Hippie chick (hip-check) day-glo (eyeshadow) chickadee (rollergirl).

Yeah, I like these women.  I really do.  All of them.

Who knew that there were something like 53 badass chicks in this sleepy little hippie town of ours?  Don’t get me wrong – I have my share of hippie chick tendencies too, but sometimes… sometimes, you just want to wail on people.  And derby’s the perfect (and legal) way to get your aggressions out – among friends.  Where else can you get slammed across the room by someone and then go out for a beer with her an hour later?

I know what you’re thinking.  Men do that all the time, right?  But that’s just it; derby is OURS.  It’s a women’s sport.  It’s the only sport, in fact, that men had to copy – not the other way around.  We had it first (thank you, Leo Seltzer!).

Anyway…

This week’s Saturday practice seemed to mark a turning point for a lot of us.  We continued to work on basic skills, honing our blocking/hitting abilities, and playing cheeky, drill-oriented games like “Dumb Jammer” and “Follow the Douchebag”.  So we scrimmaged for the last hour or so, and this time, everything seemed to really come together.  I heard a lot of us talking about it later on; it’s as if the utter chaos is finally beginning to morph into controlled mayhem.  Controlled mayhem is what it’s supposed to look like.  Ask any derby ref.

Let me just say that, although I still get butterflies before practice, there’s something about gliding those fishnet stockings up my legs and smearing on the charcoal eyeliner that rips those butterfly wings to shreds and pulverizes them into a tasty paste that you can spread on a cracker.  That’s another thing I love about derby.  You can wear more black stuff on your eyes and bright red lipstick and sparkly neon green eye shadow than your inner 13-year-old ever dreamed of getting away with – OR you can show up in public with absolutely no makeup on.  Either way, you look awesome, and ain't nobody here gonna judge you, girlfriend.  In fact, if your mascara starts to smear all over your face from the sweat, it just makes you look tougher. 

Yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy

So there I was, fishnets intact, thigh-highs looking boss, eyes sufficiently blackened from the first two hours of practice, and I’m handed the jammer panties.  The whistle blows…

What happened next was a perfect combination of my team doing a bang-up job of blocking the other jammer, me spotting an opening that my eyes couldn’t believe was there (but believed just enough for my brain to take advantage of), and sheer luck: I got lead jammer. 

When you’re this new to the sport, getting lead jammer in and of itself is like, you’ve won... take your victory lap.  And that’s exactly what that first lap feels like, except that you haven’t really made any points yet.  Meantime, the other jammer is hot on your heels and out for vengeance, and you gotta decide quick – plow through the pack again and pray that the stars line up in your favor just the way they did before, or call off the jam to prevent the other jammer from racking up points before you do.  So when it looked like I was toast, I called it off.  But it still felt pretty damn good.

*snort* mmm-hm-hmm, yeh, I got lead jammer *snort!*

I think I may be a little more prone to being overly-surprised and utterly amazed with my badd self when I pull off something like that because I’ve really never been very good at any sport.  In fact for an entire year of high school, I figured out a way to ditch P.E. after the coach took role, and I never got caught, because it happened to be during the “first lunch” period, so I just went to lunch… twice… and never got caught roaming around the school looking like I was ditching something.  I did try to play softball and run track for a while, but I was often the captain of the bench warmers, and my performance in track was pretty non-sequitur – only placed in three or four sprints that I can remember, and that was most likely because my opponents were tired from running other matches all day long.  My friends (whom I still adore) played Dungeons and Dragons and periodically went to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  You get the picture…

So this derby thing has become both a personal challenge and an adventure into the unknown world of athleticism.  Admittedly, it’s kind of become an addiction, but believe me baby, there are worse things to be hooked on.  It has, actually, led me to put aside or temporarily ignore the things I was planning to do with the year 2012, like hunt for a full time job in multimedia or video production, clean out the garage, organize my craft room, etc.  But I wasn’t really doing any of those things, anyway.  After having to return from an amazing summer of internships in NYC at the end of August 2011, I found myself lying on the sofa, day after day, watching marathons of god-awful shows like Hoarders, rapidly gaining back all the weight I’d managed to originally lose in order to look fabulous on the streets of Manhattan in the first place, and second-guessing all my hopes and dreams.  Every day I felt worse, and the worse I felt, the less I felt like doing anything about it.  The downward spiral.  So at least now, I feel better physically, I can actually eat real food without it all turning into cottage cheese on my thighs, and I’m getting to experience, for the first time in my life, what it’s like to really, truly improve in a sport where everyone is rooting for you, after all. 

Pity party gets no cake.

