Do-si-do-not-try-this-at-home

I have very few truly useful talents in life. If you want someone to make lace out of white Airhead candies, I'm your girl. Want a tasteful yet awkward yet kind of hot quadriplegic sex scene? I can do that. Want to insult someone's mother with an X-rated song about her sexual prowess? Done. (Long story). I do, however, have one skill that actually has positive effects in my life: a nearly limitless capacity for embarrassment, (which kind of explains the quadriplegic sex scenes and my hit song "Cobi's Mom"). When I was in France visiting my friend Doc, for example, I had no problems diving right in and butchering the French language (I speak only a bastardized, basketball-focused French, despite the fact that I am Canadian) if it meant that I might fit in with the locals. Sure, I made a fool out of myself 90% of the time (for example, saying "I demand pasta!" instead of "Can I please order some pasta?"), but I did learn a lot of French and I'm pretty sure the locals gave me an A for effort, even if I earned a "WTF are you trying to say?" in execution.

It was this capacity for making a fool out of myself that led me to try Contra dancing last night. My new roommate, M., plays in a contra-dancing band and when she noticed that I have a soft spot in my heart for fiddle music, (I'm Canadian; it's in my bloodstream), she invited me to come along. Contra dancing is kind of like square dancing, but not in squares. The caller teaches the dance and everyone walks through it, then the music strikes up and people dance their hearts out. Have you ever been to a Spirit of the West concert when they're playing "Home for a Rest" and everyone starts dancing in circles and linking arms and swinging each other around? Well, that's what contra dancing is like only more graceful and purposeful and complicated and not fueled by alcohol.

Now, I have a rather ambivalent history with this sort of dancing. I am from New Westminster, which is one of the few places (outside of the U.K, I'd imagine) that still celebrates May Day with folk dances and maypole dances. When I danced the maypole in Grade 4, my maypole got hopelessly tangled, (though I blame this on my partner whose name was Michael Rhodes and about whom, because he was kind of a jerk to me in the way that 10-year-old boys are often jerks, I had invented a truly mean song to the tune of "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" that started "Michael Rhodes is like a boat ashore: totally useless," which was the beginning of my career as a writer of inappropriate songs).

Anyhow, there's a reason why the equation of "really tall" + "cannot move her hip in various directions" + "walks like a polio-stricken duck" + "was once forced to dress up as a foam-rubber dinosaur during her jazz-dancing recital as a child, even though I was able-bodied at the time, because I was too incredibly awkward to be trusted to perform the dance moves" does not add up to "should dance in public."I, however, thought, "what the hell? The only thing I have to lose is my dignity and I'm pretty sure that flew out the window when I spent 5 minutes this morning trying unsuccessfully to zip up my boots by going fishing for the zipper with a wire coat hanger."

So, I went contra dancing. When I walked in to the gymnasium and saw dozens of people who were very good at the dances and even had special shoes for the sole (no pun intended) purpose of contra dancing and special skirts (some guy was even wearing a kilt) for the purpose of having more fun while twirling, I wondered if I would be able to participate without the aid of a couple shots of whiskey. I wasn't even sure that I would be able to dance in my jeans (which, because of my anti-ass, generally fall down dangerously low whenever I move) and my runners. Sure, people are nice now, I thought, but it's all fun and games until someone gets a concussion at the hands of a six-foot-two uncoordinated Amazon who do-si-didn't when she should have do-si-do'ed.

I quickly noticed, however, that everyone seemed entirely unselfconscious. No one seemed to mind if someone made a mistake. No one said, "Get your gimpy, uncoordinated anti-ass back to Canada." People were helpful and supportive and not at all condescending and seemed excited about having a new person to dance with. When you've spent three years in a grad school bubble, it's really nice to participate in the larger community and hang out with people from all walks of life. Besides, there were brownies, and I'll do pretty much anything for a brownie.

Also, I'd been reading Barbara Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy," the thesis of which is that collective acts of joy actually play a vital role in both our own wellbeing and the health of our communities and that North American society is sadly bereft of these moments of unrestricted movement-based happiness. (There's more to her thesis and the book is actually pretty fantastic if you want to check it out). What would Barbara Ehrenreich do? I asked myself. She would probably bust a move.

So, yes, I hopped right in and tried contra dancing and luckily my roommate guided me through the first dance even when I got lost and/or dizzy from all that spinning. At the beginning of every dance, I was really awkward (surprise) and sometimes accidentally harmed people by slamming into them because I turned out when I should have turned in. And, yes, it is difficult to move in a circle when you cannot bring your left leg out to the side (curse you, detached gluteus medius!) or to the front (curse you, mysteriously not-working hip flexors!). And, yes, I did have flashbacks of myself circa 1992 dressed up in a fluorescent dinosaur costume tripping all the tiny dancing girls with my long, foam-rubber tail.

