Getting Back On the Bike

This May, I rode a bike for the first time in 17 years.

You might say to me, “Wow, riding a bicycle. Colour me impressed. It’s not like my four-year-old niece goes off-road extreme mountain biking and punches cougars in the face when she encounters them out in the wilderness or my 80-year-old grandma is training for her 18^th triathlon and built her own bike out of the bamboo she cut down herself during her trip to Nepal or anything. Did you bust out your fanny pack for your epic trip around the Seawall?”

Okay, yes, I realize that I am living in the epicenter of the Active Westcoast Lifestyle and everyone and their dog rides a bike here. This, however, is a big deal to me because it’s literally the only thing I can do post-hip-replacement that I couldn’t do before. (Well, I have found a few extra uses besides bike riding for my newfound ability to straddle, but let’s not go into that).

I resisted posting about this for several months because the person who taught me how the ride a bike is someone I was casually dating at the time. It’s a long-standing opinion of mine that blogging about an ex (even a casual, short-term-relationship type ex) is a one-way ticket to AwkwardTown with stops along the way at AiringYourDirtyLaundryInAWayThatWillCauseYouShameVille and TheMinuteYouMentionDatingCreepersOnTheInternetAreImaginingYouFucking-opolis.

I’ve decided to blog about learning how to ride a bike, however, because so much of Young and Hip has chronicled my disappointment with my hip replacement. I often get emails asking me if I regret it, and I worry that I am talking people out of a life-altering surgery. But even though I’m over a year post-hip-replacement (and two years since the first one), my hip still swells up like the ass of a baboon in heat if I try to do such extreme sports as…deep water aerobics. Or walking down the street. Or sitting in a chair for longer than 20 minutes. I still walk with a cane. I can never play wheelchair basketball again. If I work out for more than a couple of days a week, I’m in constant pain. Over the past year, I’ve honestly struggled with the knowledge that this is as good as my hip will ever get.

But back to the bicycling. I met D. on an online dating site. I was immediately comfortable around him, which is astounding because usually on dates I talk like a crack-addicted LOLcat (“O HAI!!”) and knock things over with my elaborate hand gestures. A few weeks after we met, I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to ride a bike. I joked about getting adult training wheels so I wouldn’t fall and bring about Total Hip Replacement 3: Rise of the Prosthetic Fractures. D offered to teach me.

I assumed that he meant that we would rent a bike by the seawall and he would attempt to catch me if I looked to be veering towards certain death. But D. surprised me by researching how to safely teach an adult how to ride a bicycle. Thanks to a few websites and several Youtube videos of old Chinese ladies becoming confident cyclists, he came up with a plan. (Is it a bad sign that one of the nicer things a man has ever done for me involved Youtube videos of old Chinese ladies?)

And so, on one of those rare Spring days when it’s sunny in Vancouver and your Seasonal Affective Disorder calls in sick, D and I went to Stanley Park armed only with the wisdom of the internet. D’s method involved me coasting down a grassy hill first with my feet touching the ground to get a feel for the movement, then again with my feet up, then finally while pedaling. And it was….really easy. Though the writer in me died a little, I had to admit that the cliché is true: you really never forget.

This was a surprise because when I tried to ride a bike several years before the hip replacement, I couldn’t get my left leg on the pedals, it nearly got caught in the chain and A. (who was holding on to both me and the bike) and I ran into a tree. This time, however, I took off riding up a hill. Wobbly, yes. Slow, absolutely. Graceful, sure as hell not. I, however, felt like Lance Fucking Armstrong winning the Tour De Fuck You Hip Replacement Because That Shit Just Happened.

D. and I took a break for lunch and then he rented a bike and we rode together around the Seawall. Because of my lack of speed and the fact that I was wobbling more than Lindsey Lohan after a rough night, cyclists kept chiming at me. At first, I mistook this for a friendly salute, as if they were saying, “Greetings and salutations fellow cycling enthusiast! May your journey be safe and free of ass-chafing!”, but D. informed me that ringing your bell is actually cyclist speak for “fuck you.” (Well chime chime to you too, Vancouver bike commuters).

Soon, however, I was coasting down hills, picking up speed and wondering how long it had been since I’d gone fast. That’s the one thing I miss about sport, and it’s something that elliptical machines can’t replace: just going balls out fast. I will spare you any clichés of feeling free – nothing’s free in Vancouver, let’s be honest – but for the first time my long recovery felt over. I was ‘better.’ Sure, it wasn’t the better I expected or wanted, but even though my hip was swollen and my back was sore and my anti-ass was like “fuck off right here and now,” it seemed like a better I could live with.

I looked at D., who was flushed from pedaling and who had gone to all this effort to teach me how to do something he didn’t even enjoy, and at Stanley Park, which was being all picture-post-cardy, and I thought: Best. Date. Ever. And that feeling continued for several more weeks….until it didn’t. And then it was over. There’s a Gloria Steinem joke here somewhere.

After the breakup, I’ll admit that I spent a day or two sulkily listening to “Blood on the Tracks,” but it doesn’t take long to get over a six-week thing with someone you only saw a couple of times a week. And it’s even easier once you realize that that the only thing shittier than a breakup is being unable to date because you’re stuck in bed post-surgery injecting yourself with bloodthinners and groggily watching some reality TV show about the joys of home renovation.

Because – watch out people! Literary Device Alert! Here comes a very subtle metaphor because I am a fancy, fancy writer! – after two years of medical limbo, I am happy to be back on the dating bike, and the social life bike, and the getting the fuck on with my life bike. (That’s a lot of bikes. What’s the metaphorical equivalent of padded bike shorts?) And even though it means accepting the notion that the cane is here to stay, I’m happy that the Great Hip Replacement Debacle is receding into a small point in the rear view mirror. It’s nice to not to catch myself starting the bulk of my stories with, “So I was at physio and an old lady said…”

So even though it didn’t lead to happily ever after, I’m glad to have a story that begins with the phrase “So I was dating this guy and he taught me how to ride a bike,” even if it ends with the phrase “yes, grandma, I’m still single. No, I’m not a lesbian.” Because several weeks after D. and I broke up, I bought myself a bike. Her name is Dorothy Mantooth and right now I only ride her around the quiet streets in my neighbourhood because cars seem like huge metal dinosaurs chasing me, though I have delusions of becoming a Serious Biker Who Wears Spandex And Refuels With Those Energy Gels.

A few weeks ago, I rode around the Seawall again. I passed a gaggle of elderly ladies stopping every few seconds to take photos of birds. I passed a tourist couple who kept announcing Vancouver’s beauty every 3.8 seconds to one another. I even passed a pair of girls who looked mildly athletic. Granted, I got my ass handed to me by several middle-aged rollerbladers, but let’s go ahead and chalk this up to a solid victory.

So if you’re in the Vancouver area and you see a very tall girl on a white bike making the Seawall her bitch, that is me, and I’m passing on the left. Chime chime, motherbitches!

And if you’re not in Vancouver and you’ve had a hip replacement and are looking for a safe way to relearn how to ride a bike without falling, here is a video of me doing so on a very good day with a guy I was dating. If you want to do a drinking game to this clip, take a shot everytime I say “yay!”

The Charlie Sheen of Eating

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Got My Mojo Workin' But it Just Don't Work on Shoes

In the year since my hip replacement, I have not exactly been bringing sexy back. In fact, between the lack of hip flexion, the post-surgical rashes (which happily have resolved themselves), the swamp-creature gait pattern, the incisions, and the semi-detached ass, sexy and I aren't even Facebook friends. For a long time, most fashionable clothing pressed painfully against my hip or my detached gluteus medius, so I've gotten into a rut of jeans, sweatshirts and a five-year-old cami with a built-in bra that has holes in it, but I won't throw it away because American Eagle doesn't make them any more and long camis with built-in bras are rarer than hen's teeth.

In my defense, when it takes you about 8.5 hours to bend down to pick something up, you don't want to throw the "trying not to expose yourself on account of your short skirt" factor into the equation. (No good can come of it. No good at all). And when you're spending months at a time lying on your back (and not even in a sexy way!), your main fashion concern tends to be "do I have instant noodles stuck to my chest?" A few days ago, however, I said to myself, "Arley, do you ever wonder why the only cat calls you get are people mistaking you for a gay man and shouting homophobic slurs at you? Do you think that's a sign that maybe you should break out the party dress? Or at least put on some lip gloss?"

