Team Moose and Squirrel

2009-07-25T00:18:00.002-04:00

Hit the deck, kid
The last derby bout I went to a few weeks ago, I talked some to the little girl who is my biggest fan. (Glue rhinestones to your own face, and you, too will be a hit with the tweens. Pedos: do not use this tip.) She said she's going into 7th grade this fall, and I tried not to flinch visibly.
She asked me a question about boys, but luckily kept on talking before I could even attempt to answer whether I'd ever liked a boy a grade above me and "how that worked out." A lot of this conversation was in stage whispers, because, she explained, her dad didn't know she liked this boy.
But her mom did, because her mom read her journal, so she stopped writing in it. "Now I'm going to forget all the most important moments of my life," she said.
Let this be a lesson to you, blog.

2009-07-07T22:59:00.002-04:00

we do what we love and we love what we do
Good evening, blog-dogs. I am employed and walking again, and I hardly know what to say. The other day I went to an all you can eat dessert buffet, and all I could eat was more than was reasonable or even enjoyable, but I think I beat the house.

2009-06-05T16:10:00.002-04:00

Rain, rain
I am here taking gross advantage of the bottomless cup of coffee at a cafe in Roland Park. I came here after I got out of physical therapy at about 2:00, and it's 4:15 now. I guess I've loitered worse.
I like my opulent pt practice at a big fancy hospital, but I'm starting to wish I was going to some sketchy place in the city, just to save time and gas. But at the place I go there are two big TVs. Today I got to watch Paula Deen pour melted butter into a bag of cracker crumbs, backwards in a mirror as I balanced on one foot on a foam pad. Can't get that at some fly by night operation! Unless the operation was located in Paula Deen's home. She will coat you in lard as she bends your limbs. Awful. I am sure there is literature about this located on the internet.

2009-05-31T02:27:00.002-04:00

Good morning!
Hello, blog. I can't sleep. It's 2:30 AM. I had to get out of bed and come downstairs because I was afraid my tossing and turning would keep my partner awake.
All this past evening, I kept thinking that it was Sunday and that the next day would be Monday. A) Now I am technically right. B) It kind of doesn't matter. Due to continued unemployment, I am no longer obligated to hate Mondays. Although Garfield, as a cat who either worked 7 days a week or 0--depending on your definition of work--had no goddamn reason to hate Mondays either. What the hell, Garfield?

2009-05-20T22:11:00.002-04:00

number one answer
At the physical therapy practice where I go three times a week so that nice young women who are also SADISTIC MONSTERS can bend my leg until I howl and cry, they watch a lot of television. Most of the patients are older people, so it's usually Martha or Regis and Kelly, or Ellen, or Oprah. Or, it's Deal or No Deal. When I'm there, it's usually Family Feud. "Give me a shade of blue." "Coral!"
Today an older man walked out into the middle of the physical therapy gym and announced that although he was not gay, the current Family Feud host is one of the best-looking men he's ever seen.

2009-05-16T01:38:00.002-04:00

Hello, blog
We connect better when I'm unemployed, do we not? It would be better if I still rode the bus, but I don't. I drive a car, and I drive it to the same hospital three or four times a week, because I tore my ACL playing roller derby and had to have surgery a month or so ago.
I lost my job in February, and I injured my leg in March. Suddenly, my schedule is wide open, except for the doctors' appointments that are my new hobby.
Today was my second day without crutches or a leg brace--even though I did wear the brace to a job interview, just so there would be some visible reason why I was limping and lurching. I will not be getting that job. I have a feeling.

2008-11-11T12:32:00.002-05:00

What are you getting at?
Today I drove to work in my car, like the fat cat that I am. I've been biking most days since about August, and that's fine, but it is COLD now. It's not even that cold, but I needed to add air to my bike tires, and I also needed to lie in bed for a crucial five extra minutes. I got this new pillow last week, and I just can't seem to tear myself away from it.
Driving to work usually makes me equally more more late than biking does, because even on days when I bike timidly and pretend I'm a tiny, slow car instead of weaving through gaps between cars in traffic, it's faster to lock up my bike and shake out my helmet hair than it is to find a space and park.
I used to wonder who the hell was taking all the spaces around my workplace, since so many people in the surrounding office builidings had reportedly been laid off. Then I realized that all those people had probably been parking in the garage, and that everyone is too impoverished for the garage now.
I can't complain too much, but it's crazy how stuff like travel expenses that seemed reasonable a month or so ago when I bought the tickets now strike me as terrifying and insane. Perhaps I have growed up.

2008-11-06T11:08:00.002-05:00

We are in love, and that is a fact
Some of you might've noticed that the lights went out around here for a while earlier this month. Nothing to see but a godaddy page advertising nonsense. I didn't notice for a while, because I never updated anyway. However, I renewed the domain for not one, but two years. I am feeling lucky.
Change is afoot, and some nice girls are getting a puppy. I might get my "I voted" sticker tattooed right onto my hoodie, or I might get a haircut that reflects hope.
I thought earlier that maybe I should just get ALL my hair cut off and donate it to Locks for Love, but then I realized that the little boys and girls with alopecia do not want my raunchy split ends any more than I do. Stay discerning, children! It will serve you well in life, no matter what other obstacles you may have to overcome.

