A W E S O M E

Lower back and right butt cheek...ow. Love it!

More tomorrow. Just got home. Must hydrate and shower.

What I Had for Breakfast

Rubbery boiling plastic. Yum.

Apparently you're supposed to boil the mouth guard and shape it before use. You probably should boil it in a small pot. My guard morphed into melted blob while I was trying to dig it out. Prying it apart probably contributed to the creases and crevices it now sports.

Well, it has character now, right?

I should have packed my things last night.

And I'm Off

Helmet?
Check.
Pads?
Check.
Mouth Guard?
Check.
Astoria, Queens...GGRD...here I come!*

*After a full day at work and an hour train ride and, the email says, a 15-minute walk to "big brick building with signs that say CIGARS on it"...so I should probably get to work early so I can leave early...so I should probably take Lola to the park in the morning for a while since I probably won't by able to make the trek back and forth at lunch...so I guess I should get up around 6am.

Woohoo. Skills Night!
Yeah! Coffee.

POW

Exhausted. Am I too old for this? I've been bitching about my age a lot lately, but I never really take it to heart. I feel, and definitely look, like a young whippersnapper. Generally.

It's Wednesday and am exhausted. I haven't even laced up since Saturday's lessons. Which, by the way, were brutal. No scraps or bruises. On the outside that is. Mentally, I'm torn up. To sum it up best, the Guru gave me one enthusiastic, "Nice. That's it. Finally." Yes, he said, "finally." And this didn't happen until two hours and fifty-five minutes into my three-hour session. Nice, indeed.

It wasn't even a click-that's-it moment. He had been telling use to remember POW (Privates Over Wheels) to keep our form in check. Towards the end of Saturday, everyone was sort of falling off their game...basically joining me in suckassville. He stopped us all and said something like "think POW and now replace 'Privates' with what you've got." I don't know about everyone else, but I certainly chanted "Pussy Over Wheels" a few times. It worked. Except it was the last run of the day and I'm almost certain it was luck.

Friday is Skill Night with the Gotham Girls. I must commit POW to mind and body or risk complete humiliation.

Obstacles

Got home late last night, so, after scrounging up some dinner and taking care of Lola, all there really was to do was skate. I worked on hopping while in motion. It’ll come in handy when trying to avoid downed ladies. I focused on getting over the bedroom door’s threshold.*

After I few solid two-footed lands, I was feeling quite full of myself. Apparently Lola was feeling quite full of herself, too, and decided to participate in my obstacle training.

I wonder how often I’ll need to dodge vomit during jams?


*Also know as a raised saddle, and definitely not called a door jam. Certainly not this Door Jam. Thanks for the research assist JE.

Making Due

I've run out of shampoo. Food. Dog food. The clean laundry is still in the basket. I just swept up enough fur to stuff a baby's ski jacket. And I drove to work this morning rather than trying to figure out where to park for street cleaning.

When the hubby's away, a girl's got to play. Or, alternatively, she can sit still and watch her clean, well-organized and well-stocked world come tumbling down.

And so we have Club351, my personal indoor skating rink until the neighbors bang down the door. I've managed to get comfortable with a few of the WFTDA Minimum Skill Requirements. Yup, under "Balance/Agility," I think I have the forward, backward and side to side stepping down. Plus, I'm twirling like a toddler on crack.

Go figure. When you take the arm chair and ottoman out of the living room, it's actually quit spacious. There even is a nice straightaway through the French doors deep into the bedroom.

I would have taken more pictures to show you, but the camera batteries are dead and refusing resuscitation. If the husband was here, he would have figured it out and cheered me on.

Starting From Scratch

Yesterday was my first set of skating lessons. I headed to Mercer Playground early in the morning, and not once did I think, "What I am doing?"

My plan is to take skating lessons, survive the two remaining Gotham Girls Roller Derby Skills Nights and tryout for a shot-in-the-dark spot on a team. I have no grand illusions that I'll actually make it, but having this mission right now is -- yes I'll say it -- keeping me grounded.

I learned a few things yesterday. For one, my teacher extraordinaire, The Skate Guru, is the real deal. He lives and breathes skating. He's über-cool. He loves his purple.

Quad skating is as ridiculously hard. I wasted my first outdoor lesson comfortably balanced on my inline skates. That mistake will not happen again. I'll be in My Demons for my remaining indoor and outdoor skills lessons, both of which are taught outdoors because of the expanding dearth of indoor rinks in New York.

To learn something new, to learn something properly, you have to force yourself to unlearn what you think you already know. And if you fall, you have to get right back up and roll on.