A WEEKEND IN THE LIFE OF A TRAVELING DANCER

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  So many people- friends, family members, aspiring dancers and even  random strangers sitting next to me on airplanes- are always very curious about what it's like being a traveling professional dancer. My standard answer is usually something along the lines of :

"It's a lot of fun, but it's also a lot of work!"

 But that doesn't really begin to scratch the surface.

 There are indescribable highs, like getting paid to travel the world doing something you adore, seeing fabulous sights and meeting wonderful new people. There are extreme lows, too, like working when you're absolutely exhausted and riddled with jet lag or working while injured. Both of these are constants, no matter how young, flexible or healthy you are, no matter how well you eat or how much you try to take care of yourself. Often, your injuries don't have time to heal because a) you need to work constantly and b) you never get enough sleep-ever! Homesickness can be an issue too. Even if  you love to travel, when you're doing it all the time,  you miss your loved ones.

 Unless you've "been there", you really can't imagine what being on the road is really like. But here's a blow-by-blow approximation of one of my typical weekend trips,which I do two to four weekends a month-unless I'm on an actual tour...enjoy!

FRIDAY

7:00- 7:15 AM

 Wake up, hit snooze on the alarm, prepare strong coffee and a green smoothie. Drink both while rinsing off  your face,  popping in contact lenses, feeding and petting the kitties. Get dressed in sweats and sneakers.

7:15-8:20 AM

 Swift 20 minute walk. Shower, apply body lotion and moisturizer. Put on the clothes you’ll wear to the airport and apply just enough make up- eyebrow power, mascara, lip gloss and a touch of blush- so that the general public won’t scream and run when they catch sight of your sleep-deprived, puffy face.

8:20-9:00 AM

Cut up some veggies to take on the plane while scarfing down an apple mixed with Greek yoghurt and cinnamon...which you use liberally because of it's anti-inflammatory properties. Drink another cup of coffee while paying for your checked bag online and printing out your boarding pass. Stuff your Tempur-Pedic pillow into the bag of teaching clothes and merch you’re checking through to your final destination. Go through your cosmetic bag to make sure all liquids and gels have been removed and placed in the TSA Approved quart-size plastic bag that will live in your purse. Do a “dummy check”, making double sure you have every piece of the two costumes that are already sitting in your carry-on bag.

9:00 AM-10: 30 AM

 Open the Uber app,  request a car and bring both suitcases outside. Say goodbye to your boyfriend and the cats. Load your bags into the car when it arrives, ride through gridlock Los Angeles rush hour traffic to LAX.

10:30-11:15 AM

 Arrive at the airport, check your bag curbside. Get in line to go through Airport Security, trying not to become disgusted with the idiots who haven’t obeyed the “3-1-1’ quart baggie rule and are holding up the line. Find your departure gate. Purchase a hideously overpriced liter of water. Discover (yet again) that the notoriously bad Free Wi-Fi at LAX isn’t working well enough for you to log onto Facebook. Buy a tabloid and read it until your flight starts boarding.

11:50 AM

Your flight finishes boarding and takes off. Go through the notes for the workshops you’re teaching, even though you’ve taught them many times. Glance at the schedule for the weekend;  happily you don’t have to judge a competition, only  teach and perform. Finish the tabloid and donate it to the flight attendants. Eat your veggies, trying not to cave in to the salted peanuts being passed out, because if you eat them, you'll arrive looking like The Elephant Man. Idly browse though the airline magazine tucked in the pocket of the seat in front of you while trying to ignore the loudly whining child whose repeatedly kicking  the back of your seat.

4:40- 6:45 PM CST

 You’re now on Central Standard Time, laying over at ORD, aka Chicago O’Hare Airport. Take the shuttle between terminals to your next departure gate.  Text your sponsor to let her know your plane seems to be taking off on time. Rejoice in the fact that the ORD free Wi-Fi actually has a strong signal. Do some administrative work during remaining hour before your next flight, returning emails about an up-coming class series, sending workshop descriptions to a potential sponsor for next year and photos to producer designing a poster for a show you’re doing in five months. Buy a salad at an airport kiosk. Text your sponsor again, letting her know that due to stormy weather, your flight has been delayed for a half hour.  Board the next plane, eat your salad and try to discreetly stretch in the aisle near the galley and restrooms while the rest of the passengers doze.

9:45PM- 12:20 PM EST

 Arrive on the East Coast, wait twenty minutes for your checked luggage to appear, drag both suitcases out to the curb to meet your sponsor. Sponsor arrives, greets you with a hug, helps you load luggage, and you both chat while she drives you to your hotel and you check in. Bring luggage up to the room, call boyfriend to tell him you are safe at your destination. Go out in search of food. Most places are closed at this hour; drive around for nearly thirty minutes, winding up at TGI Friday’s perusing the menu for something healthy to eat. Have a glass of wine with sponsor, eat, giggle. Return to hotel room.

