A week Two weeks in SCP history (June 3-17)

An amazing Andy Warhol polaroid of Liza Minelli

Oh hello there! I have dropped off the face of the planet, blogging wise. I wrote this post a while ago now and during a transfer from blogging clients it some how ended up full of junk html (aside: if you know of a good blogging client for Ubuntu, please let me know!).

At the point where I realised that the formatting was all up the whatever, I felt too exhausted to do anything about it - and then for the next month I fell into a funk/anxiety haze where I felt mostly too exhausted or stressily het up to do anything much of anything, really.

But I am feeling more regular, and so will publish this post in preparation for something more substantial later this week. I have been making lots of things!

It looks as if June has often been a fairly prolific month here. Although I have nothing to report for this week from 2010-2012, I was posting substantively over the rest of the month during those years.

I’m putting this June enthusiasm for blogging down to the longer, colder days of winter, when nothing is more desirable of an evening than to cosy on down. (In fact I am ALSO internally cosy at the moment - full and relaxed on mulled wine. SO.GOOD.)

2009

• Cycle Rant- I am mad about the attitude towards cyclists as expressed in a Dom Post article. (I am often still mad about the attitude towards cyclists).
• You need to see this - I will knit for tattoos.
• Fashion bloggers v Pam Hogg - Fascinated by a now-ancient fashion blogger controversy.
• Saturday morning trauma - More about cycling in Wellington.
• Roller skates and roller skating - I hurt myself again at roller derby.

2008

• Roller Girls - watched Roller Girls for the first time and became deliriously excited about roller derby.
• Wednesday List: Liza Minelli - Liza Minelli is fabulous and awful. Yay Liza!
• A tour of my Kaikohe hotel room - the most retro hotel room I have ever stayed in.

2007

• Tongan Police Brass Band - heh, this is pretty awesome.

2006

• How serendipity on instant film - some thoughts on Polaroid film, which I still deeply love. Where can I buy cheap Polaroid film in NZ, people?
• Existing in real time - a list of things I happened to be well into at the time of writing.
• The World Cup has stolen my boyfriend - hilariously, I recently found a draft for a post about much the same thing that I’d written before the Rugby World Cup in 2011.

2005

• International Woman of Mystery - writing my first blog post in Australia.
• A Series of Observations: things that blow my mind - stuff in Adelaide, including the local passion for flavoured milk, the coins, and the crazy lack of people.

Do June and July fire in you the passion to do nothing but sit around at home and do indoorsy things, like blog?

Weekend Projects and Ms "Disaster Tourism" 2010

Agata Nowacka via Supersonic Electronic

y weekend projects were not as plentiful as might have been hoped. I had a good go at decluttering, and I've managed to get rid of some more clothes from my wardrobe. It's really nice to be able to move the clothes smoothly along the rack, and my room is looking less cluttered and more tidy each time I remove something, which is a very satisfying feeling. Other cleaning things slid off my to-do list, but I managed to get at least one load of washing done before the gale force winds set in and tore everything off the line (flatmate was not so lucky - he found his jeans in the garden this morning).

Shannon's birthday scarf is nearing completion. If I really knuckle down I think I can get it well finished before his birthday (on Friday), and the weather is so miserable at the moment that it looks as though he'll get some decent wear out of it before spring starts. Did I mention the gales? There are lots of gales at the moment. Tres windy.

On Saturday night I tweeted for the second Richter City bout "The Rubble Rouser". I felt far less weird going to this one than i did going to the first bout after leaving the league, but it's still pretty strange watching the girls skate and not being a part of it. i drank a few (not very nice) beers, and ran into a fair few people that I hadn't seen for ages - mostly people from high school. All in all I had rather a weird night, and I was rather relieved to run off as soon as the bout was finished.

The bout itself was great though! So many hot talented ladies. Pageant won again… this means that the final bout is just a matter of Malice trying to claw back some pride. I have faith in them though! GET IN THERE GIRLS.

I'm going to be tweeting the next bout as well by the look of it. I over-tweeted on Saturday - apparently Twitter cuts you off if you send 200 tweets in an hour (who could have guessed) so I'm going to have to learn to be a little more self controlled for the next one. I received a lot of good feedback from people watching the tweets. Happy! I love positive feedback, like a big geeky puppy rolling on my back and waving my paws in the air. WEEE.