But, you know what? I actually had a lot of fun. One of the things I really miss about basketball is the combination of exercising while thinking. Basketball is a really brainy game; you make more decisions during one basketball game than you will off-the-court all month. There's something about hopping on an elliptical machine that, despite the happy exercise-induced neurochemicals, feels a little hollow. Engaging your brain while you engage your body is quite fun, especially when fiddle music is involved.

So will I take up contra dancing as my next extreme support? Maybe. My hip was more than a little cranky about being forced into various positions that it cannot physically do, but maybe that's good for it. Perhaps the cure for my hip is a steady regime of dancing, kittens, and mint-chocolate-chip brownies.

Timeline!

For nearly two weeks, I've been chilling in Champaign waiting for various tests to be scheduled so that I can (with a heavy heart) book a plane ticket back to Canada. Well, I no longer have to spend my days drawing large question marks all over my daytimer because a plan has finally been hatched and it looks a little something like this:

Dec 1st: Fly back to Canada through some circuitous route that will require me to stop over in Phoenix for an ungodly length of time. (Total traveling time, not including getting to Chicago: 11 hours!). People of Champaign-Urbana, if you want to get your Arley fix, you better do it in the next week and a half because I am leaving on a jet plane (and, likely, a broke-down Lex bus) and I don't know when I'll be back again. Oh, babe, I hate to go.

Dec 3rd: Get a big-ass needle jabbed into my hip socket. (Spoiler alert: I will yell)

Dec 7th: See my neurologist, which will probably again result in the phrase, "Debbie, prepare the needle room!" which will translate into me getting more needles into my anti-ass. (You can see that I have a lot to look forward to up in Canada and why I'm so eager to get back).

Dec 21st: See Dr. SecondOpinion, who hopefully will have a Christmas miracle in store for me. (It's a miracle! You do not require surgery! Turns out that your hip can be cured by a few weeks of playing with fluffy kittens and subsisting on a steady diet of chai and gingerbread!) Barring that, hopefully he will give me a timeline for how to fix the Freaky Cyborg Hip. Here's hoping that timeline isn't "gimp around for another 2 years before I get a surgery date at which point my gluteus medius will have curled up into a little sleeping ball and will be impossible to wake up, which means I'll do the polio strut for the rest of my life."

Insert Fart Jokes Here

Today, my mom phoned with the news that they have finally scheduled my mysterious un-named "is your hip replacement broken" test, which will occur on Dec 3rd. (Thanks mom!) This is all sorts of good news, since it means that I can stay in Champaign for a week longer than I thought, which means that I might have a chance to celebrate Thanksgiving for the second time this year (for those of you who do not live in two countries at once: Canadians and Americans celebrate Thanksgiving at different times, hence twice the opportunities for turkey-based deliciousness).

So, yes, I can now book a flight, usefully plan out my life, and begin to fret about what this mysterious hip test will involve. The woman who booked the test apparently told my mom that I had to be accompanied by a responsible adult or they would not do the test, which is medical-speak for "honey, we are going to fuck you up in deeply serious ways. Snuff films will look like happy-fun-cuddle-sparkle sessions after we're done with you." If whatever they're doing to you during the test will leave you in a state where it is not medically ethical to release you out of the hospital on your own recognizance, you can be pretty sure that it will involve the phrase, "Now, we're going to try to numb you, but you will probably feel some discomfort. Just try to hold still."

The last time I had to have a responsible adult accompany me to a test was when I was having heart problems thanks to the world's worst case of mono (Super Mono!). I had to have (three times) something called a tilt table test, which is when they don't let you have anything to eat or drink, strap you to a bed, tilt the bed vertically and wait for you to throw up and faint. Sometimes, they give you some medicine to help the process along (though I never got any because I fainted 30 seconds into my first test). Not only did I have to have a responsible adult accompany me, but I also had to take a pregnancy test to make sure that no fetuses were going to be tilt-tabled, which resulted in me having to get a blood test from some intern who, after 15 minutes of poking around, finally stuck the needle in the side of my elbow and proclaimed, "Where the blood?!" (true story).

