What Not to Wear

After the excitement of my dim sum adventure, I was ready to venture out into the wilds of Vancouver again, this time for a friend's birthday party. Usually, I am of the "put on whatever's clean/ minimally wrinkled and hope my friends will be too drunk to care what I'm wearing by the time I get there" school of party fashion. Last night, however, I was thrown into a state of fashion anxiety.

First, I decided to shave my legs to give my outfit that extra dash of sexy. Technically, this is a hip-precaution no-no (since it requires bending past 90 degrees), but I have had bad hip flexion for so long that I am an elite athlete in the sport of shower gymnastics and (with a great number of contortions and expletives), managed to shave enough of my legs that I could rock a skirt with minimal self-consciousness; (I decided to overlook the blinding whiteness of my legs).

You'd think my newly smooth legs would make my choice of outfits easier, but the hip replacement brought up so many fashion questions: Does this skirt make my obscenely swollen hip look fat? Is it too short, so that I'll be giving passersby a little show when I get out of the car? If I wear a dress, does that mean I don't have to bring my grabber? But will a dress make me feel like I'm trying too hard? Will I be sitting there all tarted up in my dress with everyone else in jeans and a T-shirt being like, "damn" as I try not to spill salsa all over myself? Should I coordinate my outfit with my cane/ hip cushion? How do I balance the fact that it's hot outside with my desire the cover the rashes and the fact that I live in Vancouver where temperature can swing 30 degrees in like 5 minutes? And on. And on.

With the aid of my grabber, I tried on pretty much every article of clothing I own. Since it takes me a ridiculous amount of wrestling with my grabber to put on anything, I spent about 30 minutes throwing clothes around my room as I tried to decide. Finally, I emerged fully dressed and ready to go, already an hour late, already exhausted and sore. I hadn't even left my house and I needed a nap.

Still I sucked it up and headed downtown, driven by my mom and dad who nicely agreed to go out for dinner while I partied it up. And it turned out that the party was a good time. I met lots of cool people, including someone who'd recently had a hip replacement and even though I spent half the party contorting myself on a chair to keep from bruising the knobs on my spine, I had a great time. Hurrah!