on the injured list

If I can impart any lesson at all to the people reading this, it would be: "Do not skate tired."

I don't mean, "Waaahh, I had to get up early today and now I want a nappy-nap instead of going to practice." I mean, if you've had only one to two hours of sleep, do not skate. It ain't worth it.

The first time I skated while dead fucking exhausted was a couple of subpool tryouts ago; I was still freelancing and thus had a freelancer's schedule. For the uninitiated, that usually means starting work around 9 or 10...PM. I would then work until about 5 in the morning, fall into bed, and then wake up at 1 or 2 to start the cycle over again. Needless to say, I was not a morning person during that time. As it happened, though, when subpool tryouts rolled around again, I got put into the 9AM group.

"No sweat," I thought. "I'll just go to bed nice and early, and that'll give me plenty of time to fall asleep." As it turned out, it was more like, "plenty of time to toss and turn until my normal bedtime of 5AM, then wake up muzzy-headed at 8 with only a half hour to get to the track."

No, I didn't make subpool. My evaluator told me that I "looked tired," to which I just nodded politely and took the crit on the chin instead of snapping, "No shit?!" like I wanted to, because I was so fucking exhausted and disappointed with my performance I wanted to cry.

You'd think this whole thing would have made a negative impression on me, but we ADHD sufferers tend to be almost immune to things like "learning from experience" and "thinking things through." So the day came when once again I had only gotten about two hours of shut-eye, but I was still bound and determined to skate that night's practice because dammit, derby isn't for quitters. Well, I sure enough had to quit when I fell during a scrimmage, came down crunchingly hard on my left knee, and took a stray skate to the head too for my troubles. "I think I'll sit out the rest of practice," I told Tara after she finished the "how many fingers am I holding up" test. "That's probably a good idea," she said.

I thought sitting out that night would be enough, but over the next few days I realized something was wrong. I can't count the number of times I've taken a hard fall on one or both knees while I'm skating. Less so lately, but while I was learning skills, especially transitions, I fell a whole fuck of a lot. The result was usually swelling and slight bruising (knee pads are your friend). This time, though, bending my left leg more than 45 degrees at the knee resulted in a twang of pain and a hissed swear word. It didn't get any better as the days wore on, either. I went to the track doctor and received only KT tape and the reassurance that I hadn't torn my ACL, MCL, or PCL. To cut a long story short, one X-ray, MRI, and long series of pestering phone calls to my doctor later, the result is..."Nothing."

Yep, the MRI and X-ray showed exactly squat. Mind you, this "nothing" has cost me several weeks of skating, because while my usual knee injuries are nothing more than transitory bruising, the "nothing" has not healed one bit since I hit the track too hard in February. I still get a zing of pain every time I bend that knee. My doctor is calling it a "sprain," but we are currently playing phone tag again and I still don't know if I'm cleared to skate. It has taken away the pain of waiting for my custom 495s somewhat, but god damn it. I've put on weight, not having exercised since the sprain happened for fear of making it worse. I didn't skate any of March Radness, which was a huge disappointment. Also, my least favorite thing on earth is going back to practice after an absence, because that's always a shit show. So yeah, if you're so tired your eyes are crossing...DON'T SKATE. We all get a little tired and sulky sometimes, and when practice rolls around maybe we just "don't wanna," but this is different. If I'd just sat out that one practice instead of trying to be a hardass, I bet I would have skated March Radness, and I certainly wouldn't be two inches fatter. :P

gettin' some helmet

Via Rollergirl Skates' Facebook feed:

We now carry HOCKEY HELMETS!!!!

Some leagues are suggesting these as opposed to the others. Try one out and see what ya think.

Hm.

Hey, what the fuck am I supposed to do with my customized hand-painted glitter helmet? I paid good money for that shit.

Matters of beauty aside, is the move to hockey helmets warranted? Anyone have head injury stats for today's derby? Does anyone even collect that info? I think the assumption is that if you can safely skate a concrete bowl with an S-One or Triple 8 helmet, it's good enough for the track. But is that true? Again, hard to compare without actual data. I won't buy one quite yet. Mostly because that glitter helmet was fucking expensive.

personal best

The greatest achievement of my athletic career so far was skating a full practice after drinking a venti caramel Frappucino with whipped cream.

thousands...of pennies.