And my final bit of news: Did you pick up on the recent earthquake in Christchurch? It was a pretty huge earthquake, 7.1 on the Richter scale, and it's pretty much a miracle that nobody was killed. There are heaps of photos out there of buildings that have just slid into the centre of the road. But - guess where I'm still going on Wednesday? I'm going to visit an earthquake hit city that's under a State of Emergency.

I'm not super enthused to visit the carnage (in case you're wondering if I have a twisted Disaster Tourism desire), but Shannon is still going down there for work and I still have tickets to fly there, and the airport is open. I'm not sure how much will be happening, so I guess I'll take a few more books than I'd initially planned. I guess it'll be good to get out of the city though? I hope there are no scary aftershocks and I don't fall into a hole in the floor and am never seen again.* That would be bad.


*I read a story about the 1931 Napier earthquake at primary school and this exact thing happened to a character in the story. I've never been able to get it out of my head.

Party Day.

Jean Harlow says "Woo!" via Vintage Photographs.

So my biggest (most life-changingest) news is that I've handed in my resignation to the derby league I have been part of for the last two and a half years. This may seem super surprising to those of you that don't know that I made a decision a while ago now to leave out as much negativity as I possibly can on this blog - I've been relentless in writing only what I love about the league and the sport and my team.

Leaving derby was a difficult decision, because I have loved it so much over the years. Ultimately, thought, it was the best decision that I could have possibly made, because I just wasn't having fun anymore. RCRD is coming up to the new season, and all the work involved in skating in and being part of the organisation of a bout had increased. And all I felt was resentment, for something that I was voluntarily a part of! Leaving seemed like a no-brainer, however the emotional ties were pretty strong. Dude, in some ways I felt the thing was my BABY. 

The night I made the decision and sent out my emails (Tuesday) I felt weepy and had a stiff drink; however by last night I was reflecting on what a fabulous decision it had been. There is no shame in choosing not to be part of something that you don't want to do anymore, especially if your involvement is purely voluntary.

So onwards and upwards! I have big plans for spinning and I've almost completed the second of a pair of socks that I started a long time ago. I have been somewhat obsessive with the baking and the cooking and I'm determined to get out of the crappy food rut I've been stuck in. I bought a leopard print snuggie. My Boy has come back early from his trip (due to illness, but heyho) and, most excitingly, I've made plans to have drinks on Friday night without a hint of guilt.

The inside of my head this Monday

Photo via Vintage Photos.

I'm feeling grumpy like this grumpy man. Grump grump grump, eating worms etc.

The Boy was here in the weekend on a break from his epic around the country trip looking at radio transmitters. It was awfully nice to see him because I am rather fond of him. We drank and gossiped and had a bit of a dance off on Friday night, and then went to the vege markets on Sunday morning. It was all terribly domesticated and rather cosy and lovely. These are the things that living together is good for!

I now have a little less than a fortnight to wait until he is back for good, and I’m so stoked. The flat dynamics are all wrong without him around too, and it makes it kind of horrible to live there. Flat dynamics are a subtle balance indeed, especially given my apparent intolerance for almost everyone in the world. The dynamics need to be perfect or else I find myself raging about and re-organising what has recently be re-organised by someone else. ("I CAN'T BELIEVE HE MOVED MY TOASTED SANDWICH MAKER" *basilisk glare*).

I scrimmaged in the weekend for the first time in weeks and weeks and weeks. I forgot how much I love hitting people. I’m still a bit overly cautious and appear to have become afraid of falling over, but still - it’s just a matter of working through these head things. It’s been a drag trying to convince myself that I still have the abilities that I had last year, and to keep motivated to train when I know that I won’t be skating in the first bout. Also, admin stuff is making me hell grumpy at present, and so despite my little bit of joy in skating again, I am piking this evening to be quiet and far away.

My flat has been pretty much abandoned - Shannon and Dave are away, and my third flatmate, James, is pretty much always busy and is never there. It's fair to assume that I'm going to have the place to myself until next Thursday - quelle excitement! I'm planning my perfect evening for tonight in an effort to make myself feel better in my grumpiness. Thus, I am planning to make Italian Meatball Soup, hula hoop in the lounge to Beyonce, MIA and Missy Elliot for the hour or so it should take to cook this, then oil my spinning wheel and spin for an hour while watching an episode of Rome. Does that sound some kind of awesome or what? Wish me luck!

