Shredded Bats

Did you ever wonder where wood chips come from?

College is expensive.  At some point in 2004 I was faced with the millennial's dilemma and realized that as great as my summer job at the local pool was it just didn't earn me enough money to offset some of the cost of school and living expenses during the year.  I needed to find something more profitable than the $7.50/hr that I had been making.  This is how I came to work as a temp. 

LC Staffing was located in a small and slightly abused building just between the edge of town and Evergreen, the unincorporated town outside of town.  The paperwork asked what sort of work I was looking for so I asked the receptionist which jobs made the most.  She told me it was manual labor so that's what I chose.  I was then assigned a staff member who did the formal interview.  We sat in a cramped back office cubicle with no light as she went through my questionnaire and I reiterated my desire to earn as much money that summer as I could.
"You want to do labor?"
"Yes."
"You can lift 100 pounds?  Really?"
"Yeah, definitely."
"wow.  you must be strong."
At the time I wasn't really familiar with the tone of voice used by people who think you're lying to them.

She found me a one week job in landscaping on a dude ranch just south of Whitefish.  What I didn't know is that when people say that you're going to do landscaping they usually mean that you're going to pick weeds.  It paid more than my lifeguarding gig but not as much as moving furniture or working construction like many of the other temp workers did.   When I got there I was surprised to see a former high school classmate getting out of her car in work clothes and gloves.  Tiffany had pulled the same landscaping card I had and we were set to work grooming the lawn and tending the gardens.  It wasn't a bad way to spend a week.  The weather was nice, the supervisor was friendly but not creepy and the company was good but I was still hoping for a longer gig that paid more.

After several more landscaping jobs, a stint at a deli and a horrifying 5 hours as a bus girl in a restaurant it dawned on me that I was never going to get sent out to work construction.  When my assigned staff member at LC Staffing told me that she was trying to get me jobs that 'weren't too hard' what she meant was that she didn't think girls should do that kind of work.  It's hard to put your finger on why you know that kind of thing when you're in that situation but between that, the jobs I was assigned and the rumblings among other temps that women weren't wanted on particular jobs even though you legally couldn't say so it became clear that gender was the overriding issue preventing me from earning the kind of money I wanted to be able to earn.

Before I had much of a chance to contemplate what might be reasonably done about that sort of thing another opportunity presented itself.  One of the members of my parents church was a person of some degree of importance at our local lumber mill.  He mentioned that they too hired through LC Staffing and that perhaps I should see whether they were needing additional summer labor at the moment.  When I asked, my assigned staff member abruptly handed me off to another staff member who sat me in front of a training video, gave me directions to the mill and and told me to report in at 5:30am the next day.

We were more or less surrounded.

It's worth noting at this point the degree of influence Plum Creek has on the local economy back at home.  They are the largest private landowner in the United States with about 6.8 million acres, nearly 900,000 of which are in northwestern Montana.  A job at the mill was a good blue collar job with lots of hours and decent benefits in a town where about 75% of my graduating class did not go to college and the other options were the aluminum plant, a boom and bust manufacturer of semiconductor washers and not much else.  When I was in the fifth grade we got to go to the FORESTRY EXPO! Which was an educational event on forestry topics for local fifth grade students.  Among other things, I remember a very cool demonstration of logging techniques and forest management put on by Plum Creek.  They made the case for logging in a community that in many ways depended on it.  Many of my friends parents worked there (and still do).  It wasn't exactly a hard sell.

I was to report to the C shift of the re-manufacturing (REMAN) division at the Evergreen mill.  I didn't know what the meant, but I did know I'd be making over $10/hr so it seemed like an improvement over pulling weeds.  Everyone I talked to told me I'd probably be pulling plywood off the chain.  I didn't know what that meant either.

The next morning in the pre-dawn darkness I drove into the lumberyard and parked my dad's tiny '86 Honda Accord somewhere between a forklift and the requisite lineup of Ford F-150 pickups.  The sweet smell of sawdust greeted me as I walked into a mostly empty break room and asked for Jerry*.  What greeted me was a manic gorilla of a man addicted to steroids and just shy of his 35th birthday.  This was my shift manager.  They later told me that Jerry used to sometimes pick up the vending machines and shake them to dislodge free snacks - peanuts in particular -  but then management got wise and nailed down the vending machines.  I determined that it would probably be better to be on Jerry's good side.

From there I learned that REMAN had nothing to do with plywood.  We were actually the third largest producer of finger jointed 2x3, 2x4 and 2x6 in the world.  A finger joint looks like this:

When 2x4's are made without jointing, the machines run the entire tree through a machine made for that purpose.  Some of those long 2x4's come out unusable as a single piece of wood.  The way to make those 2x4's usable is to chop them into smaller pieces that fit the grade and then glue those pieces back together into 116 1/8th inch long slices.  That's what we were doing.

The trouble is that someone has to decide which long 2x4's are usable and which aren't.  We had a machine for that, but sometimes it's 'eye' couldn't decide and that's where I came in.  My job was to sort through the undecided pieces of wood.  If one end of the 2x4 was bad, I used my chop saw to cut it off.  If a long end of the 2x4 was bad then I used my rip saw to turn it into a 2x3.  Bad pieces went to the wood chipper and good pieces went to get jointed and glued together.  I manually sorted about 5,000 pounds of lumber a night and went through a pair of gloves every week.  It was the bitch job, it was mine and it made me about $8,000 a summer.

Terms:
See the bark on both sides of this piece of timber?  That's called wane.  You can't nail into wane and it has to be removed if it takes up more than half the nailing edge of your lumber in order to be stud grade wood.  Knots that are larger than half the width or edge of your wood are also below stud grade and must be removed or sent to the chipper bin. Wane that covers the short end needs to go too. 






The constant roar of the machinery meant that conversation was not possible on the floor and in any case my station was not close enough to anyone else to talk so I mostly got to know my co-workers in the break room or not at all.  There were 11 of us on shift and one other woman so by the second summer it was really like having 9 older brothers and one very tired aunt.  They adored me, and in what seemed like not enough time I was as much a part of their family as anyone.

One day I was pulled from my usual work to do what was essentially quality control on a long line of identical pieces of wood running by a conveyor belt.  I was to be the second eye in addition to the machine and flip anything bad to the person at the chop saw.  At first watching the belt made me dizzy, then gave me a little headache and before I knew it I had full on motion sickness.  Vomit came roaring out of my throat and so I turned and yakked in the first thing I saw - the belt to the chipper bin.  The guys came over to pound me on the back and laugh at me.  "You shouldda seen when Bobby done it!"  In fact it soon became clear that at some point, each of them in turn had vomited into the chipper bin.  It was a bond we shared.

Evidently at some point in the not too distant past someone had died in the chipper.  No one knew how exactly, but the guy had disappeared on shift and when someone stumbled to the horrible conclusion that the chipper could have been to blame pieces of him were in fact discovered there.  Now the room had a camera.  The chipper operated without human assistance most of the time but occasionally a long piece of 2x8 would jam it and someone needed to go in there and either pull it out or shake it enough to make it go in.  The camera was there to see if there was a jam and possibly for safety reasons too.  The only other woman on shift watched the video as she operated the 'seeing eye' machine.

It was also true that bats sometimes roosted in the wood pallets that waited outside to be processed.  So naturally when one of those bats was caught, the guys thought it would be really fun to rattle the chain of their colleague watching the camera and to do so they stapled the bat to a piece of 2x8, waved it in front of her camera so she would be sure to see it and threw the whole thing into the chipper.  They thought this was hilarious and in telling the story to me I thought it was funny too.  So many months in their company had changed my sense of humor somewhat, but when I attempted to retell the story to my other friends all I saw on their faces was horror.  Not funny at all.  Some aspects of the mill didn't translate back to the rest of my life and some of my life didn't really translate to the mill either.

By Rainbow they mean rainbow trout.  Not gay people.

"Hey, you wanna go out to the Rainbow tonight?"
"I'm not 21 yet."
"Don't matter.  Neither is Bobby!"

The Rainbow was and probably still is the trashiest of dive bars.  Its reputation preceded it so even if I had some desire to go out drinking with the boys and witness one of the many brawls they so often spoke of, fear of the venue alone probably would have kept me away.  They didn't seem to mind.

Back at work Jerry crowned me employee of the month and crowed that I was "the best motherfucking rip saw operator [he] ever had!"
"but you're not a motherfucker, right?" asked another co-worker, eyeing me.  It was 2:30 in the morning and I was alone at night in the warehouse with 9 of the guys.  It didn't seem like a great time to make a stand for normalizing gay life so I sat there in my brother's Marine Corps camo pants and work boots with what little hair I had hidden under a bandanna and shook my head 'no.'  I suppose it was true strictly speaking.  I had never fucked anyone's mother.

