What do these three images have in common?

  

All three photos feature a captain. 2011 is going to be an interesting season.

You're older than you've ever been and now you're getting older.

I've often heard from older friends and relatives that the older one gets, the more people look to you for the answers. However, this comes at the cost of having fewer and fewer people to whom you can look when you need answers to questions of your own. As the season winds down and people start leaking out their retirement plans, I'm starting to realize that this is exactly why I feel so strange and unsettled right now.

When I was a freshie, I knew I needed to be a sponge, and I acted like one. I listened and practiced and tried to learn everything, and thus had little time to think about anything else. During my first year on the Nuts, I was one of very few new(ish) people on a team of very experienced vets. I spent the season simply doing what I was told, and had the luxury of not having to think at all because I was so surrounded by good advice. By the time this season rolled around I was in the upper-middle experience-range of the members of my team, and I started to feel confident enough with my playing that I could question things and believe in my own ideas. I'm ending the season feeling comfortable enough to offer opinions and advice without feeling like a pushy, sophomoric jerk.


I still have questions, though, and it seems like every day I learn that another of the vets I relied on to answer them won't be around next season. This sounds horribly morbid, but I feel like I'm starting to get old enough to attend the funerals of my friends instead of just mourning my older relatives. The protective layer of super vets is getting thinner and thinner by the day and I wonder who will guide and mentor me when I'm feeling scared and small next season.

It's hard to watch one's heroes ride off into the sunset. I guess that line "be your own hero" from Whip It applies like hell here. I've always dreamed of growing up to be like a lot of these spectacular women who are poised to become BDD's next group of alumni. I guess my goal for next season is to rebuild myself to fill the spaces that these heroes will leave behind.

Wow. Thanks, world.

My laptop's hard drive failed and my screen broke. The timing of this is simply stunning.

Ephemera.

I'm sitting alone in the gallery with the foundation of the quilt exhibit and I'm feeling rather emotional. Some of this happens every time I see the quilt now that such a large section is assembled and hanging. A lot more of this is because of the things I brought into the space today - one bin filled with all the envelopes in which the squares from out of state came, along with a mountain of ephemera dating back to the moment roller derby and I first met. I'd forgotten how much stuff I'd saved over the past three seasons, and all these feelings are cascading out of me in a way that's hard for me to process.

I found the flyer from the first bout I ever attended, when I knew down to my bones that I needed to do this. I found the invoice for my first pair of derby skates. I found the tag from the first BDD shirt that housed my newly approved derby name (back when twoevils only took a week or two to approve the names). I found letters from Mt. Auburn confirming that my right knee's x-ray came back "normal" along with prescriptions for PT and a diagram for a particularly complex knee exercise. I found birthday cards and thank you cards from freshmeat I "mama-ed," and these cards brought me to tears. I found pins and programs and wristbands and stickers from countless bouts.

I feel like I'm digging through a whole life's worth of memories, but it's only been three years since I started. The thing is, derby careers are so terribly short. It's hard on your body and your mind, and I know that we're all burning like candles doused in rocket fuel. We're giving off all of our light RIGHT NOW with such ferocity and there's only so much of us to use up before we burn out and it all ends. We do this sport at the price of our knees and our backs, and for some, our friendships and our marriages.

Today a few of my close friends and favorite skaters in a few different leagues told me that this is their last season. They're leaving because they know that their light is burning out. Reading these messages when I'm literally ankle-deep in piles of derby memories is tough. It reminds me how much I'll miss these people who have helped shape my derby life. It also reminds me that I can't do this forever, and one of these days I'll have to prepare my good-byes too.

My greatest wish is to retire when I want to, not when I have to. My second greatest wish is that I'll want to retire a long, long time from now. I love this sport with a fierceness that I've only felt for my immediate family and my dearest, oldest, truest friends. I love derby more than chocolate and sleeping late. I feel a deep level of affection for it like I do for my dog and cat. One of my favorite MassArt professors phrased it so elegantly: "This is my church, and these are my vestments." At first, it sounded a bit strong to my thoroughly non-religious ears. However, as crazy as it sounds, I've found a very powerful faith through roller derby - faith in myself unlike I've ever had before.

Roller derby might just be a fun, rough game on wheels, but to me it's so much more. Roller derby has made my outside match my inside. Through it I've learned a comfort with myself I've always needed but never knew was missing. It's almost as good as falling in love, and like love, I want to hold onto all of this for as long as I can.

The before time.

I cracked open my old myspace page and transported all of my derby-related blog posts to this one. For anyone who is curious, go ahead and look back at the newly-made-earlier beginning of this blog to read about my trials and tribulations beginning with derby tryouts.

