Revisiting Goals

Okay, here is the text from my January 2 post:
To have all my New Years Skating Goals in one place, I am putting them

RIGHT HERE:

1. Get back on track with the whole fitness thing.
2. Learn to stop on skates without falling down or gliding to a stop, inertia-style, before January is over.
3. Get low and learn to turn so I can actually skate in a circle before the end of January.
4. Skate a minimum of 4 times a week.
5. Learn to skate backwards.
6. Make it into Meat Camp and pass WFTDAs

And, since I have some non-skating goals too:

1. Don’t keep people who make me feel like crap in my life.
2. Also, don’t make a big deal about getting rid of those people
3. Get a job that pays well enough that I can stop relying on others for money
4. Get a job I love. (Ideally, the same one as the above job!)
5. Rebuild my savings
6. Pay off credit card, at least one of my student loans
7. Make sure the people who don’t make me feel like crap know how much I love them, all the time. (I’f you’re in my life, and it’s because I want you around rather than because we share office space or whatever, I love you.)
8. Take 1 non-family trip, whether it is the Big Continent Tour I have been planning (unlikely), a graduation present trip to Europe (hopefully!!) or a weekend visiting semi-nearish-but-not-near-enough-for-day-trips friends.
9. Find a way to make my giant, nosy family less intimidating to non-family

So! What have I acheived?
Skating goals:

1. Get back on track with the whole fitness thing.

yes and no. I am on and off about working out regularly

2. Learn to stop on skates without falling down or gliding to a stop, inertia-style, before January is over.

DONE!

3. Get low and learn to turn so I can actually skate in a circle before the end of January.

Done nd also not done. I can skate in a circle, but I can’t do crossovers consistently yet.

4. Skate a minimum of 4 times a week.

3 times is close…

5. Learn to skate backwards.

not yet

6. Make it into Meat Camp and pass WFTDAs

meat camp tryouts haven’t been announced, but are expected soon!

Non-skating goals:

1. Don’t keep people who make me feel like crap in my life.

Mostly. I’ve also made strides to non-accusatorily (totally a word!) talk to them about it in order to prevent needing to go this far.

2. Also, don’t make a big deal about getting rid of those people

yes.

3. Get a job that pays well enough that I can stop relying on others for money

not yet.

4. Get a job I love. (Ideally, the same one as the above job!)

yes and no–the jobs I have are jobs I love. but they’re not permanent, which was part of the intent.

5. Rebuild my savings

no…

6. Pay off credit card, at least one of my student loans

no…

7. Make sure the people who don’t make me feel like crap know how much I love them, all the time. (I’f you’re in my life, and it’s because I want you around rather than because we share office space or whatever, I love you.)

yes, but I can still do this more!

8. Take 1 non-family trip, whether it is the Big Continent Tour I have been planning (unlikely), a graduation present trip to Europe (hopefully!!) or a weekend visiting semi-nearish-but-not-near-enough-for-day-trips friends.

not yet, but soon!!

9. Find a way to make my giant, nosy family less intimidating to non-family

sorta? the best I can do is to break the mass up into smaller chunks

Today is studying. I’m also gonna try to get some dishes done, and I want to make pork fried rice. All I need to do is chop the scallions and do the cooking, so it should be pretty quick. Plus, it’s probably healthier for dinner than, say, 5 doughnuts.

weekend wrapup and monday night skating

or as I like to call it, monday night sitting next to the rink fiddling with nuts and bolts for an hour and a half. Earlier this month, someone (Frak? Comma? I can’t remember) noted that my plates were set pretty far back. As I skated (completely alone!) at Anacostia last night, trying to master crossovers by skating around one of the painted circles at the middle of the pavilion, I remembered that comment, because every time I shifted my weight from my left foot to my right, my left foot would go up on tiptoe and I’d end up tripping on my (already as high as it can go) toestop. So, I figured I’d move the plates forward, distributing the weight over the wheels instead of my toes. Only I ended up spending an hour and a half fruitlessly frustrating myself because I couldn’t get all the nuts off the bolts which hold the plates in place. And it turns out (as Hellie, Screamer, Deadly, and Raptor all informed me a bit later on) that though most of skate maintenance stuff is easily adjusted/adjustable, plates are not one of those things. So potentially easy magic fix is out of my reach, at least for now. I ended up only actually skating for about 20-30 minutes. I was very grumpy. I had the pavilion to myself because everyone else went to Temple Hills for fear of the pavilion being rain-filled. (It was bone dry, so I saved me a dolla! But I suspect if I had gone to TH, Scorey and Comma would have stopped me from wasting time. Alas!)

