If this feminism thing doesn't work out...

Yesterday I found a five-pound note on the ground as I was walking into my building. That's like finding almost eight dollars, only in a convenient single-note form. Once I got upstairs, I checked my email to find that I'd been invited to a pole-dancing "taster session" for the extremely reasonable price of - you guessed it - five pounds.

I considered this a sign from the universe.

So today I had my first-ever pole-dancing lesson. It's something I've wanted to do forever, but never wanted to Google while at work (imagine the flags it might set off if a high school teacher was looking up pole dancing): when I did remember to look it up at home, the descriptions of classes were either too much about empowerment, too much about sensuality, or too much about bachelorette parties. So I never followed through.

Side story! When I was graduating college with a VERY useful and employable double degree in English and Women's & Gender Studies (with a minor in psychology, of course), and people asked me what I was going to do with my smorgasbord of self-indulgent studies under my belt, my standard answer was "exotic dancing." I'm very good at saying things like that with a straight face, and it almost got boring dealing with the fact that people believed me. It really is a good thing that I hate to lie, otherwise I could be dangerous.

The irony is, for a year or two I did work as an exotic dancer of sorts, working for an entertainment company and performing belly dance routines at weddings, corporate parties, bar mitzvahs, and even an off-broadway production.

(Further irony: everyone who asked if I was going to use my English degree to teach would be met with a scornful and emphatic "NO." Guess what I've been doing for seven years...).

ANYWAY.

Pole dancing.

In many ways the class was exactly what I expected it to be. I expected it to require MUCH more upper body strength than I have, and it did. I expected to feel COMPLETELY unsexy, and I did. I expected to really like it, and I did!

I will most likely sign up for the full six-week course. As soon as these bruises on my thighs go down.