Arohanui: On Friday, where I list a bunch of stuff that I ♥

via Married To The Sea. I have all of these symptoms excerpt the insomnia, but that's only because of the laudanum

♥ My Boy is here this weekend! He’s taking a break from the epic work trip around the North Island, and I plan to scheme with him about trips and budgets in between teacups of whiskey and kisses.


♥ Discovering a cache of cheesy pop songs on my computer at work. The computer I use still has the previous owners iTunes library loaded up on it and imagine my joy to discover a bunch of Beyonce, Destiny’s Child and Kelis music that I would never confess to wanting to own. I am on a permanent ‘Single Ladies’ loop now, and it makes me happy.

♥ Surprises! My Boy sent me a parcel of sliver and a super sweet note, and I also received the first letter in Mister Black’s letter sending project. So a good week for exciting stuff in the mail, indeed.

♥ Coffee coffee coffee always and forever. You’re my number one, Coffee.

♥ The women I skate with. I confess, skating often puts me at my wits end, but I can’t dispute that I have met some seriously awesome women through derby. My Smash Malice buddy Rocket Queen is rocking my world at the moment - super supportive.

♥ Seeing peeps during lunch breaks, still a novelty after the dread Hutt experience that was my previous job. I’ve caught up with Mon who I haven’t really seen since my Ricochet days, I saw Jessica and her husband and brand new baby earlier this week, and have plans in the works to see Bella and Sarah and Matthew.

Honourable mentions:

♥ Wearing homemade clothes ♥ toasted sandwiches♥ IM with Bex ♥ mixtape CDs ♥ Milk Crate ♥ pre-pay coffee cards ♥ enormous bottles of whiskey ♥ my terrabyte drive (geek) ♥ rediscovering the power of conditioner ♥ knitting tattoo plans ♥

Bonus extra awesomeness, because it never gets old:

Some shameless Richter City promotion

If you are in Wellington you should totes come to our first bout of the season which will be on 24th July at the TSB Bank Arena. More deets (including where to get tickets) on the RCRD website.

Today is Tuesday, Dienstag, et al, and THIS is the cutest creepy cat I've ever seen

via We Heart It 

♥ Looking like: I’m trying desperately hard not to look so goddamn frumpy anymore. I went on this hard core op shop binge and between the random clothes I’ve been buying second hand and my growing collection of (somewhat lumpy) hand knits I look like Cat Lady Extraordinaire. I am afraid of the Cat Lady within. She’s trying so damn hard to get out, and she’s horribly allergic to cats, so she needs to get some of those creepy hairless cats. Creepy hairless Cat Lady! (Although, this picture is of a very cute hairless kitten and I wouldn’t mind one of those. Oh Hai creppeh kitteh!)

♥ Listening to: Nothing terribly exciting. A little of this a little of that. Previous flatmate Kier has left a fantastic mix CD in the kitchen, so that’s working for me at the moment. Let it be known that Kier’s friend Kathy makes awesome mix CDs. Also, I’m loving Stephen Malkmus at the moment. The Boy and I had a Malkmus dance off in the kitchen while we were making lasagna last night and it was pretty great. The dancing and the lasagna.

♥ Fad a la Mode: Dancing in the kitchen and derby girls and spinning furiously in my bedroom.

♥ Watched this Week: Apart from excerpts from The New Adventures of Black Beauty and It is I, Count Homogenized, I have been watching nothing. Must try harder.

♥ Reading: At work during lunch (ie: very slowly) I am reading The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters which I’m really enjoying and I think sits nicely against my Agatha Christie obsession (same sort of time frame, much harsher spin). Anyhow, I love Sarah Waters and could happily read her oeuvre in one sitting so she’s more likely to win than not. Also, I’m sort of still reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies but I’m afraid that I’m reading very slowly. We read it for book club, I couldn’t really get into it then and I want to finish it but I keep getting distracted by the spinning wheel.

♥ Webreading: I’ve been very slowly getting on top of my reader. No new finds except properly exploring We Heart It which makes me the last person on this particular bandwagon.

♥ Anticipation: My knee improving so I can actually hit people at derby, crocheting a skirt while the Boy is away, lolling around at Nat’s place while Mark and her are away. Totes going to jump on their couch, use their amazing heater and watch all the Sky movie channels on Mark’s ridiculously huge TV.