As the summer came to a close so did my time there.  They often hired college students to work the busy season so the guys knew that I was easy come, easy go.  Nevertheless they encouraged me to come back and put in some hours over Christmas  or maybe even graduate from school and come back to work full time as many of them had.  On my last day my shift manager pulled me up into his office, shook my hand and let me know that if I ever needed anything he was only a phone call away.  They were there if I needed them because we were family now.  I thanked him, left the building, pulled away in my dad's little car and never saw any of them again.

The Mostly Weekly Dribble

I always thought that if suffered some major injury from derby that I would write a book with my new found free time.  I also always thought that my brain would be a bit clearer than it has been but things are coming around.  It's 27 more days until I'm supposed to start walking again.  I have to admit that I've been trying steps but when I said as much to my physical therapist I got 'the look.'  They're pretty good at 'the look' actually.  Must be all those rollergirls they treat.  At any rate, I need a distraction and this is it.  50,000 words which is about 1,800 a day until I walk again and you're going to find them here (unless my inspiration runs dry in which case you're going to find whatever you find and you're going to like it). 

The first time I tried to write a book the summer before I was a Freshman in high school.  I had just read the series "So You Want to Be a Wizard" and my friends Dakota and Caleb had both just written epic fantasy novels which I did not read but was very impressed with nonetheless.  This confluence led me to the conclusion that if they could do it, I certainly could do it and so my very own wizardry epic began (this was before Harry Potter.  I swear.)  I used to hide in the spare bedroom back in the corner of the basement with my clean and perfect black composition notebook and draw out character profiles in my very best handwriting.  This took forever because my handwriting is now and has always been absolutely atrocious but I wanted it to be good.  This was my new, secret and exciting calling. 

However like all of my new, secret and exciting callings it didn't stay a secret for long.  I proudly wrote out 40 single spaced typewritten pages and proceeded to show them to everyone who would look.  My Freshman English teacher promptly had me go to some sort of writing clinic where I sat on the tired chars of the Eagles Lodge in Kalispell, Montana with other high school students.  All of them were probably older than me and many of them certainly seemed to know what exactly you ought to be doing at writing clinics.  We went through the beginnings of my novel which was nestled inside a cheap but much loved purple plastic binder and agreed that it had great ambition and lots of potential.  Or maybe that I had great ambition and lots of potential.  One of those

It may have had potential but I had run up against a wall.  My main character was an orphan who did not know that she was a wizard (I swear!  Before Harry Potter!).  She was tall, blonde, athletic and smart.  Persistent too, but did not trust people.  She had a little sister and together they went from foster home to foster home.  Kit (the nickname for my girl) was very troubled and possibly into drugs.  She needed to hit bottom to discover her true identity.  The problem with that was that I was not troubled, just a tad neurotic.  I had never used drugs or taken a sip of alcohol and I lived a fairly Rockwellesque childhood with ballet classes, piano lessons and the occasional foray into childhood sports.  So while I was trying to write about Kit's spiral into some sort of suicide attempt it was clear that I in no way possessed the emotional depth to pull it off.  I was 14 after all.

So Kit went to go live on the bottom shelf of my bookcase in her shiny purple binder.  She's still there, actually.  Sitting in my parents house, waiting for someone to come along and let her find her true self.  I like to think that if that damn Rowling woman hadn't come along I might have come back and found a way to write myself out of my literary trap but no one wants to be a copycat, least of all me. 

I think it must have been the next year that I got my own email for the first time.  My family had gotten a home computer when I was 9 or 10 but the internet didn't come until later and even then there was some degree of uncertainty as to what one was supposed to be doing online anyway.   I remember spending my allocated time entering in URLs I found on cereal boxes which provided a temporary reprieve from creating folders within folders within folders strung out in long nests of codes meant to prevent my brother from reading my very secret private computer files which for some reason I did not elect to keep on a floppy disc that could be removed and hidden.  This was all until it was discovered that I could collect the email addresses from my various summer camp friends and keep up with them much more frequently than traditional letter writing had allowed.

And thus Peatty23@hotmail.com was born.  At the time, my brother desperately wanted a PT Cruiser because he had just gotten his license and the PT was clearly the height of coolness and fashion.  Instead, we rode around in a tiny grey '93 Mazda pickup just big enough to transport a few tubas or maybe a jazz band's worth of music stands for my dad's work.  I called this pickup Peatty in an effort to goad my brother with daily reminders about that which he could not have.  23 vaguely rhymes with Peatty and so I took this address and sent out a mass message to everyone I knew talking about my adventures in learning how to drive a stick shift.  I sent mass emails with these sort of self absorbed fun anecdotes on a more or less weekly basis and called it The Mostly Weekly Dribble.  So while I'm not saying that I invented the blog at sixteen, I am saying I got an early start.

I considered the Dribble to be the side show to my main event.  I still wanted to write fiction and Kit was still my character although her circumstances had changed.  I no longer read as much fantasy in high school as I had in junior high and so Kit needed a real life scenario to go along with her fabulous good looks, street smarts and witty charm but it seemed like every story line I came up with was too pedestrian for her impeccable strengths.  I wanted her to live in a city, but didn't know how to write city life and I wasn't sure what she was doing there anyway.  So instead I just wrote descriptive scene after beautiful descriptive scene where nothing ever happened but it was all set up just so and she was alone.  Always alone.

In the meantime the Dribble was wildly successful by my own measure although in re-reading some of them its hard not to come to the conclusion that they were written by a hyperactive squirrel.  At any rate, people seemed to respond to it and I got a chance to be funny and insightful which I love.  Here's an excerpt from June 7th 2002:

"So ya know what I was thinking?...........

Wouldn't it be terribly lonely to be a superhero?  I mean yeah, you get all the sexy babes, you get to save the world and everyone loves you.  But in the end I think it would be lonely.  Everyone would respect you, but I think because of that, no one would ever really know you.  I'd be lonely anyway.  In the same respect it's like some of those people at school.  Ya know who I'm talking about.  The kid everyone knows and likes.  The one who's always surrounded by a thousand people.  I think it's people like that who are the most lonely.  What's the use of having lots of friends if all of them are too in awe of you to really ever be close to you?  It's something to think about anyway.  Why did this come up?  Well we have this assignment in history to make up superheros.  It's our semester.  Yeah, don't ask....."

^this is the saddest thing I have ever written.  Why it didn't occur to me that I was that kid is beyond me.

Then college happened and for some time Kit disappeared entirely and the Mostly Weekly Dribble became a Mostly Perfunctory Series of Updates.  I was too busy being overwhelmed to be clever.  In my Freshman year I took a small honors course discussion course whose topic I think was intentionally vague and made more so by the fact that our professor wanted us to self direct the class into some area of the humanities for a journey of discovery and knowledge.  What we actually did was talk a lot about numerology.  There were only 14 people in the class and one of them only came once.  Her name was Alexis Kent.  We talked a lot about Alexis while she wasn't there.  We speculated on her proclivities and wondered aloud what sort of life she might be living while we were in the classroom.  Her number (based on her name in n numerology) was a 3 which meant that she had a propensity for fame.  I liked the idea of her.

Later that year I went to see the vagina monologues with some friends. After the play we were standing around chatting about what we might name our own vaginas (like you do).  Before I knew what I was saying I blurted out the first name that came to mind.  "Alexis Kent."
"You mean Alexis Cunt?"  Asked my best friend.  Raucous laughter ensued.  I decided right then and there that Alexis Kent was not the name of my vagina.  But she did stick with me.  She was Kit all grown up and so after college I began again to try to write her into my first great work of fiction.  I lived in New York City for six months after school and finally could write an urban story.  I had experienced some heartache, some adversity and some really bad choices and I knew that Kit, Alexis - whoever - could weather it better than I had.  She was my perfection, and that was a big part of the reason why she never came to be.

It was at about this time that I was reading a news article about a young writer talking about her memoirs.  She had started her writing life in fiction but never had much success.  Finally, after showing a story about a little old man to a friend of hers the friend looked up and told her that the story wasn't about some old man, it was about her.  That all her writing was about her.  That in spite of all her efforts to imagine something new she was really just writing memoirs and maybe she should stick to it.  I read this, looked up from my writers block and realized that Alexis wasn't real at all.  She was just the all the things about myself that I liked best without all the things that made me interesting.  No matter what story I found to fit her it would only ever be a shiny patina over my own.  The decade I had spent writing Dribbles instead of fiction wasn't a way to bide my time until I came up with the great american novel - it was my novel.  Will be my novel.

And so we find that I am 29 and writing memoirs in spite of my youth.  Not because of a sense of vanity (although I do plead the 5th in that regard) but because its what I do well.  I don't think in novels but rather essays.  27 days until I walk means 27 days of essays about my life.  I hope you enjoy it.

Thoughts on Coaching

awesome-train.blogspot.com

Learn it.  Love it.  Know it.

After approximately six minutes of consideration I've decided that the easiest solution to my malware problem on the old blog would be to start a new blog.  And then this URL was available which pretty much sealed the deal.  Most of the old posts are here now which I imagine is mostly to my benefit but you know - you can still read them too.

