"The"

Just a quick blog to note an observation.
Adding the word "The" in front of a location bother me tremendously. It, imho, makes a person sound white trash. Example: I am going to "The" Walmart. Patrick tried a wide array of establishments and it just doesn't work. Not even "The" Round Table. I am sorry if you use this phrase you must stop now. Thank You

the freak out

Every day it gets closer. It's still many months away but closer than its ever been before. I have always said that I am 23 forever and believed it too. But now that 30 is getting near it feels like I went from 23 straight to 30 with no notice. I am officially freaking out. Moody-like chick moody. Like depressed and irrational and I think on the verge of another mid-life crisis (derby was my first). My desire to visit bars and go out on the town is a sure sign of crisis. Normally I am a home body happy as long as I have munchies and cable. I think in my brain thinks that if I go out and baout and do things then I am still young. And maybe it'll keep me from remembering that I am almost 30 and I have not met any of the goals I set for my life. That I am unemployed (yes I am going to school full time) and when I was employed it was not a career it was a job. It'll keep me from thinking about the very real possibility that my relationship will never get any better. That I will continue to be upset about the same things over and over because he simply will never change and I simply will never come before his own thoughts in his mind. That he will never ask me to marry him. That I can attribute many bad decisions in my life to him. My 5 year anniversary is tomorrow and guys are notoriously bad at remembering these things but c'mon-April Fools Day is the easiest day ever to remember. He has the kids tomorrow, I can handle that. His friend and her daughter are coming over tomorrow for dinner too. That I really can't handle. At this point I feel they have him more than I do. The really bad thing is the more it happens the more I don't care...and not in a good way.
In the way of the world when one part of life crashes another does well. Practice was rad last night. I was back to jokey havin fun time. In other news I have made it 10 days without a cigarette. Well 9 full days. Typing this has really made me want one and I will be helping Mz. V with an english paper in a couple hours and she smokes...so we will see if I can hold out.

Shoes

I have been retreating inward lately. When I say inward I mean the couch. Its a really comfortable couch, very inviting. My favorite pillow has joined me. Its become my safe haven.
My brain is fried. My Spring break has not been a break. I have been doing homework like its a full time job. When I am not doing homework I have been trying to hide from all things derby. Derby -the one thing that used to bring me immense joy is now the bane of my current existence. Its funny how quickly things change. Just a few weeks ago I went on the best road trip ever with 3 fellow rrg's to LA to skate on the Derby Dolls track. It was EPIC! Not just the skating-which was rad and the picking their brains-which was radder-but the whole road trip. 16 hours in a car with 3 chicks and we got along the WHOLE TIME. Amazing. We told stories, played games, bought team beef bowl sweat pants and some random gas station on the way back. Ate way too much junk food, drank too man energy drinks and loved every minute of it. Seriously it was the best most needed time. I even got to see my brother and his son (so freaking adorable!) Jack West. He is gonna be a movie star some day-I have no doubt of this.
As I dropped off the last girl reality set in and the panic of homework that needed to be done and derby crap that needed to be done set in. But it was all quite manageable. The next bout came up so quickly I didn't even have the normal freak out time for it. Of course as this was bout number 6 maybe I am just getting used to it all. Anyway bout number 6 was GREAT. I didn't feel all bitter like I did at the last bout. I didn't let bad juju get to me. My team stayed positive and had a great time. Terri and her ENTIRE family came down to see it along with Sara and Kera and Thomas and Patricks mom. It was a super great feeling to have all those people supporting me. I had an entire row of fans! WooHoo. It was also the best crowd we have ever had. All seats filled and people standing all over the place. AWESOME. At half time I really thought the Dolls were gonna over take us but the Mollies wound up winning. I thought we all had a great time. I guess I was in such a good place that I didn't notice the other team wasn't in the same happy place. I can understand being upset at a loss. I cannot understand not looking to yourself to see where the problem lies but instead attacking the other team and telling them someone needs to leave. That someone being me. I am tired off being attacked. I am tired of spending all of my free time on derby just to be argued with for every decision that is made. I am tired of people not getting involved and then bitching because they were not told. Like its a secret club. Secret club of the door mats. All of this has caused me to retreat. I am not stalking my email accounts like usual or answering my phone on the first ring or even responding to messenger. I don't have it in me to even pretend to be a person right now. I am abandoning homework as of this moment so that I can pay attention to a neglected friend. The television. The television does not ask anything of me. Lets me choose what I want to watch, even lets me pause mid sentence so I can get a snackie or pee! TV also does not require me to leave the house. I had to leave to feed Jackie's kids yesterday and I didn't even bother to put on shoes. Just left in my socks. I don't even have the energy or desire to wear shoes! Today when I had to leave the house (to check the rrg po box) i put on patricks flip flops because they only required minimal effort on my part but it did take me a good minute of thought to not leave bare footed. Oh I did manage to put on jeans for my jaunt to the po box but otherwise I was still in my jammies. If left to my own devices I would prolly just stay here and not make contact with anyone. So its a really good thing my wife is checking in on me. She knows me. A day goes by without contact and something is definitely up. Which it was and while I don't want to talk about it, with her it all comes pouring out. She understands cause shes is stuck on BOD of doom too. Thank God.
Did I mention I have the plague too? Yes, just when you think you've hit rock bottom the rock crumbles.
In other news I am super happy to be going to SF to support Mz V this weekend. Shes a superstar and I am so proud of her! And hopefully Sunday I will get to see the wife and her mom. A nice weekend something to look forward to. But that means I will have to leave the couch. Maybe I will be Lucas and take a cushion with me. Then I can be AJ and glue quarters to the floor. I have always wanted to do that. Jackie has an extra coffee table...hmmmmmm.