12:20-2:10 AM

Turn on the television; cruise through the channels until you find a suitably riveting reality show. Unpack; hang up costumes, iron skirts and veils for tomorrow evening’s show. Move dance togs and merchandise into your carry-on bag to bring to the workshop in the morning. Remove make up, wash face, brush teeth, set alarm for 6:45 am, and try desperately to fall asleep. Finally, you do.

SATURDAY

 6:45 AM

 Wake up, hit the snooze button  repeatedly on your phone. Toddle down to the lobby in the clothes you wore on the plane, make a “to go” plate of the only things you can eat at the breakfast buffet- hardboiled eggs, a banana, an apple. Pour a huge Styrofoam cup of super-weak hotel coffee. Go back up to the room. Dump a pack of Starbuck’s Via instant coffee into the hotel coffee, find another reality show, watch it while guzzling the doctored-up coffee and eating your breakfast, to which you’ve added a one of the nutrition bars you packed in your checked luggage. Get in the shower.

7:45-8:37 AM

Dress in your teaching clothes, apply make up so as to look as though you are  actually a member of the human race. Remember that students will want selfies with you, so apply a little more eye shadow and a brighter lipstick so that you will vaguely resemble the promo photos for the event that are plastered all over Facebook. Sponsor texts you saying there will not be time to return to the hotel after the workshops and before the show, and that she will arrive in fifteen minutes to bring you to the studio.  Madly dash around the hotel room, packing your costumes and cosmetic bag into the suitcase with the merch…so much for the ironing you did last night! Take elevator to the lobby, wait outside for the sponsor.  She pulls up, helps you get your bag in the trunk and hands you a tall latte with an extra shot of espresso. Hear angels singing as you sip the coffee, trying not to spill it as the sponsor races to the studio.

9:00Am-1: 29 PM

Arrive at the dance studio, set up your merch, greet students and make small talk. Class begins ten minutes late due to stragglers. Teach for an hour and a half, take a break and sell some merch, pose for photos with students. Resume teaching.  The workshop is supposed to end at noon, but everyone wants more photos. Chat with students while they are taken. Lunch is supposed to be from 12:30 to 1:30, but since you’re being mobbed, the sponsor has thoughtfully sent out a volunteer to get you a salad.  Eat the salad sitting on the floor in the studio while returning emails.  Call your boyfriend and leave a message. Check Instagram and Twitter. Students trickle in to the studio, chat with them and take more selfies.

1:30-4:49 PM

Teach your second workshop, sign a few DVD covers and sell more merch during the break. Three dancers you’ve taught several times before in two different states greet you and there are hugs all around.  They’ve driven for four and a half hours to come to this event. One of them gives you a gorgeous necklace; the others confide that they have a bottle of champagne for later.  Pose for a class shot with the sponsor and all the students; pack up your merch.  Drag luggage to the car, put it in the trunk.

5:15 PM

 Arrive at theater; claim a corner in the dressing room, lay out costumes, and hang up veils. Do a tech check for sound and lights.  Go to men’s room to apply Stage Face undisturbed, since the venue is overrun with female dancers, and the lighting in the dressing room blows for make up application. Eat some grapes  somebody's sharing with a nutrition bar and call it dinner. Guzzle a sport-sized bottle of water mixed with powdered green juice mix.

7:00 PM 

The doors in the venue are open.  Warm up and stretch in a hallway backstage along with a few other performers while listening to your set on your iPod. Socialize in the dressing room and have half a plastic cup of the champagne your friends are passing around.  Change into your first costume.

8:30 PM

The show has started. Shimmy non-stop backstage and try to stay somewhat quiet as more selfies-this time with crazy faces- are taken.  Text the BF at home; he answers back that the cats are all good. Watch bits and pieces of the show from the wings of the stage…many good dancers are performing tonight.

9:15 PM

 Intermission. Much of the cast is in the lobby mingling with friends and family. Pack up your first costume; change into the second one. Put your hair up in pin curls and stage-proof the wig that goes over them. Change your lipstick color to a darker, retro shade. Touch up your eye make up. Warm up...again.

10:00 PM

The show went great, the curtain call was fun, and the cast has given you flowers. Pack up  your stuff  while socializing amidst a dressing room full of shrieking dancers  all still high on stage  adrenalin.  Give gentle critique to the dancers who (inevitably) ask for it. Go to the lobby, pick up your merch and payment from the vending table. Pose for more  photos. Grab your suitcase from the dressing room and drag upstairs and to the street.  Throw in the  sponsor's trunk.