Jelly Wrestling and the fine art of leaving when appropriate

 

via Victoria Belanger

Saturday night I went to the Marist premiere women's soccer league fundraising event with a bunch of girls from my new derby team Smash Malice. I drank too much because soccer club bar prices are crazy cheap and screamed like a banshee for the girls who were wrestling. It was surprisingly tasteful (as in, no nip slips) and one of the most hilarious events I've ever been to. Well done those Marist premiere soccer girls for a fantastic night!

Of course, a bunch of drunken derby girls and a pool of jelly is an accident waiting to happen. Two of the girls from my team (a coach and a captain) ended up in the pool, put up the best display of the night and I have to say it was absolutely the highlight of my evening. I died laughing. Unfortunately, after one of the soccer girls asked them to exit the pool there was a distinct chill in the atmosphere and there was a unanimous decision to leave. Burgers ensued. I was home and sitting on my bed by 11pm, where I iced my knee and passed out on my unmade bed. Einfach fabelhaft darlinks. Classy bird.

In which I bemoan my knee. And then suck up the moan and get on with it, y'all

Anyhow my dears.

I hurt my knee at skating but it is getting much better, thanks for asking.

It's rather looking as though I'm going to  be off for the first bout but I am not phased. Also, I am not fit and not particularly well prepared so hopefully I can take the time to eat well and improve my skating and general fitness best I can.

The best low impact exercise I guess I could do would be swimming, but unlike the majority of New Zealanders I am a terrible swimmer. I had swimming lessons when I was a very little girl but I always end up swimming into the lane ropes or swallowing a mouth full of water.

I've always intended to take adult swimming lessons to get better but it's never seemed very important, and now of course it is important and my swimming still sucks.

In which I am sick, eat a bunch of chocolate, and am bitten in the ass for my procrastination and general slackness

Many a thing has been happening. But not today, because today I lay in bed and felt sorry for my cold-ridden self. Also, I watched Deadwood and The Gilmore Girls and read this ridiculously trashy book about Queen Guenevere and the fight for the Old Ways and King Arthur and stuff. And I knitted a bunch more of the cardigan that is taking me forever in it's hugeness.

I loved the idea of having a super huge cardigan that I could wear all winter long and I decided to knit it myself because I'd never knitted a cardigan before and also I thought it might work out a bit cheaper. It already has about $60 worth of black wool in it and something like 60 hours worth of work (conservative estimate). I'm only about two thirds of the way through, and working off the basis that I wouldn't work for any less than $15 dollars an hour I can calculate that this only partly-finished cardigan has already cost me nearly $1000. To which I say: Firstly, no wonder cheap knitwear is so fucking nasty; and secondly, pay rates in Chinese factories WTF? Admittedly, those peeps aren't knitting each stitch. But. Still. Even buying one of those hideous hand knit sweaters from a hideous hand knit sweater store doesn't work out as expensive as I've just calculated my cardigan to be, so either those ladies must be making a huge loss or I've made a huge overestimate in the amount of hours I've worked on this thing. It certainly feels like I've worked on it that long.

As for being bitten on the ass for my general slackness and procrastination: it has oft been noted that my derby attendance has dropped off markedly (as in; has become non-existent). Today I looked in my email box and discovered that I am supposed to sit the skills test this Friday, the skills test that will dictate whether or not I can bout in the upcoming season or indeed, trial for the teams for the upcoming season. Dudes, I have been to training about three times in the last month, and that was a spectacular increase in attendance. I have passed this test twice in the past* and I'm fairly sure I can pass it. But now I have a huge weight of doubt and regret and self doubt hanging over me and some quite awesome self flagellation going on. Nice fucking work Ginger. I am off to the skills test then on Friday and I will just have to wait and see if I am allowed to bout this year. And if I'm allowed I am going to have to suck it in big time and work my ass off and STOP PROCRASTINATING.

And kiddies, that's it. Back to knitting and Gilmore girls and the rest of this king-sized block of Almond Gold, which will surely give me the athletic edge that I'm craving.