Actually the review of old posts has revealed a couple of things.  First - I used to work out WAY more than I do now.  And with more drive.  Second - I pretty much only write on a few themes.  Goals.  Motivation.  Perseverance through adversity and awesomeness.  It's not necessarily a bad wheelhouse but I thought I'd see whether I could get out of it for a minute.

I've started to do some coaching this year which I LOVE.  Back in the day I used to teach French horn students (and WAY back in the day it was swimming lessons) and while I don't really want to do that sort of thing full time I do miss it and coaching has dome some work to fill that gap.

But as opposed to music lessons or swim technique, the coaching space in roller derby is a sort of weird confluence of various styles.  In my first year of learning to skate I took lessons from speed skaters, artistic skaters, jam skaters, former hockey players and then just a whole lot of folks who taught themselves.  Of course every one of them is certain that their style is the most correct and each of those styles have some pretty significant differences between them.  It makes for an interesting learning environment and that's before you get to the many opinions that exist just within the roller derby community.

Then there's the matter of trying to aim at a moving target.  Two years ago I got picked up to a team without having solid transitions on either side.  Today we don't even let new skaters practice with teams until that skill is down cold.  The rules of the game literally keep changing so the things that are most important to know how to execute change too. 

So the question becomes not just how to teach new skaters the rules of the game and basic skills but also how to best prepare them to pick the most right action for them out of the many possible right actions (not to mention the many possible wrong actions).  In doing so I often wonder whether it's possible to create a method of learning any particular skill that's more direct than what I was taught or whether doing so would miss some fundamental skating skill developed by learning an intermediate version of that skill.  Was the 'intermediate' version really necessary at all?  If we teach skaters the methods deemed most important today will those most important methods still be considered as such in two or three years?

^OK - so that's incredibly vague and esoteric.  Let me see if I can provide some examples.

I used to call getting low the 'all purpose flour of roller derby.'  Now I'm not so sure.  Consider what it feels like to get low on transitions.  Do you really know anyone who stays low throughout the turn?  Last year we took some footage of Nasty Nikki Nightstick doing a turn around toe stop and when reviewing the video at slow speeds discovered that the very moment of her turn she stands up.  If you think about it in terms of physics, this makes sense.  It takes considerably less energy to spin an object that is straight up and down than it does to spin something that is unevenly weighted on the lateral axis.  Imagine spinning a straight straw versus spinning a bendy straw that has its top bent.  The straight straw is easier to spin.  Following that logic it's easy to imagine that teaching new skaters to transition while bent at the knees and waist is actually making them less stable. 

... and what about when making a wall?

Look how low I am!  I'm Low McLowerson!  So Low!

Look at Jes Rivas! (lane 4 in blue)  She's... in an athletic position!  She's Athletic McPositerson!  So positioned!

You guys - Look.  You can't really play roller derby in a deep squat all the time.  I spent a lot of time reviewing footage last fall and noticed that blockers I admire like Juke Boxx and Jackie Daniels have a much more upright position than I had been taught.  These players stand with their back up and their butt down which gives them a less low position but much improved lateral movement not to mention a whole 'nother way of feeling the jammer on their back.  I've been trying to teach myself the same but have found that nearly everything my body knows about how to stop and move needs to be adjusted because the stance is so different.  It's going to be a long road.

So what should we teach new players?  It's true that you hardly ever see anyone playing 'too low' while we often see players who are too tall.  Should we bother teaching a more nuanced stance now or is it better to let them develop as skaters and re-learn it later?  I don't really have the answer for that and not just for skating low but for a lot of things.  And do you know what?  That's what I like about coaching.  In a lot of ways it's a skill that allows you to really tap into critical thinking and creativity in ways that simply playing the game does not.  I don't pretend to know all the parts and pieces of how to put this game together from the ground up but I do look forward to a vigorous exploration in the years to come of exactly that topic.

Therapeutastic!

(see - it's like therapeutic and fantastic put together in one word)
First some housekeeping.  My blog seems to have been infected with malware that tells you your Java needs to be updated.  I'm trying to uninfect it but should that fail I may need to move this page to a new blog.  I'll let you know if that happens and in the meantime, do not click on that Java nonsense.  Second - Morganautumn I do not see your email address on your profile but if you put it there or in a comment I will email you!
...on to other things.
Last week I started physical therapy in a cloud of expectation.  Finally!  The resting part is over!  Time to actually DO something to speed my recovery.  I was also really genuinely glad to see my physical therapist again.  I've been a patient over at Advanced Manual Therapy in Ballard on and off for the past four years (which I would like to point out predates my derby experience).  I've never been a person who had their own neighborhood bar, grocery or restaurant (where everyone knows your name!) but AMT is most certainly MY physical therapy office.  Ignoring for a moment what that says about my apparent propensity for injury I will say that it's great to know that while PT can be painful and boring at least its with people I know, like, and trust.
Having said that, I will admit that at best I am usually a pretty OK physical therapy patient which is a significant improvement over my pre-derby life where I was generally a totally non-compliant physical therapy patient.  I've always had bad feet and spent significant time in PT when I was a kid.  Other kids did not have to go see Fred the physical therapist, did not wear orthotics, were not forced to do situps every night before bed and didn't have to wear tennis shoes all summer in lieu of sandals.  I associated these things with my own weakness and so I associated PT with weakness.  It's taken a long time to for me to turn that mindset around and also to learn that weakness isn't actually a permanent and unchangeable state of being.
The roller derby community on the other hand is generally unabashed in its enthusiasm for rehab and prehab and so I too have learned to be unabashed.    Still, there are always so many exercises that it can seem hard to keep up.  I usually pick the top two that I should be doing at home and do them during my break at work.  It's not a perfect solution but it's consistent and better than nothing.
This past week of PT has been a lesson in what six weeks of atrophy can do to you.  On Saturday they asked me to do a hip adductor leg raise with two pounds attached to my foot on the bad leg and I couldn't.  Not because it hurt, but because there was no strength there.  It suddenly became very apparent that while I may be cleared to walk in another five weeks if I don't stay up with the PT my muscles won't be able to bear the weight.
I've suddenly found myself to be very motivated.
<posted on 4.1.14>

The Seven(ish) Stages of a Broken Leg

Not all of the best stories start from the beginning.  At least that's what I've been telling myself.  It's been six and a half weeks since I broke my leg and yet every time I come here to try to hash it out I come up short of a full story.  I haven't been able to process this thing emotionally.  Or maybe it's that I'm still processing it.  Grief has seven stages after all...
DENIAL:  IT WON'T BE THAT BAD
So...  Yeah. The actual breaking of the leg part really was fairly awful.  And the fallout afterwards was/is also pretty bad.  I used to have this vague idea that breaking your leg doesn't hurt that badly.  You always hear people say that the adrenaline kicks in and they didn't really feel it or whatever.  I've actually seen at least three different people break their own legs and they didn't look like they were in a ton of pain.  And you get pain meds right?  Clearly the pain meds are great and make the pain go away and also make you feel euphoric about life.  Right?
Not quite.
PAIN:  THIS REALLY FUCKING HURTS
I'm still not really able to go back and think hard about how the fall/hit/break happened because it's too traumatic.  I remember screaming and not being able to stop.  I'm hoping to be able to return to the track without having to break that down mentally but maybe that too is denial.  As far as the pain meds go I can admit that the first shot of morphine was great.  Instant relief and relaxation.  But the second did almost nothing and I was in too much pain that first night to sleep at all in spite of the pharmacy being pumped into my arm.  The pain ranged from mild to severe for two weeks.  My first attempted blog post was trying to happen about then and all I could manage was a long litany of how much pain I was in, the types of pain, the trying to get past the pain.  I had enough sense not to post that one because it was too depressing.  You're welcome.
FRUSTRATION:  I WANT MY LIFE BACK
About two weeks ago I found myself in bed and trying to work from home but actually weeping for the first time.  I was finally off the pain meds and realizing just how much I missed people.  How tired I was of existing in bed for 20 hours a day.  How annoying it was that every tiny thing around the house took three times more energy than it should have and that a simple trip to the grocery or a restaurant expended nearly everything I had.  I wanted to sleep in my own bed again, see all my teammates again and have the hours of my day filled with more than TV and crochet. 
...and do you know what?  I'm still pretty much there (but increasingly able to get around, thankfully).  I guess the next stage is supposed to be guilt.  I suppose it's possible that there's been some guilt.  I sometimes wonder whether things might have been different if I had been a better jammer that day.  Or a worse one - so that I wouldn't have been put in.  But I know that the truth is it doesn't really matter and so I've been trying to steer clear of that one.
The other truth is that there's a lot that's happened that doesn't fit into this nice rubric of grief.  Like...
GRATITUDE:  THANK GOD FOR MY FAMILY
When I was lying on the floor, panicked and waiting for the ambulance one of my teammates asked if she could get me anyone.  I asked for Razor who came over, held my hand and asked whether I had a high pain tolerance.   When I said yes she relayed the information to the firemen "hey, she has a high pain tolerance so if she says it's hurting, it really hurts."  I don't know why - but it was the right thing.
When I got to the hospital the firemen tried to move me from the gurney to a wheelchair which caused agonizing spasms.  As I lay there in tears my teammate Bruisey told them 'no.'  They couldn't move me.  It obviously hurt too much.  She said it when I couldn't.
It was my last day in the hospital when my mom came in from Montana.  I've never been so glad to see her face.  She was immediately able to organize the things I hadn't thought of.  Going to the store to grab essentials, getting my apartment ready for a less able lifestyle, making sure my insurance paperwork was in order.
On my arrival home a small army of elves from the league whisked away my sofa and replaced it with a hospital bed.  Prepared meals began to fill my freezer.  I may have been high on drugs and in no small amount of pain but the days were full of friendly faces, encouraging emails, love, life and laughter.  It meant everything to me and still does.
So that's where things stand as of today.  I know I still have a long road ahead of me and hope to do some more writing here now that I have the time.  One thing is for sure, things are looking up from here (or maybe that's the denial talking).
<posted on 3.26.14>