Point. Taken. After all, I am decidedly less gimpy than I was before and in about a month, I am going to have surgery all over again and will once again be getting dressed using a specially designed grabber with a hook on it. It was time to get my mojo working before my mojo got surgically removed. When Erin McQ and I went shopping and I found an expensive Calvin Klein sweater dress on sale for less than $20, it was like the heavens had parted and a sign had been handed down to me. That sign read: Arley, thou shalt wear thine sexy-ass sweater dress to thy sports banquet thou art attending for work in Ottawa in a few days hence.

Now, don't get me wrong. My goal with the sweater dress was not to score/hook up/get a little somethin'-somethin'. I have very little interest in dating at the moment because a) I'm moving halfway across the country in a matter of weeks and b) you know what's not great to do in the first few weeks of a relationship? Have major surgery that requires you to use a walker for extended periods of time. Plus, I'm pretty sure that "work function" + "skanking it up" is a recipe for "unemployment." But sometimes you need to give your self-confidence a boost by putting on a tight (but professionally acceptable!) dress, looking in the mirror and saying, "You know what? I am wearing the f*ck out of this dress. I am wearing this dress so hard that when people look at me and say 'daaamn,' they will not mean it in the sense of 'daaamn, what happened to you?"

Well, that was the plan anyways. Here was the reality. I spent all evening issuing press releases, so that I had only 10 minutes to get ready for the banquet. I was sweaty, my hair looked like I had been involved in a vigorous headbanging session, and I'd forgotten a makeup brush so I'd applied eyeshadow with my fingertip and I'm pretty sure that I got at least some of it near my eyes. I threw on the dress and a pair of red shoes I'd brought and strutted out of there with the best strut I could muster.

Still, for a moment, I felt as if the plan had succeeded. I catwalked (somewhere, Miss J from Project Runway is giving me side-eye) down to the banquet all with my shoulders back and my head held high. I did not even get to the banquet hall, however, when I saw the folly of my plans. I had not worn my sexy red shoes since the surgery. The last time I wore the shoes, I did not walk like a stroke-addled zombie. Now, my sexy red shoes were a little redder, because they had worn all the skin off the back of my heels, which had started bleeding.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I spent the entire banquet in bare feet limping even more than usual with my shoes in my purse. And that is also why I have been wearing a pair of my mom's old flip-flops even though it's raining, because there is a huge chunk missing out of my right heel and putting on real shoes makes them bleed. And that is maybe why I felt the need to pull an all-nighter before I left at 5 a.m. for my flight home, which resulted in me showing up on A's doorstep to pick up Mika back firmly in my jeans and sweatshirt, with make-up raccoon-like under my eyes, limping and complaining of sleep deprivation. The only good side was that A. took one look at me and identified that I had a serious need for french toast, so we went to Le Peep and then I had a 3-hour nap. Le Peep french toast cures everything.

Things To Do In Denver When You're Gimpy

On this blog, I do my fair share of complaining ("My ass isn't attached!" "I walk like a broke-down marionette being operated by someone who's high on paint thinner!" "America keeps trying to break up with me, despite my clinging harder than Jessica Biel on Justin Timberlake!"). When you break it right down, however, my life is pretty sweet.

I mean, a few days ago I was hanging out in a hotel room in Denver with L.T., who plays for the Australian national team. The last time I saw L.T., we were in a cafe on the streets of Paris eating dainty pastries and speaking the kind of French that made actual French people ask me if I was sure I'm Canadian, since don't Canadians speak French? (In my defense, I took Chinese in high school). L.T. remarked on how great it is to have the kind of lifestyle where you can hang out in Paris with someone a few years back, get drunk on pineapple tequila shots with them in a bar in Champaign Urbana, then chill in a hotel room with them in beautiful Denver, Colorado. I mean, who else can say that? Who else has that life?

Yes, I am indeed lucky. Right now, my two passions (wheelchair basketball and writing) have come together in Denver. (Denver the city, not Denver my brother....which is a source of endless confusion). My former wheelchair basketball team the Fighting Illini are playing today in the national championship (I-L-L! I-N-I!) and there's also a huge creative writing conference called AWP on. It's like someone designed a weekend just for me.

Now, I tend to be a pretty shy person. I was 20 before I could look people in the eye and, even now, meeting new people tends to give me the same symptoms as overcaffeination/ meth addiction: talking quickly! Making large hand gestures that occasionally cause me to hit people in the face or knock steaming cups of coffee into my lap! Slight tremor of the hands! (The fact that I am usually overcaffeinated on top of this doesn't help matters). For that reason, AWP gives me the cold sweats. Not only are you supposed to talk to people, but those people are generally anti-social writerly types like yourself, who are equally nervous and overcaffeinated but who suspect that their entire writing career might rest on their ability to charm someone at the conference into publishing their brilliance. (The fact that half of these people confuse "writer" with "someone who wears outlandish clothing in a bid to get attention" is topic for another day).

Until last night, the only new person I had met at AWP was the woman who also walked with a cane (cane friend!) who I met in the registration line-up. We bonded over our mutual gimpiness and our taste in canes (she had a sleek fold-up model with a little hook on the end so you can prop the cane up against tables and stuff and it won't fall over on the people and cause great injury and embarrassment) and the fact that we were wasting our walking time standing in line. Luckily for me, this Cane Friend was not afraid to tell the woman in charge of registration that they should have a special line for people who had trouble standing and got us to the front of the line, saving us at least 30 minutes! Go Cane Friend! The registration lady obviously didn't want to face the wrath of two angry chicks armed with metal poles.

During the conference, however, I tended to keep my head down. Like, what was I supposed to say to people? "So....do you like words?....Because I like words...." "So....are you wearing that fedora ironically?....." "So...do you also find the bookfair filled with thousands of people whose sweat smells like raw, unbridled ambition a little disconcerting?"

Luckily, however, you don't need social skills when you have good friends. Last night, M. and I hit the town and stumbled upon a fiction reading at a cool little bar. M. is a social butterfly and quickly made friends with tons of people, dragging me into the conversation with her. Long story short, we ended up at a party in a house/gallery talking to all sorts of writerly types about writerly things. Thanks to M.'s icebreaking/wingman skills and the assistance of some Coors Light (hey, when you're in Denver drinking Coors is practically a requirement) and Fat Tire, I ended up speaking words to people I did not know! This is progress, considering that most of my social skills were learned when some of the lesbians on the Canadian national team got sick of watching me blush and stammer my way through interactions and took it upon themselves to teach me how to pick up men (I know, I know) and would give me little homework assignments at tournaments (talk to 5 people, find the "sole mate" of one of the single-leg amputees on the team, etc) in attempt to hone my skills. That, however, is a story for another day.

Freaky Cyborg Hip ENGAGE! Power up! Attack!

In the 9 months since my surgery (has it already been 9 months? Is it a bad sign that it takes longer to fix my hip than it does to turn a speck of genetic material into a fully formed human being?) I have been waiting for my Freaky Cyborg Hip to wake up and go rogue. My new hip's not too great for the whole "walking" thing, so I figure it probably has other strengths: like shooting lasers...or destroying Tokyo...or even just re-enacting the Pink Floyd Laser Light Show. Who knows?

Well, today my Freaky Cyborg Hip got its chance to power up. I was in the security lineup at the Vancouver airport and after a mild bout of security-sanctioned groping, they asked me if I would like to step into the full body scanner. I jumped at the opportunity. (And by "jump" I mean "gimped over in the direction of the scanner in my socks hoping that the fabric of my socks was tough enough to ward off the swamp of foot fungus that must be on those carpets"). I mean, first of all, any day when I get off easy in the security-line groping department is a good day. (Those of you thinking that beggars can't be choosers need to check yourselves). But second of all: stepping into a weird, pod-like scanner and being pelted with lord knows what rays seemed like a good way to engage the Freaky Cyborg Hip. Isn't that how it happens in the movies? The hero steps into a pod and thanks to the Miracle of Science gets transformed into a cyborg?

Standing on the little footprints in the body-scanner cylinder and raising my arms above my head as the machine scanned my body, I felt like a freaking Power Ranger or Clark Kent in the phone booth or Iron Man or that guy in Avatar. I could almost hear the voice over: "She thought she was the recipient of a malfunctioning hip replacement. She thought she was heading to a small midwestern college town. She was wrong. This April, one woman learns that a journey of a lifetime can begin with a single, gimpy step. Arley McNeney stars in....Hip To Destruction." (What? You don't narrate your own life in the voice of Don LaFontaine?)

