...That Everyone Should Own a Hula Hoop.

Last Friday, when I was out dancing with my girlfriends.

We’d been talking about going for ages but never managed to coordinate our increasingly incompatible schedules … or motivate our increasingly sleep-deprived bodies. But Laura took the bull by the horns and got us all out and gussied up for a night on the town.

I can’t say it was the coolest bar in town – no velvet ropes,  no cover charge roughly equal to my first year of college tuition, and no waiting in line, shivering, while the bouncers leer at you and decide whether your boobs are big enough and your legs long enough to sufficiently up the “hot quotient” on the inside -– and the cute-guy pickins were awfully slim (the scant crowd there leaned decidedly Sapphic, and at least one of our bunch was propositioned by an adorable ‘40s-pin-up-looking brunette with a Marilyn Monroe figure and Betty Boop shoes). But it was, hands down, the most fun I’ve had in months!

For starters, when you’re at the not-cool bar, it means you pretty much have the dance floor all to yourself. There are no Night-at-the-Roxbury guido sandwiches to fight off; and if you’re sloshing your drink down your shirt, it’s not because some b*tch with a spray-tan and four-inch peep-hole stilettos is using you as her ballast –- it’s just, y’know, because the DJ has started spinning your favorite Katy Perry song and you kinda maybe got a lil’ too excited (whoops). You can also stage entire Broadway production numbers if you want to and, apologies to Mr. Fosse, we pretty much did. I seriously can’t remember the last time I let myself look like that much of an a**hole in public. Which is where the hula-hooping comes in.

See, when we got there, there was this woman. She was wearing a black mesh bustier and black skinny jeans tucked into knee-high black boots. She had short brown hair and dark, kohl-lined eyes. She was slender but not skinny, her fleshy hips spilling out over the top of her jeans, and a fine sheen of sweat set her shoulders and belly aglow. She was, in a word, smokin’.

But it wasn’t the way she looked that set her on fire. When we got there, she was in the middle of the floor, dancing all by herself. And I don’t mean she was standing there tapping her foot and bobbing her head while she sipped a Long Island iced tea and made eyes at Marilyn. I mean this woman was droppin’ like it was hot -– dipping, spinning, crawling (kind of gross, in retrospect, considering what that floor must have seen over the years), bumping, grinding. She was throwing moves we only practice at Stripper Workout class. And she didn't give a sh*t about what anyone else thought. It was amazing. I was in complete awe (and a little scared, too).

And then she got up on stage with a couple of hula hoops -– sparkly, lighted hula hoops that she spun and swirled like a ribbon around her lithe body -– and that was it. I had to see if I could do it, too.

I waited until after I saw her giving other folks a go, and when she stashed the hoops in the corner by the DJ’s booth, I scampered over, grabbed one, and scampered back to my friends. Then I planted my feet and gave it a whirl, swishing my hips around and around, the muscles in my midsection taut and burning. I remember having a huge smile on my face, although my friends would probably tell you that I was all furrowed brow and focused determination.

Whatever. I loved it.

Not to get too philosophical, but hula-hooping (do purists call it just “hooping”? I have so much to learn!) is a study in contradictions: it requires both groundedness and a liquid control of your body; it’s silly and it’s sexy; it takes very little effort to get the hoop going yet the smallest misstep will make it come crashing down, so you’ve got to pay attention (it’s an excellent opportunity practice what philosophers call “mindfulness” –- a deeply meditative state in which you are totally, completely present, aware of nothing but this very moment and the rhythm of your breath). It is also a hell of a workout and, once you get going, a hell of a lot of fun.

Seriously, you should try it. Go on. Target has 'em for like six bucks. (Yeah, that's right. Happy birthday to me!)