All Is For The Best

—It is clear, said he, that things cannot be otherwise than they are, for since everything is made to serve an end, everything necessarily serves the best end. . . . . Consequently, those who say everything is well are uttering mere stupidities; they should say everything is for the best.
-Dr. Pangloss in Candide by Voltaire

Today I'd like to share with you one of the ways I reset my frame of reference when things in my life aren't going my way or when the monotony of day to day living starts to get me down.*
If you could define the crux of the logical fallacy in many religions it would be what we often refer to as the human condition.  If god is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving - why does pain and suffering persist in the world?  Surely one of those three attributes of god is incorrect.  For the nonreligious the closely related question concerns our purpose here on earth.  We as humans would like to assign value to our life among the chaos.  Why folks chose to go on living through unbearable circumstances?  To cling to life when it might be easier to lay down arms and give up?
In the 1700's a popular French philosopher named Liebniz proposed that since god is all knowing, all powerful and all loving it only stands to reason that this world - the one we live in - is the best of all possible worlds.  Things literally could not get any better than they are right now.  That particular theory played very well with the folks in power in France at the time as you might well imagine.
It did not play well with Voltaire who subsequently wrote an anonymous pamphlet called "Candide" or "Optimism" which was a satirical look at Leibnizian optimism.  Candide is the hero of our story and begins is life in relative comfort and taught Leibniz by a certain Dr. Pangloss.  I won't write you a book report, but for a variety of reasons Candide's life turns from mediocre to horrible in a few short pages.  He is made to suffer through war, famine and earthquake.  His beloved is raped and nearly killed.  His tutor is horribly maimed by syphilis. Characters thought to be dead reappear later in the story but are made old, scarred, poor and miserable by the life that circumstance has forced them to live.
In the middle of this narrative Voltaire allows Candide to escape.  For once, chance brings him good fortune and he finds himself in the mythical El Dorado.  Streets are indeed paved with gold.  Everyone is well fed, happy, healthy, wealthy and charitable.  The side trip allows Voltaire to say "look - if this world is the best world that an all powerful god can create why is it that I, Voltaire, can think of something better?"  Foolishly - Candide chooses to leave El Dorado taking with him as much wealth as he believes he can.  This is human nature at its most predictable.  To be wealthy is not enough - we invariably want to be wealthier than those around us.
Now back in the real world Candide loses all of his fortune, is reunited with his beloved only to realize that she is now ugly, maimed and kind of a bitch.  He finds himself living out his days in Turkey with the miserable characters of his life, arguing about philosophy and living in abject poverty.
(are you ready for the paradigm shift now?  I know it's been kind of rough up until here.  Thanks for sticking with me.)
One day, Candide happens across a man who alone of all the people he has met in his travels is not miserable.  He lives in a decent house with a decent garden and a decent family.  He welcomes Candide and his friends to dine with him as a matter of hospitality.  Naturally, Candide asks about the philosophy by which this man lives.  Surely he must believe that he lives in the best of all possible worlds?  But the man will have none of this talk.  He sends Candide away.
The incident shakes Candide out of his philosophical reverie.  He takes stock of his current situation and sees that he too can have a garden.  His beloved can make crafts and sell them.  In fact, everyone in his home has a skill or trade that's of value.  Their life improves and they no longer bicker but simply see their life as it is, work hard and tend to their garden.
Why do I like this story?  First the obvious:  I love any story where the solution to the given problem is to work hard.  If you haven't figured that out yet then I'm guessing you've never read anything I've written here.  But the less obvious?  I think we hear a lot in modern living about how things must not be as bad as they seem.  We have a reflexive desire to make things 'be OK.'  You know what?  Sometimes things aren't OK.  Sometimes life hands you a shitty deck of cards.  Every waking moment is a moment of hell for someone here on earth.  War, pestilence, famine and disaster prevail over the lives of millions and global warming is probably going to kill off humanity in the long run.
The question isn't whether things are OK.  The question is how you're going to decide to live in spite of all that.
Candide decided to take in his surroundings, see what was real and then work hard and tend his garden.  When I have days of being overwhelmed by various forces I cannot control, I try to do the same.

*I learned everything I say here in a college philosophy course and hope somehow that the naysayers of higher education and the humanities in particular might consider intangibles such as these before spouting off about the lack of value of a higher education in liberal arts.
<posted on 1.31.14>

Passionately Motivated (Not A New Year's Resolution Post)

One of my teammates posted this to Facebook today.  Since Beethoven is my spirit animal I thought I'd repost here:

It's the new year and while I've tried to get started on thoughtful and funny lists of things I've learned in 2013 and things to continue to work on in 2014 they've all been a little flat and uninspired so I'm sparing you the emotional pain of slogging through it.  Suffice to say that what I appear to have learned in 2013 was how to play Angry Birds.  Everything else is debatable.
That's not to say that the time wasn't well spent.  Earlier this fall a friend of mine asked a very relevant question:  How do you stay motivated?  It begs consideration.  How does one get back on the rink day after day, year after year with joy in your heart and fire in your eyes?  I guess the simple answer is that you don't.  Passion is bound to wax and wane with time.
As of today Jet City is back from our two week holiday break.  I've spent the time almost entirely off skates and instead spent time enjoying the holidays and binging on inspirational sports stuff. If you're struggling with the passion of the game then I highly recommend this course of action.  If you're not struggling then I still highly recommend it.  Inspiration is funny - I find that if I surround myself with things I find to be uplifting then it's not long before I drown it out in the everyday noise of life.  Real inspiration comes from within, not my Facebook news feed.  But every now and again an infusion is welcome and I recommend these:
Blind Your Ponies by Stanley Gordon West
This is a book about basketball and small town Montana.  You have to read about 50 or 60 pages before it gets any good so if you find yourself nodding off through the first little bit then stick with it.  The book is not for hardened cynics or realists.  You have to be open to inspiration if you ever hope for it to find you.
The setting is Willow Creek Montana, a place that hardly exists on the map and makes my hometown look like a modern metropolis.  The wonderful thing that the book helps to capture is the nature of sports in small town America.  Hollywood would have you believe that high school athletes across the country are put through rigorous training and selective cuts all so that they emerge with an unthinkable drive to win and the right to walk around town like gods.
But in small towns (and I mean really small towns) this isn't always true.  Your team consists of whichever unlikely souls you can convince to play.  The hope isn't to field a winning team but any sort of team at all.  In Blind Your Ponies we are dared to believe that six boys can overcome their God given abilities to come together and find something great.  That hard work, grit and fortitude mean more than numbers and training.
Rudy (1993)
Yes I know - Rudy makes a lot of top 10 sports movie lists.  I wouldn't mention it except that it appears to have left me a sobbing, hiccuping mess on my sofa this weekend.  In case you live under a rock - Rudy is the story of an unlikely hero who grows up as a huge Notre Dame fan.  When his best friend dies he leave the factory where he works in order to attend school and play football for Notre Dame in spite of his poor academic record and lack of athletic talents.
My swim coach in high school (who is the coach we should all aspire to be) often referenced Rudy in our practices.  At times in the move when all appears to be lost, Rudy goes to his priest and asks, "have I done all I can?"  Since then I've made it my mantra as well.  When I'm down, lost, discouraged or angry I find myself in the mirror looking up and asking "is this it?  Have I done all I can?"  The honest athlete knows there's always more and Rudy not only finds a place in his heart to keep going he touches every person in his life with his dogged perseverance.
These things inspire me because I identify with the underdog in sports.  I believe that heart beats talent every day of the week and twice on Sundays.  What I wish for you in this new year is that you find your own inspiration so that your passion may follow you in 2014 and beyond.
Happy New Year
<posted on 1.2.14>

Spin Move!