Any moment, I suspected, the cyborg in me would be activated and go on a rampage. And frankly, seeing as how the customs guy was going through Every. Single. Thing in my backpack and inquiring as to whether my Moroccan Hair Oil was "medicine" (I told him that it was, if bad hair counts as a medical condition), I could hardly wait. I was like, bring on the lasers, Freaky Cyborg Hip! Let's get this party started!

Not so much. I gimped out of the body scanner and was so busy trying to get a peek at what was shown on the monitor (spoiler alert: they don't show any nudity) that I bumped smack into an attractive guy. I apologized. Then, while putting on my backpack, I hit the same guy in the shoulder. I apologized. THEN, I turn to grab my cane, it slipped and I hit the guy AGAIN! With my cane! This poor guy thought he was going for a friendly vacation and I end up beating the shit out of him in the customs line!

Instead of activating the rambo switch on my Freaky Cyborg Hip, someone activated the "romantic comedy" switch! This is not quite the destruction I was looking for. Instead of destroying Tokyo, I reminded myself why I will probably die alone in a small apartment and my 57 cats will eat my face. Psyche/ self confidence destruction doesn't count! Worse, it was all the romantic comedy embarrassment without any "falling in love and living happily ever after" business. I've said it before, but I'll say it again: I want my money back.

Balancing On One Wounded Wing/ Circling the Edge of the Neverending

It's been nearly a week since I sustained my wrist injury and, yes ladies and gentlemen, I'm already pulling out melancholy New Pornographers' lyrics to capture my mood. If this keeps up, you're going to find me writing rhyming poetry about the state of my soul in my "Emily the Strange" notebook that I got on sale from Hot Topic (My heart is red/ my soul is black/ I walk like a zombie/ addicted to crack).

The bottom line is that my wrist still hurts and my wrist splint is starting to get that swampy cast smell and because I can't walk with my cane, I have to do the zombie-lurch around town, and twice today people have stared at me aghast and asked, "What happened to you?" When I responded that I'd injured my arm playing basketball, they looked at me with this expression that said, "No, I mean...in life." Of course, the zombie-walking has thrown off my back and my shoulders and I am basically one red-hot ball of cranky.

You'd think I'd be able to take this shit in stride (well, maybe "stride" is too graceful a word to describe what I do). I mean, last summer someone cut the ball of my hip off, replaced it with another one, but (whoops) forgot to reattach my ass. After that, you'd think a little wrist sprain would be par for the course: like, "lay it on me, life! A sprained wrist? That's all you've got? A few short months ago, I watched in an opium-induced haze as my surgeon showed me the detached ball of my femoral head." (That concision I was hoping I would learn from this wrist injury? Not so much).

Instead, however, one little sprain has earned me a first-class ticket on a fast train to Whiny-ville. Turns out, my right arm is a pretty useful appendage. In addition to that cane-carrying, it also helps me do the 8 hours a day of typing my job requires, as well all those life skills like dish washing and driving and being able to walk down the street without people thinking you were involved in some horrific car accident. Oh, right arm. I will never take you for granted again.

To make matters worse, for some reason this week I keep getting introduced to new people (and really awesome people at that) and let's just say that I am not exactly making a good impression. You want to know what doesn't exactly make all the gentlemen swoon? The whole "please to meet you, allow me to lurch forward in your general direction to shake your hand, then realize that I cannot shake your hand because my hand is in a splint and so stare nervously at the few inches of space between us" routine. When you add this to the fact that meeting new people is not exactly my strong suite and it tends to exacerbate my normal elaborate-hand-gesturing, train-of-thought-losing, over-caffeinated-ness....yeah, not the greatest of impressions.

So, if you met me this week, allow me to offer this message: "Please to meet you. I would like to clarify that I am not, in fact, a meth addict and that it is possible for me to speak actual words that make sense. I hope that you will find that when you get to know me, I'm not as ridiculous as I first present myself. Can we please find some way to blame this on my sore wrist/ damaged hip? Sincerely, Arley."

Now if only I could get that printed on a business card.

Taking Arley Lessons

When "Young and Hip" first started many months ago, I was caught in an epic battle between good and evil with the raccoons in our backyard. Actually, it was more like a philosophical discussion over the right of humans to assert ownership over natural spaces. I believed that as resident of the house, I earned the right to do my hip exercises in my own pool. The raccoons, however, decried my capitalistic interpretation of land ownership and asserted that the pool was their food-washing sink and I should stop ruining their appetite with my faux-jean boardshort swim trunks from 1997.

Whenever I would dog paddle around in the pool, they would chatter at me from the water's edge and critique my form. At the time, I was cocky enough to yell at them, thinking that raccoons hated to swim and I was safe in the water. (In hindsight, I was probably confusing them with cats). When I still wouldn't vacate the pool, they stole one of my crutches and laid it across the pool's entrance as a makeshift "trespassers will be prosecuted" sign and then proceeded to throw anything they could find into the pool and steal my goggles for the rest of the summer. (Clearly, they'd been reading Che Guevara's writing on urban guerrilla tactics). Happily, tensions were resolved after we saved a raccoon who was getting his ass handed to him (literally) by a coyote on our porch. (Yeah, I'm really not helping the stereotype of Canada being nothing but wilderness. I swear that we live in the suburbs).

Winter came and I thought that the raccoons had waddled off in search of greener pastures and more abundant garbage cans. Recently, however, my sister's dog Sashimi has been going crazy for apparently no reason and it turns out that she wasn't just nuts: she was hearing the raccoons out in our backyard. And what were they doing there? Swimming! Dog paddling around in our pool! You know, doing their hip exercises. Those little buggers can swim! And, according to WikiAnswers (the ultimate source of knowledge), they can reach speeds of 4.3 km/hr (translation: faster than me, dammit). Not only that, but apparently they can swim in whatever chemicals we put in our pool to preserve it throughout the winter.

Yes, the raccoons have been taking Arley lessons. They must have watched me flailing helplessly around and thought, "Damn, I can do better than that my stubby little legs can barely support my weight." I think the students have bested the teacher. (Actually, their waddling gait is surprisingly similar). While I've been splashing around to the lyrical stylings of Ricky Martin at deep water aerobics, the raccoons have taken over my pool and have been doing some laps. Every day's a polar-bear swim for them!

First, the rats eat my car and try to murderize me. Next, the raccoons assert dominance over my pool. I am like the anti-Cinderella. I think it might be best to avoid any wild-game preserves or shark tanks from here on in.

Rats! Hate Rats!

I better get a bouquet of flowers for my cane (it would probably settle for some antibacterial lotion) because I owe it an apology. A few days ago, I nearly met my Maker (my Maker, not my Maker's Mark) when my car randomly developed narcolepsy in the middle of a highway exit ramp. At the time, I blamed my cane for trying to murderize me by pressing against the metal key, since it had motive.

It turns out, however, that I was pointing the finger at the wrong culprit. The verdict is in and the plot against my life was committed by....rats! That's right. 2010 is the Year of the Rat. First, the rats murdered one of their brethren and and stuffed him in the walls of our house; (probably, they had been watching that season of "The Wire" where Marlo, Snoop and Chris hide bodies in the row houses). After they got a taste of blood, they must have wanted more because they turned their attention to a bigger target: me. They snuck into my car and chewed up the wires, which is what caused my car to stroke out. Car murderers! I don't know what their motive is, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's because no one accuses me of carrying the bubonic plague or sets traps with peanut butter to snap my neck. (Because, honestly, given my love of peanut butter, that would totally work).

When Erin C heard about my brush with death, she thought that maybe the raccoon mafia had contracted out their hits to a gang of rats. Or maybe it's a raccoon-on-rat turf war! Perhaps that's why Sashimi has been randomly barking at 3 a.m. She knows that murder most foul is afoot! Maybe she can smell little raccoon meth labs. Sashimi has a toy rat that she loves to shake around, so I think I'm going to keep some treats in my pocket so that she will stay at my side and take care of any wildlife.

In other news, tomorrow is my appointment with my neurologist. Yup, more needles in the ass.

My Cane Tried to Kill Me!

