Awkward and Awesome

Awkward:

I had to take a class to learn to walk like a woman.

I am not even kidding.

I don’t have a stroll—I have a gait. Fast-paced, big steps, flat feet, I zoom. Friends could spot me from a distance speed-walking to class or work because they recognized my walk. Thank goodness they never told me it was awkward (oh golly, I hope it wasn’t), it was just . . . distinct, might be the best word. Ok, so I walk like a guy. There is very little feminine about my presence except for the fact that I have breasts.

I’m tempted to think that was one quality that got me cast as a seductive divorcee in a one-act play my last semester. Honestly, that was not even remotely a typecast. Except for the breasts.

So, one day, I come into rehearsal, and a new actor is there. He explains that he is here to teach myself and the other female cast member to master the physical presence of our characters. She got it right off the bat.

Me?

I had to learn to walk. All over again. The seductive sway of the hips. The mastery of the high heels. Oh good grief, the high heels. My arch-nemesis. My curves tend to hide how gangly I am—and the fact that my arms really could place me as a close-relation of Stretch Armstrong—but they don’t hide the fact that I walk like a teenage boy after a growth spurt. I quickly discovered I was a master of anti-sexy-woman walk.

But then I got it. Good golly after over an hour of stumbling around, I got it. Man, could I strut. Head high, come-hither eyes, smirked lips and hand on my hips, click, sway, click, sway, BAM.
It was the most unnatural sensation.

So I kept practicing for a month after that, every day, in bright red heels. Partly because I wanted to feel sexy . . . mostly because my beyond-anal director threatened death if opening night I was a teenage boy again.

Awesome:

According to the crowd, I ROCKED that part. Ten minutes of glory.
The crowd laughed, applauded, and gasped. The compliments poured in. We were all very pleasantly surprised.  Someone even stopped me at work to ask if I was that girl from the play. Oh, sweet success.

The awkward, almost-tomboy was suddenly sexy--my voice changed, my demeanor, my presence, everything screamed WOMAN. BAM.

One night and one night only, folks. The next day I was back in my chucks and pirate t-shirts, zipping around campus, clop clop clop.
Yeah, I didn’t touch high heels again for year. So long sex appeal ;^]