Last night my friend Bonnie and I went to a swing dance with live rockabilly music in Fayetteville, and my friend Matt from Springfield drove in to meet us. Y’all, it was a screamin’ good time. We danced our butts off. Personally, I barely sat down. At the end of the band’s first set, I was so drenched in sweat that I could have easily won a wet t-shirt contest. That’s the only downside to a night of hard swing dancing–all the perspiration and consequent body odors. (It’s disgusting.) That being said, you sure do burn a lot of calories, so maybe it all evens out.

After the dance was over and there was room on the floor, Matt and I decided work on some aerials (dance stunts). This was all my idea, since I’ve recently realized what fun it is to be tossed is the air, and Matt’s one of the only leaders I know willing to toss me. (I’m not exactly petite.) I say “toss,” which makes it sound like the follower is a sack of potatoes that the leader simply heaves over his shoulder. But that’s not how aerials work. When done right, both the leader (base) and the follower (flyer) exert equal amounts of effort. Anyway, Matt and I worked until we were both worn out, mostly on a move called The Lamp Post, in which the follower goes up and around the leader’s head.

Here’s a video of our “work in progress.”

One thing I forgot to mention is that last night’s dance was held at a gymnastics studio. So get this shit. After all that jumping around on the dance floor, I got to jump around on some honest-to-god trampolines. Y’all, my sister and I used to have a trampoline when were growing up, and last night I felt like a kid again–flying high into the air, flipping forward, flipping back. I even got to jump into a foam pit! I can’t tell you how much fun it was. That being said, I was sucking air after only a few minutes of jumping, and I’m not quite sure how I used to bounce around like that for hours.

Also, I must have done something to my lower back, as I could barely walk out of the building. It’s better today, but my body has still been “talking to me” nonstop. At one point this afternoon I could have sworn I heard it say, “Who do you think you are jumping around like that–Tinker Bell?! Did you forget that we’re almost forty damn years old?”

“Um, yes–yes, I did,” I replied as I grabbed my hip with one hand and reached for the muscle relaxers with the other. “But thank you for so clearly reminding me of our age.”

Since Matt and Bonnie and I stayed late after the dance AND THEN went to dinner, I didn’t end up going to bed until four in the morning. And whereas I slept in today, I still haven’t quite recovered. Also, my body has been acting weird. This evening I helped my parents set up their television and other living room electronics, since they recently got a new TV stand. Y’all, I was up and down, up and down, just like on the trampoline last night, and I got light-headed. This sometimes happens when I eat a Paleo diet, so I ended up saying, Fuck it–I need more carbs, and eating two hard-shell tacos with cheese for dinner. (They were delicious.)

Here’s a picture of my parents’ new TV stand. Since we hid the electronics inside one of the cabinets, I had the hardest time filling up the shelves in the middle (intended for electronics) with appropriately sized knickknacks. I literally had to beg, borrow, and steal from the rest of the house in order for this to come together. But alas, it finally did.

Now it’s 3:30 in the morning, and my brain is shutting down. Also, my allergies are kicking in. My eyes won’t stop watering. Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten that cheese. Or maybe God shouldn’t have made the pollen count so high in Arkansas. Either way, I’m about to pop a couple antihistamines, maybe some Ibuprofen, and pass out. Last night when I was dancing I thought, I feel like myself again. But clearly I’m not over the hump. In addition to the allergies, my skin is doing all these crazy things, my energy level is still up and down like an aerial. And yet as frustrated as I am with my health, I’m also beyond thankful for these happy, childlike moments when I find myself dancing or jumping on a trampoline, even soaring over someone’s head. In these moments, I have no complaints. So maybe it all evens out. I fret about what will happen next, but I look at my parents’ TV stand and think, Don’t worry, Marcus. Everything else is coming together too.