So....I think my cane is trying to kill me. It's not like it doesn't have a good motive. I mean, it spends all day groaning under the weight of my 6 foot 2 frame and how do I repay it? By dropping it on the ground and/or the feet of passersby, thereby chipping its bronze sheen? By complaining about how it makes me look like an old lady? By saying, "Oh, I can't wait until I get my surgery and stop walking like a the queen of the polio zombies and can get rid of this annoying cane?" Being a cane is a thankless job. Whatever the motive, however, somebody better call a detective from "The First 48 Hours," because my cane needs to spend some time in the interrogation room where the detective will say, "Look, we know what happened. What we don't know is why. This is your chance to tell your side of the story...because you're a good cane...and sometimes good canes make mistakes....but you need to tell me what happened" and my cane will break down and confess everything. (Ok, so I watch too much "The First 48.")

The action went down tonight as I was driving back from the tournament. (I will post more about the tournament and all of its dramatics later). I was covered in dried sweat (you know how when you sweat really hard and crystals of sweat and grit dry on your body and you're covered in a sort of greasy film?), so exhausted from full-court-pressing for two games straight, including one that went into double overtime, that I could hardly lift my arms above my head, and bloated from inhaling a nasty-ass beef brisket sandwich at Montana's (oh Black Dog, you have ruined every other brisket for me). I just wanted to get home, take a long, hot shower, put on my sweatpants, watch Ricky Gervais get drunk while hosting the Golden Globes, and collapse into sweet unconsciousness. Who needs sleeping pills when you can just full-court press for a few hours straight?

My cane, however, had other plans.....plans that involved murder. I was driving my mom's SmartCar, exiting Highway 1 westbound on to Brunette highway to go back to New West, singing along to that "Someone's Got to Go" song (my cane was probably thinking, 'that someone is you, bitch'), when the force of turning on the off-ramp caused my cane to shift. This was the chance my cane was looking for! It pressed its metal shaft (that's what she said) on to the bit of metal key that sticks up in the slot. The radio died. The car completely shut down right in the middle of the exit ramp. My cane had short-circuited my car in the middle of traffic! (This, of course, is just a theory, since a mechanic hasn't examined the car yet. Maybe my car just really hates the lyrical stylings of Kelly Clarkson, which I guess makes it a ReallySmartCar).

I forced the car into park, turned it off, then got it to grudgingly restart. A few meters later, however, it died again in the right-turn lane and was down for the count. HomeCar was taking a nap right in the middle of danger. I got out of the car (I was remembering how a few months back a woman and her kids died when their car stalled in the HOV lane and someone rammed into them) and it immediately started to rain hard and the wind picked up. Did I mention it was dark? It was dark. And cars were swerving around me, honking, as I rummaged through the SmartCar's registration package to get the number for roadside assistance.

As I was talking to the roadside-assistance people, a semi got itself wedged between my car and the median trying to turn right. The trucker got out of his car, all pissed off, filled with that special brand of anger that comes from spending your life drinking Mountain Dew, doing speed and being cut off by all the Miatas and Sonatas and Corrolas of the world). Because that is the one ingredient this heaping serving of drama-pie needed: a little dash of trucker rage. The trucker began yelling at me:

Trucker: Move your car!
Me: If I could move my car, it wouldn't be in the middle of the road with its hazards on.
Trucker (making angry hand gestures): Well, push it!
Road-side operator guy on the phone: Ma'am, what is the VIN # of your vehicle?
Me: Just a second. (Struggling to read the VIN # in the dark with the wind whipping up the paper).....
Trucker: Push your car! You're blocking the road! Push your car!
Me: I can't push it! I just had a hip replacement!
Trucker: A what?
Me: A hip replacement!
Trucker: No you didn't! Move your car!
Me: I can't. It won't move. I can't push it.
Roadside operator guy: Ma'am, do you have the VIN #?
Me: (giving the VIN #) Sorry...some trucker is stuck and trying to talk to me....
Trucker: Move your car! You're blocking everything! You're blocking the road! (As if I would magically say, "Oh...you're right. I AM blocking the road. How silly of me. Well, now that I've got some fresh air and have picked some wild flowers from this ditch, I'll just get right back into my vehicle and be on my merry way.")

Eventually, I got back in the car and the trucker tried to push it. No dice. The SmartCar really doesn't have power steering, so when it's in park, it's impossible to move. Another truck driver (stuck behind the first, blocking all the rest of the cars) got out to yell at me, then try to push it. No dice. Finally, my dad arrived on the scene and he got the car to start just long enough to push me on the median. We waited in the rain for another 20 minutes for the tow truck to come and haul the lazy-ass SmartEnoughToKnowIDon'tHaveToHaulYourAssAroundIfIDon'tWantTo Car to the mechanic's.

It's just my luck. Just when things were looking up in ArleyLand, fate decided to throw in a little plot twist. Considering what might have happened if my car had stopped suddenly only seconds before, when I was going 100 km/h (65 miles an hour) on a wet highway on a dark night, I'm just happy it was a plot twist I got out of alive.

You've Got Me There, Peg-Legged Biker!

So, I walked in to the kitchen last night to see my dad chatting with this gray-haired biker with a limp. (This is not an unusual sight in my kitchen). I had to interrupt their little pow-wow to get my cane and it turned out that the limpy, gray-haired biker had to move his car so I could get my car out of the driveway. I guess my dad must have mentioned my hip-replacement woes, because when the biker was going down the stairs, he turned to me and said, "Just be thankful you're not me."

"Oh yeah?" I said. (Because, really, what do you say to that? "Yeah, I thank my lucky stars every day?" "Actually, I've always wanted to rock a pair of leather chaps so I'm a bit jealous?")

"I've got myself a wooden leg." He bent down and knocked on his leg.

"Oh," I said. "Well." For perhaps the first time, I was left rendered speechless. So, there you go. My pep-talk of the day: When all else fails, at least I'm not a middle-aged peg-legged biker. I think I need to get that on a T-shirt.

Eh? Huh?

Thank you Busey Bank for helping me along with my New Year's resolution of getting up earlier. At 7:30 this morning, I got a text message from T-Mobile saying that my monthly payment didn't go through. This event coincided with my sister's dog Sashimi jumping up on my bed and planting her foot right on my sore hip, then grinding it in. Good morning!

Since I was up, I decided to go again to deep-water aerobics. This time, I did it without the running belt, since I have a weird ability to not sink. It may be one of my greatest talents, alongside making tootsie-roll chest hair for naked man cakes and coming up with elaborate similes to describe my gimpiness (like an elephant getting tasered! Like a dance party at a polio-survivor's convention!) I am like a human pool noodle in both floatiness and gracefulness. Turns out that, yeah, deep-water aerobics is a lot harder when you do it au naturale. It was a good workout. The nice thing about deep-water aerobics, too, is that most of your body is under water, so no one gets to see your flailing about.

Alas, there was no more talk of crafting or maybe I was just concentrating too hard on staying upright. After the class, I chatted with some of the younger ladies. One of them remarked that I talk like an American. I noted that when I'm in America, people say I talk like a Canadian. ("What is pa-sta? I only eat paw-sta"). "No," she said, "You definitely sound like an American." This is the ultimate hallmark of placelessness. I'm too American-sounding for the Canadians and too Canadian-sounding for the Americans. It's like I'm from my own special country: The Great Nation of ArleyLand! Population: 1.

Sweatin' With the Oldies

One of my New Year's resolutions was to find a way to exercise that doesn't involve cruising along to nowhere on the elliptical machine. (Don't worry, elliptical machine. You are still my first love, but a girl's got to play the field to avoid getting bored). Swimming's great when you can do it in your own pool, but when 9,000 other people have listed "working out more" as their New Year's resolution, doing laps is a good recipe for getting kicked in the head or pushed into the lane-dividers by someone whose favourite stroke is "the windmill."

My theory is that when you've got a hip replacement and you walk like someone named Gladys or Doris, then you need to channel your inner old person to find appropriate ways to exercise. Enter deep-water aerobics, which is the go-to choice if you're a post-menopausal lady who used to model for the Sears Catalogue circa 1962 and are anxious to maintain your figure in order to keep your retired-car-salesman husband from straying. If you draw your eyebrows on with a pencil and you often get a hankering for Denny's Rooty Tootie Fresh and Fruity breakfast (okay, who doesn't?), deep-water aerobics is the sport for you. (Ok, granted, there were several younger people there, but still).

My aerobics adventure had the added benefit of helping me achieve another New Year's resolution: to go to bed and get up earlier. Mission accomplished! When I arrived 5 minutes early for the class, I found the other aerobicizers in the bleachers all huddled around some lady's Christmas scrapbook like teen girls giggling over a yearbook; (scrapbooking, by the way, is not for the faint of heart. I went to Michael's to get Steph some wedding scrapbook stuff for Christmas and I seriously spent 30 minutes trying to figure out which type of silver pen was the best one out of the 12 different types). Anyhow, this seemed to be my kind of place: I like crafts and I like working out. If I could somehow incorporate cake decorating into the mix, I would never leave the pool.