10:42 PM- 1:38 AM 

After party at a local restaurant. Of course your bag comes into the restaurant with you because you’re too paranoid to leave it in the car.  Drinks are served; you nurse one because you have to be on point in tomorrow’s workshops, plus you’re super-tired…and starving. The restaurant is crowded with tables full of rowdy, elated dancers. Make the rounds and chat with everyone. Take pix and post them on Facebook and Instagram. The food is taking forever; you’re ready to eat the furniture.

2:11 AM

Arrive at the hotel; try to work up the energy to scrape all the glitter and eyelash glue off your face. Turn on The Weather Channel for Storm Stories, switch to a true crime show because you’ve seen that episode before…last week, in fact…in another hotel room, in a different state.  Unpack your costumes and drape them over a chair to air out. Repack your carry on with merch and teaching clothes.  Wash your face as the killer whose being profiled on the crime show is being sentenced.

2:53 AM

Call your boyfriend to say goodnight because it’s three hours earlier in Los Angeles. Slather your sore hips with Arnica, your face with heavy-duty moisturizer, guzzle water and take vitamins. Try valiantly not to pick at the “road zit” that’s developing on your left cheek. Cover it in toothpaste, which works as a pinch-hitting astringent, replacing the Clearasil you apparently forgot to pack.  Listen to the uproarious racket of dancers having an after-after party down the hall.

3:16 AM

Turn off the television and lights, grateful that the workshops are starting at 10:30 am; as opposed to 9:00…you get to sleep in!  Pass out cold.

SUNDAY

7:32 AM

Somehow, you’re wide-awake. Lounge in bed for twenty minutes returning emails before getting up for real when your phone alarm goes off.

 8:00 AM

Stumble down to the lobby, noticing under the fluorescent lights in the buffet line that your limbs are still coated in glitter from last night’s show.  Become ridiculously happy that there’s scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast because it’s Sunday. Eat tons of food in the lobby’s café area, semi- incoherently rehashing last night’s show with a couple of dancers who are also staying at the hotel.  They admit they’re extremely hung over, but are excited about today’s workshops. Steal a couple of bananas from the buffet for later and fill a to-go cup with coffee. Stop by the front desk and print out your boarding passes for tomorrow morning’s flight.

8:36-9:59 AM

 Dump two packets of Starbuck’s via into your shitty hotel coffee, shower, make up and stretch to The Real Housewives Of New Jersey.  Return emails; one of them is from and LA dancer asking if you can sub her class the day after you get back. You accept and note it on your calendar. Another is from a sponsor asking about your music for a show that’s happening in a month and a half. You write back, saying you’ll send it when you get home the next day. Try not to notice the road zit, which is reaching massive proportions and looks like it’s going to blow like Mt. Vesuvius at any moment.

10:02 AM

 Sponsor -fully made up but looking half asleep- arrives  to pick you up from the lobby. She suggests stopping for espresso at a local coffee drive through and you practically jump on her in gratitude.

10:30 AM- 12:30 PM

 Teach your first workshop, which gets off to an awfully slow start because everyone’s bushed from the show and parties the evening before. Pose for photos, sell merch. Take a call from your boyfriend, the kitties are good. You miss them terribly and feel guilty about leaving them.

12:40 PM-1: 25 PM

 Lunch at a Mexican joint near the studio with lots of dancers. Shovel a tostada salad into your mouth, wishing it was enchiladas... and that you could have a margarita and nap after you licked the plate clean.

1:30 PM-3: 30 PM

The second workshop actually starts on time; the dancers pick up technique quickly, and it’s a blast.  Take a class photo, sign some books. Dancers who are leaving the event come up and say their goodbyes, take more photos with them.

4:00 PM-6: 7:17 PM

 Three private lessons in the studio, two single lessons and one small group who wants pointers on choreography in progress. They show up in full make up and costume, running there number-which looks great-like a well-oiled machine.

7: 20 PM 

Return to the hotel to drop off your suitcase, change and freshen up for dinner. Call the BF, no answer. Return emails from the lobby while waiting for the sponsor to arrive.

7:45 Am -9:50 PM

The sponsor and her troupe members bring you to dinner at lovely local restaurant. Everyone is exhausted but happy, dinner and cocktails are ordered.  Hear about some local dance drama during appetizers. Share dessert with everyone and call it a night.

10: 14 PM- 1:44 AM

 Arrive back at the hotel; listen to Scared Straight on television while packing your suitcases. The checked bag is considerably lighter because most of your merch was sold. Yay. Talk to your boyfriend and your sister.  Facebook chat with a European sponsor ( it's morning over there) about an upcoming workshop weekend. Write a cursory entry in the journal you didn’t have time for all weekend long. Start working on a new blog post while listening to some  creepy paranormal documentary on Nat Geo.  Get ready for bed. Pass out.