The ultimate goal for roller derby is for the sport to go pro. Or so I'm told. There are mixed feelings about that all over this great worldwide derby community of ours. But I'm not gonna get into all the arguments. I just wanted to make a quick point here:

Major League Soccer player salaries, 2007-2011

I used to follow the LA Galaxy pretty avidly-- had season tickets and everything. At the time I was still attending matches (around 2007), the lowest-paid player on the Galaxy made roughly $17,000 a year. That's not even counting reserve players, who were making as little as $11,000 a year. Word was that many of the reserve players shared living quarters, they were so poor. And this was a professional club, which also managed to pay David Beckham a $5,000,000 annual salary. Can you imagine what professional derby salaries will be like in the early years? Start looking for shared housing now, guys.

hey, you got men in my derby!

OK, I realize that this article is either troll bait or an attempt (strong emphasis on "attempt") at humor, plus it was published about hundred years ago in Internet Time, but I can't resist stupidity this full-bodied and odorous.

Five Reasons There Shouldn't Be a Men's Roller Derby

Ew, men! Icky! No, really. Once you delve into this article, you realize that "Ew, men!" is the main thesis here.

There's a local men's roller derby team called the Phoenix Rattleskates. Why? We understand why women's roller derby is popular: there are hordes of tattooed hot chicks in skimpy uniforms wrestling and slamming into each other.

Ooh, we're already off to a great start. Apparently, people love women's roller derby because it's Jell-O wrestling on wheels.

It's the only full-contact sport dominated by sexy women, and the ladies' leagues here -- particularly the Arizona Derby Dames and Arizona Roller Derby -- demonstrate fierce athletic prowess.

SEXY women. A distant third place: athletic prowess.

1. There are already enough sports filled with brawny dudes beating their chests and throwing each other around. Guys have hockey, football, basketball, boxing, wrestling, and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (not to mention drunken bar fights).

Now I've only been to a couple of rules review sessions, but I think "beating [one's] chest" and "throwing each other around" would result in a hell of a lot of penalties, many of them major. Seriously, though-- is the idea of men participating in just one more sport that much of a threat to women's derby?

We get that roller derby is a new way for guys to move fast and hit hard, but it doesn't sound fun to watch.

Wait, you haven't even seen a men's bout yet? Also, why doesn't it sound like good entertainment? Is it because there are no breasts involved?

We just hope they're wearing cups, or they might be trying rhythmic gymnastics or synchronized swimming next.

Nut shot jokes: the last refuge of the unfunny. It would be hilarious if men didn't protect their genitals, right? There also seems to be an implication that gymnastics and swimming are for the, um, nutless. So men are worthless without testicles. Why don't you just go to a knitting bee, ya big girl?! Or do some gymnastics, because they're practically the same thing!

2. The possibilities of men's roller derby outfits are horrid. Obviously, the skimpy shorts, skirts, fishnets, and low-cut tops of derby dames won't do for the dudes.

Oh, obviously. Still, have any of you men-fancying ladies seen Thomas Refferson skate in lift-and-separate shorts? Oh wait, you haven't actually seen any men's derby. Well, still! I maintain that if the Diva Jammer's raw physicality leaves you unmoved, you might as well not have a pulse.

So what if they're actually wearing baggy knee-length shorts (watch out for butt cracks) and T-shirts? For us, just the thought of men on skates in leg-hugging 1960s basketball shorts makes us cringe.

Look, I'm pretty sure men aren't REQUIRED BY LAW to wear shorty-shorts while skating, so get the fuck off your fainting couch. Also, why are men's thighs apparently the worst thing imaginable? Are you afraid that exposure to male flesh will wake your clit from its decades-long sleep?

In fact, let me go on a brief side rant here. When did we become so repulsed by the male body? Yeah, Jon Hamm, what a hideous man-troll. I'd sure hate to see him naked! I mean, I doubt every male derby team is made of up Don Drapers (although the possibility does intrigue), but ya know what? I don't vomit every time I lay eyes upon a Seth Rogan type. Is holding men to the same absurdly high standard of attractiveness that women experience a part of third-wave feminism or something? As a third-waver, let me be authoritative and say: no, it fucking isn't.

3. The smell. Any men's locker room emits a certain odor that's a combination of dirty feet, sweaty arm pits, and for some reason, the rubber on new shoes. We can only imagine the olfactory horror that would come from adding sweaty, dirty roller skates to the mix.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh man, someone's never met a derby chick in the flesh before, has she? Try this, ma'am: the next time you're at a bout, go up to any one of the skaters and take a big whiff of her wristguards. After you've finishing throwing up, just try to tell me that men have the monopoly on horrific body odor.

