by H.P. Lovecrash
Flipping through my calendar trying to plan out the next bit of my life, I realize that for months my early Sunday mornings and late Friday evenings will again be dominated by derby. Goodbye roadtrips, concerts, and going out on the weekend. No way is this worse than derby having dictated my Saturdays, or entire weekends, all summer, but it is still not a welcome realization.
I haven’t had my skates on since our last game in August. Outdoor skating isn’t really my forte, as cars, dogs, and bumps terrify me while I roll through the market. I won’t skate again until October. What a great break after the heavy four-month season, right?
Wrong. While I dread biking straight from class to derby, choking back granola bars and lugging my textbooks, I can’t wait to be on my skates. It takes all of my being not to skate around my house, just for practice (maybe I can learn to go up and down stairs while carrying a laundry basket on my skates?) I miss the speed, the sweating, and the strategy.
For this month I try to embrace derby wherever I can: Answering surveys, planning fundraisers, watching low res videos of other players, and going out with my derby ladies (maybe we can go somewhere trashy so I have a reason to wear fishnets), who I miss talking smack and throwing hips with.
Although we all groan and moan on Sunday mornings when we have to run laps and do military drills, it is absolutely worth the only addiction I have. I look forward to being told I’m not low enough, and teaching freshies how to lay a full body hit, and doing countdown core work, and skating pyramids (even the wrong way, maybe) on that sticky floor, and nursing bruises, and trying to figure out why my bag has that wretched stench, rather than moping on my bed with a mouthful of candy watching someone else skate.
I’ll see you bright and early that first Sunday of October.