MONDAY

6:45 AM

Wake up, shower, and grab breakfast in the lobby while trying to write another journal entry. Slip an apple and a hardboiled egg into your purse to eat on the plane. Take the elevator back up to your room, pack up your toiletries, do a dummy check, and leave some change for the maid. The Do Not Disturb sign has been up on your door all weekend and the bathroom in particular is a horror show, full of wet towels covered in glitter and body make up plus  an overflowing trash can.

7:57 AM-9: 02 AM

 Sponsor meets you in the lobby to check you out and pay you. Sit on a floral couch under a gaily-colored over-sized  annoying "corporate art"  painting while going over the finances for the event.  She pays you and asks you back for the year after next. You accept. Load the suitcases into the car, drive to the airport.

9:30 AM

  Sponsor drops you off, you hug. It was a fabulous event. Thank the Universe silently for TSA Pre-Check as you whiz through the long Monday morning security line. Find your gate; buy a liter of electrolite water and a copy of Allure to read on the plane. Board the plane, silently surround your row with White Light, praying that no one will join you and you can stretch out. Your prayers don't work, but you congratulate yourself on being anal about always booking an aisle seat.

11:30 AM CST

 Change planes at ORD, thankful that the sky looks clear because it seems like every time you go through this damn airport there’s a  severe weather delay.  Find your gate, read about the new anti-aging techniques that are being developed.  Feel a slightly depressed because  now you not only have wrinkles, your face is puffy from far too few hours of sleep and the road zit is now the size of South America.  Board your second plane and heave a sigh of relief because this time the White Light trick actually worked! Spread out. Eat lots of tiny packets of salted peanuts...who cares if you look like The Elephant Man  when you're on your way home?

 3:30 PM PST

 Finally home after narrowly missing LA’s Monday Rush Hour. The cats swarm you, purring. Your boyfriend has cleaned the house and it looks amazing. Put your phone on the charger, slather Clearasil on South America, and pig out on some watermelon before taking a nap.

5:45 PM

 Wake up with your phone’s alarm. You could totally  sleep waaaay longer, but then you won’t be able to sleep at all later, and you have a full day of errands- plus a Skype private and the class you agreed to sub- the next day.

6:07 PM

 Walk into the living room, open your suitcases, and a kitty jumps in. Trying not to disturb him, add in a new stack of merch: t-shirts, more DVDs, copies of your book, and a box of promotional postcards. 

 Remove your class clothes and costumes, replacing them with fresh leggings, unworn tank tops and different costumes…because you’re doing this all over again in four days.

 #

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 For some truly crazy stories about my years of travel, check out my memoir Showgirl Confidential: My Life Onstage, backstage And On The Road. Purchase an autographed copy here:

 http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.htm

THE WILDEST RIDES OF 2011: OF POWER OUTAGES, BATS, BETTY BOOP AND PORN STARS

I spent most of 2011 on the road, which wasn’t much of a change from the previous few years. Though I could definitely live without the scary airport food and the hassle of condensing my cosmetics in a TSA-approved quart baggie, I love most aspects of traveling. To this day, I feel blessed grateful that I am not only doing something I love- performing and teaching dance- but that I get to travel all over the world to do it!

But life on the road isn’t always glamourous as you might think… I often joke that every year, I lose at least fifty IQ points to jetlag!

Traveling seems to generate unusual incidents, at least for me it does. I’ve been through four separate hotel fires: Vancouver, BC, Memphis Tennessee, on board the Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, and at the Mena House in Cairo. I’ve missed countless planes and had my suitcase handle break off on an English train platform… while the train departed... and my suitcase remained at the station! I’ve been delayed and searched at international borders, spent the night in a Cairo police station, and bump into all sorts of random people at airports, including rock stars. Ron Wood from The Stones helped me get my bags off the carousel once, and I walked right into Alice Cooper at the airport in Athens, Greece. I see people I know in foreign places, too. On a flight from Heathrow to Cairo, the only two people that were in First Class were Jillina and I…and on the return flight, which transferred through Paris, I was coincidentally booked on the same plane to LAX as my ex-husband!

Beyond that, once in a while, it gets even wackier. Sometimes it’s just a matter of not understanding the language or confusion over local customs, but other times things get so totally out of hand and downright bizarre that I actually start to think:

“There’s the signpost up ahead… The Twilight Zone!”

In 2011, I was in five different countries before Valentine's Day, and wasn’t home longer than a week and a half until just before this past Christmas. As per usual, I spent a lot of that travel time on a bullet train to Crazy Town… so I’m gonna share with you my year’s re-cap, The Wildest Rides Of 2011.


In February 2011, I went on a solo European dance tour. Not only did my luggage get lost three times on flights to three different countries, but also the two and a half hour ferryboat ride from Helsinki, Finland to Tallinn, Estonia was completely surreal.