4. There are enough pun names in the world already. The women in Arizona roller derby have names like Ginger Mortis, Nova Kane, Gwen Steponya, and Kat Von Double D's. The guys are donning similar pseudonyms, like Arth Riddick, Bombs Onya Moms, Girth Brooks, and Skip Play. It's cute and kind of vicious when the girls take such monikers, but the guys sound like Garbage Pail Kids.

Is this even an argument? Yeah, some people don't like silly skate names, but until now I've never heard a gendered argument against them. Anyway, I grew up in the Eighties and I distinctly remember that there were female Garbage Pail Kids. But whatever, let's continue the trend of "Anything a woman does is pathetic and stupid when a man does it." Congrats on your internalized misogyny!

5. There are no illusions of grace. When a woman gets on a pair of skates and glides around a rink -- even if she's kicking people in the gut the whole way -- there's an inevitable feminine grace to what she's doing. And no, it has nothing to do with boobs bouncing, because men can have boobs, too. There's just something about the image of a big, hairy guy rolling around on eight wheels that makes us think less about lithe athletes, and more about Mack trucks.

Oh fuck you, Phyllis Schlafly. I can't speak for all derby chicks, of course, but some of us got into this sport because we weren't fucking interested in showing off our "feminine grace."

I mean, yeah, you take a skater like Chargin' Tina, she definitely has grace. That's because she was figure skating from a young age, though. I doubt she fell out of the womb that way (although she certainly skates like she was born with wheels on her feet). Speaking of figure skating-- we let men do that too, right? I never tuned in to Olympic skating and said, "WHOA WHAT IS THIS, A BUNCH OF ELEPHANTS CRASHING AROUND ON THE ICE? OH WAIT IT'S JUST THE MEN'S SOLO SKATE, MY BAD."

And how does "feminine grace" automatically correlate in the writer's head with "boobs bouncing"? I guess we women can't do anything without our tits getting all over the place. You know, like when we're golfing, or running for Senate.

[This blog has been edited for accuracy since publication]

Obviously not, since you haven't erased the whole thing.

orange whip? orange whip? three orange whips.

Remember that one part in Blues Brothers where they're being all disgusting in the restaurant? And that one guy complains to the maitre d' and he's like, "Well, frankly, they're offensive. Smelling. I mean, they...smell...bad." I always think of that line when I unzip my skate bag.

Dirty McFilthy

Controversy!

Derby Names: Not Ready For Prime Time

Back in the day, derby names were supposed to be fun and quirky. Fun – remember when derby was fun? Names were simply a clever twist on normal sports nicknames - not an opportunity to tell the world how much you love pot or Jager.

Aww, come on. People seem to think that puns are clever until they involve something obscene or scatological. You can't tell me that a name like "Georgia O'Queefe" isn't fucking hysterical. Of course, when I was thinking about this I was all like, "Oh please, obscene puns are still funny! It's not like some skater just went ahead and named herself 'Poop.'" And then I almost laughed myself into a stroke over the notion of a skater called "Poop." Maybe I should just let the big girls handle this discussion.

Continuing in spite of myself, though--

[Skate names are] not a chance to tell us how big your wiener is or that you want to rip a girl apart with it. Seriously, boys and girls…

Well, yeah. The post mentions one beyond-the-pale skate name (and one that's registered to a man, I might add): Ray Pugh. I know derby isn't exactly a hugbox safe space, but fuck.

(Note: I'm told the player in question has dropped the "Ray" part, and now goes by "Mr. Pugh." Progress?)

Now here's where you might be saying, "Sin, you big goddamn hypocrite. If you think obscenity is OK in a skatename, why are you throwing a shitfit over a little old word like 'rape?'" Well, let me tell you why, reader. I don't have a problem with (consensual) sex or bodily functions, but I kind of have a fucking problem with men coming into a traditionally female space and taking a name that evokes a form of sexual violence that is most often used to hurt and control women.

Even the name of the great Amanda Jamitinya gave me pause the first time I heard it. Can I safely assume that it's referring to consensual-but-rough sex? Am I overthinking this? Probably.

Anyway, Tara Armov brought up the skate names issue in her own blog:

•Skater names. This is a touchy subject. I myself love my skate name. But there are some names out there that aren't...family friendly. Now, as non-mainstream as this sport is, it's also a sport that's gaining popularity in Jr. leagues across the country. It behooves leagues to not have skate names such as Slitty McCuntergash if they have a Jr. league going on. Or if they have all-ages games. Or both.

I had another point, but AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA SLITTY MCCUNTERGASH. Hahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa. Uh, what were we talking about? Sorry, I think I may be holding back the legitimization of derby.