So, yes, whatever this mysterious test is, I know it involves a needle jabbed deep into my hip socket, and beyond that I don't think I want to know. It's best to focus on Thanksgiving and the prospect of eating my weight in candy corn. Besides, at the moment, I have other concerns. Yesterday, I mentioned that I'd been woken up by a man ferreting out the gas leak in my water heater (that's what she said). Well, last night I was cuddled up in bed reading a book when I realized that I had a terrible headache. Since I was not dehydrated or hungover, I decided to investigate the water heater, which my landlord had fixed. When I opened the door to the room where the water heater was, I was overwhelmed by the stench of gas. Apparently, the landlord needed to give the water heater a dose of Beano along with a new valve because it was hell-bent on causing a gas explosion. (Happily, my landlord is wonderful and competent and is already at work fixing the problem).

Though it was late, I called the gas company again and they sent out a very cranky man who had a red-eyed, ferrety face and was none too happy about being dragged out of his warm bed at 1 a.m. (which was the time he eventually arrived at). When he arrived, I said, "Thanks for coming," whereupon he responded, "Yeah, well, normal people are sleeping at a time like this" and gave me a look as if to imply that I had obviously caused a gas leak in my heater through some form of debauchery. Clearly, I had been involved in a devil-worshipping S&M three-way, the dark sexual energy of which had been so potent that it caused the water heater to burst apart at the seams.

For 15 minutes, ferret man stuck his gas-detecting wand into various dark crevices of my house (that's what she said), all the while complaining about being forced to be awake at this hour. I did not mention to him that he was getting paid to be here, whereas no one was paying me to sit up at 1 a.m. reading Philip Roth's "The Human Stain" trying to focus thanks to a massive gas-induced headache and wearing two pairs of socks because my floors are so cold and my boot-slipper-things are still drying out after my great "walking 2.5 miles in the rain" adventure, which is a recipe for ennui if I ever heard of one. Long story short, the cranky gas man turned off the water heater, wrote my landlord a note, and I finally fell asleep.

One of these days, I'm going to have to post pictures of my house, so that you do not think that I have been living in squalor. My place is actually pretty nice (working fireplace, hardwood floors, big backyard, huge living room, etc. etc.), it's just that the little black raincloud that follows me around apparently does not distinguish between Freaky Cyborg Hips and water heaters. Does anyone else get the feeling that I need some sort of "demon be gone!" ritual?

There is Power in a Union!

This morning, I woke up to the sound of a male voice only a few feet from my door. Finally, I thought. I've been beamed up into an alternate dimension where I am cohabitating with a male human being. Perhaps this means that my hip problems have also been cured and that I am employed. Yeah, not so much. It turns out that the mysterious male voice belonged to an employee of the Ameren Gas Company and he was in the process of discovering why our house was filled with natural gas. (I discovered this when the sweet nothings he was whispering were along the lines of, "Your furnace looks to be clear, so I'm going to inspect your hot-water heater" as opposed to, "Get up, my sweet darling. You're expected on the Oprah show soon to celebrate the fact that your book just topped the NY Times Bestseller List.") Turns out, our water heater had a bad case of flatulence (killer flatulence!) and the house had been filling with natural gas.

The fact that I did not explode thanks to the gas leak means that perhaps my luck is looking up. I decided to celebrate by bringing cookies to the striking grad students. Because the water heater was shut off, however, I had to shower at the gym and I also had to stop off at the grocery store because I'd eaten half of the cookies I'd made the night before and you can't show up to a picket line with 12 measly cookies and, long story short, I arrived at the picket lines just in time to hear a great amount of cheering. The strike was over. (There is power in a union!) My solidarity cookies had become celebration cookies and there was nothing left to do but go to Murphy's and drink a beer (after my pineapple tequila incident, I kept it civil and stuck to one beer). And ate a couple more celebration cookies instead of lunch.

So, yes, I'm now hanging out in the library listening to someone playing a computer game, because the library is a hell of a lot warmer than my house, which is currently at 62 degrees: something that my wallet approves of, but which leads me to quickly become chilly (because I am always cold) and dive under the covers for warmth, which leads me to fall asleep for excessive amounts of time, which is not conducive to getting work done. Despite the odour of the computer area and the fact that the paper towels smell weirdly of garlic, the library is actually not a bad place to be.

Consider Me Appreciated

It's the day after International Arley Appreciation Day and, believe me, I feel completely, utterly and totally appreciated. A. appreciated me by taking me to this kick-ass German restaurant in Gibson City (I believe I have written before about this restaurant and the peculiar experience of eating weinerschnitzel while being watched over by the protective gazes of dozens of taxidermied animals hanging from the walls and ceiling). Erin McQ appreciated me with funfetti cupcakes. The Aussies appreciated me (maybe a little too much) with pineapple-flavoured tequila and Miller Lite. Countless other friends appreciated me by dragging themselves through the rain to the bar for my birthday party. I am one appreciated (and slightly hungover) Arley.

