boring and weird
Oct. 26th, 2007 09:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7Pleasantly full weekend ahead. Tonight there is a Beginning-Of-Season party at the Knockouts' house—and rather than just an ice cream social, given Mia's driven and productive nature, it is a party wherein we will be having a seminar on cleaning one's skate bearings, and a viewing of bout DVDs from last year. Also we'll have pizza and beer, and everyone is bringing their left-over iron-on letters and numbers to swap, as of course iron-ons come in packages with so many e's, so many a's, so many t's, etc., and naturally Mia Mauler is going to have t's and s's left over and need more m's that maybe she can get from Supernova etc.
So we'll be doing that, and hanging out. A lot of people have RSVP'd, and while the other teams just invited the new girls, we finally opened it up to the whole league because other veterans wanted to know how to clean skate bearings, and it seemed petty to tell them they weren't invited. Anyway, we like our league-mates. The only problem is, of course, it's at Mia's house, which is a small house perfect for two grown people with no kids. So we'll pack ourselves in like sardines, and I just hope I can get room and lighting to take decent pictures of Sissy's demo so I can make a How-To page for our website.
I actually think it would be great to have some informational content on the website. At the moment a search online doesn't yield much info on how to actually go about cleaning skate bearings. I'd love to make an illustrated tutorial. And maybe some of the advice we've put together for the new girls could be collated and put up there too, just because people have so many questions and so much interest about this new sport, and lots of women considering joining a roller derby league would probably like to know kind of what goes into it.
(I also have, for over a year, been thinking how great it would be to be able to have a featured profile of a derby girl on the website every week or month or whatever, but I don't know how much time I have.)
Tomorrow morning I have to put together Z's costume. I had planned on silkscreening a pattern, name, and numbers on the shirt of his costume, but I just don't think I'll have time—tape may become involved. I suppose that description largely gives away the element of surprise, if you're paying attention, but the awesomeness of it still remains unexplained. I will explain tomorrow, though.
My own costume—whatever. Someday I will be an organized enough person to wear really clever, well-designed, and intelligent costumes. Yeah. Secretly I fear that I am not as witty as I claim to be. But I figure the place will be full of pseudo-goths, so I can probably skate by on some striped tights layered with fishnets, and a corset and a crinoline. Mostly, I will skate by on the strength of the Girl In Corset With Big Boobs Mostly Showing aesthetic. Because everybody likes boobs. My boobies, let me show you them. Let me show you my boobies.
After that is the e:strip party. I am concerned that I will be having so much fun at the skate party that I will not get to e:strip until all the fun is over, but it strikes me that this is a singularly pleasant problem to have—Oh noes, there is too much fun!!—so I will avoid whining about it.
And then of course Sunday there is four hours of getting my ass handed to me, first by the refs whose turn it is to run practice, and then by Danny, the new Knockouts coach who has from day 1 been counting and timing our laps and expects us to do better every week.
I just wish I could figure out my damn skates so my right footbones did not get progressively crushed throughout the time I skate. It gets to the point where at least once every hour or so I have to unlace the skate all the way, gingerly pry my foot out, and then carefully, carefully flatten the squashed foot against the floor, putting all the toes back into the right order and very delicately manipulating the bones back into being in a row rather than stacked. I swear to God my foot is not foot-shaped when I get it out of that skate. So I carefully, carefully put my foot on the floor, rock forward onto the toes (ow ow ow), flatten the foot, restore circulation to all the toes, and then painfully shove it back into the skate boot and lace it gingerly back up again. It's like it's not a foot anymore. And I get out there and it feels great, and then I hit the first turn and pull with the left leg and push with the right, and squash my foot is again not foot-shaped, and gets progressively number with each lap, even if I stand on one foot and lean around the turns. I need some sort of device that will hold my toes in the right places. I feel like an arch support insert won't do shit. I need something to fend my foot off from the outer wall of the boot. But I don't know. We did a 45-minute pace line last night and by the end of it I was talking myself through the numbness and distress and skating on one foot for entire laps. "It's cool, I know it feels like there's just a lump of lead in there but I'm sure all my toes are still there, they can't have fallen off because I would have seen them on the floor. It's cool. I'm sure they're there. This doesn't exactly hurt. Well, it's painful, but it's not like getting punched in the face or anything. I bet it's fine. They're totally still in there. And I’m getting an amazing workout. And it's almost my turn to skate through the line. So I can do this." And the girl in front of me kept saying, "What?" and I'd say, "Oh nothing." But I think she thought I was having paranoid delusions or something.
Man I am a boring and weird person.
Not that this really distresses me, I just think of it now and then and am a bit surprised.
