The last time I really, really danced was alone in my kitchen very late at night after a few glasses of wine. It was years ago, to a song by Del Amitri called "Roll to Me," which is impossible not to move around to. I remember it so clearly because it put me in such a good mood. When I married my husband five and a half years ago, we did the first dance thing to "The Way You Look Tonight," but since all eyes were upon us, I was totally self-conscious — as I almost always am when doing anything that requires a modicum of coordination and grace.

When my mother, a truly great dancer, was growing up in Nashville, TN, she went to the Fortnightly Dance Cotillion, where she learned all the dance steps and had multiple partners who filled out her dance cards. I looked at them so often in her scrapbook when I was little that I can still remember the boys’ names. I figured the same thing would happen to me, but by the time I was in the seventh grade, dancing involved throwing your arms around a boy’s neck and vaguely swaying to bad pop music. I decided early on that I was not remotely interested in that kind of dancing or in 13-year-old boys, and moved (perhaps a tad too quickly) on to more, um, sophisticated pursuits.

The end result is that I am doomed to dance by myself in my kitchen, as my husband was too busy being the lead singer in a rock-and-roll band to learn to dance well himself. If you are like me and dance best alone, I highly recommend "Roll to Me" — it’s a good workout. Somebody gave me one of those New Agey, life advice refrigerator magnets once that included the line, "Dance as though no one were watching." I get that, but I will stick to doing it when no one actually is watching, except maybe Henry the beagle, who I doubt will be interested enough to open both eyes.