To begin with, Finland and Estonia are so far north that in February, it doesn’t get light til about 10:00am, and darkness sets in again a little after 3:00pm. That alone is disorienting to a California Sunshine Gal like me. The median temperature while I was there was 28 degrees BELOW zero. My nostrils literally froze and my eyes ached every time I went outside. I don’t know how those gals look glamourous in winters like that, but they all do!

The morning I was leaving Helsinki to go to Tallinn, I had to be up super early, check out of the hotel, and get to the ferry dock two hours before the ship departed at 9:00 am…. or, as I took to calling it, “dawn”. I was meeting my Estonian sponsor Berit and the other gals from her belly dance studio Mustika, at the Helsinki dock, because they’d come to Finland for my workshops.

In my haste, I didn’t have time for breakfast, so I grabbed a hard-boiled egg from the buffet and shoved it into my purse.


The dock looked like Ellis Island- I didn’t know the ferry was going to be so big, it was the size of a cruise ship. The embarkation line stretched outside, into the darkness and falling snow. Also, the ocean was completely frozen. The boats all had ice cutters on the prow and as they pulled in and out of the harbor huge chunks of ice flew up like a gigantic blender!


I finally found the Estonian girls, and we got on the ferry. It was three stories high, there was a duty free shop, a huge casino, restaurants, and a bar lounge that had karaoke, where we settled. Beiritt said it was the best place to spend the journey, and asked if I wanted breakfast or coffee from the bar.

I dug in my purse and pulled out my egg, confessing I’d had no idea there’d be food onboard.

All the Estonian dancers laughed in disbelief.

“You look like an old Russian grandma!”, said Daisi, a burlesque artist from Tallinn, as Berit took off her scarf and wrapped it around my head like a babushka. “What else do you have in your purse?”

The ship started sailing and the moment we had our coffee, a lounge singer came on, singing Beatles and Johnny Cash songs in Finnish, Estonian and Russian.

“Oh shit,” Daisi groaned, “This is not helping my hangover!”

Soon the karaoke began. As Daisi winced in pain and the other girls kept joking about my egg, we were treated to hideous versions in various languages of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” and the enduring all-time Euro-trash hit, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

Soon, a young, wholesome looking guy dressed all in white, with a tousled blonde bowl-cut took the microphone, and before he started singing, everyone burst into applause.

As he launched into a terrifyingly off-key rendition A-Ha’s “Take On Me”, the Estonian dancers started laughing hysterically and whispering amongst themselves.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, utterly confused since they were speaking Estonian.

“Oh, this man singing is the biggest porn star in Estonia!” Yahna exclaimed.

“No way!” I said, convinced they were making fun of me in all my jet lag.

“No, really, he is!” Daisi assured me, “ Everyone knows him in Estonia, and he is very, very famous for his bondage and latex videos!”

As I sat dumbfounded, Berit added,

“ His name is Arnold, but we call him “Second Arnold” because “First Arnold” is our president, Arnold Ruutel!”

Just before “Second Arnold” launched into Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me”, I started to believe them, because a few audience members went up to him and had him sign autographs on napkins.

“ I can’t take this any more,” Berit, declared, “I’m going to Duty Free.”

When she returned, Second Arnold was still hogging the mic. He was on his sixth song, much to the delight of the crowd. A few matronly older women stormed the stage, giggling like schoolgirls, taking pictures.

“ I got you something to go with your egg!” Berit cried, handing me a foot-long plastic sperm, with big googley cartoon eyes.

As Second Arnold began to croon Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like The Wolf”, I held the giant sperm in my hand, regarding it mutely, quite unsure of reality at this point.

“Some cream for your coffee!” Yahna laughed, as Berit unscrewed the sperm’s head and poured a whitish-yellow substance out of its body and into my cup.

As I stared in shock, Berit assured me it was Bailey’s Irish Crème… and, thankfully it really was!

Arnold didn’t stop singing for the rest of the voyage.


* * *

It’s June 2011, and I’m in Cairo, which is curiously quiet and sedate due to the social unrest that has plagued Egypt for most of the spring. There are practically no tourists anywhere, and the Ahlan Wa Sahlan Belly Dance Festival has only about 200 attendees, as opposed to about 1,500 the year before.

My jet lag has grown to new proportions, as it always does by mid-year. I am no longer sure what time it is anywhere. The jetlag to Egypt is always really bad, but this year, it seems worse. I literally haven’t slept in three days.

So, I’m talking to a really nice lady about buying some traditional Egyptian galibayyas. She has a beautiful, friendly looking face, and her hijab perfectly matches the pink bowling shirt – embroidered with a huge Betty Boop- that she is wearing over her own galibayya.

She speaks very good English, and I’m trying to stay focused on the conversation, but I’m so spun out from lack of sleep, my eyes keep drifting from her face to her shirt. There’s English writing on it, but as she moves around, unfolding garments for me to look at, I can’t see exactly what it says. Eventually, I sort of make out the slogan…and it seems to me like something a crack whore would be wearing in a Laughlin, Nevada trailer park.