Oh, the memories... I'll do my livejournal ones ASAP.

Good Skater

At the end of last season I wrote a bit about my triumphs, regrets, and hopes for the coming year. Among my hopes was a derby fantasy I've held since I started, and one I realized this past Saturday. I got MVP. Holy crap.

Ok, so how do I explain why this is the biggest deal to me in the history of ever...

If you look inside, most of us still see ourselves like we've always been, whatever that image hinges upon. For some, it's the ugly nerd in high school who no one ever wanted to ask out. For others, it's the dumb screw-up kid who teachers always said would amount to nothing. For me, it's the "Bad Skater" who would never be anything special on the track.

You may know someone who has been very obese his or her whole life, but recently lost a ton of weight and is now pretty hot. Hell, you may have had this experience yourself. Either way, you know how the newly-babe-status person still carries him or herself the same way as before the weight loss? Yeah, it's a lot like that.

I was weirdly nervous before the bout, and I don't really remember most of it because I was totally in my own head the whole time. What I do remember is the after party. I was standing in the crowd and I heard my husband call the MVP for the Cosmos (congrats Rocky!). Then he called the MVP for the Nuts, and suddenly everyone was looking at me. ME. In Steve's words, number40KDREADNOUGHT.

There are a lot of rockstar skaters who collect MVP trophies like Fresh Eddie Fresh collects skates. There are some lucky skaters who are so self-aware that they don't need anyone to tell them that they're good at what they do. For those people, MVP is probably a nice bonus after a great bout. They'll smile and accept the award and go on with their evening feeling pretty good, but won't see themselves any differently than they did the day before. It was a really big deal to me, though. Getting MVP was easily the single proudest moment of my derby life.

Why do I care so much? Because it's one of those "Good Skater" marks that I've arbitrarily made in my own head. It's a pair of size eight pants that reminds me to learn to stop carrying myself like I'm still a size twenty-six. 


Edited to add: The MVP trophies this season take the form of skate wheels. I skated on mine today and kept thinking about the circumstances under which I got them. It was nice to look down and see them under my feet at the beginning of every jam. Our jam coach came up to me today and told me that this MVP has been a long time coming. That really touched my heart too.

I've been carrying a warm little spark of pride in my heart since last weekend's bout and it feels pretty neat. Ok, not just neat. It feels absolutely wonderful. I'm going to make every effort to fan it into a flame, because this warmth sure beats the cold, dank, little cave I allowed myself to live in for so long.

Psyched up. No wait, I mean PSYCHED THE HELL UP AAAAARRGAHRGGRGHAHHH KILL KILL KILL!!!@!!111!ONE

Tomorrow we bout the Pissahs. I had some time to kill today and I made this little motivational gif:

I still can't believe that happened directly in front of the camera. I've had other great hits since then, but sadly, none were so well placed in terms of capturing the memory on film. I haven't looked at this footage in some time, but I'm glad I found it now. It's damned great motivation for murdering people tomorrow.

I'm also wearing my "Dread Smash" shirt. I wrote "DIE PISSAHS" on my chest in magic marker. Yes, I sent a photo of that to my team. No, you can't see it. Do you think I'm psyched up? Um, yes. Note the crazyface.

Normally I have trouble getting amped for bouts. I go into them and have a very un-Dread-like, almost hippy-ish "win or lose, it's fun to play" vibe. It's been a major hurdle to get over that, because I think it hurts my game. I've discovered that I need three things to get into "Bloodfeast Island" mode:

1. Music: I have a pre-bout playlist and a bout-day playlist. Once I listen to these I'm about 80% of the way down the road to "the bad place."

2. Superhero movies: I need to watch superheroes kicking ass. I don't know what it is about watching people run up walls and stab each other while their friends are shooting laser eyes and projecting forcefields. It makes me also want to do these things. The X Men movies are my favorite, as I get to pretend I'm Wolverine.

3. Skating in circles while staring at people time: shortly before I play, I skate around and stare at every member of the other team I can find. I'm not doing this as an intimidation thing or to show that I'm crazy-go-nuts ready to kill people or anything. I'm doing it so I stop seeing them as people with feelings. Once I get there, I start seeing them as objects, and then I can break them into tiny, bloody, pulverized pieces in my head. Really, no sane person should think the things I do before a bout. Usually I hit "serial killer" land just about when intros start.

I'm well on the road towards being stupid-psyched up right now. This is about a day earlier than expected. I think this means I'll be foaming at the mouth and punching walls by the time I walk into Shriners tomorrow.

I really hope that my commute home is uneventful. I'd prefer not to spend the night before bout day in jail for biting someone in the face.