2008-11-05T09:40:00.002-05:00

Eeeeeeeeee!
Good job, America! On the president thing. Not so much on the awful, awful ballot measures that passed all over the place, especially Proposition 8 in CA. I can't imagine what it would be lie to be married yesterday, and then wake up today knowing that legally, I no longer was. Just, gross and stupid, California. Jeez.
Other than that, feeling pretty good today.

2008-10-28T16:52:00.002-04:00

End of season three
Oh, party dudes, it's been a while. I keep hearing from different sources that blogging is dead, and while I think those reports are greatly exaggerated, I kind of get it. I just don't know what to tell y'all anymore.
We just finished a derby season, our third here in Charm City. Nine bouts in 3 different venues since January (we took April off to plan for the May-October bouts). Venue three, Du Burns arena, is our public home for the forseeable future. Its two tragic flaws as a venue are an astroturf floor, over which we must build a subfloor from chipboard and sportcourt, and--as we found out on Saturday--a leaky roof. Our indoor sporting event nearly got rained out. God, that would've sucked. All we could do was laugh. The venue called some roofers. I'm not aware that they ever showed up. The rain stopped instead. We had super fan Slack Kerowhack standing by with a towel by the leakiest spot (right near the jammer line--ha.), but eventually, even his services weren't needed.
It's been a happy year for me, but a strange, lonely one, too. Aren't they all, right?

2008-07-14T15:36:00.002-04:00

My comedy dentist
tweaked my nose after shaking my upper lip around to spread the novocaine. I don't know if it was the magic tweak, or if he's just drug-happy, but now the left side of my nose is numb. On my breaks to visit the ladies' room (which is really one of my building's single-occupancy defecation bathrooms, that everyone slinks to to avoid disgrace on their own floors), I've been trying to do things like smile or flare my nostrils. So weird. This is what it probably feels like to be a Hollywood celebrity. If they're like me, those celebrities probably spend a lot of time poking their botoxed areas with pens and giggling.
But maybe their souls are dead.

2008-07-02T12:40:00.002-04:00

One wonders

There is a tire place on Howard that offers a "ladies day" oil change special.

2008-06-30T11:17:00.003-04:00

I'm a health nut
Hey, old public blog. Why so abandoned and alone? Poor old barn all broken down in the rain. Quickly, someone re-start this barn!
I've been good. I work, I do derby, I go to the gym. I feed myself every few hours, as though I were an infant or a hobbit. I eat things that are not food. I party.
The last one is actually false. I am forgetting how to be a party dude. Can you imagine? It's true, though.
The other night I was out on a walk with Slim, and when we passed our old ancestral bar, the bartender, who was outside smoking, mimed blocking the sidewalk to get us back in there. Strange times.
I've started going to the rich people gym down the street from my work. It's very fancy, very bougie. It's also quite unlike my previous gym, in that I actually go there, so the per-visit cost works out to $3 or so, rather than several hundred dollars and my dignity. The two-block radius my new gym is on is so fancy that it has its own security guards. Two blocks in another direction, it's all tumble-down houses and skeletonized dead rats, as is tradition.
I miss you, old blog. I've stayed away too long, and I don't know what to say to you anymore. I got all your letters, and I've been saving them in an old cookie tin under the bed. They smell pleasantly of butter and sugar now, a vast improvement over the delicate scent of your tears.

2008-04-22T11:07:00.002-04:00

Senioritis

It is spring, and I feel like looking at flowers and tadpoles and things. I do not really feel like writing or like talking to people. I do it anyway, because I need to have a job and not alienate everyone in the world, but man! Writing and talking: for the birds.
I went to NY again last weekend, to see Gotham vs. Philly. Gotham's packwork is beautiful to behold. I think I heard somebody compare it to shark week.
This Thursday evening at 10:30 pm, the episode of Ace of Cakes that they filmed at the Charm City vs. Dallas bout airs. We were going to have this big viewing party at a bar near our new venue in Canton, but the bar double-booked, and the other fundraiser, for pediatric diseases or whatever, were being TOTAL PRICKS about sharing. GOD.

2008-04-18T18:59:00.001-04:00

Oh fer
Right now, "an organization or team" is talking enthusiastically about a FREE schoolbus listed on Facebook. I would rather have a free albatross, or a free poke in the leg with a rusty nail. People: LOGISTICS! CONCERNS!

2008-04-17T00:48:00.002-04:00

Ouch
Here's some video of the Night Terrors game against the Pissahs. My goodness, they beat us rather emphatically.

In the last jam, I am booty blocking Shelby Shattered (who is maybe bionic or a Transformer), and then she calls it off.

This post is cheatsville, content-wise. More tomorrow.