The pity party is SO over, and I guess I’m using derby as the new launch pad for rebuilding my self-confidence in an economic world where hunting for a job brings forth whole new levels of rejection and feeling like transparent cellophane.  I do need to start tempering my derby with some actual long-term goals in my life.  Otherwise I’ll end up completely broke and living on the streets with no way to support my derby habit.  If worse comes to worst, maybe I could just start up a group of Rollerheads – nomadic homeless people who just follow derby bouts around the country and live off the land, lentils, and supporting each other via quirky arts & crafts.  Like I said, I do have hippie chick tendencies…

"Where's the next bout, man?  I'm running low on acid."

Jam On It.

Okay, so maybe I got a little sentimental over all this derby stuff.  Sisterhood.  Warrior Priestesses.  Wearing tutus.  What can I say?  I’m a Pisces.  I’ve been known to get a little… carried away.

Or maybe I’m just getting a little bit obsessed.  Yeah, that’s probably it.  I mean, I’m skating pretty much every day now, plus I’ve bought all kinds of gadgets and thingamajigs to soup up my skates, and I’ve upgraded all my protective gear to the real stuff (not the used stuff you buy off the little 14 year old thrashers).  It’s pretty much ON, at this point.

And the Fear Factor is finally beginning to wane. 

We’ve been holding a second practice during the week this month that just involves scrimmages.  Basically, an hour and a half of pure, full contact mayhem.  At last week’s scrimmage practice, I freaked for some reason.  In fact an hour before practice, I started feeling squirrelly and getting all weirded out.  So I just kept getting ready and ran with it, figuring once I got to practice, it would subside.  Not so much - no.  And wow did I ever get pissed off at myself for feeling like such a wuss.

Later on, I think I figured out the culprit.  I’m reading “Down and Derby” by Jennifer Barbee and Alex Cohen, and had just got to the part where they interview a girl who was actually paralyzed by the sport.  She’d been in a pileup during a bout and a toe stop happened to smash directly into the back of her neck, snapping her neck and rolling into her spinal cord, and now she’s in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.  I’d just read that part the day before scrimmage practice, and there it sat, festering in my unconscious, feeding the fear and making me wonder if joining roller derby might turn out to be yet another one of the notoriously bad decisions I tend to make with my life.

But come on, I mean, it’s a contact sport, baby.  Either you’re in, or you’re out.  You can’t just join a sport like this and hope to never get hurt.  Everything I’ve read and heard reminds me that it’s not a matter of if you will get hurt, it’s when.  So when I got home after practice that night, I had to really sit down and ask myself, ARE you in?  Or are you out?  Decide NOW.

I don’t really think there was a decision to be made.  I was so mad about being afraid to take a jammer opportunity that night that I’d obviously already made up my mind.  (For those of you who are new to derby, the "jammer" is the one who tries to break through the pack and makes the points for her team; the star of the bout, essentially.)  The very next day, I ordered some pusher wheels and got a membership to the athletic club so that I can practice skating in the mornings – rain, snow, or shine.  Nope - no deliberation necessary.

I did note to myself that gee, look how pissed off you are right AFTER practice – you’re so brave after it’s all over, but we’ll see if you freak out again right before the next practice comes around.  Turns out, I was still more than sufficiently pissed, because I never questioned it – never even for one second considered skipping practice – just went.  And rocked it.  And when someone handed me the jammer panties (see below - the one with the star), I took ‘em.  Yes, I put on my big girl panties and dealt with it.  

So there I was, my very first jammer try, and lo and behold, I broke through the pack!  I think I might have even smiled a little as I skated back around to try and break through again, and then the ego went “Oh lookie there, you badass, there’s an opening; go for it!”  Next thing I knew, I was in the penalty box.  

Yeah, I saw an opening alright… it was right along the inside boundary line, and as the opposing team realized there was a hole, they blocked it up and sent me out of bounds, and what did I do?  I skated completely out of bounds, passing at least four people, and kept on skatin’, all pleased and jolly with my badd self – until the ref’s whistle screamed out and I heard “INSIDE CUT, JAMMER!” 

Woops.  heheh.

But hey – not bad for a first time, eh? 

So by the next scrimmage practice, I was full-on determined to get with it.  Full throttle.  I’ll jam anytime they say, said I to myself.  And so I did.

I had two opportunities to jam during scrimmage.  The first time, I managed to break through the pack three times (at least I think it was three times - but maybe it was only two and my ego got all inflated again), and maintained my position as lead jammer before calling off the bout.  HELL YEAH that was FUN!  The second time, I broke through the pack once and was hot on the heels of the lead jammer, but by the next time I tried to break through, the opposing team managed to block me out pretty good while the lead jammer broke through and called it off.  STILL FUN!!!