Actually, everyone at the class was pretty friendly. I was worried that the scrapbookers wouldn't want some young'ins encroaching on their turf, but happily some teenage girls (one of whom was wearing a bathing suit whose v-neck went down to her bellybutton and must have required some two-sided tape to even wear it) showed up and their giggling and eye-rolling served as a magnet for the full force of everyone's angst. Or at least it did for my angst, and I have enough to go around for the whole class.

Deep-water aerobics was a decent workout, except that it really made my ankles sore. (My ankles, to be fair, are perpetually sore and I can't figure out why). In the water, you can do exercises that would have caused me a concussion if I attempted them on dry land and at the end of the 45 minutes I felt like I'd accomplished something. (This feeling was dampened somewhat when I looked up how many calories deep-water aerobics burns and discovered that it barely covered the calories in my daily chai). Oh well. Any time I get to bop around to "It's Raining Men," it's a good day.

As a bonus, I got to soak my weary bones in the hot tub. I usually avoid hot tubs for three reasons: 1) they make me faint and I try not to lose consciousness around any bodies of water 2) you probably find more diseases floating around a public hot tub than you do on the Rock of Love bus and 3)When I go into a hot tub in winter, I always wind up feeling like Sam McGee in "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and find myself walking around the rest of the day thinking, "There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.." (For those of you non-Canadians, "The Cremation of Sam McGee" is a Robert Service poem-turned-creepily-illustrated-children's-book about a guy who lugs around his dead friend on a dog sled looking for a place to cremate him. When he finally lights Sam McGee on fire in the furnace of an abandoned ship, he springs back to life because he's so happy to finally be warm...It's the perfect gift for people looking to dissuade their children from a career as a gold miner).

Anyhow, yes, deep-water aerobics is an activity I will try again, if only for the people watching and the ability to pop around to music without being mistaken for someone having an epileptic seizure. Half-way through the class, two ladies hauled out some pool noodles so that they could sit and chat about scrapbooking with greater ease and I thought, "yes, this might be my kind of class." Heavy breathing AND crafts! This is a sport I can get behind! The only down side was the difficulty of using my cane on slippery, wet tiles, especially when (as I was heading into the change rooms carrying my cane) two ladies who had been snickering to each other as I passed remarked, "It doesn't look very effective to use a cane like that!" It was all I could do to not snap, "You know what, bitches? There are times to be graceful and times to not get a concussion and this sure as fuck doesn't look like a ballroom-dancing competition to me so why don't you back the fuck off so I can hit the showers because right now the chlorine is eating away my skin?" Hm. Maybe I should add "do not give in to powerful feelings of rage" to my New Year's resolutions.

I'm Sorry, I Thought You Were a Traffic Cop, Not the Fashion Police

In the six months since my surgery, I've opened my mind and heart to the wonder of sweatpants. Because my hip flexors still don't work, it's impossible to get dressed without doing a Mr. Bean routine of spine-contorting ridiculousness, and if I put my jeans on without nearly falling on my face, I consider it a good day. When your hip flexion is so poor tht you haven't been able to wash your left foot in six months because you can't reach the stupid thing, you're willing to take anything that might make your life a little easier, even if you run the risk of committing a cardinal fashion sin. Sure, you may wind up on What Not to Wear, but at least you won't give yourself a concussion while trying to wriggle into skinny jeans. What I didn't realize, however, is that sweatpants can get you in trouble with the law.

This morning, I left my house earlier than normal (okay, the fact that I left my house is impressive in itself) so that I could pick Steph up at the auto mechanic's, since she had dropped her car off to get its brakes repaired. I dropped Steph off at her place, then headed to Starbucks to get a daily fix for myself and my mom. Because it was the ungodly hour of 10 a.m., (it's so hard to believe that this time last year I was getting up at 5:30 a.m. every morning), I was still dressed in my sweatpants and sweatshirt. And, ok, there may have been a small chance that my sweatshirt still had a bit of blue frosting on it from when I made Christmas cookies a few days ago. And I might have smelled faintly of garlic, due to the ungodly amount of tsatsiki I consumed last night at Steph's Greek night. And, yes, my glasses have been just a little bit crooked for the past 2 years because I sat on them and they can't be fixed because there's a hairline fracture where the....anyhow, it wasn't my most glamorous look.

I ordered the coffees without incident and left the Starbucks. Since I had one coffee in each hand, I had my cane slung over my arm instead of using it and was merrily gimping along, anticipating getting home and settling down to a delicious non-fat Americano misto (mmm....delicious American mist....), when I was passed by a police officer, who muttered something at me.

"Hm?" I said.

"What do those coffees cost?" he asked. "Like, 10 dollars a piece?"

"Uh....yeah....," I said, "It's highway robbery. You should investigate...."

The police officer gave me a weird little smirk and headed off to wherever he was going. I got into my car thinking, "Wow...that was weird." When I got home, I told my mom about the encounter and she was able to shed some light on the situation: Sherlock Holmes must have thought that I was a homeless person and disapproved of me spending my panhandling money on Starbucks instead of groceries...or meth. (I would say that it's better to have a Starbucks addiction than a meth addiction, but I suspect that meth is probably cheaper per hit).

See, this is the danger of sweatpants. If you walk like someone who injects heroin into their toes, you need to bring your fashion A-game or else apparently New Westminster's finest officers will mistake you for a homeless person. Sweatpants may be comfortable, but if you wear them without walking with the appropriate grace and charm, you just may be arrested for vagrancy.

SurgeonWatch2009: The Dramatic (not really) Conclusion

For most of the month of October, I began a campaign I called SurgeonWatch2009, where I attempted for over a month to get a hold of my original surgeon, Dr. _____, who had mysteriously vanished after promising me that he would call the very moment he got the MRI reports the day after my appointment. After a month of the whole "don't call us, we'll call you" routine when I didn't even have an appointment date, I assumed that Dr. ___ had taken a little visit to Bermuda, gotten sucked up into the Bermuda Triangle, and was chilling out diagnosing early-stage arthritis on the Loch Ness Monster. Enter Dr. SecondOpinion.

In the back of my mind, I've always wondered with happened to Dr. ____. Did he think, "If I just ignore her long enough, her torn gluteus medius will repair itself in much the same way that a tantrum-throwing two-year-old will eventually calm down if no one fuels their rage?" Or did he simply forget and stash my case in the back of his mind behind the memo to clean the gutters and the reminder that the dog needs to get its anal glands squeezed? What miracle would have to happen for him to call me?

The miracle of Starbucks! Yes, on the way to see my neurologist, my mom ran into Dr. ___ at the Richmond General Hospital Starbucks. He didn't exactly come over for a chit chat, but the image of me gimping along the Richmond Hospital Lobby must have jostled something loose in his mind and made him think, "Gee....I feel like I know that girl from somewhere....I have this faint memory of saying, over two months ago, 'don't worry, we'll find out why you can't walk and fix you right up'...."

This must be why, today at 9 a.m., SurgeonWatch2009 came unexpectedly to a close. My mom received a call that went like this:
Secretary: Hi! Is this Arley or Arley's mom?
Mom: This is her mom....
Secretary: Oh, hi there! This is ___! From Dr. ____'s office!
Mom: Hi....
Secretary: Dr. ___ just got a report from Dr. Needles McNeedleson and he was wondering if you still needed his assistance or if you're seeing another surgeon....?
Mom: Uh....I think we're good....We're seeing Dr. SecondOpinion....
Secretary: Okay then! Take care! Bye!

It was exactly the conversation I wanted....two months ago. Now, the funny thing about this is that Dr. ___ received a report from Dr. SecondOpinion a month ago, so in theory should know that I've taken the Arley Dog and Pony Show elsewhere. I guess it's like when you're in high school and some guy you're interested in stops calling, and you don't hear from him for months until he sees you at the mall having a fro-yo with a new man, and all of a sudden he pops back into your life being like, "Hey, baby! It's recently come to my attention that you've got your shit together and are blissfully happy with someone else, which means it's exactly the right time for me to waltz back on to the scene for another round of my manly mind games!"

So, yes, my mom told Dr. ___ that he didn't have to worry: Dr. SecondOpinion has it all under control. Now here's hoping that Dr. SecondOpinion does, in fact, have it under control and won't send me back to Dr. ___.

