In the past, I've had a love/hate relationship with Dancing with the Stars, mainly because when it first came out I thought it was stupid. Really, really stupid. Then I moved back to New York after graduate school, and that fall I was in what I'd loosely call a "funk." A funk which involved watching entirely too much network television. After a long day of teaching of three or four sections of composition in a row, sans lunch break, all I wanted to do was come home and sit on the couch with my father and help him make snarky comments about whatever shows the networks were presenting to us.
And that's when my hate for the stupid, stupid show turned to love because it wasn't stupid; it was brilliant. First of all, that was the season that featured Joey Lawrence and Mario Lopez--two boys I had minor crushes on in the 80's--and those boys seriously knew how to dance. Also, Mario was totally nailing his professional dancer, and if that's not incentive to tune in and watch I don't know what is.
Anyway, this season of Dancing brought with it a stack of impressively skilled stars. And Helio was one of those stars. I hadn't even heard of him before the new season began, and I probably wouldn't have even cared about him had he not been so freaking badass in week two of the competition. On that night I sat up straight in bed and yelled to my empty apartment, "I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS MAN!"
The best part of this has to do with Helio's day job. He is, in fact, a racecar driver. That's right. A Latin racecar driver with dimples and a smile I want to eat for breakfast.
We all know how I feel about racing and racecar drivers. Not only did I cut my thirteen year old teeth on crushes I held for drivers at my hometown asphalt oval, but throughout the years I also sustained a pretty active fantasy life that involved an alternate life in some NASCAR-soaked world, where I was a sassy sports journalista who would somehow meet and snag Jeff Gordon. As a young girl, I wrote many a story about that, and those stories were printed out on an ancient dot matrix contraption and then circulated among my friends during chorus.
The fact that Helio is a racer, albeit an Indy Car racer, increases his allure. The fact that he somehow reminds me of a Brazilian and more deeply dimpled version of Jeff Gordon gets him even more points. And--it must be said--he's cuter than Jeff Gordon will ever be (even though here Jeff is pictured with his brand new baby in a picture that seems so cute and awkwardly tender it makes me want to implode). I think it's the accent that seals the deal with Helio. I mean, Jeff is from Indiana. When he first began making television appearances he had this weird bordering-on-Southern accent that the Hendricks PR team finally beat out of him, but no one better even attempt to beat Helio's silky accent out of him because I will kill that person.
I want to make a nest in his dimples. I want to take up residence in his ears. I want to wake up every morning to the sunshine that breaks across his shining teeth. And I don't even care that he's a whole inch shorter than me. It would be worth a life without high heels if I could just nuzzle against his neck during a foxtrot, if I could put my hands on his gyrating hips during a samba.
2 comments:
grace is coming the 23rd..
double date?
with hard liquor as the 5th wheel?
YES. YES. YES. Sounds good. I'll run it by the BF. Are you still wishing I'd write a blog about you so you have something to read?
Anyway, I'll be home the 20th. The 24th is the disco, so you guys can meet us out downtown after we're done boogie-ing. We can also do something on Friday night, but it'll have to be after my brother's birthday party. Unless you want to come to my brother's birthday party.
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