I remind myself that I am, in fact, In Cairo, and there’s no way in hell this gracious Egyptian woman would be wearing a shirt with an obscene joke on it.

Finally, after I’ve paid for the galibayyas, she stands still for a second, and I realize that her shirt indeed says exactly what I think it says:

IF YOUR GONNA RIDE MY ASS, AT LEAST PULL MY HAIR

I can’t stop staring in utter amazement, it’s as though I’m hypnotized… and then she notices me looking.

“Uh…. I like your shirt,” I manage lamely.

“Oh yes!” she says enthusiastically, pointing to Betty Boop,

“ I AM SO LOVE CARTOON!”

Suddenly, I realize she has absolutely no idea what her shirt says…and apparently nobody else does, either…. otherwise she wouldn’t be wearing it!

I tell her that her English is very good, and ask her if she reads English as well as speaking it. She shakes her head no.

“What it says?” she asks me, as if on cue, “Read shirt to me!”

Since her hair is covered, I know she is religious. If I tell her what the shirt really says, she will be absolutely humiliated. Beyond humiliated. I think there’s a good chance she will run to the bathroom, crying hysterically, and I don’t to embarrass her in any way. I can’t think of anything to substitute for what is written on she shirt, and I’m panicking.

Finally, I come up with a solution. I ask if she’s married. When the answer is affirmative, I know it’s safe to say to her,

“I can’t tell you exactly what your shirt says, but in America, this shirt is very funny…and…” I let my voice drop to a confidential whisper, “ Well…it’s also a little bit sexy!”

“Oooh!” She gasps in delight, her eyes widen and her hand flies up to her mouth as she chortles conspiratorially,

“I like very much sexy!”

Since she has made a good sale, we’ve had a nice glass of tea together and now, we are both laughing out loud she insists that we take a picture together…so, of course I oblige!


* * *

It’s September 2011 and I’m furiously preparing for The Las Vegas Belly Dance Intensive. Not only am I performing and teaching at the event, my brand new line of Egyptian costumes- Princess Farhana For King Of The Nile- will be making it’s debut at there, in three fashion shows. I’ve spent the past two and a half months on Skype to Cairo with my partner Yaz Taleb for hours every day, approving designs and seeing finished products. I’m also going crazy trying via email to corral the fourteen belly dancers models- from seven different states- to pin down their availability for the fashion shows.

Yaz emails that he’s sent the costume boxes from Egypt, but when I try to track them, all that comes up is a notice saying:

ALL DELIVERIES DELAYED INDEFINATELY DUE TO HURRICANE IRENE


I try to breathe evenly and ignore my impending sense of doom, but I can’t help it.

A few days later, as Yaz arrives in America and the tracking shows that the boxes arrived…. Thank God!

All is going well until the Friday of Labor Day weekend, when I somehow re-injure my neck. Two years ago I was in my car at a full stop when an SUV plowed into my vehicle, resulting in my suffering severe whiplash and six- yes, six- herniated discs. During my extensive treatment and healing process, my doctors had warned me that my spine would " never be the same", and that sometimes, the “jelly” inside the disc would bulge out and create discomfort.

Well, I’m here to tell you that I have never, ever experienced pain like this before, not even when the accident had first occurred!

I called every doctor I could, but because it was a holiday weekend, nobody was in. I began icing immediately, swallowed insane amounts of ibuprophen and paced constantly like a lunatic because the pain was so intense. It felt like there were electric screwdrivers in my neck and blowtorches on my shoulder, it was nuts. I can't sit or sleep, and I'm moaning and keening out loud like a wild animal that's just been shot. This goes on all weekend.

Monday is Labor Day, and it’s Tuesday morning before my doctor calls me back.

The doctor diagnoses me with a cervical disc that is bulging onto my nerve channels and sets me up with steroids and a new pain medication that I’d never had before. I take it and feel sweet relief…. finally! After taking the second dose a few hours later, I feel almost normal, and decide I to pack for Vegas, since I was leaving the very next day.

I don’t realize how high I am, because I’m literally “feeling no pain”. Halfway through packing, I trip over my suitcase, fly across the room and land spread-eagle on my floor. Laughing like a crazed junkie, I just continue to pack.

Two hours later, I wonder why my foot still hurts. Looking down, I realize I’ve broken the last two toes on my right foot! Now, I’ve broken toes before, and the most a doctor can do is tape them up, and I certainly wasn’t going to a doctor again!

I stare in amazement at their shiny purple hue, all fat and swollen. I eat another pill, and, gritting my teeth, yank both toes back into their regular positions, post about it on Twitter (!) tape up the toes, and continue packing.

