random links

HowStuffWorks.com has an article on roller derby, which is notable primarily because it has an adorable animated thing showing how a jam works.

I also, while shopping on titlenine.com, found this site called The Starting Block, and thought that one of their projects was pretty cool: The Bra Brigade, which is a charity directed towards encouraging low-income girls in their pursuit of sports by buying them a sports bra that fits, so they can be comfortable and confident while being active. I am totally behind that idea, although I haven't really read up on all of it so I couldn't speak about the charity.
I'd just never really thought about that. Sports bras are expensive, if you have any heft to your chest.

We were discussing fearlessness at practice today. It ties in with another point one of our new jammers was making, as she rhapsodized after her first jam as jammer-- that feeling of trust, that you can rely on your teammates, that you are supported by them and can work together with them toward a goal.
It's a feeling that it's hard to come by in life. Roller derby is odd because women don't often get to put themselves into physical danger like that, to launch themselves and rely on their teammates' support and cooperation to get them out of it uninjured. Sometimes it doesn't work and you get hurt, but there's such exhilaration that it doesn't seem at all crazy to want to jump back in and do it again once you've healed enough to withstand it.
Some girls are fearful, and can't just... jump like that. Some of them lack confidence, some have been injured and fear a repeat, some have seen bad injuries and are afraid of suffering similar ones, some are still hurting from old injuries.
But the sport is much more enjoyable if you can forget that, if you can ignore the doubts and just skate.

This past week has been the first time for me that I've really had to think twice-- "Can I do that, or will it hurt my knees?" At least the pain, for me, isn't bad enough that it is something to be feared on its own. No, I just fear what it means-- if I hurt, then I shouldn't skate more, because I might hurt worse. And so I don't want to do something that might hurt me, because I don't want to sit out, because I want to be able to skate as much as I want.

But I won't blabber on about roller derby any more tonight. It is a beautiful evening, and Z is grilling Spar's sausages, and I've made margaritas. Margaritas taste like summer. Mmmmm.

4.8 km to be exact

I just had an ice cream sundae, but I walked 3 miles for it. Does that cancel it out or am I still fat?

I really cannot motivate myself to want to be thinner.

Oops, so much for exercising less. But I exercised more! So I filled one of the recommendations...

Right knee only hurts a little. It's springtime in the Village of Kenmore, to be sure. (We walked to Condrell's, since Anderson's is of dubious actually-open-ness.)
I have beaten my mother in that I have crocuses and snowdrops blooming, and hyacinths and daffodils thinking about it, while she only has crocuses sprouting. So go me.

I think I will get rid of all the grass in my backyard. My backyard is kind of stupid and dumb. It needs to all be a garden.
I wish I had time...

I did finish working on the compost heap-- there was new dirt in the bottom of it, so I took it out and put it into my garden. I am still considering moving the whole compost heap, but I don't know where to put it, and I can't think of a way of making it look nice. I'm sort of done with having it near the neighbor for her to enjoy since she's the one who insisted that we had to make it larger and more prominent, because she's an old bat. But whatever.
I'll ask Baby Sister, who is coming out this coming weekend. She hadn't told me, but Mom did, that she's taken a job in Chicago with their Prarie Redevelopment Something in the botanical gardens. Why not? Awesome.

Now I have a reason to visit Chicago, where I've been meaning to go but never have.