This story actually starts a little over a year ago.  It was a Monday night B52s practice and Pippy Longstalker had just introduced the spin move.  It was late, I was tired and the practice was poorly attended.  I can't exactly remember the drill we practiced but I do remember thinking to myself, "yeah.  I could do this."  Pippy encouraged us to try it out in a scrimmage even if we fell.  Even if we had to do it for no reason around one of our own blockers.
But I didn't try it out.  I thought about it really hard.  I thought about when might be a good time to spin when I was scrimmaging but my feet just didn't ever follow through.  I thought about it for a year while other skills and knowledge of the game solidified. Then this fall at the clinic hosted by Carmen Getsome Smarty Pants made the observation that the transitions she was seeing were sub par as compared to the skills of the group as a whole.  I hate being sub par, so since then I've been spending my Saturday nights scooting around Southgate Roller Rink spinning and plowing and not much else.
Fast forward to last Saturday.  We were halfway through a 20 minute exposition bout with the Hulas and losing by about 25 points.  I was set to block every other jam all night with the possibility of acting as a backup jammer if we had established an early lead so you can imagine my surprise when my bench coach said "we're putting you into a 3 jammer rotation."
"You want me to jam?"
"Yes"
"3 jammers in our line?"
"No.  You, Babe and Nellie."
"Three jammers for the team?"
"Yes."
I have only ever jammed once in a bout before so did I experience some doubt?  Yes.  Did I have to take 10 seconds to clear my mind?  Totally.  But I would be lying if I didn't say that the tiny optimist who lives in the back of my head didn't suddenly rush forward and scream into my subconscious:  I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS MOMENT MY ENTIRE LIFE!
And so I jammed.  Sometimes is was great, sometimes I got stuck in the pack, one time the other team scored 20 points on me and I can't say I'm too happy about that.  But I stayed clean and calm, learned from my mistakes and when the opportunity presented itself I didn't think about that spin move.  I didn't think at all.  I just did it.
So is this entire post just a way for me to stoke my own ego?  Maybe a little.  But I wanted to be able to write this down so that some day in the future I can remember what happened and why.  I wanted to take a moment to look back at where I was when I got back on skates this fall and see just how far pain free skating, mental focus and positivity have really taken me.  2014 is going to rock!
<posted on 12.10.13>

Learn All The Things!

This past weekend Getsome Athletics hosted a two day workshop in Monroe with coaches Carmen Getsome (Rat City), Smarty Pants (Texas Rollergirls), Laci Knight (Angel City), Shorty Ounce (Rat City) and Nehi Nightmare (Rat City).  I learned too many things to adequately discuss here but wanted to touch on a few that deserve to be remembered.
First it bears mentioning that the clinic overall was exceptionally well run and organized.  Check in was easy.  The exhibit hall at the Monroe Fairgrounds is a great space with a smooth floor, tons of natural light (such as it is in the Pacific Northwest) and plenty of clearance on all sides of the three practice tracks.  Coaches refrained from using whistles so that there was no confusion from one track to the next, which I deeply appreciated.  Food was available for purchase although I brought my own so I cannot speak to its quality.
Each hour had classes designed for beginning, intermediate and advanced skaters and I felt appropriately challenged in the intermediate and advanced options with many other players who are near my own skill level.  My only real complaint would have been that some classes felt crowded although that was less of a problem as the clinic reached its conclusion.
But enough of that.  You really wanted to hear about the skating.
Agility
When I started skating two years ago one of my coaches said that we'd all eventually learn to do everything we can do in tennis shoes on roller skates.  I always thought this to be true until one of my friends pointedly asked whether I could climb a tree in roller skates.  Leaving aside the question of whether I could climb a tree at all, I'll go ahead and stipulate that advanced skaters should expect to be able to do most ground based activities in roller skates as well as they can in tennis shoes.
The problem is that it's easy to get caught up in only working on agility maneuvers as you see them in your own league and there's so much more out there to explore.  For instance, Smarty Pants asked a question I've never heard:  Are you using your toe stoppers as a tool or a crutch?  She went on to explain that after playing roller derby for years on the banked track without toe stoppers she transitioned to flat track and subsequently added toe stoppers to her skates.  Not because she couldn't maneuver without her toe stoppers but because she wanted to use them to augment the things she could already do.
Now that's an interesting concept.  If you had to play a game without your toe stops could you?  Would you even know how to start?  After all we know that the equation of agility in roller derby is rarely that you as a player should do X in Y circumstance but rather that the solution to game play lays in intuition and a certain level of unpredictability.  You must be able to move in the way your body dictates, whatever that may be.
I'll be working on a couple of moves in particular in the coming months.  I'm afraid I'm not sure what to call the first one, but moving laterally your feet would look like this:
1.) | _   2.)  _ _   3.)  _ |
------------------------>
So, starting with your feet in an "L" position you transfer weight to your right foot, go into a mohawk, transfer weight onto your left foot and then put your right skate down at a perpendicular angle so that it stops your movement.  Why do that instead of a turn around toe stop?  I'll have to play around with it but I'm guessing that this particular maneuver is helpful because it allows you to face forward throughout and sets you up to go back in the other direction immediately, without moving your feet from where you stopped.
I suppose the second skill this brought to light was our old friend the duck walk/run.  Now - can I duck walk/run?  Sure.  But if I'm being honest with myself I know that when I'm doing it my right foot turns out and does all the work while the left foot remains pointed forward and does nothing.  Turns out that you can accelerate a lot faster if you use both feet.  It's also worth noting that when Smarty needs to move backwards in a hurry she duck runs backwards with her toes pointed outward and then comes to a stop using a backwards plow.  So you know - something to work on.
Blocking Backwards
After six months of hard work I've finally figured out how to block while skating backwards.  I've been very proud.  However, it would seem that I'm destined to spend the next six months figuring out when not to block backwards and I have to admit that it's a bit disappointing.  Still - it's easy to see that turning around at inopportune times during game play can be ineffective at the least and dangerous at worst.  Smarty Pants says "I wish I was a good enough player so that I never had to turn around."  Getsome says that players who find themselves backwards and filling a hole in the wall are in the 'danger zone' and to get out of it ASAP and every time Laci Knight had something to say to me it was either "don't turn around at that point," or "quit using your arms." 
That's hardly to say that blocking backwards is a horrible idea or that the hours and hours I spent drilling transitions when I was a newb were all for naught.  Here were some scenarios where blocking while skating backwards were recommended.
1.)  If you're in a three or four wall and your other blockers have the jammer you can flip around and steer your teammates using their shoulders while slowing them with your toe stops.
2.)  You begin backwards with one toe stop down so that the wall moves slowly as soon as the jammer begins the jam.
3.)  The jammer is right on your teammates ass and you flip around and hold her arms in a death grip, allowing her to stabilize and use you as an anchor for good lateral agility.
Should you happen to have the jammer on your chest while backwards by yourself Shorty and Getsome recommend that you get low (so as not to high block/draw the high block) and put your arms out for psychological impact. 
Strategy
These things were new to me:
If you only have two blockers on the track you might consider shifting your priorities from scoring points to limiting damage.  We've all seen teams get into penalty sucks where the two blockers who are on the track start working overtime, accumulate penalties and start a vicious cycle of two blocker jams.  Instead, consider putting both blockers 100% on offense (or even passive offense), getting your jammer out and killing some time but still forcing the other team to call the jam after one pass.  Sure - the other team will probably score 4 points, but giving up one jam and getting your blockers back on the floor might be better than struggling through 5 jams of continuous penalties.
If your team has hit out the opposing jammer and bridged back it might be more worthwhile to have one player bridge back 10 feet while the remaining three wall up 20 feet behind her.  Sure - you only brought her back 30 feet instead of the maximum 50 but now she must contend with pushing all those players forward in a wall - much harder than juking around four individuals bridging separately.
If you've hit out the opposing jammer and she's following you back don't go back to the end of the engagement zone.  Instead, give yourself some room so that just as she's coming back in you pump yourself backwards and pull the cut. 
I suppose if I had to wrap the weekend up in a bow of sentiment I'd say that it was really excellent to get out of my league a bit and skate with some folks I've seen or played against in the area and beyond.  The combination of new skills, different players and a vastly different skating surface than the wood at the Everett Skate Deck made it easy to get out of my head and accept a higher level from myself than I think I usually exhibit at home.  I'm very excited to continue to work on some of these skills in the weeks and months to come.

