I really enjoy looking at the bright side of life. I mean, you only get one life, might as well accentuate the positive and learn from the negative, then move past it. So I thought it would be nice to do a series of blog posts on things I love, and why they are so awesome. Mostly, so I can look back with fondness at these things, but also in hopes that I might inspire friends to try out some of my favourites. So, let’s get started. Since I just went, let’s chat for a moment about swing dancing.

Fist, an unordered list of random things I enjoy:

• Hanging out with good friends
• Meeting new people
• Exercise that’s cleverly disguised as fun
• Big band music from the 30s and 40s
• Being goofy and silly and people finding that cool
• Feeling like a rockstar, if only for one song
• Figuring something new out and then perfecting it
• Covering up the “oh-no-tomorrow-is-Monday” dread

Add all these things together, mix thoroughly, and *BAM!* you have swing dancing. How much do I love dancing? Well, I bicycled about ten miles on Friday, hiked almost as many miles on Saturday, and went canoing on Sunday - my body was basically ready to mutiny on me, but I just couldn’t stay away from dancing at the Century Ballroom tonight. Even when my legs are ready to fall off, I start swing dancing and forget it all, I could dance for hours.

Another bonus: it’s physically impossible to be sad while swing dancing or even shortly thereafter. At least, that is, until you accidentally drive over a little white mouse on Denny Avenue on the way home. Oh, that made me so, so bummed.

But I digress - dancing is awesome. One of the things I love is that the crew that I go with is equally enthralled with dancing and we’re always trying to figure out new and interesting looking moves. We’ll work on a technique until we nail it, and then integrate it into our dance “vocabulary” for the future. We’re all getting better together. We also usually have an even ratio of gals to guys, meaning we all get to dance every song, and everyone has their own style. Tonight we even did a bit of a “do-si-do” during which the whole group of us would simultaneously change partners several times during one song. It was a blast. We took some great shots tonight, once the guys upload them I’ll be sure to add to this post.

I think it goes without saying (but people always follow up that phrase by stating the obvious, and who am I to break societal norms?) that I highly recommend swing dancing. Special emphasis on the Lindy Hop, which is like all the awesomeness of swing dancing plus the coolness of ten ninjas. If you’d like to give it a go, I’d recommend just running a Google search for “swing dance” plus the name of your town and you’re likely to come up with a lot of options (assuming you live in someplace mildly entertaining). Swing has a huge following all over the United States.