Feast!

In the next room, my mom is cooing at my sister's dog, "Is that a good bull's penis? Is that a good bull's penis? You get that bull's penis!" (Apparently, dried bull's penis is a delicacy if you're a mini American Eskimo). I am watching some woman give birth on one of those TLC reality shows and cursing the fact that the hours of work I put into a spreadsheet for my internship has been replaced by the phrase "we're sorry." (You better be sorry Google Docs because my eyes are going to shank you if they have to hurt themselves by staring at a computer for another 8 hours doing data entry). Ah, yes, jut another day in my life here in New Westminster.

I've written a lot about how I don't know very many people in New Westminster and how I'm a little hard up for social interaction. Last night, I had two choices for how to spend an exciting Friday night: stay at home watching the hit TLC series "Say Yes to the Dress" (a.k.a The "It's My Day!" Show) or go with my parents to a banquet for the Trial Lawyers Association. The choice was easy: at home, I would eat a supper of scrambled eggs and cereal with a handful of chocolate chips for dessert and watch my sister's dog gnaw on bull genitalia. At the banquet, however, I would get a six-course meal and the potential to mercilessly judge the cocktail gowns of middle-aged women (note to middle-aged wealthy women: if you are over 50, any gown that requires a roll of two-sided tape to strap yourself into is probably a fashion don't).

Most of my clothes are in Illinois, so I didn't have a thing to wear to the ball and let's just say that none of the mice around here can sing or use a sewing machine; (plus, the only chance of me fitting in to a glass slipper would be if it was a ballerina flat). Happily, I had recently received my Nana's dress and belt from the 1940s. My Nana is one of the coolest people I know. When I was 11, she wrote her memoirs and I was tasked with typing it up. Let's just say that she used the phrase "mad Russian love" more times than my innocent 11-year-old eyes were equipped to deal with. She even devotes a page to her beliefs on the french kiss; after an 85-year-old man dropped dead after she french-kissed him on his wife's grave, she notes "I need to cut back on the french kisses as they are a soul searcher and a deadly weapon when teasing someone, especially someone well past 80." Wise words indeed. Anyhow, I felt pretty awesome in Nana's dress, even though it's hard to get your mojo working when you're wearing something that smells like your grandmother.

Recently, my friend Karo sent me a comic with the caption "Hey, man! It's been awhile since I trapped you in a long conversation about my medical history." This is what I feel like whenever I go to a social occasion. The minute people see the cane, I have to rehash the entire story: had a hip replacement; hip replacement went tits up; hopefully all will be well soon; doctors are doing all they can. I begin to feel like that drunk chick at a party who corners someone to boozily lament about all of her wordly cares; ("and...then...like...he left me for my sister's friend and...like...I loved him...I...like....really thought we had a connection.")

Luckily, however, I was not the only one with a cane. When you're hanging with the over-40 set, you're bound to not be the only one twirling an Air-Ride cane with an ergonomically designed grip. And, indeed, there were probably a 6 or 7 other people limping along in their tuxes and evening gowns. Cane friends!

Alas, none of these canes were attached to handsome, single lawyers. I did, however, get to enjoy a sumptuous feast: fancy rolls; chicken soup with puffed pastry on top; salmon with micro greens and asparagus tips; beef tenderloin with bernaise sauce and Alaska crab on top and seasonal vegetables and a dessert table that boasted pretty much anything you could stick buttercream or chocolate into. It was pretty fancy business when $2 you-call-its and bar peanuts are your idea of a classy get-together. Yeah, I may have to rely on my parents for social occasions, but at least I get to eat tenderloin while I do it.

Wait. You mean talking about your sex life in front of 250 undergraduates is a bad idea?

After a 16-hour transportation pentathlon (car, train, walking in circles trying to locate the subway station, subway and plane), I'm finally back in Vancouver and right back to my old habits. Laying in bed: check. Watching the episodes of "House" I missed online: check. Chai latte: well, it was a half-sweet, nonfat caramel brulee latte because since I've been away from Vancouver for three weeks my yuppie street cred meter was in the red and I needed an extra dose of Starbucks-order ridiculousness, but still. It's good to know, however, that even though I'm now thousands of miles away, my legacy is shining brightly in Champaign-Urbana.

Case in point: two nights ago. A. and I wanted to see "The Road," but unfortunately it hasn't found its way to the thriving cultural metropolis of Champaign-Urbana yet; (you can, however, see "Twilight" pretty much any hour of the day). The only solution was to rent a video. When we were paying for the video, the cashier was looking at me oddly. I figured she must have just been dazzled by my Amazon-esque good looks or else was investing some major energy into figuring out why I was wearing two gloves on one hand and only one on the other (answer: my cane-holding hand gets cold because I can't put it in my pocket).

Just as we were about to leave, the cashier said, "I know this will sound weird, but did you ever talk at a human sexuality course?" Well, yes, that was me. Because of my herculean tolerance for embarrassment (it's kind of a super power), I was briefly the go-to person to talk about my sex life (don't laugh) in front of 250 undergraduates for the "Disability and Sexuality" panel every semester at one teacher's human sexuality class. I would talk about sex as a pain-control mechanism--I have actually had doctors tell me that I should have more sex for this reason, which was definitely on the top-10 list of "world's most awkward conversations" and a sign I should get out more (when your 50-year-old surgeon is urging you to have more booty calls, you just might be on a fast train to spinster-ville)--and various other people would talk about getting it on when you're a paraplegic etc. etc. In theory, this was supposed to enlighten the masses and prevent drunken college girls from having to boozily ask guys in wheelchairs at the bar if they can...like...you know....like...do it.

Now, see, the problem about me speaking at a human sexuality panel is that I tend to make jokes when I'm uncomfortable and it's not exactly easy to feel zen-like when you are staring out at a sea of 250 undergraduate faces hoping that none of these kids are also in your Rhetoric class while you try to explain that even though you'll never do the "reverse cowgirl passion pretzel," having a disability forces you to be familiar with your body in a way that able-bodied people rarely are and....You can see where this is going. Let's just say that I've walked out of several of these human-sexuality talks wondering, "Did I really just tell 250 people that I should incorporate myself as non-profit agency so that I can tell guys at the bar that having a one-night stand with me is tax-exempt under the charitable giving act because of what it does to my pain levels?"

I told the cashier that, yes, that had been me.

"Oh my God!" she said. "You were, like, the best thing about that class! People talked about you for weeks." (I'm sure they did).

"Thanks," I said. "I always walk out of those things suspecting that I've led people to believe that I'm a bit promiscuous."

"Yeah, totally!" she exclaimed. "You sounded like a total slut! It was so hilarious!"

I looked at A., who was biting his lower lip to keep from laughing and studying me in a way that said "why am I not at all surprised one single bit that this is happening?"

"Well, I'm glad you liked it," I said.

This exchange actually went on for a few more minutes, but I've forgotten most of what was said because I was too busy mulling over the fact that probably more people remember me for saying that I don't consider myself "wheelchair accessible" because most of the disabled guys I know are man-whores than they do for even my most soul-stirring speech on the importance of effective paragraph transitions.

Finally, as we were heading out the door, the cashier looked between A. and I and grinned knowingly. "You two have a good night," she said. I'm not sure, but I think she winked.

And you know what? I did have a good night. A good night of watching "Star Trek" with my cat stretched out on my lap. You know, like every good sexpert.

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.

Well, At Least the Verdict Wasn't "You Need to Exercise More."

I wrote yesterday about my Rocky-esque preparations for my appointment with Dr. SecondOpinion. Well, it's a good thing I went all "Eye of the Tiger" making lists of questions and symptoms, debating what demeanor to adopt, and generally rallying my mental troops, because I have just finished running (limping) a medical marathon. Somebody put a medal over my neck and get my ass some gatorade because I am spent. After 4.5 hours inside the Diamond Pavilion at VGH, (which is new and fancy, by the way!), I can officially say that I have received enough attention from the medical community to counteract the months of silence from Dr. ___.

Going to see a well-respected, cream-of-the-crop surgeon often resembles being stuck in some role-playing video game where you have to conquer a series of obstacles/riddles/tests of physical and mental prowess in order to pass the level and be granted audience with the king. I don't mind this one bit. If Dr. SecondOpinion decided that walking over burning coals would provide an adequate assessment of my gait pattern, you can bet your burn salve that I would do it blindfolded.

