Swing to Salsa: Tripping My Way to a Good Time

I didn’t grow up during the fight for gender neutrality like the kids of today.

When I was little the majority of boys I knew played hockey, and the majority of girls took dance. My parents didn’t enroll me in dance because I was a girl and that’s what girls did. They’re not those kinds of parents. They enrolled me in dance because I loved it.

I have always loved to dance. I would spend hours twirling in front of our winter coat wardrobe with the full-length mirror on it with my mother’s silk scarves. Spinning, leaping and trying my damnedest to look like a Swan Princess or a Fairy from the Nutcracker. As I got older my interests broadened and dance took a back seat to swimming, art, sailing and marine biology. Eventually the only dancing I did was when I was at home by myself, music turned on full blast.

About a year ago I saw a Groupon for swing classes at a studio on Yonge Street. Thoughts of dance classes past came fluttering back to me, and I longed to be back in a studio. It scared me that I couldn’t remember the last time I had taken a class and that, even though I didn’t want to admit it, I didn’t dance when I was home alone anymore. Where had my passion for dance gone? Left behind with other childhood dreams and habits, my appreciation for a good twirl was a ghost keeping company with memories of catching toads and hiding in tree houses. I wanted it all back. I wanted to dance again. And then, like some scene from a movie, I closed my eyes and saw myself in a hospital room speaking to my grandfather. He passed away a couple years ago, but I remember this conversation I had with him like it was yesterday.

I had gone to visit him after his brain surgery, and still a little befuddled from the drugs, he asked me if I still had the bicycle he’d given me. He’d given me that bicycle when I was 7 or 8, so I was confused as to why he was remembering it and bringing it up now, but I answered him “yes”. He told me “that’s good” and then he said something that almost made me cry: “I can’t ride a bicycle anymore.” I saw my grandfather, who’d always been a busy and active man, try and come to terms with the limitations of age and illness. I saw him looking at the IVs in his arms and the monitors over head and thought he must be wondering where all his freedom and time had gone; wishing that he’d spent more time on his bike. I sat there looking at this Groupon and thinking that I didn’t want to grow old and say that I couldn’t do the things that I loved anymore. I would dance again.

I signed my boyfriend and I up for swing dancing in April and have been taking classes since. I was so excited for our first class. Seeing the studio’s wooden floors and full-length mirrors made me feel like I was home again. Then the instructors came in and started our lesson… this was not what I was expecting. The instructors didn’t look professional, they gave poor direction and split my partner and I up. I had trouble following along, finding the rhythm and kept screwing up. Had I forgotten how to dance? How the hell did this happen!?

A month of classes went by with little improvement. I was getting frustrated and instead of being excited to go to class, I dreaded it. What step was I going to mess up this time? Which stranger that I was partnered with was I going piss off tonight? After our month of swing, I never wanted to go to a studio again. On the way home from our last class my boyfriend and I were approached on the street by a person offering free trial dance classes at a studio only blocks away from our apartment. I took this as a sign not to give up just yet and that’s when we started taking Salsa.

Love to Dance studio on Eglinton was where I got my groove back. I hadn’t forgotten how to dance; I was just in the wrong studio with the wrong teachers. With clear instruction and my partner by my side I was finally feeling the joy from dance like I used to. My boyfriend and I even started dancing alone at home again, with the music on full blast of course.

In our last class the instructor split us up and pared me with an older gentleman named Ron. I learned that he had been a ballroom dancer and that he was just learning Salsa now for fun. Ron is in his late 70’s and when I was dancing with him, again, I was reminded of my grandfather. In the end, he wasn’t well enough to continue doing the things he loved most, but I think if he had he would have been a lot like Ron. Dancing with Ron taught me a lot of new moves and by the end of the class he was twirling me around like I’d never stopped in the first place.

Alice through the mirrorball horse or: How I fell in love with Vegas

My name is Amanda, not Alice. And I took a trip to Vegas, not Wonderland. I was wearing jeans, not a cute little blue dress with a white pinafore. And I didn't follow a rabbit, I followed my own desire. But other then those minute details my story and Alice, of Lewis Carrol fame, are pretty much the same.

Stepping off the plane in Las Vegas was like entering an alternate universe. Everything that was backward and forward in my Toronto was upside down and sideways on the Strip. I had planned this trip as a Christmas gift for my boyfriend with only Hollywood expectations and friends' tales to guide me, and that was all I needed in the end.