I’m thinking that I might just like this jammer thing. 

So when Holly Ween, our amazing guest coach from NAZRD came up and hosted our Saturday practice, she asked the group, “How many of you want to be a jammer?” - my hand shot up so fast that I actually looked up at it.  Was that MY hand in the air?  Huh. 

Yet another little awesomeness about joining derby is the fact that my husband has gotten jealous enough that he went out and bought himself a pair of skates, and showed up to the first “Who wants to be a ref?” meeting last Saturday.  Now he’s coming with me to skate around at the athletic club in the mornings, which really helps to motivate my sorry ass out of bed, because as a derby girl, I can’t very well let HIM go skate without ME, now can I? 

This'll be Gary and me, pretty much in a few weeks.  Pretty much.

From what I hear, he’s got the analytical mind and calm temperament to make a great ref.  I’m just thrilled beyond all boots and wheels that he’s doing this.  Now we can both get into great shape and feel better physically, and at the same time spend time together and push each other’s limits.  He times me on my 25 laps, and I’ve gotten down to 25 in 5:42.  The goal is to make 25 laps in under 5 minutes, and I only have a few weeks left before I’m going to be put to the test to see whether I can actually do this – among many other things I gotta know how to do.  I figure if I can shave off two seconds per lap within the next few weeks, I’ll make it.  But BOY do some days ever seem harder than others.  I think there’s something to be said for letting yourself rest for a day or two and then continuing your training after your muscles have had a chance to re-knit themselves, ‘cuz the quad muscle in my right leg is killing me.  Softly.  With its song of pain.

But the most debilitating aspect of derby – the Fear – is being conquered, one scrimmage at a time.  I still need to work on learning how to hit.  It seems as though every time I try to boot a girl out of the way to help my team, she sort of politely snorts at me and skates away, as if she’d like to say, “Awe, that was cute, Pippi!  You keep workin’ on that while I go pummel your team’s jammer, OK?  Bye now.”

Yeah, okay.  I’ll get you next time, darlin’.  Maybe not now, maybe not the next bout, but I’ll get you, my pretty.  And your little jammer, too.

Skate. Through. The Fear.

I had to just rename this blog.  Obviously.

Never in my life have I discovered something before that would make me want to focus not so much on my weight, but on being in shape.  Yeah, sure – they’re intertwined, but they can be totally different things, depending on why you have a certain body image, and what is influencing you to want to “look” a certain way.  So now, instead of wanting to look like a movie star, I want to look (and feel) like an athlete.

Rollergirls come in all shapes and sizes, and they can use their own unique body type to their personal strategic advantage.  I, with the long legs and not-so-Nicole Kidman body, can skate fast and hard and at the same time really get in someone’s way (once I truly learn how to block).  A skinny chick of any height can jam up to a pack and shimmy right through.  A short, voluptuous girl can be a force to be reckoned with for a jammer and anyone else who gets in the way of her team.  It takes all kinds of beauties to make up a derby league.  And for a group of women to find solidarity and fierce friendship in a sport, while being perfectly fine with their bodies just the way they are, well… it kind of makes you all misty-eyed, when you think about it.

So not only have I found a sport that makes me appreciate being tall (something I always hated growing up), I’ve really started to come out of my shell as far as just being myself.  Growing up tall and painfully shy is not a great combination, which is probably why I got into theater in high school and joined the Society for Creative Anachronisms after college.  ANYTHING to play dress-up and take on a character that is anyone but me.  But I was still too tall for a lot of parts I auditioned for – regardless of my acting talent, and I had to make all of my own clothes in the SCA because nothing I could buy off the garb-makers would fit me correctly.  That got time-consuming and expensive.

But the character you take on in Roller Derby IS yourself.  It’s you, to the power of ten thousand.  Your deepest desires.  Your inner warrior.  Your True Self after stripping away all that crap the magazines, movies, media and society say you’re not.  All that’s left is what you ARE, raw and unedited, and you celebrate exactly that.

Would YOU tell them to go back to the kitchen?

I was thinking the other day about the Marion Zimmer Bradley type of “Sisterhood”.  You know – The Mists of Avalon and stuff.  Yeah - it’s kinda like that.  Warrior priestesses.  No men allowed, unless they’re the Druidic type who can contribute knowledge and skills and share a mutual respect for the magic of the universe.  And the warrior priestess rollergirls get to be Dark.  Sinister.  Amplified.  Even a little bit Raunchy.  All that stuff society (still) says we really shouldn’t be.  What can we say?  We’re female.  All that power and darkness is in our nature. 