So how am I spending my first day of being solidly 27? Using the wisdom I've collected in my 27 years on earth to end child poverty? Making appropriate life decisions befitting of someone who is closer to 30 than 20? No and no. I began the day by walking 2.5 miles in the rain wearing inappropriate footwear. See, I (wisely) chose to leave my car at the bar last night, on account of the pineapple-flavoured tequila. When I woke up this morning, my thought process went something like this: I should get my car before it gets towed. Maybe I should call a cab to take me there. Wait, do I have a phone book? I do not. Damn, this is a completely insurmountable obstacle that I could not possibly overcome by calling 411. Maybe I should take a bus. Damn. I do not have a bus schedule or any idea about bus routes. Another insurmountable obstacle. I know! I will walk 2.5 miles to my car! In the pouring rain! In a city where drainage problems often cause great lakes to appear in the middle of sidewalks so that you feel like some old-school explorer/fur trader portaging your way across vast and churning rivers! Even though I cannot put on any of my boots because I cannot reach the zippers and so will be forced to wear my slippers, which have a boot-like sole but are not actually anything remotely resembling waterproof! Even though walking 2.5 miles is a great recipe for spending the rest of the day sucking at life! It is clear to me that this walk is a fantastic idea and will help me brush off the pineapple-tequila-related cobwebs and leave me renewed with youthful vim and vigor.

You all can probably guess how this ended: me, limping badly, soaking wet, with my glasses all fogged up and my wool coat smelling of wet dog. When you check back with me tomorrow, do not be surprised if I am dying of consumption. (I feel like "consumption" is the new "swine 'flu" and I like to be ahead of disease trends).

Happy International Arley Appreciation Day!

If you woke up today wondering why your keys have gone missing, you have a sudden intense craving for a chai latte (tall, nonfat, no water), and you're walking like you've come down with a case of polio, don't worry. It's not a brain tumor; you're just celebrating International Arley Appreciation Day in style. (That ringing in your ears: probably angels descending from heaven to sing glad tidings of joy). That's right, today I am 27 years old, which makes me officially old as fuck. (At least when you're 26 you can consider yourself closer to 25 than 30. The main purpose of your 27th birthday is to make you think, "Hot damn. Do I really only have another 10 years of viable reproductivity left before my babymaker shrivels up? Shouldn't I at least have a paying job by now? Should I start going on dates? Should I stop using phrases like "babymaker shrivels up" so as not to scare off potential suitors?")

I am determined, however, not to let this birthday descend into another quarter-life crisis; (those of you witnessed my drinking-to-forget-and-winding-up-puking-for-three-days-straight 25th birthday will agree that's probably for the best). No, today is a day to look on the bright side and I am determined to remain cheery. For example, when I woke up this morning and opened my medicine cabinet to find a brown cockroach-shaped blur speeding off my toothbrush (!!) to hide behind my leave-in conditioner, I did not think that my 27th year was getting off on the wrong foot. Instead, I told myself that this was a chance to give myself a special birthday present in the form of a brand new toothbrush and one of those toothbrush protector cases. Happy birthday to me. I also told myself that going leave-in-conditioner free would just give my hair that extra hint of body (read: out-of-control frizz) that will make all the gentlemen swoon. And the fact that I went to brunch with friends and then ran into a former professor of mine without brushing my teeth: well, maybe they were so focused on my breath they did not pay attention to whatever social gaffes I was making at the time. See! Silver linings abound!

I do, however, have a lot to be thankful for. Yes, I might have a few cockroaches in my house, but my rent is so cheap that you have to expect to share the place with a few roommates...and that many of those roommates will have more than two legs. A few nights ago, I was sitting with A. on the couch eating homemade chili and garlic bread, watching the Utah Jazz lay the smack down, with my cat (who has somehow decided that the statute of limitations for being pissed off at me has expired) purring on my lap, thinking, "well, yeah, I still walk like a downtrodden 17th century peasant, am unable to sit for more than 5 minutes on a hard surface without significant ass bruising, have no career prospects or any idea where I'll be living in the next month, but I actually have it pretty good."

