m.

After much travail, including losing both our tickets and the dress I was intending to wear (how does one lose a dress, you ask? I would be curious to know the answer myself), we made it to the soccer league wine-tasting and fundraising dance last night. Not having ever been to a soccer wine-tasting fundraising dance, I was a bit unsure what to wear, much less what to expect. It turned out to be a bit like what I imagine a high school reunion is like.

When we heard ZZ Top's "Legs" followed by Meat Loaf's "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," I knew exactly what sort of guy had been making requests. I asked Duff to request "Baby Got Back" and he did, to which everyone boogied amiably. All through the song, we could hear shrieks of laughter erupting from all over the dance floor. Either people were listening to the lyrics for the first time, or they were amusing themselves by pointing at my ass. You never can tell. I just kept my eyes closed and danced.

Duff is a music snob and turned up his nose at many of the tunes, which were, to be fair, execrable. The DJ played things like Van Morrison's "Brown-Eyed Girl," which is not particularly danceable, and other bland stuff the coach's wife referred to as "1970s Love Boat music." The biggest sin, in my opinion, was the complete lack of Southern Soul or Motown in favor of disco and bubblegum pop. Who in their right mind would ever choose Kenny Loggins's "Footloose" over Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour"?

At my insistence, Duff taught himself how to do the Electric Slide. I cannot learn dance steps to save my life, but he picked it up in about 90 seconds. Watching him move, while our friends cheered him on, I saw him through their eyes and thought, Wow. If he weren't my guy, I'd want him. Like a girl, I said to the coach's wife, "Isn't he cute?" and she said, "He's adorable." Coded language, neutered words; we don't know each other well enough to speak frankly. Then Duff taunted me by doing the Electric Slide to various other songs throughout the night. "You can do the Electric Slide to anything," he laughed. I laughed, too, when he referred to the Brian Setzer Orchestra tune "Jump, Jive & Wail" as "Drunk Drivin'."

I have a teeny tiny crush on the soccer coach. By which I mean that I enjoy talking to him, but do not imagine him naked. He is as wholesome as Laughing Cow cheese. My friends used to tease me; they said I went for these wholesome guys because I wanted to corrupt them, but that's only part of it. I really really like them that way. I wonder why? Maybe because my sister went for bikers, I had to go the other way? There's something dangerous about making them like me? I should think about it some more sometime. Try to sort it out. There's definitely always been something puritanical about me. Scary.

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