The next morning I leave for Vegas, and from the moment I’m there, it’s crackers, just non-stop. The fashion shows go great, and my show with House Of Tarab goes pretty well too, considering I was hardly putting any weight on my right foot!


I don’t know what I would’ve done without my dear friend DeVilla, who came to model for me, but winds up being my personal assistant all weekend.

My workshop was another story entirely. I knew I could teach with my neck jacked up - I'd done it when I was healing from the accident, after all- so that wasn’t a problem. But the broken toes kind of threw a wrench in the matter of doing floor work, which was one of the advertised aspects of the workshop… and since I broke my toes the day before I left, and I was going to be at the Intensive anyway, I thought it would be idiotic to cancel the class.

I explain this turn of events to the students, hoping they’ll understand, and have DeVilla come up on stage to be my demo-model. As soon as I start warming up, breathing in and out, all the lights in the ballroom begin dimming and coming up, in rhythm with breathing and the way my arms rise and fall.

At first, I don’t think anything of this because I often have weird experiences with electricity- until all the lights go completely off and come up a few times, strobing like disco lights. This goes on non-stop for a few minutes…. like, ten minutes! By now I’m completely distracted, and the whole class is murmuring and making jokes about it, too.

My “electrical disturbance” as I call it, has been with me since childhood. Cell phones and computers fail regularly, I can make my television turn on and off with a wave of my hand, I cause streetlights go out when I walk beneath them, and light bulbs sometimes actually explode as I go past. This usually happens in times of stress…and I guess my stress has reached a head by now.

“What’s up with the lights?” I yell across the room to one of the festival volunteers.

“I don’t know,” she hollers back, they’ve been fine all day and there were four classes in here!”

Great!

DeVilla pushes me out of the way, steps up to the mic and regales the workshop attendees with stories of my "super powers", and how many crazy electrical incidents she’s seen during the numerous times we've traveled together. She’s telling so many stories from so many places I’m beginning to get really embarrassed… it’s not like I can control this “talent” I have.

The lights ultimately settle down, and we get on with the class. For the rest of the trip, DeVilla received her “punishment” for blabbing about my electrical secrets. Poor girl, she’d anticipated a weekend of modeling, gambling, and laying poolside with a margarita in hand, but instead has to play Nurse Maid. She makes sure I take my pills, she brings me ice, tapes up my toes daily and changes the lidocaine pain patches on the back of my left shoulder every few hours.

I couldn’t have done that weekend without her- I owe her big time!

And if you happened to be in my class at The Intensive, now you know why it was so insane!

* * *

It’s November 2011 and I’m doing a couple of dates in the Midwest - Kansas and Missouri, to be exact. I love the Midwest, and I’ve been there a lot. America’s heartland is beautiful, and so laid back and calm compared to Los Angeles, and a lot of the other places I go. The dancers are always a lot of fun, and I look forward to my workshops there, because I can always be assured of a calm, peaceful trip.

Not this time!

The Manhattan, Kansas-based belly dance troupe Eyes Of Bastet are sponsoring me for my second-to-last trip of the year. Cathia, Nashid and I had a long, laughter-filled ride from the airport, a great barbecue dinner where I met the rest of their lovely troupe, and I’m now ensconced in my really plush hotel room, more modern and higher-end than most places I’ve stayed at in major cities. I sink gratefully into my Tempur-pedic hotel bed and I’m on the brink of sleep when I feel an all-too-familiar rolling sensation.

Bolting upright, I panic, thinking it's an earthquake…then I realize I’m in Kansas, not Los Angeles, and it’s probably just a mind-trick being played by my perpetually fried jet lag brain.

The next morning, I walk into the large gymnasium for my workshop and thirty-five women yell simultaneously,

“DID YOU FEEL IT?”

It turns out what was I felt the night before really was a rather large earthquake; the epicenter was in Oklahoma, but everyone in Manhattan, Kansas could feel it!

After a great full day of workshops, I am in my hotel room preparing for the show with Maharet, my Missouri sponsor who'd arrived in Kansas that afternoon. Maharet is taking me back to Missouri after this event, for more workshops and another show the next weekend.

Suddenly, there’s another earthquake. This time, since I am wide-awake, I know it’s real.

“You brought that with you from LA!”, Maharet declares, as we leave for the show.

As I take the stage for my entrance, I spy something out of the corner of my eye, swirling around in the air. I think it’s my veil flying from my spins, until I notice many concerned audience members whispering to each other pointing animatedly to the stage.

I look up, and notice there is a large bat flying around the stage… and he's upstaging me!

The show grinds to a halt while bat is captured in a trashcan, and removed during intermission by helpful belly dance husbands. I accompany them outside to watch it’s safe release; as they let it go, I realize that without the full wingspan, the bat is much smaller than I initially thought.