The first thing I did when I got to the luxurious Wynn hotel was jump on the bed. Maybe it was the desert air and the sun on my face, but after months of winter, this southern place made me feel free and rebellious. We hit the Strip as soon as I got tired of the bed and once we started exploring we realized how oddball Vegas really is. Nothing anyone says can prepare you for this. You could watch The Hangover a hundred times, but when you're used to people smoking outside and drinking inside, and then those practices are reversed, your head will spin. I had to stop myself from staring at people as they drank everywhere, inside and out. To test the limits Scott bought a beer and drank it in the Tiffany and Co. I was appalled, but the staff didn't even blink. The first time I sniffed cigarette smoke in the air at the casino I felt the need to alert someone until I noticed that the only person looking around like there was something wrong was me. Walking down the street was like walking down a midway at a fair. Left and right there were flashing lights, signs and music playing. Stores and hotels were like fun houses, designed to lure in all walks of life, and around every corner you caught glimpses of the freak show that is modern America. Women with so much plastic surgery and spray tan in their dramatic attempts to look young ended up looking like drag queens. The horribly obese stood next to the drastically thin amplifying each others' qualities without meaning to. My hunger for people-watching went into overdrive, and I was almost drooling at each new resort. As the sun went down the skirts inched higher on girls legs and the look of lust lingered longer in the groups of men. I watched all this with growing interest and thought "that plane may as well have been a rabbit hole after all."

Jet lag really is a bitch, but in this case I could forgive her, because waking up at 5:30am gave me and Scott the chance to watch the sunrise over the mountains. Laying in bed, seeing that orange glow creep over the sky made me feel peaceful and excited at the same time. Why couldn't I feel like this every morning? I guess it's just the magic of Vegas. We left the hotel and walked down the deserted Strip to find breakfast. We ended up at Hash House A Go Go which we'd seen on Man vs. Food. Being fans we had to try what Adam Richman had tried, so I ordered the chicken and waffles and Scott got the fried chicken eggs benny. When the plates arrived I understood why the U.S. has such problems with obesity! The plate was WIDER then my shoulders, and piled so high it required skewer scaffolding to support it. After an hour I had barely made a dent in my portion, whereas Scott had devoured his (I think he felt the need to best Richman at his own game). He was sorry for it later. The rest of the day was spent working off breakfast by shopping at the Premium Outlet Malls.

I love being able to find great deals, but I love seeing the different side of a city more and the bus ride to the outlets revealed that to me. I have never seen so many bail bondsmen in my entire life. At least five in a row, one shop was even called The Godfather and had a picture of a mobster holding a gun. Downtown Vegas has a different glimmer then the sparkling Strip. This is where old Vegas and poor Vegas mix together. Gazing out the window watching sagging apartment buildings go by and drug deals being exacted by young black men in white wife beaters I was reminded that I wasn't in Wonderland and not everyone here was on vacation. A reality cheque that I wasn't ready to pay yet.

That night we dined at the SW Steakhouse and surrounded by such opulence it was easy to forget about poverty in the rest of the city. One thing I learned on this trip is Vegas is the mistress of smoke and mirrors. Illusions of architecture and flowing booze make it harder to see through the haze of what's beyond the Strip. Las Vegas actually has the highest foreclosure rate in the U.S. but it's hard to keep that in mind when you're having a good time amongst your new tourist friends in the casinos.

Our last full day in Vegas was packed to the tits with with activities. We made another trip off the Strip to visit Target and the University of Nevada. We went on a gondola ride at the Venetian. It was worth every penny to get to know our charming gondolier, Dante, and hear him sing. We went through Madame Tussauds' Wax Museum where Scott got a little too friendly with Jenna Jameson, and we rode the roller coster at New York, New York.



The icing on our vacation cake and the end of the evening was to go see O by Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio, but before we got there we watched a real Vegas show play out on the bus on the way back to the hotel. Three middle aged men tried to board the bus. All of them were drunk, but one was so much so that he was leaning sideways and tilting back and forth as if on a moving ship. The bus driver told his friends that they couldn't bring him on the bus, that he was way too intoxicated. The drunk men started yelling, as drunk men tend to do, and they told the bus driver that they were getting on no matter what. He reiterated that they would not get on, but if they left now he wouldn't call the police. At this they started shouting "CALL THE COPS! DO IT! CALL THEM!" all while trying to support their now slumped over friend sitting on the ground. Everyone on the bus was watching this discourse with amusement, especially the four tipsy women sitting in front of us. They had taken it upon themselves to narrate the entire debacle and were yelling out predictions as to what was going to transpire. A woman sitting behind us had her camera out and was taping the entire thing. It ended with one of our new southern sista's dragging Scott into a rendition of Crank Dat Soulja Boy, an invitation to drinks and everyone getting off the bus before the cops showed up. This is Vegas: a perfect cocktail of random drunkenness and new friends from different places.




