I went to a ballet class today. It was taught by a tiny Russian woman, who probably weighed 85 pounds soaking wet. However, she was able to use all of those teeny, muscular limbs to demonstrate beautifully and her waving arms smacked any part of her own body that she wanted us to focus on. Sort of physical exclamation point. I was thankful for this because her Russian accent was very thick.

At the barre, I stood next to this woman who was quite good and had obviously danced for many years. Her leg extensions nearly touched her nose and her pointed feet arched over as though her toes were about to touch her heel. But that was okay, I hadn't lost steam yet. The class was challenging. I think that some of the people in the class were retired dancers. It's funny to spot old dancers. They wear layers of stretchy clothing tied oddly around them, sometimes belts secured at various locations, and pants made of this funny material that sounds like rainproof windbreakers. And they wear all of this clothing at once. In a climate-controlled studio. After they've been dancing in a studio in Los Angeles, which is a very warm location.

They were all quite good, though. I chickened out during the part where we were supposed to go across the floor. The combinations weren't exceedingly difficult, but I felt awfully out of place. For starters, I was only wearing a leotard and pants (although I had started class, appropriately, with leg warmers and a thermal underwear shirt). But my brain just wasn't in ballet mode, and it was hard for my arms, legs, and torso to decide that they understood anything either. This nice man introduced himself with a firm, warm handshake, which was nice. Then, he got a bit chattier. He'd moved here to become an actor -- 20 years ago -- now he's an attorney who takes long lunch breaks on Fridays to go to a dance class. He asked about me and found out that I did research at USC. He asked if I'd made friends out here yet, and I said, "Oh yes!" so as not to encourage too much conversation. He had on tights and a shirt; he must've left his windbreaker pants at home this morning because he seemed to fit in with the class in other ways. He talked a bit more to me, and I was even less able to pay attention to dancing after that. So, I picked up my stuff and officially wimped out, walking out of the studio. The attorney followed me and suggested that we could have lunch sometime. I replied that it was a nice suggestion and perhaps we'd see each other at the studio some time. Maybe the poor guy was just trying to be nice. But he was quite a bit older than me, and he was in my ballet class. I couldn't even figure out how to do the 8 count combination across the floor. I certainly couldn't deal with living in a new town -- Los Angeles of all places! -- and dating an out of work actor masquerading as a ballet dancing attorney. I have enough to deal with as it is.