I hate audience participation. That�s right�hate. I can�t stand clapping along (even bringing Tinkerbell back to life is a sucky ordeal), answering choruses out at shows (�hey�I came to hear you sing�), or raising my hands in the ayah like I just don�t cayah. Because I do cayah. It makes me sick to my stomach. And I�m not sure why. I suppose it could be the conformity of it that rubs me the wrong way. But not just the conformity to other humans�it�s also the conformity to outside stimuli that I can�t control that I don�t like, I think. For instance, if I�m walking through the Squizz (Harvard Squizz, that is) and there�s a band playing, better yet just a drummer (usually pickle bucket), I purposely walk out of time. I can�t help myself!

When I was singing with this 21-piece swing band a couple years ago (and I�ll tell ya some stories), I would arrive at practice and when T was warming up on the drums, playing with brushes perhaps, some hip-ish licks, I could not for the life of me walk across that room to the beat. I�m really not sure why. It made me uncomfortable. Especially after we�d had a little affair (that really ended ok�lukewarm, but ok). Then I felt almost violated by the drumbeat and would make an effort to walk randomly, one foot then the other, against the beat. And I�ll tell you�it�s hard when you�ve got rhythm, baby.

It could also be, I suppose, that I value my personal space so much. This is not only physical, but mental and aural. I hate it when people try to dance with me at clubs. �Go use that pole over there�you�ll get a warmer reception.� Friends are fine, my boyfriend is fine, still and all I�m a bump-n-grind-hater. I also hate it when I�m trying to enjoy a drink at the bar and there�s some awful band playing. I feel like they�re drilling holes in my head and dripping their unasked-for hell-syrup inside. Yes, I could just leave. Yes, I am bitchily complaining. Oh well.

An illustrative incident with the aforementioned big band was when the bandleader, akin to a tubercular Glenn Miller (and owned/wore a yellow pair of Ronald Reagan�s pants), decided, in the middle of �Coconut Champagne� that I, girl singer, was to start a conga line. Ok. This is like my worst nightmare coming true (that�s an exaggeration of course, being that I often dream of public toilets that, to quote Julie, look as if someone�s bum�s exploded; and occasionally dream of the apocalypse). So we�re in the middle of playing this party, which we�re getting paid for of course, and TM tells me, �go start a conga line.� Those five words gave me a feeling similar to being told I had to single-handedly replace all the bodies to their rightful coffins/graves/mausoleums after the New Orleans cemeteries flooded.

�Nuh-uh,� I said.

�Yes, go now,� he barks at me, with his back to the audience, flaringly conducting with his flailing red arms.

I just stayed in my seat, smiled and tapped my foot along to the song, being that I just came to rock the microphone (but of course as usual had to lug most of the equipment in my car, which sat in a garage racking up a hefty bill). TM, being not only clinically obsessed with the music/look of the forties, also harbored some of that good old home-cooked misogyny* also popular during that Golden Era, and decided the easiest thing to do would be, with a big stinking grin on his face, grab me by my arm and force me bodily into doing it�rape by conga! So there I am, the one position in a conga line from which one cannot escape: the first person. TM then forcibly grabbed other humans to attach to me and we began our apocalyptic dance. Our slouch towards Bethlehem. And me, the whore of Babylon, leading the brigade, set to Dennis DiBlasio�s Latin-flavored piece, popular amongst high school marching bands (not one of my favorites that we played).

*This forties mentality would have been more of a problem if I couldn�t have easily broken him over my knee. And that he was secretly in love with me (�I told my mom you�re the perfect girl for me��of course I never found him the least bit dishy). He didn't always think I was a dreamgirl, though. I came into the band as he wanted to start an old-school vocal quartet and since TM is more music teacher than musician I was simply �the alto� for some time. He would introduce M: �The lovely, the beautiful, the talented Miss MN,� and me: �Our alto, Jenn S.� It made me feel ugly and wide. Anyway, we don�t talk at all anymore�after he was settled back at his mom�s in Ronconcoma, teaching jazz band at the high school, he emailed me to fill me in as to all the news, playing with this one and that one, etc. We corresponded briefly and then I felt it was fair to ask for the money he owed me, for several shows, gas in my car from Boston to Long Island (his girlfriend and I drove behind him, as he was taking his geriatric car home �to die,� and we rode all the way in a billowing black cloud of smoke emitted from his exhaust pipe) and a hotel room on Long Island. I wrote something about �Now that you�re settled, working, and not paying rent, maybe you could pay me some of the $$$ you owe me.� And I�ve heard neither hide nor hair since. Good riddance.

Whack, though�I was just doing a search for the now defunct band and it turns out our testosterone-laden version of �Kansas City� appears on this WERS (Emerson College�s amazing radio station) compilation of live performances along with the Shods, Damn Personals, and some others, from when we played there. Of course Our Lady Alto isn�t singing on that one.

Word of the Day for Friday August 2, 2002:

torpid TOR-pid, adjective:

1. Having lost motion or the power of exertion and feeling; numb; benumbed.

2. Dormant; hibernating or estivating.

3. Dull; sluggish; apathetic.

Canary Islanders are citizens of Spain, but geography asserts itself from time to time, as a reminder that this land will always be Africa's: the trade winds get interrupted by strong gusts from the east that bring hot dust and sometimes even torpid, wind-buffeted locusts. --Barbara Kingsolver, "Where the Map Stopped," [1]New York Times, May 17, 1992

For more than twenty years--all my adult life--I have lived here: my great weight sunk, torpid in the heat, into this sagged chair on my rooftop patio. --Peggy Payne, [2]Sister India

Some animals became torpid in winter, others were torpid in summer. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life

The debacle over signatures has roused the normally politically torpid Mayor, who dislikes pressing the flesh. --Jan Cienski, "Petition bungle robs Mayor of spot on ballot," [3]National Post, July 30, 2002

It is a man's own fault... if his mind grows torpid in old age. --Samuel Johnson, quoted in James Boswell's [4]Life of Samuel Johnson

Torpid comes from Latin torpidus, "numb, sluggish," from torpere, "to be sluggish, inert, or numb."