The End of My Dancing Career

Well, hello everyone. This is your local star, here, Robbi Behr. In case for some reason you have just randomly arrived at this blog today with no previous information about me at all, I’m just going to fill you in really quickly: you see, I’m a star here in Chestertown (Maryland). I know this because I was chosen to compete in the local Dancing With the Stars fundraiser as one of the “star” components. I’m afraid they were scraping the bottom of the barrel when they chose me but whatever – I’ll take what I can get.

So anyway. Saturday night was the main event. After tricky bouts with costuming, make-up and the whole learning-how-to-dance thing (this issue is yet unresolved), I started out the day on Saturday with one last rehearsal on the actual field of play.

It turns out, the floor on the field of play was much slippier than what we had previously been practicing on, and I nearly broke my neck a couple of times, what with all the cartwheeling and high-kicking I was doing. I realized it was due to a wardrobe malfunction – in order to make my shoes look like boots, I had been pulling my legwarmers down over the heels of my shoes. This was fine when we were practicing on the wrestling mats in the dojo, but really threw me off on the dance floor. So, the solution was to cut holes in my legwarmers so the heels could fit through them.

So, after our final rehearsal I spent an hour fixing my legwarmers and sewing around the openings so that they wouldn’t entirely unravel and cause a hazard while we were dancing. I had a couple hours to kill before getting my hair done, so painted the Pixies logo on the front of my shirt with sparkly nail polish. I was clever enough to put the shirt on before getting my hair done, so I wouldn’t mess up my hair while trying to get dressed, but not clever enough to apply the nail polish early enough that I didn’t asphyxiate off of the fumes in the car on the way to the hairdressers. Ah well.

My plan was to do a little animé/Sailor Moon action on my hair – blunt bangs with two little buns up on the top of my head. I knew Brian would have the perfect solution.

He started with a quick trim and a flat iron.

My hair is naturally somewhat unruly, so the flat iron just helped set the stage. Then came the bangs.

BaZAM! Nothing makes a girl look like she’s 12 than bangs. Not the intention, but there you go.

We actually decided to trim the bangs back even more, so my brows would show (I mean, after all the plucking I did, I didn’t want my hard work to go unnoticed). And then it was time to bun it up.

That bun looked HOT.

Look at the master at work.

Seriously. This guy knows his stuff. If ever YOU become a star, you need to look him up. (He also does quite good work for non-stars. Anyone who can wrangle my lazy ass into having a good head of low-maintenance hair is a genius.)

Once both buns were in place, he did a little flat-ironing on the side wispies, and I was good to go.

I have to say – I LOVE this hairdo. LOVE LOVE LOVE. If I could just lacquer it up, dry it out, and wear it like a helmet, I totally would.

When I got home, I asked the kids what they thought of my hair. They both looked at me thoughtfully, and Alden declared, “I like your ears,” to which Kato added, “You look like a bear.” I guess those were compliments.

I was feeling ready to go get ‘em.

But then there was the whole issue of my make-up. Ugh.

I left myself a whole hour to get it done, and we barely made it in time.

Make-up is hard, yo.

And terrifying.

I took Jennifer’s advice and quadrupled the application. When I was done, I literally looked like a raccoon AND a bear.

I had bought some spray glitter to give myself some added sparkle (I was worried the shorts wouldn’t be enough). The only good place to apply it was in the foyer of the rec center where the event was being held.

Apologies to everyone who came to the event and had to trudge through the smell of weird hairspray glitter stuff.

Partner Mark and I arrived on the red carpet together with ample time to pose before things got underway.

Unfortunately, the paparazzi got a little out of hand and it frankly soured our red carpet experience a little bit.

Once inside, we got to have a good look around before the audience showed up.

No offense, but the Kent County High School prom committee of 1992 could learn a thing or two from these folks.

Twix “cigars” in cigar boxes for centerpieces:

A bartender in a cabana serving mojitos:

An entertaining video for people to watch as they filtered in:

Take notes, folks. This is how it’s done.

I was feeling pretty good at this point.

Once the room was full and everyone settled in, all of the dancers were introduced (a fine-looking crowd, if I do say so myself).

This was about when I started to realize that I would actually have to do some dancing pretty soon. We wouldn’t actually dance until the second half, so we spent the first half of the show watching our competition from the sidelines and trying to keep from vomiting.

During the intermission, we went into the “practice room” and practiced our routine. My mind went totally blank and I screwed everything up – going the wrong direction, missing the lifts. It was pretty disastrous. Mark assured me that a bad rehearsal meant a good performance. At this point, I pretty much had to bank on it.

Our turn up came faster than I thought. Suddenly, we were called out on the floor and the dancing was ON. It was crazy. I actually don’t remember any of it. But I think it pretty much went perfectly. I didn’t forget anything, it was really REALLY fun, and (people tell me) the crowd was into it. I couldn’t really see anything from the stage, which was all good, so it was just plain fun.

And – say WHAT?

PERFECT TENS FROM THE JUDGES!!!!

It was awesome. I am going to take a moment here to be earnest and say that Mark really was the perfect partner in crime – a patient teacher, someone who took my strengths (what few (and little) strengths I had) and knew how to use them to our best advantage, someone who was game for the kind of ridiculousness that is Gangnam Style and yet who took this whole thing seriously enough to actually teach me some things about dance. Those scores say it all – he really did a remarkable job, especially given the flawed me that he was working with.

And now that I’m done with the earnestness, I will say here: I WILL post a video of it, as soon as I get one. You will get to see for yourselves the amazing and ridiculous (yet strangely compelling) work of dance art that was our magnum opus. Stay tuned.

We were the second-to-last to dance in the preliminaries, after which there would be a dance-off for the top three teams (who had raised the most money). There was a break for people to do some more voting, and while we waited, I chewed all my beglittered fingernails down to nubs.

Believe it or not, we made it to the finals. This is most exciting because you really should have seen the competition. Not only were they ALL incredibly good dancers, they were also actual STARS in our community with lots of well-heeled connections. The fact that we were in the top three is really really amazing, and I credit all of YOU out there who supported me with your donations. Seriously, it’s kind of incredible that little old me and (no offense Mark) little old Mark made enough cash to compete. So – earnestly, seriously, THANK YOU, all you crazy people out there. There are a lot of deserving kids who are going to benefit from your generosity and support.

So. We did our second dance. It was basically just a 30-second chunk of our first dance. This time I did forget a bunch of stuff, but whatever. We still had fun.

And walked away with third place.

In the Olympics, people always kind of pooh-pooh bronze medals, but I’m telling you, the competition here was FIERCE. These people ROCKED IT (I’m talking about you, Doctor Gillin, and your running man!!). So, I’m pretty frickin’ proud of those trophies.

Plus, they’ve given me a good sense of what to look forward to when I get my boob job.

A special, special heartfelt thanks goes out to my besties, Stella and Hirsch, who made the drive all the way down from Brooklyn for moral support (and some votes, too!). You guys are THE BEST.

And so – all great things must come to an end, and thus concludes my incredible (read: ridiculous) journey as a star and a dancer. I’ve hung up my leg warmers and taken down my hair.

Well, yikes. I’m not sure if walking away with an awesome trophy was worth looking like this at the end of the night.

Oh, right, but I can most definitely assure you that THIS made it worth it:

Thank you, Matthew, for living up to your end of the deal. And thank you for putting up with my dance shenanigans for the past three months, looking after the kids, making dinners, reminding me to eat breakfast so I wouldn’t pass out at rehearsal. And thank you for being the kind of husband who embraces this nonsense and makes me feel like a star even while I look like a complete idiot.