Finally arriving at the Bellagio we waited for O to begin in front of the mirrorball horse in the lobby. As we watched people pose for pictures in front of the horse, it became for me a symbol of our trip and this crazy city. It's big, sparkly, over the top and not real, but it's fun to look at and that's why you fall in love with it.

Loser Finally Wins

I have a confession to make: I am a serial contester.

If there’s a contest out there chances are I’ve entered it. I adore the thrill of winning even though I never do. Like a dog that gets kicked, but still worships at it’s masters’ feet, I worship at the alter of the contest gods hoping that one day they’ll throw me a bone.

I’m not a picky contester either! Oh no, we die hard addicts of chance don’t discriminate! I enter magazine contests, Twitter, Facebook, Blog and website contests. And when I was young I would pray that one day my milk carton would moo and I’d win a mountain bike… that did actually happen, but to the kid who sat three desks down from mine. Until now, that was the closest to winning I’d ever been. Sharing a classroom with a mooing milk carton.

About a week ago my luck finally changed! The contest gods threw me not one fat, juicy bone, but three!

I entered a contest to win some Augustina perfume from a site called Sidewalk Hustle. I love perfume almost as much as I love entering contests, so I had my fingers crossed tight that I’d win this one. After days and many contest entries later I was notified by the site editor that I had won! I remember exactly where I was sitting when I found out the happy news. I was on the left side of my sofa watching Dexter with my boyfriend, Scott, who kept harassing me to turn off my computer and snuggle him. I actually said, “shut up! I think I’ve won something!” and he paused Dexter so I could fully focus my energies on understanding what had just happened. I had actually won. I wanted to change my middle name to Winner the next day; that’s just how excited I was.

Yesterday, the winning streak continued when I found out I’d won a gift card from Miik! They’re one of my favourite recent discoveries in this city. They make clothing out of bamboo and they manufacture it here in Toronto. Eco friendly and local, that’s my kind of company (if you’ve read my post China, I’m so Over You then you’ll understand). I entered their Valentine’s Day Facebook contest thinking “what the hell, maybe the Sidewalk Hustle luck will follow me.” And BOOM! I won again! This time I did a little dance in front of my desk cause I thought "this is too good to be true!".

After I stopped dancing I noticed I’d received an email from Cinemaclock.com. I go to their site everyday because they often post contests to win movie tickets and DVDs. Lo and behold, I’d won a DVD on Joan Rivers! Not even five minutes after winning at Miik. At this point I had to leave the room because I thought I was going to cry. Scott pokes fun at me because I religiously enter so many contests. When I told him what a roll I was on he was just as baffled as I was! I thought of alerting the press and letting them know they’d have a headline for tomorrow’s paper: Loser Finally Wins and then a shot of my face still glowing with the sweat from my winners dance. Millions of copies would be sold and I’d single handedly save the print media industry. This was a stretch, but the winning had gone to my head and that’s the great thing about winners, they have the luxury to dream.

I bought Scott a trip to Las Vegas for Christmas. We’re leaving in four days. Fingers crossed this winning streak follows us and I come back with bags full of money… luxury to dream, remember.

Aliens are stalking my parents

I woke up in a trailer park and before I can even get my morning coffee into me my mom tells me she saw a UFO.

“A UFO?” I mutter. “As in aliens?”

“Yes,” she exclaims. “As in aliens!”

Now my mother is kind of wonky (this is the woman who came to my father and I at the breakfast table one morning and claimed that there were eggs popping out of her head… we later figured out that it was the beads on the ends of the bristles on her hairbrush that were coming off and not eggs, as she had originally suspected.) but she has never gone on about aliens or UFOs. This was a first!

We had been at a family function the night before and I thought the “UFO” might be alcohol induced so I asked her to describe it. She told me in great detail the shape; oval with multiple sides, the colour; glowing orange, and the speed it was travelling at; a slow but steady hover. Also, my aunt and her neighbour were backing up the story. They all saw the same thing! I had to rule out drug induced hallucination because all of them weren’t drinking the same Kool-Aid.

My mom was so convinced that I started to believe her story to be true. Maybe she had seen something out of this world! Maybe… the aliens were trying to contact us?

“OMG!” I thought. “I’m totally going to introduce them to Gossip Girl. It’s like totally going to revolutionize their world!” (jokes).