*or at least: I've sat it twice. The first time I broke myself

Baby Steps

Lately it's benn a bit of a mission trying to find new/old routines, and especially a routine in which blogging will fit. We'll just have to take baby steps for the time being and darlings, I'm afraid that you'll just get what you get. This is a cardinal blogging rule broken (people want REGULARITY, dontcha know), but until I'm paid to blog full time about my own shit, strict regularity is just not going to happen, I'm afraid. I stop blogging when I start feeling guilty about not blogging what I thought I would blog, which leads me into a vicious cycle of procrastination that can only be broken by being kind to myself.

I have been feeling The Burn more than I have for an awfully long time. I am back at roller derby training after a somewhat unintentionally long hiatus; I've recovered from my 2009 Season Burn-out and am trying to balance out my commitments a little better this year. One of the nicest things that I've picked up, and recently with a kind of vengeance, is Astanga yoga. It's a very physical form of yoga but it works very well with the very high impact stuff that we do at derby and has helped me with my recovery time from that high impact exercise. I started with yoga because I am obsessed with the tightness in my hip flexors - they're the muscles at the top inside of your leg, which control how wide you can (ahem) spread your legs and the rotation that you can get during that spread - getting my legs rotated further would be good for skating because I want to be able to skate with my feet facing out to either side so I only present my back to the opposition as I take a corner. I saw Smarty Pants do this when she trained with us last year and it was super impressive. Some of the women I skate with can do it and it would be a fantastic thing to have in my arsenal I think.
However, I am so inflexible in my hip "flexors" it's as though my body was made of a ball of plasticine and my legs were two toothpicks jammed in the bottom. When I try to face my feet out they are never straight enough and I end up going around in circles. I don't think I've explained this very well but basically, to do this move your feet should look like this:

And mine end up more like this:

Does this at least partially explain this? I'm hoping so.

You'll be pleased to know that my flexiness is increasing. Once you start making a regular effort to do these things it's impressive how quickly the difference is obvious.

I had a weekend with my Boy and with sleeping and with knitting and it was lovely, and it happened mostly in bed. Because, yes, we are now living together (did I mention?).  One of the best things about this is not having to leap out of bed in the weekends to rush home and do things, or sleep in at his knowing that I am making a trade off on "things that will be achieved". Living together means that I am achieving and sleeping in. It's heaven, wrapped in a duvet, wrapped in bacon with a delicous coffee dipping sauce on the side.

I spent a bunch of birthday vouchers I was given by the Menfolk (and one left over from Christmas), and bought the most beautiful merino possum yarn. Merino possum yarn is the most INSANELY SOFT GORGEOUS YARN ever, like knitting with hand fulls of unicorn based loveliness wrapped in marshmallow clouds. Vouchers give one a much better excuse to buy two $15 balls of yarn. Normally, I could never justify such an expense. On Saturday then I rushed home and made a pair of handwarmers from the yarn and using a pattern from a new book that I bought at Minerva - normally I would just throw a pattern together myself but why the hell not since I bought the book? It's a lovely book too and I want to knit many many things from it.

My earlier rush of obsessive knitting has slowed to a trickle, but I've been awesomely happy with what I've produced which is a nice feeling. I bought a new set of plastic drawer thingumies for stash storage and have been relentlessly frogging disappointing early projects. It's pretty much the most awesome feeling reclaiming wool from pure hideousness mistakenry that I've been trying to wear in homage to my
perserverence. I can't recommend it enough.

Arohanui!

VIA

I'm so tired at the moment that writing is almost agony. Bear with me x

• Curry Cook Off at Shannon's house last night! There was so much amazing food and the whole evening was a huge amount of fun.
• My Blendy yarn sampler box. Lots of little skeins of loveliness, and I can hardly wait to get home and go crazy with the knitting. Also, there is a little bit of merino fleece and some silk scraps that I can use for my first spinning project - my drop spindle arrived earlier this week and I haven't had anything to spin with yet. I can't wait to start!
• Organising my bookmarks, my favourites and my reader, and finding images and articles that have I loved and lost under the massive amount of things that are generated everyday by the internet.
• Being back at Derby training! My body is killing me but it was awesome skating and pushing myself and realising that everyone had become as unfit as me during the off season.

Honourable mentions: making my bed everyday this week and coming home to a tidy room; sleeping; having my orange drink bottle again (thanks Bryna!); getting ready for bed an hour before I intend to sleep; mucking around with my blog layout; making a beautiful database.