I hurt, everywhere

Saturday night was the bout. I am pretty close to positive that all the hard work (the driving around town handing out fliers, selling ad space, making phone calls) paid off. We had a great crowd at the rink and omg the freshmeat were amazing-they set up, sold raffle, cleaned up and generally did whatever was asked of them. Which of course makes it so difficult to let them skate in the next bout. They better all find a replacement!
The first half was crazy tension and a bunch of bitterness from me. I was super unhappy with the way people were playing. Its so easy to say "Just let it go and have fun" its so freaking hard to actually to that. Despite Robins numerous pep talks, even one that kept my team from having a pivot or blockers on the track, it was so hard to pull myself out of that black mood. I am sure it had a whole lot to do with this being my first bout without health insurance and I walked away from it with more injuries than ever before. I've got some awesome rink rash on my left hip, my right knee is wicked bruised, my right shoulder hurts, my right arm is totally bruised where I tripped over Patrick and hit the penalty wheel (yeah, yeah) my ass hurts from getting knocked on it all night. But its derby and I love it! I am bummed none of my bruises are photo worthy.
Oh and of curse my wife gave me a bloody nose! Wasn't painful just managed to get bumped in the right spot. And I needed that, I needed a fun little fight it got me back in the mood I wanted to be in, I needed to be in.
So the Mafia Mollies won (that's the team I am on) but it was super close.
The damper on the evening was girls from the other team in town showed up to bestow upon us their advice. Which they yelled out as we were skating y like we had never done this before. Like this wasn't our 5th bout in less than a year! They even had the nerve to walk up and offer to coach us. I was upset over that but simply skated away. I don't understand when they are going to accept that we skate but 2 completely different sets of rules! One team has nothing to do with the other. Its absurd that its been 1.5 years since I have been an RRG and this crap has always been happening. It is only a small number of their girls that behave that way, unfortunately their president is one of them. That's the girl that came to the bout and yelled snide comments throughout and if that wasn't bad enough she showed up at our after party too. She and another cornered our girls and told them we would never be banked track and tried to recruit our media relations girl and our Vice Prez. Dumb CUNextTuesdays didn't realize the mistake they made there! After they threw a beer at H.Ivy and got punched in the face for it they were booted from the bar. Only to return an hour later at which time Mz Vindictive handed them their asses. I don't condone derby girls fighting derby girls and everyone on RRG knows they are not to talk badly of any other league including the other league in town or the one in Tahoe but when this girl smack talks at the bout and then shows up at out after party still running her mouth well then she got what she deserved. I will back Mz. V 100% and I will also be damn glad that Mz. V is on my side and has my back!
I went into this bout worried about my team v your team mentalities and unneeded rivalries. There was for sure tension during the bout but the after party was anything but clicky and I am quite happy that things returned to normal.
I don't know if I really want to bout again in a month but I am sure by that time I'll be more than ready.