It wasn’t until later, after I had told most of my interested friends that my mom had seen a UFO, that my cousin called to inform us that they had identified the U in UFO. Turns out the alien spacecraft was just a toy that you could buy at the local general store. It’s kind of like a Frisbee, but lighter, so that it hovers for longer periods of time. My mom and I laughed. Of course! Alcohol + flying toy ÷ trailer park = spaceship. It all makes perfect sense now.

I thought that was the end of aliens with my family. WRONG! The very next weekend we were all up at the cottage. The night was clear, the stars were bright, the bon fire was warm and the beer was cold. My mom and dad went to bed earlier then the rest of us so I don’t know how it happened, but the next morning my mom says “Amanda, your dad saw a UFO last night!”

“You’ve got to be kidding!” I said.

Apparently they weren’t. My mom and dad tell me that in the middle of the night, when my dad got up to take his nightly pee, he saw an object flying over the lake. It was bright, oval in shape and flew over the lake and off into the distance. This incident is yet to be explained *cue X Files theme song*.

Shaking hands with a killer

They were warm and rough, nothing extraordinary or unusual about them. They were your average hands, except they had killed a man.

I met a murderer on a Greyhound to Owen Sound. I learned his name; Aaron, where his people were from; Cape Croker and his preferred brand of beer; Kokanee, but I never learned what made him snap and take the life of a friend. He said it happened in a fight and things “got out of hand”. A life was done in by his hands during a situation that he deemed out of hand.

Haven’t you ever imagined killing someone? I bet you have.

I caught the Greyhound in Toronto with my boyfriend; we were headed to the North Country to spend the long weekend with family, friends and beer in hand by the lake. As we watched out the window, city streets made way for rural fields, and the city bound passengers were replaced with more rural folk heading north. It was in the countrified city of Guelph where the most interesting characters came aboard. Two of them ambled down to the very back of the bus and sat right behind me and Scott. As the bus turned out of the station they started up a conversation. Pleasantries about the weather and the long weekend soon turned into more serious talks about where they were from and past shared experiences. It turns out they had more in common then they thought; both had done time in prison.

Stories were swapped as they drank the booze they’d hidden in their carry-ons. Chris, a middle aged white guy who was heading to Sauble Beach to meet a girl he found on the internet, had done five months in the slammer for drunk driving. Now he has to blow into his car to make it start; I guess that’s why he was taking the bus.

Aaron, the fellow convict, said “that’s nothing.”

Chris countered with “oh yeah, what were you in for?” His pride had been wounded.

“I just got done serving 10 years down below,” said Aaron in a beer soaked whisper.

The surprise was evident in Chris’ voice when he repeated his question. “But what were you in for?”

“I killed a guy,” replied Aaron. “I took his life.”

Chris didn’t need to respond. Aaron told him that he had gotten into a fight with his friend at the bar. The fight got out of hand and he ended up killing the man. He had been sent to prison, or “down below” as he called it. He had missed watching his son grow up over the murder of a friend. They started to talk about how prison changes you and about their families; both of them are fathers. They continued to drink as they talked and eventually Aaron leaned over our seat and offered Scott a beer. Scott accepted it which drew us into their conversation. As the bus continued driving into the night we talked about the weekend ahead. Scott told them we were headed to my cottage and Aaron was interested to know where it was. I told him Wiarton, which made him very pleased. He knew the town well and wanted to know who we knew in common, his people had always lived on the reserves near Wiarton. This place gave him a kinship to me and he continued to ask me about my people and how long we’d been in the area. Scott and he got into philosophical discussions about life and the choices we make. He freely admitted that killing someone had been a choice and that prison had changed him. I think that in his round about way he was trying to tell us that he’d learned his lesson.

As we pulled into our final stop Aaron was asking us if we wanted to go out for drinks with him and even offered us a ride home after. We politely declined. Chris was the first to get picked up and we wished him good luck with his internet lady. Aaron continued to try and convince us to head to the bar, he’d had such a good time on the bus with us he said and kept shaking our hands. Even when his ride appeared and was calling his name he continued telling us how he always meets the most interesting people on the bus and that he hoped to see us soon. He turned to get his ride and then came back to shake our hands… twice.

I shook hands with a murderer. Whose hands have you touched?

What do you mean by “abnormality”?

How do you respond when someone tells you that they’ve found an “abnormality” in your cervix that, could be nothing, or could be cancer? What do you say to that?

I said “okay”…. because that’s all I could manage at the time.

Last month I went in for my first official pap test. It was surprisingly easy! It left me feeling slightly uncomfortable for a couple hours, but other then that it was easy peasy lemon squeezy. The doctors at the clinic said that I really didn’t need a pap test because they’ve now started doing them only for women who have been sexually active for three years. I insisted that I wanted one… just in case. And I’m glad I did.