A post Post-"The Big One"

photo by Jed Soane

For clarification: this is completely and utterly my opinion and not the opinion of anyone else, least of all of the League as a whole. And it’s the only time I’m going to whinge, I just need to get it all off my chest because I am exhausted and suffering an extreme case of The Meh. Also, today the pain in my body has set in and I am aching horribly. Right, so, I want to write something super awesome and positive but mostly I am feeling absolutely GUTTED that we didn’t win. We worked so so hard before this bout and were down two players (one due to pregnancy, another due to LAMENESS). The final score reflects how close it was and how hard we worked towards the end of the bout – 126–112 (to Smash Malice). We did over take them by one point during the second period and there was much rejoicing, but I think we probably rejoiced waaaay too soon. They made up the ground in the final couple of jams and we just couldn’t hold them off despite the amount of penalties that they were getting. Apparently the crowd had an awesome time, which is fab. It’s good to have a good time! I know that I personally played as well as I have ever played, I led a jam which was pretty awesome as that’s the first time I’ve done that in a bout, and I got some fucking awesome hits in too. I wish that I had more time on the rink but to be honest, that’s how I always end up feeling and I think it’s less to do with how much I’m on the bench and more to do with a weird perspective on time that I get during the night – everything is long and compressed at the same time and I tend to get chronologically dyslexic during the bout. I keep reminding myself that it’s only been about a year since the ankle break; and that this is my first competitive season; and that there will always be next year; and that I am improving and will continue to improve. I had yesterday off because I was Feeling Down About Things… I’m getting over reading stuff about how awesome Malice is, not because those girls are not awesome (let it be said – THEY ARE GREAT) but because it’s an unexpected side effect of playing in a spectator sport that it’s surprisingly upsetting when the crowd doesn’t like you as much as the other team. I keep reading stuff about the bout where people are like “wow Malice totally slammed them because they rule and Brutal Pageant suck!” and it makes me feel even worse. Did I mention that I cried when we lost? I sobbed sweatily in my boyfriend’s arms. Apparently someone took a photo of me crying like a big lame-o but I haven’t seen it so hopefully it was deemed “inappropriate”. (FYI, I’m hoping like hell that it wasn’t the not winning that made me feel so awful because that means that I’ve become some kind of crazy competitive freak and I’ve never been like that before, and because it kind of defeats the whole Derby Love thing). Also I found out yesterday, while lying in bed and feeling like shit, that I didn’t get what I thought was essentially My Dream Job. CRAAAAAAAAAAAP. And more time lurking around Here. Next bout is the interleague against the Pirates on the 5th of December and I’m not skating in it (because I wanted to do other things with my time other than train). So, totally didn’t go out in a blaze of glory for this season. I went out in unmemorable puff of failure. Gah. NOTE: As I was looking for photos for this post I went through a whole bunch and actually felt a little bit better, like as in, felt the Love again. So it looks as though the disappointment will fade with time*sigh of drama*.

THE BIG ONE

Tomorrow night! I have nothing else to add except - GO PAGEANT! and WE'RE GOING TO WHUP SOME MALICE ARSE!

I was running and jumping!

Hello my lovelies and *kisses*

I just want to write this bit down, because it scares me a little: I voluntarily ran today. And not just for the bus! Oh no. I ran for fitness. I think we should pause now while I resuscitate anyone who has known me any time at all. Because - I have always hated running. I've hated it ever since I was made to run around and around endlessly for the sick amusement of teachers at the primary school cross country event. And I hated it when I was playing Danish rounders or Kiwi Cricket on the field. And then, at secondary school, I hated it when we were made to participate in the Beep Test. Consider this litany of hatred merely "Ginger Hates Running: The Early Years", because many years of hating running followed. Suffice to say: I HATE RUNNING.

And yet today, there I was! Running to the Waterfront in a perky little hoodie, a woolly hat on my head and listening to Joan Jett/The Yeah Yeah Yeahs/Peaches. Woo! Go lady type! With your Athleticism! Athlete! Woo! Yeah! and such like.

what is the difference? The difference, esteemed and beloved reader mine, is LOVE. I fucking LOVE DERBY. Since I have been Loving Derby, I have seen the point of fitness and improving strength and building core mass. For the first time in my life, I get all of that stuff. I'm the fittest I've ever been and I want to be stronger, faster, have better balance and flexibility, hit harder. I've gone from a standing start and it's taken so much work and I'm so proud of myself for how far I've come in such a short amount of time. It was worth making a dick of myself and hurting myself repeatedly, and I'm stoked I stuck with it though there has been periods where I was feeling unbelievably frustrated at my (lack of) progress.