So this week’s practice marked a couple of turning points in my own personal growth.  I was able to skate all 25 laps without stopping (last week I only made it to 19 before losing my breath, turning beet red and having to roll into the center), and I managed to skate through EVERY drill without having to sit anything out.  I’m absolutely amazed at the progress I’ve made in the last 5 weeks of skating.  Last week while I was skating at the park, I noticed something different; something “clicked”.  I can’t really pinpoint what it was, but all of a sudden it was like I was gliding instead of trudging.  As a result, I had an extra boost of confidence going in to Saturday’s practice, but it went south really quickly:

No joke, there I was, smiling from ear to ear after completing all 25 laps (and feeling like I could’ve done 30), and then I completed the “suicide” drills (falling on one or both knees, getting back up, falling again, repeat) as well as the pace lines (weaving through a moving line of girls toward the front), ALL without having to stop and catch my breath at ANY point.  Awesome!!!  And then we started a game where you practice blocking, hitting, and being hit.  Oh – and falling. 

So I took a hit that sent me onto my face.  No kidding.  I’m talking the side of my nose and my upper lip hitting the floor and skidding a bit.  Face-plant, plain and simple.  It was a perfectly legal, in fact very skilled hit, but the way I allowed myself to fall was definitely not the way a derby girl should let herself fall.  At first I thought my nose was going to start bleeding, because it does that at the slightest drop of a hanky – always has.  But the flowing red curtains did not fall, o my brothers and sisters.  Not even a little malenky bit.  I just had a slight scrape on my upper lip, and a renewed appreciation for my mouthguard.

Just put it this way - I can relate to the one whose face you can't see here.

But then came the Fear.  It creeps up on you like it’s your dead grandmother crawling up your leg with a knife in her teeth.  All of a sudden, I wanted to go sit on the bench and wait out the next bout.  I had to tell myself, over and over, that this was simply your next challenge, grasshopper.  Do.Not.Quit.  Skate.Through.the Fear.  So I stayed in – even though the Fear had managed to weave its way intricately through my neurons and synapses and plug the dopamine transmitters and cut off the supply of adrenaline and endorphins, I stayed in. 

Frankly, Scarlett, your Fear is self-inflicted.

Later on, I mentioned to Pantychryst that I apparently didn’t know how to fall.  She graciously offered to show me, since I'd joined the league soon after everyone had gone through that drill.  What she started to explain to me was how to fall on one knee, then both knees, and get back up.  Ummm, well, gee – that sounds familiar.  Is that all there is to falling?  “Of course,” she said.  “You just have to stay low – in derby stance, arms in front.  Then you’ll fall on your knees instead of your butt or your face.”  


Was it really that simple?  Endorphins, adrenaline, re-enter the building.  Fear, begone.  (Well, not completely gone, but at least I no longer had to convince myself not to go sit on the bench before each & every subsequent scrimmage bout.)  Hunter S. Thompson once again whispered in my ear, but this time he said, “Fear is just another word for ignorance.” 

By the time practice was over and we were cooling down, I was able to congratulate myself for not only making it through the entire 3 hours physically, but mentally as well.  We’ve added another practice during the week where we work on nothing but scrimmages: an hour and a half of straight bouts.  That’s what I need to work on the most, because that’s what scares me the most.  If roller derby was nothing but skating fast for a long time and falling on one knee and doing T-stops, I’d be getting close to having nothing else to learn.  And how boring would that be?  It’s the mental stuff that’s proving to be my biggest challenge. 

You can get seriously hurt in derby.  I’m well aware of the stories.  You can even get yourself paralyzed or killed, in rare situations.  But hell – you can get killed walking out your front door, or driving to the carnival, or riding a horse.  Sure, it’s less likely you’ll get seriously injured doing those things, but sometimes the universe works in mysterious ways.  You never know when your number is up.  So why not continue to push yourself and challenge yourself to do things you NEVER in a gazillion years thought you’d find yourself doing?  It’s the only way to really get to know yourself, your limitations, and your potential. 

Besides all that, it's an athletic sport where you get to play dress-up.  Who could ask for anything more?

Hit. Block. Fall. Repeat.

To quote the late, great Johnny Cash (or Trent Reznor, depending on your preferred version of the song), I hurt myself today.

Not very badly, just enough to make typing a bit of an effort.  And sitting.  I took a couple of awesome hits on the derby track during the scrimmages – one of which laid me out flat on my back.  Luckily on that one, I caught myself with the first three fingers of my left hand.  I’m sure that softened the blow.