****

PS:  I was also REALLY EXCITED TO BE SKATING WITH CLAM JAMMER FROM WASATCH.  But then I never told her so because I wasn't 100% sure it was her and not some other Clam Jammer or just someone who really likes Clam Jammer (because Utah is really far away!)  Anyway - Clam Jammer - I think you're pretty rad and I wish I'd said so in one of the 30-50 scenarios we skated together.
<posted on 10-23-13>

And They Danced

An amazing thing happened this weekend at the Division I Semi-Finals in Salem.  Actually - a lot of amazing things happened:
- Tournaments are not well attended, so it's possible to get so close to the track that you can actually smell the overripe third day stench of all your greatest heroes.  It's also possible that this fills the category of 'kind of disgusting.'
- I bumped into Bonnie Thunders in the hall eating noodles and made an awkward attempt to convey my appreciation for her as an athlete despite a sudden and predictable bout of Situational Shyness Syndrome.  She then attempted to engage me in normal conversation which I deeply appreciated despite the urge to run away with my hands over my head.  The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
- Rat City will be going to championships for the first time since 2008 due to the change from regionals to divisionals.  They played well, have obviously worked hard and I wish them every success in Milwaukee.  It's also extremely cool that they'll be in Wisconsin with my very own Jet City Bombers who are looking to take home the first ever Division II title.  It's great to see the Pacific Northwest representing on a national level.
But the thing that really stuck out to me was something else entirely.  Late in the day on Saturday Sacred City played Victoria and while they put up a good fight they lost by about 100 points.  Energy in the room was low to disinterested as we all got up for the traditional high five lap - but for reasons that are still not clear to me an official review was called.  Maybe we were bored.  Maybe we didn't like staring awkwardly across the track.  Maybe the DJ is a genius because at that moment a classic 80's tune began to blare across the crowd inciting an impromptu group karaoke and dance session led by the Toronto Rollergirls and bought into enthusiastically by the rest of the crowd.  The arena echoed with our voices.
Some day somebody's gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye
Until then baby are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry
Don't you know?  Don't you know - things can change - things 'll go your way
If you hold on for one more day

 

Put your hand up for Detroit! (Pre bout line dance courtesy of Axle Adams)

I think it's important to remember times like these because roller derby has a future.  Right now that future is skating around in wheels that are ridiculously large against their tiny boots, gazing up into our faces, watching how we treat each other and wondering why we dance.  Maybe it's pre bout jitters.  Maybe it's team unity.  What I see is an inescapable expression of joy.   I won't say that they owe it to us to continue.  Culture inevitably changes over time and as the sport becomes more serious I'm sure there will be some who say that dancing during OTO's, before a jam or after a bout is unsportsmanlike or somehow takes away from what we're doing.  But there's a part of me that hopes that the broader sports culture might somehow absorb this part of derby as it is.  That we might retain our expressions of pride, community and dance.
<posted on 10.2.13>

In Defense of Awkward Skating

About halfway through my first round with the Jet Cadets (our fresh meat training program) our league coach, Big Poppa, pulled me aside with concerned eyes and told me he wanted to talk about my skating.  "Because you can skate," he told me "I mean you can reee-ally skate, OK?  But you don't look like you can you can.  Because you're always..." at this point be broke off, hunched up his shoulders, held his arms at awkward 90 degree angles and did some awful version of the robot dance.  "I mean, do you ever just - you know - skate around?  Get loose, get comfortable?  'Cause captains are gonna look at that and..." he shook his head.
My friend Riley put it another way.  "You know what Megan?  People are always going to underestimate you and that's OK!  Because you're awesome and they won't be expecting that you're good!"
Um... yay?
That was two years ago and since then I've launched several campaigns against 8 wheeled awkwardness to varying degrees of success.  After all - it's tough to tell your body to relax and do what doesn't actually come naturally in the middle of trying to:
Block the jammer
Yell about the jammer
Stay low
Ward off offensive blockers
Keep track of the penalty box
Know where your skates are
Keep your hands to yourself
...and so one has to wonder whether a certain degree of competency on skates is simply out of reach for those of us without a relative degree of natural grace.
That question remained unanswered in the back of my head until the Windy City versus Rocky Mountain Rollergirls bout at the Division I playoffs this year when Athena De Crime racked up a HUGE power jam late in the second half of the game.  As a fellow awkwardian (yes, I made that up just now) I mean no disrespect to Athena, but she's hardly a continuum of smooth moves.  Even so, here she is, herkey jerkying her way through the pack and onto the scoreboard with logic defying effectiveness.  And T stopping into the bench?  I think I'm in love.
and she's not the only one
Actually - when you start to look for really awesome awkward skaters they're sort of everywhere.  from Shaolynn Scarlett to Penny Racer these athletes that wiz by in apparent discomfort and nonetheless perform their roles with admirable strength and agility.  It's enough to make you wonder why anyone ever thought that awkwardness is a disability to begin with.  After all, roller derby is that everywoman's sport where tall, small, round or thin we find our way to do battle with those tools we were given and why should ease of movement be any different?
<posted on 9.26.13>

2014 Roller Derby Goals

This past weekend CarnEvil held our annual retreat where (among other things) we talked about where we've been in the past year and where we'd like to go in the future.  It occurred to me that I didn't really sit down and perform a similar exercise on a personal level last year.  I got drafted and then found myself awash in a generalized goal of getting better which is - of course - generally useless.  I therefore present to you my plans for the coming season.
Be Awesome
Being awesome has once again made the list for achievable objectives in the coming year.  In many ways this should come as no surprise but during my first season I'm afraid that what had once been my daily mantra subsided first to a foregone conclusion and then to a memory of something great.  True awesomeness requires occasional revitalization and redefinition.  To be awesome I must:
Remain Positive
I'm an outwardly cheerful person.  It's how people see me and how I see myself which is why I think it's so easy to let the occasional negative thought or comment slip suddenly into a vortex of spiraling disaster where the only person in my immediate vicinity who's looking at any particular situation 'the right way' is me.  The cheerful one.  Which of course is hardly cheerful at all.  I believe that negativity often stems from relying too heavily on my own perspectives.  I therefore pledge to keep an open mind so that I may hear the best of what other people have to say and see the best in what other people are doing.

I dislike pithy statements, but I needed to hear this on the day I first saw it.

To remain positive I will:
1.)  Refrain from responding to emails that irritate me in the hour that I first receive them.
2.)  Assume the best about the actions or in-actions of others unless proven otherwise.
3.)  Find and emulate enviable traits of those around me.
Live in the Moment
This is hard.  Like - driving down the freeway at 95mph while opening a bottle cap with your toes hard.  Perhaps my greatest asset and most serious flaw is that I tend to see myself in the victorious future rather than the messy present.  On the one hand, it's great to prepare for success.  On the other hand, success is difficult to achieve without a persistent focus on the task at hand and it's easy to get frustrated when what's imagined is too distant from what exists.
To live in the moment I will:
1.)  Look at my coach in the face when she's talking (or at other people's faces when they're talking).
2.)  Take 30 seconds to calm my mind of all thoughts before the start of any practice or scrimmage.
3.)  Imagine success 10 seconds (not 10 minutes) before it happens.
Encourage Others
There's a lot of research and philosophy behind why encouraging others is a great way bring success to your door.  You can call it karma, science or common sense.  I don't really have a word in my personal arsenal to sum up how I feel about that.  Sure - encouraging others will probably help them to encourage me, and that's all well and good.  But really I think that whole-hearted honest encouragement is a way to become larger than yourself.  If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.
To encourage others I will:
1.)  Give high fives with my heart.
2.)  Practice good active listening.
3.)  Tell people with words when I see that they've accomplished something really cool (even though that's sometimes hard for me).
I love being awesome, but I also have a few goals for skating itself.  So without further ado...
Skills
*  Plow with my left foot, because my right foot is tired of always doing all the work.
*  Hop laterally - for a good reason - during a scrimmage (which will probably be preceded by hopping laterally for no reason during a scrimmage).
*  Re-remember fearless jumping
*  Find my butt whiskers
*  Weak side force out/transitions.  (I'm SO close to being able to consistently execute this)
*  Juking
*  Good lateral agility while skating backwards
*  Do one scary thing every time I'm on roller skates
*  Hockey stop
Athleticism
*  I want to be physically able to jam all night on a Thursday without causing undue exhaustion (if I could manage this as a Cadet I can sure as hell do it now).
*  Consistent injury prevention strength training and PT
*  To get up quickly without pain every time I fall, no matter how many times I fall
Game Play
*  Increase my game intensity from a 6-7 level to a 9-10 level
*  To always be acting decisively to accomplish some goal during a jam (rather than waiting in indecision)
*  Finish re-reading the rules and follow up with with a ref on the questions already noted as well as those yet to be noted.
*  Make a regular habit to watch game play from other high level leagues whether online or in person.
*  To continue to develop my voice as a floor general
I think that pretty much sums it up for now.  Stay tuned for further developments for my second season as a skater!
<posted on 9.18.13>

British Invasion!

Truth:  Before last week I didn't know anything about the London Rollergirls.  I had a fit of looking up WFTDA sanctioned bouts to watch when I first came back from injury in March but after watching a few choppy minutes of the Track Queens tournament on You Tube I concluded that roller derby was roller derby and there was better footage of other teams to be had online.