I therefore happily put up with another hip X-ray, even though I have had 8.3 million hip X-rays (next stop: glowing babies!) and even though it was the X-ray tech's first time and there was a boss X-ray tech standing over her and saying, "Are you sure you want to put your label there? Are you sure you want her foot like that?" I was such a shining beacon of patience and good-humour that the boss X-ray tech even remarked that I was the ideal patient to teach someone on both because of my attitude and the fact that I'm "so skinny you can feel every single bony structure on [my] body." Flattery will get you nowhere, Boss X-ray tech! I only let people feel my bony structures after dinner and a movie.

Next stop: Dr. SecondOpinion's office, where I filled out an elaborate three-page form that I suspect no one looked at. (Which is fine, because understanding my medical history is kind of like reading "Ulysses" in that most of it is bizarre, it takes far too long to get through, and you come out more confused than when you went in, though unlike "Ulysses" my medical history does not rely heavily on scatalogical references). The problem is that there are 5 million question marks in my medical history: "so...I'm a carrier for pseudochlorinestinaese deficiency and had a really freaky locked-in thing after my second surgery, but I didn't require breathing assistance so it could have been a bad reaction to the muscle relaxant they gave me..." "Yeah, I had this excruciatingly painful back problem but was too stupid/ suspicious of doctors to go to the hospital even though my mom and a personal trainer had to load me lying down into the back of my mom's PT Cruiser as if I was a piece of plywood and when I finally got an X-ray weeks later it showed I had multiple bilateral fractures on L4 L5 but that's not typical for a 20-something and an MRI didn't show much..." It's best to not even go there.

After 40 minutes in the first waiting room, I chilled out in a fancy hospital gown for another 40 minutes when in walked Dr. SecondOpinion Lite: Dr. SecondOpinion's intern, who was responsible for doing the grunt work of listening to my complaints and preparing a primilinary diagnosis. It's a tough gig being an intern and many of them are testy and sleep-deprived and trying so hard to project an aura of doctorly arrogance that they sometimes go a little overboard. Dr. SecondOpinion Lite's expert verdict: I was fine, shit would work itself out, and the problem was clearly that I had not tried hard enough and should (and I quote) "do more exercise." Wrong answer, Dr. SecondOpinion Lite! You just got a big, old F on a pop quiz named Arley.

Just when I was thinking I was going to have to start unleashing five months of pent-up rage and frustration on poor Dr. SecondOpinion Lite, he disappeared and Dr. SecondOpinion showed up to save the day. Dr. SecondOpinion sort of has this shimmery aura of brilliance with a general's air of efficiency. The man has hip replacements down. You could wake him up in the middle of the night and say, "Quick! Name me the muscles around the hip from back to front!" and he'd be like, "You want them in alphabetical order and do you want me to throw in the nerve pathways while I'm at it?" Homeboy is good. Doesn't have much time for questions, but he's good.

And the verdict: the torn gluteus medius is indeed wreaking havoc. When he pressed on my greater trochanter, (where the medius is attached), I indeed experienced what all of the medical reports I had been reading described as "exquisite tenderness." (Translation: stop-touching-me-there-right-now-I-will-kill-you-dead-I'm-dead-serious). After examining me, Dr. SecondOpinion noted that I walk "like I have polio," which is literally exactly what I have been saying. We're simile twins!

Unfortunately, he also suspects that my hip replacement has come loose because he could see some line around the prothesis and when he cranked my leg to the side I felt pain deep in the socket. (Not "exquisite tenderness," since when Dr. SecondOpinion Lite did the same motion on my leg, the pain was not so bad and since he didn't ask if it hurt, I didn't mention it). If the prothesis is loosened, that would explain the clunking and clicking I've been feeling.

Anyhow, Dr. SecondOpinion was really thorough and really patient with the fact that I really have to concentrate when someone asks me to move a particular muscle. The theory is that I spent so many years trying to disconnect myself from my lower body because I was in pain, I now have a hard time naturally making connections. In essence, I'm body stupid. But, Dr. Second Opinion was very patient and was good at isolating particular muscles and showing me how to make the connections.

So, what is Dr. SecondOpinion going to do? Alas, he says I need to be patient while they run some tests: a blood test to rule out infection, a spinal X-ray to see if my hip flexor problem is caused by my back, some freaky-ass test where they're going to jab a needle filled with anesthetic into my hip and see what goes on (spoiler alert: I will yelp), and possibly a bone scan. Problem: all this will take time. The end result is that I will probably need surgery, but it's unlikely that I'll get it before 2010. Sigh!

At the end of the day, the good news is that someone is finally giving a flying fuck about the fact that I walk like a heroin-addled zombie. Tests will be performed! Results will be achieved! The bad news is that I have gotten served another buffet-sized helping of BePatientAndWait pie. I thanked Dr. Second Opinion and got ready to go get some blood tests and some spine X-rays. After Dr. SecondOpinion left, Dr. SecondOpinion Lite (who had been chastized when he expressed his view that I should just do more exercise, much to my smirky delight) popped his head in the door. "You didn't tell me you had pain!" he said. I noted that a) actually, I had told about the pain around my ass and scar and b) he didn't ask if it hurt me when he twisted my leg and it wasn't wince-worthy.

So, yes, I wandered off to get some blood tests and pay another friendly visit to my good buddies at the X-ray department to get my spine examined and Dr. SecondOpinion Lite sulked off, pissed that I had gotten him in trouble with his boss. Maybe if he just tried harder and did some exercise....

If I Should Fall From Grace With God Where No Doctor Can Relieve Me

Before my surgery, I would avoid standing-room-only concerts, since I'd spend the entire night trying to lean against various walls/gates/garbage cans/random strangers, then hobble out of the place the instant the last song was over and spend the next day in bed hopped up on painkillers. After the surgery...yeah, not much difference. I did, however, get through my first post-surgical concert and the only damage was getting my mind totally blown...and probably a mild contact high from breathing the same oxygen as lead singer Shane MacGowan. I can't think of a better band to welcome me back to the world of live music than The Pogues.

I was introduced to The Pogues when I was 17 by K.G., a guy I used to play basketball with. I had been listening to second-generation Celtic rock/punk music (Flogging Molly, Great Big Sea, etc) without having ever heard of Shane MacGowan, which is kind of like being a fan of Pat Robertson or Joel Osteen without having ever heard of Jesus. K.G. offered to show me the light and soon I was spending significant chunks of my undergraduate career in his apartment drinking green tea, eating veggie burgers and getting my worldview throughly rearranged by the weird-voice trifecta of Bob Dylan, Shane MacGowan and Neil Young; (I kind of missed the "spend your undergraduate career having sloppy drunken sex" memo). K.G. and I had some ridiculous falling-out five or six years ago (oh, my melodramatic teenage years!) and I haven't seen him since, but my love of The Pogues remains.

So, even though the concert would require me to stand for hours, I was determined to see The Pogues before Shane MacGowan drops dead from the various substances he's been injesting since the '70s; (I've listened to an interview where he claims to have eaten several Beatles records because he was high and believed he was making a statement to Russian diplomats about American Imperialism). My dad drove me to Seattle where the concert was being held (he wanted to go to a car swap meet there) and by 7:30 I was thoroughly hopped up on Extra-Strength Tylenol and Diet Coke and ready to rock; (I know. So punk rock). My plan was to go early and find a seat so that I would not spend the rest of the night getting bodyslammed by wankers flailing around to "Body of An American."

I used the cripple card to get me to the front of the line, but by the time I got indoors all of the seats had been taken by people who were smirking and sitting on their precious chairs as if on thrones and chatting with their equally smirky friends who could watch their chairs when they went to the bathroom so that no six-foot-tall limpy Canadians could steal them. I tried guilt-tripping the ones who were holding empty seats for their friends ("Is that seat taken?...Oh?....It is?....Well, *hobble hobble, pathetic look* I guess I'll just have to find...somewhere else to sit...I just had a hip replacement, you know...") but no one cracked. I did, however, use my ninja stealth powers to steal a folding chair when a bouncer wasn't looking--this bouncer must have either been half-blind or else let me have the chair, since I'm pretty sure that a six-foot-two chick dragging both a cane and a folding chair while limp-shuffling along was not exactly inconspicuous--and planted the chair right in the middle of the dance floor. Not too many people had arrived for the opening act and I could even still see the stage.