Later on, I took a hit that sent me straight onto my keister, and my tailbone went, “AYEEEEE!”  I wasn't aware that my tailbone could talk until that very moment.

The fingers are fine, for the most part.  At first I thought I’d just jammed them somehow, but after I got home and two of them swelled up to the size of small sausages (not to mention the pretty purple color underneath, just where the joint bends), I figure they’re probably sprained. 

So it’s official:  My very first derby injury (although minor), and I’m okay with that!  Booty and fingers will be a bit sore for a few days, and I’ll be fine.  I did call the local skate shop and ask them if they can order those sexy padded shorts.  I’m not too keen on what might happen if I take another bum plunge.

Which leads me to my next point:  I need to learn how to fall.  Obviously.  Duh.  Which leads me to my NEXT point:  I need to learn a LOT of things.

You see, there’s this list of things we need to learn.  It’s called the WFTDA Minimum Skills Requirements.  It’s the one where you find out you need to be able to do a list of basic stuff in order to play on an official team.  Stuff like, be able to skate 25 laps around the track in under 5 minutes, come to a complete stop from a “brisk pace” using two approved stopping methods, fall on one knee and do a 180 degree turn and get back up in under two seconds without your hands ever touching the floor.  You know - basic stuff.

So I’m going through this list in my head and we’re doing drills where you skate in a long line around the track while each person in the back of the line weaves her way up through each girl all the way to the front of the line, and I glance over at the Fresh Meat group.  They’re learning the stops, the knee falls, you know – the basics.  I can skate.  We’ve established that.  I can even skate pretty fast and do pretty decent crossovers and weave through a line of girls.  I’ve never tried what’s called a “T-stop” in my life.  So I moseyed on over (wait, I guess I rolled over) to the Fresh Meat group and gave those drills a try.  Not bad!  Still could use some work though… and my basic skills test is coming up in a matter of weeks.  It’d be pretty ironic for me to be able to burn up the rink with my lightning fast skating and not be able to actually come to a regulation stop, yes?

Anyway – I’ve started a separate workout program at home where I do 30-50 minutes a day of strength and cardio training.  Gotta build up that endurance.  And weather permitting, I switch to my outdoor wheels and go skate around Foxlgenn park during the week.

So far, the scale hasn’t moved.  Still the same weight I was at the end of my last post.  But at least I’m getting exercise.  (I will admit, though, after that Pratt fall, I don't much mind having a little extra junk in the trunk.)  However, I’ve managed to cut extremely down on my cheese intake *whimper* and ever since I really got into derby, I think I’ve had something like two vodka/Perriers at home and two 10 oz brewskies at Mother Road Brewery downtown – with the derby girls.  That’s it.  No mimosas, no sparkling wine, no experiments with the leftover Captain Morgan’s Private Stock that I save for, well, experimenting.  It’s funny how your body can sort of tell you what it’s craving and NOT craving, based on your conscious lifestyle choices.  So that’s good, at least.

What?  I sound a little down in the dumps, you say?  Geez – first my tailbone talks to me, then I start hearing the voices of my readers.  (Maybe I hit my tailbone harder than I thought.)  Well, yes, you could say that right now, I’m seriously questioning my ability to do this thing.  We had some awesome scrimmages today where I was usually a blocker, but I felt like every time I had an opportunity to take someone out, I “sort of” bumped her, but deep down... deep, deep down in the furthest recesses of my mind....

(wait for it...)

I didn’t want to hurt anybody. 

My brain just couldn’t go there.  I didn’t want anyone mad at me for pushing them down. 

Yeah.  I know.  I can hear you all screaming and laughing and carrying on.  Something about “You joined roller derby and you don’t want to push anyone down?  BWAHahahahahaha!”  That’s okay.  I’ll wait…

Everything OK now?  Have you caught your breath?  Have a sip of water, it’ll help.  Alrighty.  Where was I?  Oh yes.  Hitting.  Blocking.  Bumping people out of play.  It’s not in my nature!


Of course then you suddenly realize that there’s only one way to avoid having a bunch of derby girls pissed off at you:

MAKE THE HIT.

So I need to learn how to get tougher.  Meaner, even.  Not vindictive mean, just... more aggressive.  Besides, this is exactly what I meant about trying something out that's way the frak-hell out of my comfort zone.  I said that, did I not?  And now I'm faced with it, head-on.  It's time to decide.  Do I do this thing, or do I hang up my skates and piss it all away?

Well, for one thing, I've spent a lot of money just to get started in this.  Would be a shame to quit now.  Besides, if it wasn't challenging and scary, I might as well just go back to belly dancing or perfecting my Pirouette turns and "jazz hands" - stuff I've already done over and over again throughout my life, because I always do what I already know how to do. 