Part of my cheeriness is, of course, that I'm hanging out in Illinois and have been on a mission to cram as much socialization into the short time I'm down here as possible. Last night, for example, I went to see "The Men Who Stare At Goats" with Shawna and after the movie I was craving a nap. But when I found out that Amanda and Josh were going to a free concert at Krannert Art Museum (the band was called The Walkmen and they were actually pretty good), I thought to myself, "Arley, you can sleep when you're high as a kite on morphine recovering from surgery to correct your Freaky Cyborg Hip. Or, you can sleep when you're back in Vancouver and spending your Friday evenings catching up on the latest episode of "Say Yes to the Dress" and wondering, like oh my god, if the bride-to-be will pick the white dress or the other white dress. Get out there and see some live music." So, I did and got to spend a few hours listening to some good music and playing a friendly game of "Spot the Hipster." (A.K.A. "Are those shoes orthopedic in nature or just so incredibly trendy that they're beyond my powers of appreciation?") Then, even though I was tired, I thought, "well, I could sleep, or I could go out with Josh, Amanda and A. to a townie bar in Urbana until 2 a.m.," which is why, ladies and gentlemen, I have been in Illinois since Tuesday and am still firmly entrenched on Pacific Standard Time.

So, yes, I am having a great time and a happy birthday. If you live in Illinois, you should join me tonight at the Esquire (in Champaign) at 9 p.m. for a birthday celebration. If you live in Vancouver, you should wait for me to throw myself another birthday party once I get back because my ego is too big to allow my birthday celebration to be contained within one short day.

Oh, and to the GEO: there is power in a union!

International Arley Appreciation Day

The countdown to International Arley Appreciation Day has begun in earnest. Okay, not really, but I did make the world's laziest Facebook event invite for a birthday party on Sunday, which is kind of a weird day to have a party on, but it's when the greatest number of people could make it. So if you are in Champaign this Sunday, you should come to my lazy-ass attempt at organizing a party (it's at the same bar I have my birthday at every year so that I didn't have to clean my house to make it guest-worthy or buy a few bags of chips to feed people and I am not even bothering to make a cake).

If you want to know what to get me for my special day, here's a hint: a teleportation device. There is no good way to get to Champaign-Urbana from Vancouver (and, believe me, I have tried them all). Once, I had a roommate from Sweden, (which is the reason I can say "I want you here and now" in Swedish, which is another story altogether), and she and I both left Champaign around the same time to fly back for Christmas. She arrived in Sweden before I arrived in Vancouver.

My day of traveling went like this:

• Wake up at 6 a.m. so that my poor mom could drive me to Bellingham, which is just across the border.
• Arrive at the Bellingham airport to find that all the computer systems have experienced a massive system shut-down and my flight has been delayed for at least an hour, which is problematic since I would miss my connecting flight and be stuck, since I'd booked the two flights separately, thinking I was being oh-so-crafty (it saved me $600).
• Cancel my Bellingham flight and have my poor mom drive me to Seattle, then promptly fall asleep for an hour so that she didn't even have anyone to talk to because I am a bad daughter.
• Get fondled by airport security since my Freaky Cyborg Hip sets off the metal detectors. (Though, granted, I'm probably due for a little groping).
• Fly from Seattle to Phoenix, eat frozen yogurt while waiting for my next flight and eavesdropping on a group of nervous young army recruits, one of whom is telling the story of how a ghost followed him around on his last day as a construction worker.
• Fly from Phoenix to Chicago and find that the combination of barebones low-budget airplane + long legs + no hip flexion = does. not. compute. I couldn't even fit my legs in the space provided and the minute the plane was airborne I convinced the flight attendant to let me move to a bulkhead seat.
• Earned major side-eye from the blonde, fake-tanned, over-jewleried, my-jeans-cost-more-than-your-car woman beside me, who was clearly pissed off that she had paid to upgrade to the bulkhead seat and I had not. Contemplated telling said woman that, yes, she paid an extra $50 for the legroom, but I paid in having had my hip cut off, replaced, then (partially) reattached, so let's just call us even.
• Landed in Chicago and boarded the Lex bus. On the plus side, the driver let me sit up front. On the negative side, because of a scheduling error we ended up chilling outside a Holiday Inn somewhere deep in the Chicagoland suburbs for an hour.
• Arrived into Champaign at 1 a.m., where I was picked up by A. (thanks, A.!).
• Got to my house to find that the locks had been changed, which was a Welcome Home present I was really not expecting (aww, you shouldn't have).
• Spent the night on A's couch, waking up every so often to see my angry little feline positioned a few inches from my face, staring me down. (If it was a staring contest, she won).

Now, however, I am happily in Champaign. A. and I have already eaten our weight in meat products at The Black Dog and went to Le Peep, so my plan to not consume my weight in meat products so far not going so well.