Gingerly dipping my toes back into Salsa

February 25, 2006

Johnny & Serap’s Big Salsa Party 2

The party was held at Frank and Lee Center – a part of the Addenbrooke’s Hospital complex. The dance hall shape was a large octagonal space serving as the main floor with a smaller rectangular space leading to the bar. Diverse mix of people from all over both familiar and unfamiliar to me was present, dancing, chilling or socializing. It seemed to me that Johnny & Serap were pleased with how the party turned out. Highlight of the party for me – happenings during a Michael Jackson song reminding me of a certain freakish moment.

The beginner lessons were scheduled to start at 7 PM and the party proper would have started by no later than 8:30 PM. As for me, I missed essentially the first half of the party as I arrived around 10:30 PM, which was just as well because I wanted to minimize amount of dancing I did tonight for a number of reasons. In order to help achieve this aim, I wore more layers of clothing than I needed and wore slippers instead of normal shoes to the party. Thus I didn’t notice that the dance floor was nice and slippery until I changed to my other shoes about half an hour after my arrival.

As of early Friday evening, I was thinking that I would not be able to attend tonight’s party. This was because although my conditions were slowly improving but not quickly enough. Thus when I found myself in much better condition (relatively speaking) this morning, several thoughts entered my mind including, “This is the kind of big improvement I told Johnny that I would need to have for me to go to his party” and “I’m still not in good enough condition for a normal night of dancing” and “I should do what I can to show there’s room and demand for a big monthly Salsa social in a larger venue in Cambridge.” Once I arrived, one more thought came to my mind, “I don’t want to be seen as recklessly risking other people into catching whatever bug that I had.” I must admit that this last thought is a little bizarre considering that I was already there and some diseases can be transmitted without body contact. That I considered the risk of infection spreading from me very low and that there were other people who came to party without fully having recovered from their own illness are somewhat beside the point. Anyhow, during my time at tonight’s party I ended up only doing some shines, which was enough of an exercise - as my muscles have barely begun to recover from aches and mass loss. I'm guessing I lost about 3-4 pounds in body weight over last 3-4 days. With the British diet, it may take months if not several weeks to regain that.

Prognosis for near future. I don’t expect any more dramatic improvement – I only get one such event per illness. I expect to have fair bit of muscle soreness for another 2-3 days. Some activities (e.g. sitting in front of computer at work and driving) may continue to aggravate soreness for a week or two. I probably won’t make this blog private and inaccessible despite some temptations. My voice and breathing may not return to normal for about a week.

Chances of going to SOS tomorrow – zero (driving long distance is not a good idea for me right now).

Chances of going to Club Salsa upcoming Monday – well over 50%.