Enough of that.

Let's do this thing.

"Gee, I hope the ground is soft..."

You fall a lot in derby.  And I fell today.  A lot.  So my brain is going, “You kept falling down!  That’s a bad thing!  You suck!” because that’s what brains are conditioned to say when you fall down.  Like, you know, on the sidewalk.  Or walking around your house.  Or running track.  Falling down while sprinting a 100 yard dash is not good.  Falling down on your way to first base:  No bueno.  Falling down in derby:  Muy bueno.  That means you’re actually playing the game.

I’m hoping that my brain sees this as I type it out, and processes it, because right now, I’m feeling kinda pissed off at myself.  Like maybe I just can’t cut it.  I must be able to learn how to:  A. Fall without spraining something, and B. Block that girl.  If I can’t figure out how to do these two things, I will A. Hurt myself very badly, and B. Never make the team.

So I’m going to end this blog with a derby joke, because I’m running out of jokes of my own right now.  Peace out.

Three men were sitting together bragging about how they had given their new wives duties.

The first man had married a secretary and had told her that she was going to do dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple days, but on the third day he came home to a clean house and dishes washed and dinner cooked.

The second man had married a school teacher . He had given his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes, and the cooking.  The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done, and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man had married a rollergirl. He told her that her duties were to keep the house clean, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed and hot meals on the table every day. He said the first day he didn't see anything, the second day he didn't see anything, but by the third day some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, enough to fix himself a bite to eat and load the dishwasher.

o=o o=o   o=o o=o  o=o o=o   o=o o=o  o=o o=o   o=o o=o

You put your Whole Self in, you put your Whole Self out...

Weight loss felony counts:

Count #1: Do not stray from your exercise regime, especially if your only exercise at this point is roller skating practice.

Count #2:  While straying from said exercise regime, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, drink an entire pitcher of peach ale.

Count #3:  After ditching roller derby practice in order to drink an entire pitcher of peach ale in a foreign city that boasts a local Trader Joe’s, DO NOT, under ANY circumstances, shop at Trader Joe’s unsupervised.

Guilty on all 3 counts.  And that, my friends, is why the scale mocks me.  It MOCKS me.  Back up to 167.  Seriously??  WTF.

Who knew that an entire pitcher of peach ale, while so refreshing and cool, could actually cause a person to gain two pounds?  Well, I didn’t know.  No one warned me.  Actually, I split two pitchers of ale with my friend Angela, but I remember being particularly thirsty that day.  As I continued to refill her glass every time I refilled mine, I have a foggy memory of my glass being always a bit emptier than hers.  It was sort of a special occasion; I was thirsty, and the Saints were losing.  And then they were winning!  Order another pitcher!  And then they lost…

But that’s not why I’m here blogging with you today, folks.  I’m here to tell you that although I did return from that foreign city with a belly full of peach ale and a grocery bag full of Trader Joe’s brand name chocolate-covered whatnots and whizzos, I did manage to finally make it to my first official Saturday roller derby practice.

It’s Tuesday now… the feeling in my fingers has gradually returned, allowing me to type this very blog I’m typing now.  The rest of me, however, is not faring so well.

Okay, so picture yourself in boot camp, or if you’ve never been, picture it like it looks in the movies (Full Metal Jacket might be a fairly accurate portrayal).  Now, picture yourself in said boot camp – with roller skates on. 

NOW imagine that the drill sergeants have names like Holly Ween, Aftermath, and One Man Wolf Pack.  

If you saw Full Metal Jacket, well, you know...

I’m not really sure what all transpired, but I do know that I managed to somehow drive myself home, barely make it through the hottest shower of my life, and collapse on the sofa, where I would spend the next three days in on-again, off-again, somewhat agonizing PAIN.

Good Lord Almighty, what have I gotten myself into?

So here’s the low-down on what actually happened, delivered in present tense so that you, dear Reader, can experience the journey from the perspective of mine own eyes:

Get to practice, greet the girls, put on gear.  Feel like a Badass.

Stretch out, start the drills. 

After 15 minutes of intense drills, notice lots of pretty stars floating around peripheral vision.  Realize possibility of passing out.

Ignore stars, chastise self for freaking out, continue drills.

After 20 minutes, begin to wonder – no, marvel – at how such pretty stars could suddenly converge into a warbly, globular black tunnel which seems to be rapidly closing….. … .

Fully comprehend that "the possibility of physical and mental collapse is now very real."

