Not with a bang, but with a thud.

NYE, Caritas Carney Hospital, Dorchester, MA. Hey 2010, do you really need to get in one last dig before you sweep out the door?

[sigh.] Apparently yes, because if you were listening carefully around 8:00 p.m. local time you might have heard me crashing to the hardwood floor of a Dorchester apartment. I was the victim of an orthostatic syncope, which is I-paid-a-lot-of-money-for-these-letters-after-my-name for 'head rush'. What was tricky was that I was unconscious for... awhile... and then my blood pressure wouldn't stabilise, so the EMTs called by Flattie Karen's overly-cautious nurse girlfriend decided I had to go to the ER. They found nothing wrong with me, of course, because there's nothing actually wrong with me, so they did what they do in hospitals when they can't figure out what else to do: hook you up to a litre of saline and give you a pregnancy test. (Spoiler: I'm not.)

And that's where I stayed, alone, until about 11:30 p.m.; at which point I returned home, babbled inarticulately at a roomful of people I mostly didn't know, wandered into my room, and fell asleep face-down in my clothes. It kind of was the perfect end to that year.

Don't think for a second, though, that I didn't enjoy myself. There are certain bizarre situations in which I excel, and left to my own devices in the ER? That's about six of them. I made friends, you guys. Of course I did. I made friends with the nurse who kept complimenting my hair, and with the registrar who told me I had 'tiny, pretty feet', and with the doctor who conducted my neuro assessment in the following fashion: 'Okay, follow my finger: look up look down look right you have beautiful eyes look left'.

I swear I'm not making this up.

So yes, that was my NYE. A rather different kind of night than I had expected, but equally eventful in its way. I'm happy to say that there have been no lasting ill effects. I personally suspect that I'm fighting off a virus because I've been kind of rundown and also because it's Boston in winter, so everyone's always fighting off something. Nothing to worry about, anyway, just a typical Brain Scan Moment (hi, Marie!).

In other news, I have had a major achievement today: I have suddenly worked out how to do a full kneeling backbend, which is a belly dancing trick I've been trying to get for, seriously, years. I don't know why all of a sudden it worked, but it did. Which is how it seems to go with belly dancing, for me at least: I'll work and work and work and get frustrated and give up and try again and work and work and work and get frustrated and lather rinse repeat, and then one day I'll do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way except this time, I get it right. And then I just keep getting it right.

Let me try to explain what today's trick entails:

1. Kneel down.
2. Lean back.
3. Keep leaning back until your shoulders hit the ground.
4. Get back up.
5. Don't cripple yourself.

That's what I've learned to do. It looks like this and it feels like... well, it feels like awesome, but I don't have a good picture for that. But I'm way past psyched about it. It's really kind of a big deal, definitely not something every dancer can do; it's cool enough that Zehara's going to change the new troupe choreography to incorporate it. I'm... yeah, I'm excited about it.

And speaking of photos, here are a few from the dagger performance. The makeup looks a bit OTT because I'd done it for stage but the camera zoomed, so ignore the warpaint effect and pay attention to the fuck-off chainmail instead. In that last one, that's my final pose and I'm doing the Bruce Lee 'bring it' gesture. I have the best ridiculous hobby, you guys.

XOXO