So we'll be doing that, and hanging out. A lot of people have RSVP'd, and while the other teams just invited the new girls, we finally opened it up to the whole league because other veterans wanted to know how to clean skate bearings, and it seemed petty to tell them they weren't invited. Anyway, we like our league-mates. The only problem is, of course, it's at Mia's house, which is a small house perfect for two grown people with no kids. So we'll pack ourselves in like sardines, and I just hope I can get room and lighting to take decent pictures of Sissy's demo so I can make a How-To page for our website.
I actually think it would be great to have some informational content on the website. At the moment a search online doesn't yield much info on how to actually go about cleaning skate bearings. I'd love to make an illustrated tutorial. And maybe some of the advice we've put together for the new girls could be collated and put up there too, just because people have so many questions and so much interest about this new sport, and lots of women considering joining a roller derby league would probably like to know kind of what goes into it.
(I also have, for over a year, been thinking how great it would be to be able to have a featured profile of a derby girl on the website every week or month or whatever, but I don't know how much time I have.)
Tomorrow morning I have to put together Z's costume. I had planned on silkscreening a pattern, name, and numbers on the shirt of his costume, but I just don't think I'll have time—tape may become involved. I suppose that description largely gives away the element of surprise, if you're paying attention, but the awesomeness of it still remains unexplained. I will explain tomorrow, though.
My own costume—whatever. Someday I will be an organized enough person to wear really clever, well-designed, and intelligent costumes. Yeah. Secretly I fear that I am not as witty as I claim to be. But I figure the place will be full of pseudo-goths, so I can probably skate by on some striped tights layered with fishnets, and a corset and a crinoline. Mostly, I will skate by on the strength of the Girl In Corset With Big Boobs Mostly Showing aesthetic. Because everybody likes boobs. My boobies, let me show you them. Let me show you my boobies.
After that is the e:strip party. I am concerned that I will be having so much fun at the skate party that I will not get to e:strip until all the fun is over, but it strikes me that this is a singularly pleasant problem to have—Oh noes, there is too much fun!!—so I will avoid whining about it.
And then of course Sunday there is four hours of getting my ass handed to me, first by the refs whose turn it is to run practice, and then by Danny, the new Knockouts coach who has from day 1 been counting and timing our laps and expects us to do better every week.
I just wish I could figure out my damn skates so my right footbones did not get progressively crushed throughout the time I skate. It gets to the point where at least once every hour or so I have to unlace the skate all the way, gingerly pry my foot out, and then carefully, carefully flatten the squashed foot against the floor, putting all the toes back into the right order and very delicately manipulating the bones back into being in a row rather than stacked. I swear to God my foot is not foot-shaped when I get it out of that skate. So I carefully, carefully put my foot on the floor, rock forward onto the toes (ow ow ow), flatten the foot, restore circulation to all the toes, and then painfully shove it back into the skate boot and lace it gingerly back up again. It's like it's not a foot anymore. And I get out there and it feels great, and then I hit the first turn and pull with the left leg and push with the right, and squash my foot is again not foot-shaped, and gets progressively number with each lap, even if I stand on one foot and lean around the turns. I need some sort of device that will hold my toes in the right places. I feel like an arch support insert won't do shit. I need something to fend my foot off from the outer wall of the boot. But I don't know. We did a 45-minute pace line last night and by the end of it I was talking myself through the numbness and distress and skating on one foot for entire laps. "It's cool, I know it feels like there's just a lump of lead in there but I'm sure all my toes are still there, they can't have fallen off because I would have seen them on the floor. It's cool. I'm sure they're there. This doesn't exactly hurt. Well, it's painful, but it's not like getting punched in the face or anything. I bet it's fine. They're totally still in there. And I’m getting an amazing workout. And it's almost my turn to skate through the line. So I can do this." And the girl in front of me kept saying, "What?" and I'd say, "Oh nothing." But I think she thought I was having paranoid delusions or something.
Man I am a boring and weird person.
Not that this really distresses me, I just think of it now and then and am a bit surprised.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 02:10 pm (UTC)Have fun tonight! I wish I could go, but I have another party (pumpkin carving!) The Saucies haven't had a party either, but more for space and timing than anything, so I understand!
You and I may look pretty similar on Saturday. I don't know what to wear, but it may end up being crinoline and corset here, too! Haha! Not to mention, my boobs are a close second to yours...
See you tomorrow!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 02:45 pm (UTC)We should have a boobs contest. There's some pretty, er, gifted girls on the league. Maybe we can round up everyone in corsets for a photo at the photo booth, since Sally (new name: Skate Moss! How cool is that?) has volunteered to be the photographer at the event. (Honey's husband couldn't do it after all.)