While hobbling toward benches to sit out the next drill, mentally pat self on back for managing to quote Hunter S. Thompson in your head verbatim, despite the obvious insufficient delivery of oxygen to the brain.

Sit on bench and watch everyone else continue the drill.  Feel like a Dumbass.

Rejoin the group for the next drill.  Watch the pretty stars turn into rolling black tar again.  Notice a creeping feeling of nausea.  Finish drill, tell Thompson’s persistent and needling voice in your head to go f*** itself, slowly roll back to bench.

Catch breath, drink water.  Begin intense meditation on keeping water in stomach.

Rejoin the group for the next drill.  Rinse.  Repeat.  And so on…

That’s pretty much how it went.  I don’t think I’ve ever, in my entire life, been to a training session that intense.  And I ran track in high school, my friends.  I’ve had crippling shin splints, I’ve run long distances until my legs shook, I KNOW intense training.  I just didn’t know DERBY training.

How did my camera know exactly what I was seeing??

So here I am, three days later, still recovering.  It’s not so much the soreness in my thighs, upper legs, arms, shoulders, and neck that bothers me, it’s the muscle spasms in my chest and back that are the most annoying, because they WON’T GO AWAY.  Just when I think it’s over and I’ve taken an overdose of ibuprofen and applied a heating pad and everything seems to calm down, I remove the heat, get up, and attempt to move around, and CRRRRRRRWK!  There it goes again.  No sleep for you again tonight, missy.

I think I may have over-exerted myself a little.  *grin*

Anyway, the worst part of it was having to sit out some of the drills.  It was so embarrassing.  But then I realized I wasn’t the ONLY one to sit out… just the FIRST girl to head for the benches.  So that made it not so awful.  But since this is a team sport, I sat there thinking, “What are they going to think of me now?  Are they going to try to talk me out of joining?  Will they be disappointed that I may, in fact, NOT be derby material?”  All of these self-deprecating and insecure thoughts were racing through my mind as I tried to recover just enough to force myself back onto the track.  And at the end, when it was all over, do you know what these chicks had the NERVE to say to me?  Do you KNOW what they SAID??

“Great job Margo.”

“Nice work, lady!”

“You go, girlfriend!”

“You were awesome!”

Um.  Whaaa? 

I had to realize, of course, that what they were really saying to me was, “You stuck it out, you kept going, and you made it through a three hour long mega-intense practice without giving up and going home.  For that, you rock.”

And the rest of the girls weren’t exactly streaming through practice unscathed, either.  It was one helluva workout, with Endurance being the key in how long you could keep going before you had to take a break.  Some took a few breaks, others none at all.  No one took as many as I did… but you know what?  Not one eye rolled in my direction.  Not one person sighed, scowled, snickered or pointed.  I only expected to see crap like that due to some residual PTSD from Jr. High & High School Phys Ed.  It’s pretty nice to be a grown-ass woman, and suddenly find yourself in the company of other grown-ass women.  Tell your daughters: It gets better.

As I’ve mentioned too many times already, roller skating had always been my #1 favorite pastime as a kid.  I frequented the “Great Skate” in Glendale, proudly carrying in my own skates as they opened the doors, and skating and skating and skating until they kicked us out at the end of the day, only to return the next day… and even before that I pretty much lived at the “Roller Palace” (R.I.P.) right here in Flagstaff.  Oh how I looked forward to the Mr. Roboto light show, and the backwards skate, and I probably would never have even learned how to talk to a boy if it hadn’t been for the couple’s skate. (For the record, though, I kind of always hated the "Hokey Pokey".)  But this roller derby thing is completely different – WAY the frak-hell out of my comfort zone.  I’m not even sure I’ll make it onto a team at this point, but I have to at least give it a go.

So I’m in this, and I’m going to have to do some training outside of skating practice, and it’s going to be hard, and it’s going to continue to be so far outside my comfort zone for such a long time that I won’t even recognize myself, but I’m in this.

And anyway, this roller disco bunny-turned-derby girl wannabe has already learned one thing for sure:  The Hokey Pokey is, most definitely, NOT what it’s all about.  (Thank God.)

(Oh – and by the way… the scale went back to 165 after derby practice.  Boo-yah!)

The High-Altitude Attitude of a Badass Rollergirl

Hi There!

Thought I’d given up, din’cha?  Nope.  Just kind of busy these days, that’s all…

Okay, first things first:  I’ve lost at least 4 pounds since my last blog post.  I say “at least” because the damn scale likes to say “165” one day and “164” the next, then back to “165”.  Freakin’ tease.  Anyway, since my goal is to lose 2 pounds per week, I’d say I’m right on schedule.