2008-04-15T11:20:00.003-04:00

Kitty!
Two of my housemates are on tour with their band again, and the cats are lonely. Trouble won't eat unless I sit and watch her and pet her while she does so, and Kitten wants to sleep on my face. Kitten is not the size of a kitten. He is the size of a normal cat, but much fatter. He escaped into the world the other day, and as I was trying to lure him back to the house (with cat treats, as I am part of the problem.), his belly swang from side to side as he ran. It was all I could do not to chase him. Kitty! Fat little kitty!
My neighbors know I have no dignity, shame.

2008-04-14T13:09:00.002-04:00

Scorn, scorn, yes, I get it.
Check out this proud moment in the history of sports, captured by flick'r user Dan4th. That is not an ordinary Baltimore wipe out, my friends. That is my butt hitting the exotic foreign concrete of the Aleppo Shriner's Auditorium in Wilmington, Massachusetts. I suspect that the number of extant pictures of me falling on my butt is truly sobering.
The Wicked Pissahs beat the Night Terrors 100-61 in this 40 minute expo bout. As always, I was sort of hoping my team would win, but the Pissahs have some excellent skaters, and they're also at the peak of their season, whereas the Night Terrors were bouting together for the first time since October...and minus some vets, and plus some newer skaters. Our rookies are talented, but it takes a while to get used to playing with new people.
As always, the Boston Derby Dames were gracious hosts, and provide us with our weight in candy.

2008-04-09T13:23:00.002-04:00

Charm City Roller Girls, Season 3

On May 3rd, my derby league starts its 3rd season of public bouts. I started skating with the league a little less than 4 years ago, and it's crazy to me that I've stuck with it this long.
This year my team, The Night Terrors, lost Joy Collision--one of the most noteworthy players on the league and nationally--to the Mobtown Mods in team trades. But! we gained Radar Love from the Dolls, and so far we've drafted Minnie Piledriver and Juicy Brute from the pool of fresh meat.

As I've mentioned before, we're going to be in a new venue, too, Du Burns Arena in Canton (just off Boston Street, near the water.)

You should come!

2008-04-08T09:45:00.002-04:00

Missed another one.

I have a nail in my tire, and plenty of other small problems, but no big ones. I am drinking good coffee, and my chair is padded. I was recently snubbed by a restaurant hostess, but my skin is thick--and radiant.
Later today, I have to fax things and do paperwork. This weekend, I am taking a van ride to the greater Boston area.

2008-04-06T00:21:00.002-04:00

Well, shit.

I guess I am too weak for content challenge this time around. Two days in a row! I spent Saturday mainly in transit. Got up at 5:30 and shortly met up with a carpool going to a small warehouse in Queens for a men's derby event. Watched some really enthusiastic left turns for most of the day, then came home.
Next weekend, I'm going to Boston, which will actually be a shriner's hall in Wilmington. It's a small, small world.
The skating was a treat to watch, though. The warehouse really is small, just big enough for a track laid in diagonally. There are pillars in the middle, padded with athletic mats, as are the walls and the rolling metal gates. From outside, when someone got knocked into those, it sounded like an explosion.

2008-04-03T17:24:00.002-04:00

Creamed scorn!

Oh, dear. Yesterday, I just opted out. Sorry, content challenge. Sorry, derby practice. It was an endurance practice, too, and heaven knows it's practical to endure all kinds of things (I have made so many variations on this joke. It's tired, like me!).
I'm still planning on a trip to New York to see some Boy Derby this weekend. If only it were Boy Steeplechasing! I do like to see them leap the ditches and hedges! Just kidding. I mean, I am going to see a men's roller derby event. It's going to be a lot of fun, I suspect, even without a hedge or a ditch.
Then, it looks like I'm going to Montreal at the end of May to play one of their teams and enjoy delicious non-US candy. Oh, Canada. You are so pretty and nice.

2008-04-01T18:27:00.002-04:00

April
Hey, April fools, I hope you are having a good day. I didn't get personally pranked even once! I saw several internet pranks, but you probably did, too.
I guess the biggest prank so far is that for some reason the skin is peeling off the tips of my fingers. I would suspect dishpan hands, or some reaction to harsh cleaning products, but I don't really ever clean. Sorry: I speak unpleasant truths. I am not trying to be braggy about it. My life would be better in many ways if I wasn't content to live in filth and clutter.
This weekend I'm going to NEW YORK CITY!

2008-03-31T18:06:00.002-04:00

Oh my!

Guess what?! Expelled, the documentary hosted by Ben Stein, which purports to tell the story of how Creationists are SILENCED by big science (I am disappointed: I was hoping it was going to be about being expelled from the garden of Eden), was made in a way that involved a really amazing amount of duplicity and manipulation! Wacky! www.expelledexposed.com

2008-03-30T17:54:00.001-04:00

Scorn!

I just realized that I missed yesterday. Sorry, internet. Yesterday I had ice cream and went for a walk.
Today, though, I had candy, and I did not go for any walks. Later today I'm going to a baby shower. I don't think there will be traditional baby shower games, though: a blessing.