I was feeling mighty smug until the folly of my plan became clear. If you're in a room with hundreds of people who are guzzling beer (and, judging by the smell, subsisting on a diet of rancid meat and onions), the very last place you want to be is at ass level. The stench (and people tripping over me and spilling their beers) drove me from my chair and I spent the time between sets sitting on a bench outside the bathroom pretending I was waiting for a friend, feeling a little sorry for myself.

But when Shane MacGowan and the Pogues finally arrived on-stage, all of the waiting and chair-stealing and leaning against various objects was worth it. True, Shane MacGowan is moving a little slower these days (who isn't?) and he dropped the mic stand into the crowd roughly 15 times and forgot some of the words and was often several beats behind the music and whenever he spoke it sounded like a toothless bear growling into a walkie-talkie, but the man can still do the banshee scream during "If I Should Fall From Grace With God" like he fucking means it. Though his voice hasn't aged like fine wine, it has perhaps aged like leftover chili: more depth, if less spiciness. And the band, to their credit, did a fantastic job of keeping up with him. I was so happy that I didn't even mind when two hipsters dressed like European toddlers circa 1894 kept bashing into me in their attempts to dance. (Well, ok, I did mind, but I didn't elbow anyone in the forehead).

A couple of days before the concert, A. asked me what on earth I saw in The Pogues. I have tried for three years to turn A. into a Pogues fan, but still whenever I have them playing in the car he begins to writhe around in his seat and beg me to turn them off because the fiddles and '80s-production-values saxophones and mandolins are too much for him. Even the fact that the Pogues make up an important part of the soundtrack for "The Wire" couldn't convince him of their greatness. At the time, I gave some half-assed answer about how they were "fun" and I "just liked them."

Towards the end of the concert, however, I realized what my answer should have been. Throughout the night, the band dedicated many songs to Kristy MacColl, who collaborated with Shane on "Fairytale of New York" and who toured with them in the late '80s. Kristy MacColl was killed in a boating accident while saving her son and Oct. 10th would have been her 50th birthday. As one of the last songs, Shane dedicated "Rainy Night in Soho" to her ("we watched our friends grow up together/ and we watched them as they fell/ some of them fell into heaven/ some of them fell into hell"..."now the song is nearly over/ we may never find out what it means/ still there's a light I hold before me/ you're the measure of my dreams."). "Rainy Night in Soho" is one of my favorite Pogues songs because of its ambivalence: equal parts sadness and regret and fondness and nostalgia and resignation.

I think this ambivalence is what I love most about The Pogues' songs. Most of the lyrics are about lives that have not gone according to plan, loves that have not gone according to plan, and hopes and dreams and ambitions that have been waylaid. This is, of course, familiar territory for most musicians, but I think the reason that Shane MacGowan is a genius is because he doesn't just write a love song, or a breakup song, or a my-life's-fucked-up song or a drinking song: he writes all of them at once. Even the darkest songs have moments of humour or sweetness and even the love songs are a little bit sad. He is kind of like the Cormac McCarthy of songwriting: not afraid to show the shit and puke and blood of every-day life, not trying to glorify or vilify a lifestyle, but merely explore it.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love Destroyer and Pavement and Echo & The Bunnymen and all those bands who create layered sonic landscapes and write sly, biting, often-nonsensical lyrics with puns and little jokes, those songs that make you think, "Yeah, this could be a break-up song, but it could also be about heroin." But at this stage of my life (at the ripe old age of 26), what with the hip and the unemployment and the short-on-longterm-goal-ness of my life, I'm beginning to appreciate The Pogues less for their high-energy dance music (because, let's face it, I am officially at the age where being in the mosh pit might kill me) and more for the emotional tenor of their songs.

I suspect that this is a common Pogues response. Towards the end of the night, I was caught in the ambivalence of never wanting the show to end and wanting the show to end immediately so that I could sit down. I looked around and there were several old guys (I suspect I was not the only one with a fake hip since I was not the only one who pumped a fist in the air during the lyric "I will not be reconstructed!") leaning and shifting uncomfortably: one hand swaying in the air during "Rainy Night in Soho," one hand on their aching backs, probably wishing like I was that they could be up at the front sustaining hearing loss and rib-cage bruising from being crushed against the railing. (I was remembering being at the front of a Spirit of the West concert nearly 10 years ago, when I snuck into the club using my cousin's ID and ran into K.G. and during the show the drummer, who was celebrating his birthday, fed K.G. cake). Even Shane had to shuffle off the stage every once in awhile for a little rest and a cigarette. It was this "we're fucked up in the most mundane, least punk-rock ways but we're still on our feet with our firsts in the air" quality that resonates with me, and it's the reason why The Pogues are a great band.

So, yes, it's 2 p.m. the next day and I'm still in bed recovering from the night before and I haven't done my exercises, but it was totally worth it. (And, K.G., wherever you are, thanks).

You Are a Very Beautiful Lady! Does Your Boyfriend Mind That You Have a Bad Leg?

Last night, S.G, her friend K (or is it C.? See? This whole 'initials' thing is driving me crazy) and I went to see "Julie and Julia." I had originally resisted this movie because the whole "I'm going to write a blog for the sole purpose of getting famous!" thing is kind of annoying to me. (As opposed to me, who's writing a blog for the sole purpose of enlightening the masses about every nuance, shade and variation of my ass bruises, which is clearly a public service). True to expectation, I loved the Julia Child storyline and pretty much despised the "whiny blogger" storyline; (if you're thinking the "whiny blogger" storyline might have hit a little too close to home, you're probably right, except that Julie had a husband and a job and a New-York lifestyle, which is slightly more glamorous than my New Westminster lifestyle, though granted she also appears to have a sort of mullet). When Julia Child hates Julie Powell's blog, I liked Julia Child even more, since Julia Child wrote a cookbook because she had a passion for cooking and Julie Powell wrote a blog as a quick way to become a writer without any of that "knowing how to write" business. (Okay, rant over).

I realized very quickly, however, that Julia Child is my perfect role model. She's very tall and she is not afraid to wear high heels, which I would totally do if high heels didn't cause me to roll my ankles! She has crazy hair that she does not tame, though her lack of taming is because of conviction and mine is because of laziness! She has a loud voice and will not pipe down; me neither! She is not afraid to date men who are shorter than her; I, in fact, prefer it that way, though the men do not necessarily agree! In fact, I think that I will go as Julia Child for Hallowe'en and scrap my original plan to go as a zombie, since Hallowe'en would be the one time of the year when my unusual gait would fit right in. (Well, Hallowe'en or a Polio Survivor's Convention).

After the movie, S.G, K/C and I realized that our dinners had been pathetic (S and I had eaten popcorn for dinner) and we cruised Vancouver for fancy desserts, which we found (hurrah!) and which were fantastic. I must admit that Vancouver thoroughly kicks the ass of Champaign-Urbana in the food department (frozen yogurt excepted). It was a fun night!

I rode the SkyTrain to the movie theatre and, as I got off at my stop, I thought, "Gee, could it be that I will get through an encounter on public transit without any weirdness? Someone has not hit on me in a completely inappropriate way, told me their life story while sobbing or asked me some wildly bizarre question." Well, I should have knocked on wood because, sure enough, just as I was going down the escalator of the New Westminster Skytrain station ( a few feet from freedom!), I was subjected to this encounter:

African man: You are a very beautiful lady!
Me: Thanks.
African man: Very beautiful! Very tall! You are very tall and beautiful.
Me: Thanks.
African man: You are so tall and beautiful I think I should have your phone number and we should get together.
Me: I have a boyfriend.
African man's friend: That's ok! He has three wives!
African man: Well, I hope I do not insult you by telling you that you are so beautiful. Does your boyfriend mind that you have a bad leg?
Me: No, he doesn't care. He likes me the way I am.
African man: That is good! That is good! Have a good night, beautiful lady!

Well, I guess that's not so much weird as kind of flattering. (I'll take compliments in whatever form they arrive in). I mean, "you're beautiful" beats the hell out of "hey, sweetheart. What's wrong with your legs? Want me to teach you how to spread them?" I always feel a little bad, however, about inventing a boyfriend, though I feel like it's the nicest thing to do. And it's not really lying to say that I have a boyfriend. I am a great believer in the "branching universe" theory that posits that, when someone makes a decision, all other outcomes happen simultaneously in alternate worlds. So, yes, somewhere in the universe, there are probably multiple Arleys with multiple boyfriends/husbands/lovers (these multiple Arleys should quit hogging all the men!) and probably a few of those partners do not care that I have a bad leg. It's not lying, it's quantum physics!