Spinning

I need to know if other people feel this too. Some nights when my eyes are closed and I am trying very hard to go to sleep I get this feeling like my body is spinning. Spinning and rocking at the same time. That sounds absolutely horrible and I can only liken it to the feeling you get when you've had to much to drink. However without the alcohol its this rad super soothing, calming feeling. I have no idea why it happens or how to make it happen. As I laid down last night it happened and I went to a super happy place in my mind. Then one little thought of the evenings events brought me back out into the dark reality. Which brings me to my second question. When it is dark (outside, inside, wherever there is no light) I see all these little tiny colored dots everywhere like snow on a tv set but colored. I think I tried explaining this to someone once and they thought I was crazy but I'm pretty sure it has to be a normal thing. As I get older it is becoming more and more clear that we (people) just aren't as unique as we think we are. Its kind of depressing in a way. Shoots down my theory that the whole world revolves around me. Oh my gosh if my High School history teacher could read that sentence he would fall over and die. We had many arguments about my insignificance and I never wavered. The whole world revolved around me. Now I don't want it to, it's too much pressure. I don't want to be in charge.

The good times always come at a price!

The price for this good time was sleep. I guess I can't complain too much I still slept for 7 hours. The boy only got 5 hours of sleep.
When I got home from practice last night I was all wound up as I usually am (either from hard skating or drama..) and he was still awake. So we started to talk about the night since he came to practice (but didn't stay for all of it) he had some input for me that was quite helpful. But that wasn't the good part. The good part was when we started talking about nothing. Absolutely nothing of importance but there were tons of giggles and belly laughs. I thought at one point I was going to hyperventilate and of course my cheeks started to hurt in that great way when you have been laughing too much. Sitting here the next morning I have no idea what we talked about except that Patrick and Paula get drunk together, Paula Abdul, that came about because I harmlessly sang one of her lyrics wrong. Crap maybe I sung it right Patrick isn't known for knowing those kinds of things. But despite that he corrected me and informed me that he and Paula drink together and then he completed the verse I was trying to sing. I don't even know why I was singing that particular song except it had something to do with my cold feet......cold hearted snake! Ah, yes its all coming back to me now. Which may lead me into a meatloaf song so I better stop this before I start.

Superbowl!

WooHoo Football! Hahahaha like I have the attention spam to watch football. At least last year I liked the Patriots (when I say like I mean I used to live in CT and so I root for them and same with San Francisco). So last year it was quite entertaining to be the only female in a room full of guys and the only Pats fan. But at least it was fun witty banter the whole night. Although watching Brady get sacked repeatedly got to be a little much, well not so much watching that as the glee and happiness on everyones face when it did happen.
This Superbowl no one was rooting for anyone really. I mean everyone seemed to choose a side but not really care. There were some good plays thank god but overall it was just really long. Luckily Grace was here so I could make derby references to get myself thru it. The quarterback is now the Jammer in my mind and they don't fight nearly enough. Although one guy did and he fought dirty! Punching the other guys back, that's not right. And the ballets moves were pretty cool too. I just can't handle the stop and go, stop and go. Way too much downtime for not enough action in my opinion. Although I think there are millions of people out there who disagree for starters the 75,000 that were in the Stadium and lets see cheap seats are $2,000. So that means at minimum they made $150,000,000. Holy beejezus that's a lot of money.
Dude it would be so sweet if that crowd was there to see Roller Derby! Good god i really need to start talking about other things I'm sure my non derby friends are quite sick of hearing about it by now.