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dragonlady7The Brawl last night was fun. Lots of very teased hair. Strong odor of Aquanet. Lots of very puffy sleeves. Impressive array of tulle, taffeta, and stretch fabrics. Many, many, many wheels.
The rink are complete bitches, however, and booked us for 9 pm, but told the previous event that they ran until 10 pm. So an increasingly huge crowd of folks in 80s costume were hanging around the edges of the rink looking awkward as the dumb bitch DJ played "My Humps" and a bunch of little kids skated around shrieking.
Once the increasingly shrill woman in the DJ booth gave it up to DJ Taner, however, the music got awesome-- he played not only the expected standards, but also a lot of really cool stuff, like Dead Kennedys and so on-- and things got rolling. We had a blast, for the most part, and sold a lot of merch, sold a lot of baked goods, and sold an assload of admission tickets.
So that was great.
I have photos-- including some actual good ones, because we were on our toes and had someone bring a bright photographer's light so that we could take photos under our balloon arches. We had not one but three Polaroid cameras there, and a lot of people had their own cameras too. With that light on, my camera was capable of capturing less-blurry images throughout much of the interesting areas of the rink, so I got more than my usual everyone-is-a-blur standard.
I'm deciding where to put those up. Uploading to LJ is kind of a hassle if you have more than like two images. Eh well. I imagine Myspace is worse, just given how annoying in general it is.
The teams all took team pictures, too, but by the time the Knockouts took ours, several of us had gone home, and then Barbie (formerly from work) decided to get into our team picture, so they're kind of not really team pictures. Oh well. She keeps saying she wants to be on a team, but then she keeps saying she's not sure she'd really want to do it, so it's very hard for anyone to want to draft her when we're so pressed for people who show up in the first place. Besides which she's just coming off a serious injury and hasn't been to practice in over a month. So there's nothing personal in it-- she's just not eligible to be on a team, and wasn't at the time that teams were initially picked, and won't be for some time even if she starts coming right now! I wish she'd understand that.
This morning we had a team meeting with the Knockouts and that was both fun and businesslike. We met at the newest member's house, a girl called Lizzie McFighter, who formerly skated with a team in (I believe) Memphis? She was their coach. She had a lot of perspective on things other teams have done etc. and we just had so much fun hearing the things she had to say.
I do love my teammates. Not in a squishy squee-ey kind of way-- I know most of them too well for that now. But they are all just such different, competent, and fascinating women that I am really excited to work with them, and I've decided that instead of being intimidated by them I will be inspired by them, to do better.
I am feeling slightly smug because after having watched us all skate on Thursday, and then seeing the team photos being taken last night, Z said to me, "You know, I'm not just saying this, but I really think your team is going to do really well." He said he thought that we had the most best skaters and the best mix of abilities. Which, I mean, what does he know about roller derby? But he knows skating and he knows us now. I think he's right. We're a pretty good group.
Oddly enough I feel most confident because, having glimpsed the color-coded seekrit list the captains used to draft us in the first place, I know that I am the worst skater on the team. For about a split-second I felt bad, but in a moment I came to realize that it took the pressure off me, and has freed me to improve tremendously, and I feel like I'm getting away with something by suddenly being a much better skater. (Now, the key is, have I improved more than the worst skater on the other teams? Hmmm...)
So. We have settled on a uniform design, and resolved a lot of issues, and mostly just solidified our feelings on lots of things. Including being excited. Which is good.
The rink are complete bitches, however, and booked us for 9 pm, but told the previous event that they ran until 10 pm. So an increasingly huge crowd of folks in 80s costume were hanging around the edges of the rink looking awkward as the dumb bitch DJ played "My Humps" and a bunch of little kids skated around shrieking.
Once the increasingly shrill woman in the DJ booth gave it up to DJ Taner, however, the music got awesome-- he played not only the expected standards, but also a lot of really cool stuff, like Dead Kennedys and so on-- and things got rolling. We had a blast, for the most part, and sold a lot of merch, sold a lot of baked goods, and sold an assload of admission tickets.
So that was great.
I have photos-- including some actual good ones, because we were on our toes and had someone bring a bright photographer's light so that we could take photos under our balloon arches. We had not one but three Polaroid cameras there, and a lot of people had their own cameras too. With that light on, my camera was capable of capturing less-blurry images throughout much of the interesting areas of the rink, so I got more than my usual everyone-is-a-blur standard.
I'm deciding where to put those up. Uploading to LJ is kind of a hassle if you have more than like two images. Eh well. I imagine Myspace is worse, just given how annoying in general it is.
The teams all took team pictures, too, but by the time the Knockouts took ours, several of us had gone home, and then Barbie (formerly from work) decided to get into our team picture, so they're kind of not really team pictures. Oh well. She keeps saying she wants to be on a team, but then she keeps saying she's not sure she'd really want to do it, so it's very hard for anyone to want to draft her when we're so pressed for people who show up in the first place. Besides which she's just coming off a serious injury and hasn't been to practice in over a month. So there's nothing personal in it-- she's just not eligible to be on a team, and wasn't at the time that teams were initially picked, and won't be for some time even if she starts coming right now! I wish she'd understand that.
This morning we had a team meeting with the Knockouts and that was both fun and businesslike. We met at the newest member's house, a girl called Lizzie McFighter, who formerly skated with a team in (I believe) Memphis? She was their coach. She had a lot of perspective on things other teams have done etc. and we just had so much fun hearing the things she had to say.
I do love my teammates. Not in a squishy squee-ey kind of way-- I know most of them too well for that now. But they are all just such different, competent, and fascinating women that I am really excited to work with them, and I've decided that instead of being intimidated by them I will be inspired by them, to do better.
I am feeling slightly smug because after having watched us all skate on Thursday, and then seeing the team photos being taken last night, Z said to me, "You know, I'm not just saying this, but I really think your team is going to do really well." He said he thought that we had the most best skaters and the best mix of abilities. Which, I mean, what does he know about roller derby? But he knows skating and he knows us now. I think he's right. We're a pretty good group.
Oddly enough I feel most confident because, having glimpsed the color-coded seekrit list the captains used to draft us in the first place, I know that I am the worst skater on the team. For about a split-second I felt bad, but in a moment I came to realize that it took the pressure off me, and has freed me to improve tremendously, and I feel like I'm getting away with something by suddenly being a much better skater. (Now, the key is, have I improved more than the worst skater on the other teams? Hmmm...)
So. We have settled on a uniform design, and resolved a lot of issues, and mostly just solidified our feelings on lots of things. Including being excited. Which is good.
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Date: 2007-01-22 04:34 am (UTC)But you're probably only the worst because you're the newest. Everyone you mention has done this before, somewhere, or was doing it for ages before you joined up.
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Date: 2007-01-22 04:46 am (UTC)> the newest
Oh no, the majority of girls started around the same time as I did. There are a number of girls who joined well after me, including our team's newest draftee who really only started skating late in November. I just had a lengthy period wherein I'd hit a plateau and didn't get better than Mediocre, and only within the past month have I suddenly overcome that and become actually Competent.