It is so dang hard to organize a party. Or a meeting. I have such a tiny house, and I always want to host things and then I look around and realize, OK, I have room for six, maybe seven people in my living room, and my kitchen is even smaller. Maybe if I got rid of my kitchen table, and, well, my refrigerator... Yeah. I can't really host a party. In college I had The Party House-- it wasn't a huge house, but it was an open-plan first floor, and we crammed two dozen people in there every Friday night for most of junior and part of senior year. It was great. But I can't do that now.
I have to hold a meeting there once a month, but I imagine the committee will be smaller than, say, my entire team plus interested other parties.
I dearly want to hold some kind of all-league event. But again, no room.
I need to hit the jackpot and buy a giant house. It's the only way. Too bad I don't play the lotto.
I do really like the idea of having the profiles be on the girls in the calendar shot each month. One girl a month is too few, but one girl a week is kind of too many... and this way we could a) push the calendar, and b) stir up interest for next year's calendar.
The beauty of this season is that, having done something once, it becomes easily apparent what to do to do it better the second time. The key is to keeping good notes and keeping track of what went wrong. Which is a challenge. But this season, we're already starting off with knowledge, and now we have better organization to take advantage of that. I'm really excited about it all. I just hope I can actually *do* all the things I'm planning on.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 03:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 03:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 02:56 pm (UTC)http://www.skatelog.com/bearings/cleaning.htm
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 03:20 pm (UTC)There are some helpful articles on that page, but none of them were roller-derby related, and a lot of the advice they gave conflicted with advice I've received! So it's confusing.
I want to have a roller-derby-specific one, because a lot of what roller derby does is stolen from other sports but the original specifications of the other sports sort of don't apply. Like wearing skateboarding pads-- I am so much happier now that I have found a pad manufacturer who has actually paid attention to the fact that his pads are used differently in roller derby. I'm putting in a $700 order with him for members of my league, just because I have confidence that his pads will work for our application.
So I want to do a roller-derby-specific bearings-cleaning info page, that doesn't have some of this extra info speed skaters are interested in, but does have info about what we actually use. I also hope at this party that some of the girls have different types of bearings, because I've only ever used one and it'd be nice to be able to compare them.
Most of us aren't gearheads so we're not real confident dealing with different situations and figuring out if something is the same as what we're dealing with, especially if it's real technical.
But that page is a good resource and I'll definitely check it out and bring in some questions to our bearings expert tonight. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 04:51 pm (UTC)I didn't know your party was open to the league. I might pop in, if I'm not too tired from assembling my costume and triple-checking everything for tomorrow night.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 04:58 pm (UTC)If you want to learn to clean bearings and watch bout footage from last year and eat pizza and drink beers, totally come out to Depew.
I am planning-- Sissy and I are planning actually-- to take pictures and document the bearing-cleaning session so we can make a How To Clean Your Bearings page for the website, so if you are too tired, at least that's in the works for future reference.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 05:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 05:52 pm (UTC)This is an...interesting mentality.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 05:57 pm (UTC)It hurts. It's a kind of distracting kinda pain that it's really, really hard to ignore.
Not as hard to ignore as, say, a sprain, or a concussive impact kind of pain, or a sharp whack kinda pain.
There are all different kinds of pain. Some of them I can endure. Some of them I am a complete and total wuss about.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 06:01 pm (UTC)But I am willing to believe it hurts a lot.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 06:17 pm (UTC)I've been deliberately punched in the arm a lot. Which I suppose I deserve, as I have a tendency sometimes to punch people in the arm/shoulder when I'm talking to them excitedly. It hurts a bit to get punched in the arm.
I've done a TON of hitting arm to arm or body to body, and that hurts quite a bit less. Partly because the impact is more distributed.
All of these pains, I can deal with.
Running into stuff with my legs and feet, I can deal with. Falling on the ground, I can deal with. I smack my shins on stuff constantly and mostly just curse a lot and keep going.
But headaches incapacitate me, as do cramps, and I am a complete and total wuss when it comes to foot injuries.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 06:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 07:32 pm (UTC)We're sorry.
The article you've requested is not available.
noooo!
give me some details so I can google it.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-26 07:42 pm (UTC)http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gaRIQb-KAAib21U9us628_gmg9lwD8SH1V3G0
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2007/10/26/433236.aspx
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/10/fema-stages-fak.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/nationalaffairs/index.php/2007/10/26/real-fake-news-fema-asks-fema-answers/
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003663989
At least ONE of those ought to work!!
Basically:
FEMA held a press conference about the California wildfires. But no reporters actually came. So they just stuck their own employees out there and had them pretend to be reporters. Naturally the employees of FEMA did not ask any hard questions. It worked out very well for FEMA. In the short term, anyway.