I want to be the best skater that I can be and I know that I've got so much more in me.* I guess that's why I was out running today, thinking things like "Tired? It's all in your head!" and "If you don't feel like you're going to throw up, you can push yourself waaaay further!".

 

*That must be what self-esteem feels like. Weird.

Music for you... xx

Civil Offence: the Aftermath

SO, the people are asking "how was it?" PEOPLE: it was AWESOME. Of course, it would have been more awesome if Brutal Pageant had won but: c'est la vie! Also it means that the final will be a decider and that will be super extra fun to skate in. Oh, and also super extra nerve wracking and super extra good for PR.
A rundown: basically, Smash Malice dominated for the whole game. Coming out of the first half we were close enough in points that we could have made up the gap but we didn't - Malice were really tactical with their speed and control of the pack and we ended up chasing them in an attempt to play their game when we should have played our own. What else... there were some really big hits and I know that members of our team were a bit shaken at the end of the first half. I ended up in multiple pile ups and did one quite spectacular leap over/into a three or four person crash right near the benches (Jed Soane got a good picture of it). I think that it's fair to say that in the end we were simply outclassed by Smash Malice who had a heap less people skating than us and used their resources really, really well (don't kill me for writing that, Pag).

Personally, I think that I skated quite well on Saturday night. I got one or two really good hits on Tuff Bikkies, one of which I know knocked her out of bounds, and that seems like a real coup because she's such a strong player. I also had considerably less penalties - only one at Civil Offence versus my four at Skate of Emergency - although that may be because the referees despaired at pulling up all our elbows. The women on my team played really well and as always I'm super proud of them, but I'm definitely going to miss Goldie and Wax at the next bout. Finally though, the best thing for me is that I know what I want to improve upon before the next bout on the 7th of November. WHOOP!
And then after the bout we went out and drank and I drank tooo much. There was some hanging out with fans ... some of which are a bit creepy but most of which are super fab, much like my gorgeous team mates... (this photo by Mike Roseingrave).

I rolled back to the Boy's house at about quarter to four and deeply unimpressed him by snoring with "three different kinds of noises". After two hours of listening to me (I'm sure this bit is hyperbole), he had to undertake the complicated manoeuvre of falling asleep while holding my mouth open. And Sunday was a complete wreck.

Such is the life of the True Athlete.

Jamming!

Hello! So, did you pick up on my whole "come to my roller derby" thing that I have going on? It's this weekend, at the TSB Event Centre, doors open at 6pm and the action begins 7pm. Also, the magnificent Magenta Diamond will be performing half time and not only is she incredibly talented, but also very HOTT. Kind of like us, really.

Haydn Green has written something new about us too!

Civil Offence on Saturday!

Skate of Emergency

There's already HEAPS of stuff that's been written about this - Hayden Green at Public Address has covered the bout, Pretty Pretty Pretty talked about what The People were wearing, Jed Soane has posted a bunch of pretty awesome photos on Flickr (of which this is one!). But - HELLOOOO! Me! Happy time!

This was my first bout and suffice to say, I was shitting myself during the days leading up to it. I couldn't even tell you what it was exactly that was freaking me out so much, but I had butterflies in residence and I think I developed a heart murmur because the way that my heart was beating was all fast and breathy and weird. My team is AMAZING (I love them!) and we'd had the best practice on Thursday and a quite awesome group anxiety lunch before we'd set up the courts and it helped my head no end.

The game itself is a bit of a blur. I remember getting some good hits in, and spending a hell of a lot of time in the penalty box (such a naughty girl!). But my team was amazing! Goldie Scorn pulled off a veritable coup in the last jam and we barely squeezed through with a 194-188 win, after Smash Malice were up about 20 points at the end of the first half. Smash Malice are incredible! But Brutal Pageant were the top team on the day - we're just THAT good. Oooh yeah.

I can't WAIT to do it again. No, really, really, really, I can't I can't I can't. I FUCKING LOVE IT.