Back at the hotel, Maharet and I laugh about the earthquakes and the bat. We set our phones for 7:30 am, confirming to each other that the clocks are being turned back that night. On the dot at 6:30am, her phone rings loudly. She mumbles that we still have another hour, we go back to sleep. At 7:30 both our phones go off and Maharet is surprised that hers had rang at 6:30. I wonder aloud if it’s the time change, and check the clock on the bed stand, but it’s not on.


“Our clock’s broken”, I announce sleepily, and try turning on the lights, which also doesn’t go on. The bathroom light isn't working, either.

"Is this your electrical disturbance?" Maharet asks.

Peering out into the hallway, all I see are the EXIT signs. Finally, my eyes make out two teenage girls in pajamas shambling down the hallway like zombies.

“ Are the lights out in the whole hotel?” I inquired.

They answered yes, and I ask, “ Do you know why?”

“ No,” shrugged one, “We just accepted it.” With that, they shambled off into the darkness.

I feel my way through packing my class materials like Helen Keller as Maharet gets us the last two cups of lukewarm coffee from the lobby.


We arrive in class and luckily, the lights have been restored. Apparently, a huge apartment complex that was under construction has burned to the ground, causing a power outage in most of the city.

The next day, as we prepare to leave for Missouri, Maharet discovers she suddenly has no brakes in her car; it turns out there’s a huge leak. We buy a large container of break fluid, dreading the fact that we’ll have to pull over every few miles on the long drive to Missouri to replenish the supply for safety’s sake.

We hear a loud, odd sizzle and look up towards the noise, watching in horror as a poor little squirrel gets fried to death on the electrical lines above us. He hangs limp, his tail sadly blowing in the wind.

The moment we get on the highway, it begins pouring rain. A few exits later, it becomes worse, the rain is torrential, it’s going sideways. After about an hour, it’s so bad that we pull over for coffee, hoping for the storm to pass. It doesn’t, so we decide to drive again.

As Maharet puts the key in the ignition, the burglar alarm goes off. It’s a relentless, rhythmic honking of the car’s horn. She removes the key, and somehow, the alarm continues to wail. After about five minutes of chaos, Maharet calls her husband, and yells above the noise, trying to get him to figure out what’s wrong. He can’t, so we sit in the car, until a middle aged, mustachioed trucker tries to come to our aid. “Tries” is the key word here, because he can’t figure out what’s wrong, either!

Finally, the noise dies down and we take off, thinking the car alarm’s battery has died. No such luck: as we push forward through the driving rain, every time Maharet even taps the breaks, the alarm sounds wildly. We steel ourselves to the din, turn up the radio and scream to each other over the music, gossiping and telling stories.

An hour later, approaching Kansas City, it’s now completely dark. The rain hasn’t let up one iota… and neither has the alarm! It’s rush hour, and the beltway around the city is crowded. Since the weather is so bad and the highway is backed up with cars, Maharet is on the brakes constantly, and the horn is sounding non-stop. Truckers are flipping us off; people are flashing their lights –as well as really dirty looks- at us.

An hour after that, we’re driving through the hilly, unlit roads of rural Missouri. It’s so dark and deserted, I almost expect a UFO to appear right above us…but the sound of the alarm, which is still going off, probably prevents our abduction.

Somehow we make it home. Her husband Bill comes to the door before the car is even parked, saying he heard us approaching from very far away. Once in the house, Maharet heads directly to the liquor cabinet, pulling out a two glasses and a bottle of Wild Turkey, which we down immediately before staggering into bed.

The next day, Bill starts the car, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it, the alarm seems to have magically fixed itself!


Happy New Year my dear readers, and May your 2012 be filled with adventure… because I’m relatively sure mine will be!



ALL PHOTOS BY PRINCESS FARHANA


Excerpt from the book, " Good Girls Go To Heaven, Bad Girls Go Everywhere: My Life Onstage, Backstage, And On The Road", scheduled for publication in early 2013.

ALL OVER THE MAP

2011 has already been a whirlwind, and I seriously cannot believe it's almost March!

In the first few weeks of this year, I have travelled to four different countries to perform and teach: China, Finland, Estonia, and Germany. I have also visited quite a few "states", such as: happiness, exhaustion, jet-lag, elation, stress, and full-on work mode!
I've had my luggage lost, my mobile phone stolen, my computer crash....but I also met many terrific people, had great shows and workshops, and saw some amazing sights. Like many other people, I am also very concerned over what is going on in the Middle East and North Africa. I have lots of friends in Cairo and am hearing wildly varied reports.Last but not in the slightest least, my boyfriend is currently hospitalized after a major surgery which took place yesterday, but he is doing great!

Yep, this year has already been a doozy!

I am home in LA for a bit, and promise to get some "quality" blogs up soon!

Hope all is fantastic with you, dear readers!