This morning I got the call with my test results. The woman from the clinic said the test had discovered some “abnormalities” in my cervix.

“It could be nothing,” she said. “Or it could be an early indicator of cervical cancer, we’re not sure yet.”

She told me that I needed to make an appointment for a second pap test in 6 months; if they find the same anomalies again they will then send me to a gynecologist to do more extensive testing. If I do indeed have cancer they will pursue treatment. This was the procedure, she assured me, and not to worry… it could be nothing.

Clearly she doesn’t know me! If you’ve read my last blog post you will know that “worry” is my middle name! I’ve now been sitting here pondering the fact that I have to wait 6 months to find out if I’m fine or that I might, possibly, maybe have cervical cancer. Should I spend the next 6 months doing all the things I’ve always wanted to do bucket list style? Or should I just start planning my funeral? Will my birthday next month be the last one I celebrate?

I know this may seem like an overreaction, but hearing the word “abnormality” and “cancer” used in the same sentence to describe your body is a little scary.

Along with my usual worrying I’ve been weighing the pros and cons. Pros: I’m young and strong enough to fight this if it turns out to be cancer. Cancer treatment has improved over the years and more people survive everyday. Like the doctor said “it could be nothing”. Cons: my dad had cancer, which doesn’t bode well in my favour. I could have cancer, a disease that they don’t technically have a cure for. Treatment for this cancer (in extreme cases removing the uterus) could ruin my dreams of becoming a mother.

It’s a lot to think about and something I wish I didn’t have to consider on such a lovely spring day. However, knowing what I know now I want to initiate some awareness. If you are a lady and haven’t had a pap test, go get one. They’re free and could save your life. Also, if you have the funds, consider getting the vaccination for HPV (which can cause cervical cancer). If you are a man and have a lady that you care about encourage her to get tested like I did… just in case. This is all I can really do as of now. In July I’ll have my second test and will be able to tell you more.

Worry Warts Anonymous

“Hi, my name is Amanda and I… am a worry wart!”

“Hi Amanda.”

“I had my last worry at 11:30 this morning. I started worrying when I was young, just a kid really. Back then I’d worry about never seeing my parents again after they left for work. I always had daymares that they would get killed in a car accident and never come home. Nowadays I worry about pretty much everything, even things that don’t technically exist. I blame three things for my worrying ways: 1) my over active imagination, 2) my (undiagnosed) separation anxiety from my family fostered in me as a child by two busy parents and 3) my mother’s extreme love for me giving her the tendency to worry which I then learned to copy. These three factors, mixed together, make a vicious cocktail of worry wart syndrome.”

“Testify!”

“I have suffered. Worrying is not fun, nor is it easy! It takes dedication and a good dosage of crazy to make a true worrier and I have dedication and crazy in spades! I have spent long, sleepless nights worrying about imaginary scenarios. I have broken out into hives over a worry that has started out small and then grown to consume me (like most of them do). I have tried many techniques to try and suppress my worrying: deep breathing, finding my happy place, mantras and alcohol! None of these worked. Why? Probably because my worry wart tendencies are so deeply rooted that they have become part of who I am. They are what makes me tick (sometimes twitch) and the only real thing I can do about it is to accept it! This morning I had a worry that got so big I started to sweat. My boyfriend was supposed to go pick up a painting that we had received as a gift from a friend. I called him to remind him of this fact, but every time I called his phone would say “we’re sorry, the person you are trying to reach is unavailable at this time.” My boyfriend never turns off his phone, so this was cause for concern. I tried texting him; nothing. I tried messaging him on Gtalk; nothing. I tried calling our friend to see if she’d seen him yet; nothing! This is when my over active imagination starts to wiggle. I imagined him getting mugged on the street and thrown in a gutter while the robbers made away with his phone. I pictured him going into a store to grab a drink on his way to the subway, when the store suddenly gets held up and he’s shot by a masked gunman! I also thought of train derailments, car accidents, gang warfare and abduction. Finally, boyfriend shows up on Gtalk and casually messages me a ‘good morning’… he’d been sleeping the entire time! The reason his phone wasn’t working was because it had disconnected randomly from the cell network(my phone does that too sometimes, damn Rogers). Sleeping in + disconnected phone = one frazzled Amanda. With apologies, soothing words and promises of pampering me during the weekend, boyfriend was able to get me to stop worrying. I then apologized for my spastic behaviour; he said it was okay and that he understands. Understands! That’s what I’ve needed from myself this entire time, some fucking understanding. Hi, my name is Amanda, I am a worry wart and I understand this. I accept it and am attempting to move on!”

*slow clap*