I was sort of wrong about that. Well - maybe not the part about there being better footage of other teams online but definitely about roller derby just being roller derby.  If you're interested in bout recaps I'm sure they're out there, but what floors me is the ability to kick ass in 5 sanctioned bouts in a week with jet lag.  That's what I call athleticism.
Fast Girl University is putting on several clinics this summer utilizing some of the amazing players who are going to be in town for sanctioned play.  Yesterday we had four hours with London's Stephanie Mainey.  She's someone I had never heard of or seen play at the time I signed up, but I figured that FGU usually does great stuff and I happened to have the cash.
Best call I've made all year.
Here's the thing:  Last month marked my one year with CarnEvil.  I've learned a lot with my team by just drilling the things I already know and getting more exposure to gameplay but we hardly ever break stuff down into its tiny components.  Even when we do there are some principals that I accept generally because it's what I was taught to do as fresh meat 2 years ago by the women I still skate with now.  I don't challenge these assumptions.
One of these was blown out of the water in the first five minutes of the clinic yesterday.  Our first task was transitions.  I know transitions.  I've worked on them endlessly - gone to adult skate nights and done thousands of them - drilled them to perfection (at least on my left side) so I was surprised to hear Steph tell us to do them only on either our front or back trucks.  It's faster.
What?
I was taught to take a step, roll for a split second in a mohawk and then step with the other foot.  Always with two distinct steps and always with all 4 wheels of each skate on the floor.  The way she prefers to do it is to shift the weight to the front two wheels of both skates and pivot both feet simultaneously.  In other words, you should put all your weight on both front trucks.  To go from back to front do the same except with the back two wheels of both skates.  Sometimes I pivot without realizing it.  I've been trying to train myself out of that, but as soon as she mentioned it I could think of a half a dozen other fantastic players who I know do the same thing.  Lesson learned.  Pivot good.
The next hour was spent on various ways to get another player out of bounds.
1.)  You're right next to the opposing skater and she's on the line.  Get low with your butt behind her butt and your thigh into hers and then pivot her out of the way.  Wingardium leviosa!  Again - I can do this.  I have done this, but it's been too long since I've drilled it at a slow speed with good form.  I'm a better player now than I was the last time I worked on it and it shows.
2.)  Get mid track, drive her out and finish her off with the same butt flick.  Steph emphasized the importance of getting your entire legal hitting zone into her entire legal hitting zone as the overall transfer of energy would make the work easier for you as the initiating blocker. First we practiced leaning into wall with our whole bodies and were asked to notice just how much more power was derived from the foot furthest away from the wall.  This was another thing I thought I had been doing wrong as a player, but apparently that's not the case.  Your outside foot should be doing most of the work.
3.)  Steph explained that you can think of yourself and other players as a big triangle.  If your body goes outside of the triangle created by your feet and your center of gravity you'll have to step over to either correct yourself or lose your balance.  If you want to control another player you have to do so by getting your triangle into her triangle.
Enter Gotham's stepping drill.  Stand hip to hip with your partner, step over her thigh and put your foot between her feet.  She will do the same to you.  Switch.  We also did a variation where instead of just leaning and stepping we stepped into and took our partner's space by displacing her.  I know it's basic derby but I don't begrudge practicing it.  The last time I specifically worked on stepping into another player's space it was in PFM and I had been skating for approximately 3 or 4 months.  You had better believe that it feels different now.
There's more but I've run out of time to type today.  Stay tuned for group work, the Hockey Honey shuffle and reaction drills.
<posted on 6.13.13>

Smelling The Roses At Midnight (Part 2)

Weight Watchers says that you should eat all your meals free from distraction.  This is surprisingly difficult.  In fact - I've determined recently that I don't do anything free of distraction.  Breakfast is at my desk.  My work day consists of an amalgam of disparate and interruptable tasks.  Lunch with the Seattle Times, the bus with Facebook.  Exercise and chores with music, an audible book, or a movie blaring in the background.  I can sit by myself in peace for approximately five minutes before itching for my next fix of entertainment.
Today I looked up on my break and remembered that I have what may be the best view in any lunch room in Seattle:

Ferries come and go.  The Olympics shine in the background.  Storm fronts can be seen approaching in all their majesty from miles away.  Yes, it's the same every day, but it's hardly an imposition to take 10 minutes away to just stare.
In mourning my inability to run it occurred to me that one of the benefits of doing so was that I ran without distraction.  No iPod.  I had my friends along with me, but on the longer runs we often wound up slightly apart or simply didn't talk much.  My pursuit of ankle health has led me an activity I'm referring to as 'rehabilitative strolling.'  Turns out that while running is totally out of the picture and purposeful walking limits my lasting power I can rehabilitatively stroll for quite some time before needing to stop.
I found the silence to be a little oppressive at first, but have since discovered that my neighborhood is very interesting to look at and that the silence has its own benefits.  It seems that Seattle is taking a collective sigh of relief in the face of summer's immediacy.  Instead of the patter of incessant wind and rain there's the squeaking of rusty push mowers (one of the city's more charming throwbacks) and rustle of people out happily trimming back overenthusiastic greenery.  There are old avant garde houses, brick houses, modern houses and a wealth of odd lawn ornaments including a life sized giraffe and what appears to be a giant metal globe swaying on the end of a none too steady metal rod.
...and I didn't even Facebook it.
For Part 1 click here.
<posted on 6.5.13>

Spring Recap

I suppose this is the paragraph where I mention that I wish I blogged more.  The reality is that other than my considerable time constraints I found that there has been much in this first season that I didn't really want to make public.  I thought year one of derby was the year for growing pains but I'm sort of revising that opinion now - or perhaps it's better to say that I'm growing at a different pace in a different direction. 
What's weighed most heavily this spring was a bad ankle sprain that happened in January.  I did not fully appreciate my ankles at the time and afterwards did not fully appreciate the length of time and diligence required to promote healing.  When the air started to turn warm in March and April I was hit with an undeniable longing to run again.  I miss running through those cool spring nights in Spokane the year I trained for my marathon where all I could hear was the pounding of feet and the blessed silence of my brain winding down and turning off.  Derby is great for a lot of things, but mental tranquility is not one of them.
That said - my short attempts to begin to run again have caused more pain than is worthwhile.  In fact, walking distances of more than about a mile and a half is uncomfortable.  It's become apparent that I can't continue to ignore it and I can't deny that I'm looking forward to taking some months off this summer to rest and rehab.  In the meantime - the hunt is on to ferret out ways to get some much desired cardio that don't involve ankles.  The list seems to be very short, namely fixing and returning to my bike and getting back in the pool.  My #1 priority for the summer is my health and I hope to be able to post some positive news here on that front soon.
<posted on 6.4.13>

The D Word

Spring has sprung here in the pacific northwest.  You can tell because the trees are blooming and also because that omnipresent veil of grey mist seems somewhat lighter in the mornings as I walk to my bus.  Given that average temperatures have risen an entire 5 degrees I threw off my winter sweatshirt, went digging in my closet, pulled out my fancy JCRG track jacket and was all like:

<sigh>
For the record, I don't think of myself as 'fat.'  That seems silly. But I only eat well in spurts and those spurts have gotten progressively shorter.  Last fall I tried Paleo but hated the way it made me feel and was unwilling to wait out the two months (or whatever) until my body adjusted.  Then I counted calories for three weeks in December and felt great, but Christmas at home got me off track and the past three months have been a series of "I'll start again next week."
So today I'm treating myself like an alcoholic.  I'm not worried about what I'm going to eat and/or look like next month, next week or tomorrow for breakfast.  I'm worried about what I'm going to eat right now <nothing instead of work candy> and potentially for lunch <Subway instead of Pad Thai>.  We'll see how it pans out.  I'm tired of trying to work out the perfect menu so instead I'm just trying to do better.  Very small amounts of better.
<posted on 4.10.13>

The Crazy Train

This is going to be long and might make me sound absolutely fucking crazy.  I don’t know, but I gotta get it off my chest.  <deep breath>  Here goes nothing.  

The first time anyone ever told me I was bipolar I was out for a run.  It was probably about March or April in Spokane’s South Hill neighborhood.  The sun had set but the air still held an edge of warmth and my lungs felt absolutely alive with the promise of spring.  Actually - I felt alive everywhere.  I had just moved from my aunt’s house to share an apartment with a women I had just met.  We were training for a marathon together.  As we were running that night and talking I told her that the feeling I was having was as if I had woken up from a long sleep and could finally breathe.  It was time to write that book I always say that I’ll write and this marathon training was surely just a prequel for the Ironman to follow.  I felt that I had so much that needed to be accomplished and was worried that the feeling of having been awoken might dissipate before I had a  chance to finish.  Her response was fairly immediate,  “that’s because you’re bipolar.”  My response was equally immediate,
“fuck you.”
I actually didn’t say “fuck you.”  I’m too polite for that.  I said nothing and instead spent the rest of the run and perhaps some time afterward stewing indignantly.  I didn’t really know anything about what bipolar disorder was except that it was for people who were really fucking crazy.  I was not crazy, ergo I was not bipolar.

