Do the Hustle

Busy busy busy...I have a theory about the mostly misunderstood psychology of middle-aged people, sometimes known as "middlescents." That theory is: what being "in love" is to the young, being "busy" is to the middle-aged. We wail and moan about the challenges of sustaining the mood we naturally prefer to stay in, but it's a blissful wailing and moaning, underneath. 'Tis better to have been busy and lost than never to have been busy at all.

I thought it was time for a hard-hitting post with a lot of research in it, after two fluffy animal posts back to back. I've been busy reading, writing, typing, editing, and compiling, all of writers' favorite things. I did not get that research done.

But I did find the recording of the classic dance tune, "Do the Hustle." Here. 

To keep my metabolism ticking properly while working at a desk job with little physical movement in it, I take every opportunity to read an e-friend's blog and discover a music link in it as an obligation to get up and dance. Readers who are in a place where listening to music isn't rude and dancing isn't positively dangerous, which is the kind of place to which I think the Internet should be confined, are invited to apply this rule to reading my blog.

This web site has a commitment not to post memory-hogging videos that might crash some of the devices some Gentle Readers use. To this I've added a new commitment to post a nice mix of links to different kinds of music. 

It's a new concept in DJ'ing. You're at home with your computer, nobody's going to say your selection is less parent-repellently "cool" than the Jones kids', and nobody's judging whether your moves are worthy of the Ballet Russe or evidence that you've not been sticking to that workout routine the doctor gave you. You do not have to be familiar with the musical genre to which you're moving. 

You can do strictly upper body movements in a wheelchair--who's to care, or know? 

You can drape a newspaper over the computer screen if it feels as if the person in the picture on the album cover is looking at you from the screen. 

You can interpret a song in an athletic way, with high kicks, full body bends, and flips, or in an early-rehab way, with rhythmic toe wiggles and pauses to rest between tunes. 

I'll never know. I'll never tell.

I'll only say that some e-friends, like Rob Kistner and Priscilla Bird, have been DJ'ing at their blogs longer than I have and often provide a whole half-hour or hour of aerobically stimulating tunes, and if you're doing your exercise at home you might want to discover them for that reason.