And on this night... a new milestone in my life has been reached. My foot is beyond the painful stage (I'm almost certain that there's some sort of stress fracture), but I was able to pull out the greatest DDR victory up to this point:

MAX 300... (A!!!!!!!!)

I have been playing for a full year. I've been playing hard for a full year. I've been giving it days upon days upon days of work and $ after $. I have been pouring everything I have into this and have put a lot of things (including life) on the backburner because I am convinced this skill is very important. Eye/foot coordination has helped me become more athletic in my entire life (even though my upper body may not look it). It's given me the confidence to not concern myself with people who say I can't move, can't dance, and can never hope to achieve anything in the world of movement. I will never go into performance dance, but I cannot help but feel very excited about the ability of my feet to just do what the arrows say on the screen without me having to think about it.

And is this skill worth it? I'm not sure, but you can tell that people who watch me play are extremely impressed. Tonight, I had a crowd of about 35 people watch me beat Max 300. This was my last set of games, I decided, so I wanted to play Max 300 first. If I lost, fine, I lost and would go back to the apartment and beat it another day. But this game was different from the start. I started thinking about dad and how we used to go to Fun World. For some reason, in the back of my mind, I thought that if I was able to win Max 300, then I would get a piece of my dad back. I then proceeded to play Max 300 like I NEVER had before. I BREEZED through it as if it were just another tough level.

When I beat it, there was dead silence. I was working on a PERFECT COMBO up until the last set of steps... I had 420 perfects and 80 something greats. Then I raised my arms and yelled out "FUCK... YEAHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I was in shock that that blatantly came out of my mouth without having the comfort of a friend around to share this with. But then, I don't have friends in the city save a few (Steph and Emily are about it). The entire crowd who watched me do it then started to applaud.

I did it. I can't believe that I did it. I'm still in total shock over it. If you would've asked me a year ago if I thought myself capable of pulling off the miracle that I did tonight, I would've laughed and said, "...maybe in 10 years, but by then I'll be too old." One full year of work has finally put me in the position to win the tough Max levels.

Now, for the final two Maxes... Maxx Unlimited and The Legend of Maxx.

I don't even know what to do with myself... it's one of those moments where I know I have accomplished something amazing. There aren't many people my age who see the virtue of commanding a Max. I am in the best shape of my life and when people see me move on that pad, they stand wide-eyed because they realize they can't do it. I can do Drop Out 260 in my sleep, but when people see me do it, they shake their heads. I love that.

A pro dancer once said, "oh, it's not REAL dancing." I don't care what professional dancers say about my defense of DDR. If you can get your ass up there and show me your moves, then good for you. But you can't hang with us on the machine. And you know you can't. It's sight reading for dancers. It's like a piano jammer getting up and chastizing a sight reader. Please. We both move our feet to the beat. That's all that matters. "Dance like no one's watching." I've had more people in Times Square watch me personally than most Broadway stars. I've had more people gawk at what I can do than they have. The only difference is I don't get nationally recognized at the end of the day. Perhaps that will someday change.

I have a long way to go before I even consider myself to be a master of DDR. But Max 300 is a nice first step. It's like... my first Broadway show... my first executive position... my first company... my first girlfriend.