But it bothered me nonetheless.  

My first major depressive episode was when I was 19 and I had no idea what was happening.  I was terrified because it felt like someone had drained all the color out of my soul and left me to huddle with all the worst parts of myself.  I woke up in the morning exhausted before my feet hit the ground, spent all day feeling the weight of my own guilt before lying endlessly on the couch, drooling at the TV in the hopes that it would provide me with some relief from the demons in my own head.  At the start of it I wrote often about how I was disappointing myself and my parents and how I could and would do better but after awhile I just sort of gave up.  It was the summer after my first year of college and I was sleeping 13 hours a day.

Depression is relatively easy to spot if you’re being honest with yourself.  Its opposite is not.  By the time fall rolled around and school started again I was on antidepressants and seeing the first of many therapists.  I had three or four sessions with the woman before she determined that I did not require therapy.  After all a marvelous transformation had taken place.  I no longer really required sleep.  3-4 hours a night did the trick and I used the spare time to do extra homework.  I went to all of my classes, saw all my friends and felt like a rock star.  Problem solved.

Fast forward to age 26.  I was in the throes my fourth major depressive episode.  I had learned by then that I could simply wait them out but it had been too long since I had been inspired to pull the shades to look at the sun or laughed out loud for any reason.  It had also been two years since that night time run conversation and for the first time I pulled out my computer and Googled:  ‘bipolar disorder.’Of course, when researching any illness on the internet the following is applicable... 

 

...but the description seemed pretty reasonable and specific.  “People with bipolar disorder type II have never had full mania. Instead they experience periods of high energy levels and impulsiveness that are not as extreme as mania (called hypomania). These periods alternate with episodes of depression.”  

There was also a self assessment.  1.)  “Have you had episodes of clinical depression - involving a period of at least 2 weeks where you were significantly depressed...”  Two weeks?  Who are you kidding?  I wish it only lasted that long.  2.)  “Do you have times when your mood 'cycles', that is, do you experience 'ups' as well as depressive episodes?”  Well yeah.  Doesn’t everyone?  3.)  “During the 'ups' do you feel more 'wired' and 'hyper' than you would experience during times of normal happiness?”

I thought back to a phone conversation I had with my mom back in college.  I can’t remember what we were talking about what I do remember what it felt like.  My skin was tingling.  I was a little light headed.  I knew that I should probably stop and let her intercede but couldn’t manage to slow down long enough.  Finally I said,
“I’m having a good day today.  Like, really good.”  She responded,
“I can tell you’re really up.  <pause>  So...  I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but do you ever think you have adult ADHD?  You’re all over the map.  Do you have a hard time concentrating?”  My jaw dropped.  No way.  Obviously not.  I mean - I wasn’t like that all the time.

I remembered a conversation with a co-worker who stopped me one day, took me a little aside and asked in all seriousness,
“are you high today?  Like... something speedy?  It’s totally cool if you are I just... I mean... it doesn’t seem like you.”  I assured him that I wasn’t on anything but I’m not sure he was entirely convinced.

The self-test had more questions:  
Please complete the checklist below, rating the extent to which each item applies to you during such 'up' times.

Feel more confident and capable:  Yes
See things in a new and exciting light:  Definitely
Feel very creative with lots of ideas and plans:  Don’t lots of people have periods of creativity?  
Become over-involved in new plans and projects:  Yeah, but lots of people over-commit.
Become totally confident that everything you do will succeed:  I’m a confident person!
Feel that things are very vivid and crystal clear:  Well...  Yes.  
Spend, or wish to spend, significant amounts of money.  NO
Find that your thoughts race:  I guess so.  Um.  Actually, definitely.
Notice lots of coincidences occurring:  NO
Note that your senses are heightened and your emotions intensified.  Definitely
Work harder, being much more motivated:  Yes.  I wish I could be like that always.
Feel at one with the world and nature:  NO
Believe that things possess a 'special meaning':  NO
Say quite outrageous things:  What does outrageous even mean?
Feel 'high as a kite', elated, ecstatic and 'the best ever':  Definitely
Feel irritated:  NO
Feel quite carefree, not worried about anything.  Yes
Have much increased interest in sex (whether thoughts and/or actions):  I plead the 5th?
Feel very impatient with people:  No!  Except for sometimes...
Laugh more and find lots of things humorous:  Yes.  I wish I could stop myself.
Read special significance into things:  NO.
Talk over people:  Yeah...  I get so that I can’t help it.
Have quite mystical experiences:  NO.  Never.
Do fairly outrageous things:  Again with the outrageous.
Sleep less and not feel tired:  Big time.
Sing:  Only under my breath in public!  What I do in my own home is my own business.
Feel angry:  NO

I felt OK about it because I said ‘no’ to a bunch of stuff but when the score came back it said to talk to a therapist so I took another test.  And then another.  And then I did something I’ve come to hate doing and scheduled an appointment.

I’d like to take a break in our regularly scheduled programming to expand on just why I hate therapists so much.  It took almost a month to get that appointment.  It often does.  I know that if I call 10 therapists that I can pay with my insurance then I’ll hear back from a maximum of four.  Ever.  I don’t know why that is.  Are they disorganized?  Busy?  Have a full practice?  Rude?  

By the time I get those four people to call me back I invariably can only schedule with one of them and by then I’m so desperate to talk to someone that I’ll take what I can get.  Then comes an assessment.  They want to know whether I’m a drug user or an alcoholic, whether I was abused as a child or whether I’m suicidal.  I understand the logical reason for needing to ask these questions.  If you need counseling they need to know whether there’s something big right away.  Of course, if I were suicidal I surely would have killed myself in the month that it took to get the appointment.

In that first session they assess for 50 minutes and then give you 10 to tell them why you’re there.  After all the questions about big serious mental health issues my problem of “I can’t help myself from talking over other people” just doesn’t seem like a big deal anymore.  I start to wonder why I ever came.  Sure, there are months when I wear the same five outfits to work every week without washing them, but at least I still go to work.  Even at my worst I still feed myself, hold down a job and pay my bills.  People who don’t know me well would never know there was a problem.

The last 10 minutes of my session came.  I told the women that I thought I might be bipolar and why.  She nodded with big understanding eyes and told me that I was probably right.  We made another appointment.  She got sick.  We made another appointment.  She was still sick.  We made another appointment and she asked me whether I would consider spiritual help of some kind.  I never went back.  Two weeks after our last session I bought my skates and I suppose you could say that I found my spiritual help after all.

Am I bipolar? I don't know. I'm sure I could go to 10 different mental health professionals and find at least a few who think so. Inevitably what will happen now is my mother will read this post and furiously Google at least a few medications and/or therapies I could try. MOM: I've Googled. You don't have to. Please don't push me on this.

I think one of the hard parts about mood disorders (and hence the reason for the giant public post) is trying to help other people understand what's going on with me. Humans are social animals - we want to help each other. When I tell people that I'm down I usually get a ton of suggestions on how to make it better. In Seattle that means Vitamin D and sun lamps no matter how many times I reiterate that this is not seasonal affective disorder. I'm sad in the summer as often as any other time of year. People want to probe me for a reason for the mood swings but are unhappy with 'brain chemistry' as an answer. Folks want for my moods to relate to things that have happened in my life when they often don't. I sit and listen to the many proposed solutions and have to bite my tongue to keep from saying, "I've been dealing with this for almost a decade. You've been listening to it for five minutes. Why do you think that you have a solution I haven't thought or heard of?"

The thing is, people can help me. I didn't realize just how much until this last time when my friend Riley wouldn't leave me the hell alone. When I get depressed I feel bitchy and then don't want to subject anyone to my presence. It becomes a self perpetuating cycle pretty quickly. Two winters ago when I locked myself up in my house Riley just kept coming around. She pulled me out to go dancing and forced me to have an awful time. She came over and hung out with me while I painted my house. She called me on the phone just to talk. Even though I must have been horrible to hang out with she made me know that I was still her friend. It meant the world to me, then as now.

When I talk about it to you, my friends, what I'm really doing is giving you a heads up - not asking for advice. If I seem weird to you it's because I feel weird. When I'm off my game I have a hard time judging how I come across to others so I'm counting on you to give me a little slack. If I'm suddenly uncharacteristically self-conscious or self-doubting its because I'm afraid for that moment when you tell me just to act normal, and the moment that comes after that when you decide I'm not the friend you thought I was. I still get to have regular feelings too which means that I can have a bad/great week or month but not be depressed or hypomanic. I'm not sure what it looks like to you but I do know what it feels like on the inside. You have to trust that I'll tell you what's going on.

That was cathartic for me. Thanks to anyone who's still reading. Since I promised I'd let you know, you should know that I woke up this morning feeling fairly awful and kinda nuts. I think it's probably just because I've been off skates for so long with the ankle injury and I'm going to try not to follow it down the rabbit hole. I'll let you know how it goes.

XOXO
<posted on 2.25.13>