Now to the struggles and cravings and mishmash of horrors.

I did continue to list everything I ate, but since so much time has gone by, it seems like it would take up way too much room to list everything here.  (Read:  I don’t want to tell everyone about the day I ate a Twix bar, which unfortunately led to 3 packages of Little Debbie’s Nutty Bars – all in the same day.  No.  I don’t want to talk about it.) 

Here’s what I have done, in a nutshell:

Continued to eat as much CHEESE as humanly possible, but not quite as much as before.

Cut down on my portions.  (well, mostly.)

Found other stuff to do that keeps me from watching “Hoarders” marathons and raiding the fridge (like freelance work, skating, and cleaning house).

Side note:  

The “Hoarders” show is a weird new addiction that I cannot seem to shake.  I’ve even found multiple variations of the show:  “Hoarders” (the original), “Hoarding: Buried Alive,” and even “Clean House: Messiest Home” will work as a sort of methadone until a new episode of “Hoarders” comes on.  The only thing I won’t watch is “Confessions of an Animal Hoarder,” because I just want to reach through the television screen and STRANGLE those people and that would be very bad because unlike that one Twilight Zone episode, our television does not, in fact, harbor a window into the television world.  I’d just break the screen and then the husband would finally have enough evidence to call the men in the white coats, and basket weaving isn't one of my strong suits.

Side note, cont'd:  

Why “Hoarders,” you ask?  Because it scares the living hell out of me.  And my house.  I mean, it scares me into cleaning the living hell out of my house.  So it’s a motivating factor.  Granted, I don’t ever leave trash on the floor or misplace cats only to find them years later dried up and flattened underneath piles of books and clothes, but I do tend to keep weird stuff for “sentimental” reasons, and lately I’ve been going through all that “sentimental” crap and declaring it, well, CRAP.  Goodwill loves me right now.  So does Bookman’s.  So ANYWAY….

Back to the eating habits:

I continue to drink ONLY water with every meal.  I’ve also cut way down on the vodka/Perriers (one after dinner every 3-4 days or so), and I haven’t had ANY champagne, wine, or sparkling anything since January 4^th!  [Amazing.]  I’m also slowly beginning to replace those Hot Pockets breakfast thingys (I know… but the husband loves them, so there they are in the freezer) with those Waso multigrain cracker thingys.  I found this ready-made hummus spread at the store that comes in various flavors; roasted sun-dried tomato and fresh garlic are my two favorites.  So for a late night snack, I spread a little hummus on a Waso cracker and it’s about 70 calories total (I’m guessing), and the tastebuds are happy!  Before that, I had kind of a problem that involved grabbing a great big flour tortilla, grating about a cup of cheese to keep it company, and broiling it all together in the oven at, say, 11:30 at night.  (Notice how I no longer have to capitalize the word CHEESE.  Woops – sorry.  It’s a process…) 

Exercise:  I roller skated on the sidewalks of Foxglenn Park for 1.5 hours on Tuesday and Thursday of this week, and man did my butt hurt last night!  It was freaking COLD yesterday too… but I still skated, coughing and wheezing and panting nearly the whole time.

"So, what brand of dishwashing detergent do you use?"

So this Roller Derby thing could be exactly what I need.  Yeah, I grew up with skates on my feet, sure, but I never considered doing anything DANGEROUS with them.  A few years ago, Gary would be watching derby stuff on TV and then he'd go and suggest I might oughtta try it, and I’d be all, “HA!  Are you crazy?  That looks scary!  Those girls are bruisers, they’d eat me alive!  No WAY am I one of those girls.  I’m not tough like that.” 

Well, I happen to have emerged from a VERY, no, EXTREMELY tough situation a little more than 5 years ago, beating all the "odds" and "statistics" into a pathetic wretched bloody pulp, and in the course of things managed to find out just how tough I really am, in, like, a mental sort of way.  So now I might as well see how I can surprise myself with the physical.  Most contact sports are about 80% attitude & mental agility and 20% physical fitness, so I know I’ve got the ‘tude.  If I can just learn how to transfer the mental to the physical, I’ll be hell on wheels.  Like, you know, literally.

Besides, I’ve met quite a few of the derby girls up here now, and yes, they are bad-asses, but they’re the sweetest, friendliest, most welcoming bad-asses I’ve ever met.  I mean, these chicks seriously rock.  And they don’t care that I’ve never done derby before, and I’ve even confessed my fears to a few of them, and they’re all like, “Yeah, me too. So what?”  And I’m all, “Cool!” and they’re all, “Duh!” and it’s all Good.

Want to read more about these badass chicks?  Click HERE.