Saturday, July 09, 2005 An idea whose time has come
The sport I was being unnecessarily secretive about in a recent post was the roller derby. It's evidentally a big thing in New York, and now some girls are trying to get a league together here in Baltimore. Until the team has money enough to rent out a rink somewhere, they practice a couple times a week during open skates in some far-flung suburban area that was a total pain to get to. That means that the roller girls have to contend with little children and rowdy teens, and they can't really do drills. On the other hand: skating party. I repeat, skating party.
I went to my first practice the other night, and in many ways it was like the skating parties I remember from childhood. Only girls who were cooler than I were got to have their birthday parties at the roller rink, and these girls could look right into my soul and see that I wasn't one of them. I was a little terrified. I bore up, though. My highlights can beat up your highlights, sister, I kept telling them in my head. Are you ready to rock?
I hadn't been on skates since I was 12 or 14. In those days, I was a stocky but essentially tube-shaped child, and it turns out that hips make balancing on skates more complicated. I only fell once, though, which, in light of the fact that I fall all the damn time when I'm not wearing any skates at all, gives me hope.
I was so tired that day, but I knew that it would be wrong not to do it. God never gives you more oppourtunities to careen around wrecklessly while "Baby got back" plays on the PA than you can handle.
The skating part was incredibly fun, but I still have my doubts about the whole enterprise. I'm afraid that people may be approaching it with irony. Also, even if it's not the cool girls only club I'm afraid it might be (based on my own paranoia and internalized sexism and blah blah blah more than any real behavior on the part of the other roller derby hopefuls), it is a girls-only club. I don't know if I like that. What if a boy wants to be a glamorous roller girl also? When an institution like a roller derby league is so new, it seems ridiculous to keep people out.
I feel guilty, because it's still so appealing. I am easily lead, and while the badass aspects of the sport might be a little contrived, it still seems like something you'd have to be really tough to do. I desperately want to be really tough. I also want to skate around real fast and knock people down, and I want people to react to my answer to "So, what have you been up to, lately?" with shock and awe.
We'll see about how long I stay into this, anyway. If one looks at my track record for following through on things, the smart prophecy is that I will stay all gung ho about it until about one week after I finally break down and buy my own skates. posted by Frenzy Lohan | 7/09/2005 03:04:00 PM
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