The after party on Saturday was very fun, though I didn’t stay too long because The Boy wasn’t feeling well and went home straight from the bout, and I wanted to spend some time with him. I left around 10. But before I did, I danced with Screwy and Dixie and danced and chatted with many fellow volunteers, got told by a cop (it was police week) that I had “the best uniform down there” (in the downstairs bar where our party was) despite not wearing a uniform, and mistakenly worried I was towed because I thought I parked on Louisiana when I actually parked on Delaware. I didn’t skate before the bout because the good lot was full of cars (WHAT? HOW DARE YOU PARK IN THE GOOD LOT) and my wheels for the bad lot are backordered. Thinking I won’t have them for this Saturday, either, which peeves me. Might see about canceling the order and getting aerobics instead of pulses, or getting the pulses from another retailer. Didn’t get much done Sunday, either, before heading out to mom and dad’s with The Boy (first meeting there-went well I think) for mother’s day, hard-won pie in tow.

Today is Hang With The Boy day on the post-work schedule. I look forward to it. Relaxing is needed.

I don’t yet have photos from Saturday’s bout, but here are some from the City VS Suburbs bout last month by Shutterthug!

DCRG CHAMPIONSHIPS bout report

The bout itself was awesome, though it FLEW BY! When it was all said and done, Scare Force One won the day, maintaining their undefeated status for season 6. The Cats pulled it out and got a win under their belts after a rough season of learning to work together without several of their more experienced heavy hitters from seasons past. The final scores were Scare Force One 229 to the Cherry Blossom Bombshells 102, and the DC DemonCats 148 to Majority Whips 132.

Unfortunately for us, the tailgate and bout were at the same time/day as the DC101 Chili Cook-off at RFK Stadium (which is right next to the DC Armory). This could have potentially been great, because as people walk from the metro to RFK we could talk to them about coming by and checking out the bout, and we in fact did a bit of that. I was handing out parking passes to DCRG volunteers as they arrived, and a fair number of Chili Cookoff attendees talked to/with me, and I know many also stopped by the tailgate party. Unfortunately, the company that RFK and the Armory (?) contracted to manage parking were, well, not terribly cooperative. I am sympathetic to being the person who isn’t making the decisions but has to enforce them, but some of the employees were incredibly rude to our volunteers and fans, and whoever was calling the shots was an idiot. They refused to allow anyone in to our lot who did not have a parking pass (which meant our fans couldn’t park) and then the refused to let anyone in at all, regardless of parking pass, only repeated that their boss insisted they close the lot. I had to go inside to deal with my head bouncer duties around that time anyway, so I spoke to our rep from the Armory and let her know what was going on and she got it taken care of lickity split. She is awesome, you guys. However, not too long after, the police decided to block off all motor vehicle access to the armory and the lot in which we park. We still have no idea why. Rebecca got that taken care of as well, but we suspect it cost us in attendance.

Despite the smaller-than-we-had-hoped crowd, we did some serious business at the merch table, selling out of some products, and we had a few new volunteers and new fans in attendance. Also, I WON A PIE from Dangerously Delicious (chocolate cream). It was tough going at the silent auction table, because Bombshell Frightmare wanted that pie too! I wanted to be able to bring it home with me for Mother’s Day, however, and ended up victorious. I also chatted with a hopefully new fan who is from the Indianhead, MD area (I used to live down in Great Falls, so I would go by that area when going to and from Mom and Dad’s) and apparently makes some amazing pies. I hope he joins us when season 7 kickstarts!

Before we opened the doors to our fans, we got some photos done of the refs, NSOs, and the volunteers, courtesy James Calder, aka Shutterthug. In case you can’t tell, I am the one with the fez (and the rose that was one of many brought out by one of our regular volunteers, who has a very robust rose bush at home)

DCRG Volunteers, Photo copyright DC Rollergirls/James Calder from Roller Derby Saved My Soul

Sleep is AMAZING.

So I was headachey last night and when I exercise, increasing the blood flow to my brain, my headaches become migraines. So I skipped skating, which drives me NUTS because I haven’t been since May 3rd. Instead of skating (and learning to better my crossovers with Miso Knotty, who was there last night, BAH) I got home, studied for my comps some more (because the essays that failed were both ethical dilemma essays, I am starting by rereading my textbook from the ethics and management class. to be clear, they didn’t fail because I am unethical, but because I didn’t show enough references to the literature and the ethical dilemmas I chose were shallowly examined. I am now 4 chapters in.) and then I slept on the couch from around 8:45 until 11 on the dot. At 11 I got up, used the loo, and went to bed. I got up 1 more time, again to use the bathroom (I’m an old lady with kidney stones, whaddya want from me?!) and then locked the (noisy disruptive) cats out of the bedroom and slept until my alarm went off (in my briefcase on the other side of the door so it’s a good thing I heard it!) 10 hours of sleep is an amazing feeling, you guys. I thought maybe I’d skate tonight since I studied last night, but a few factors are making me think it would be better to study some more. 1, skating on a friday night means most everywhere I can skate is crowded, 2, I still have to do a practice essay for this week (which is what my friday study session is supposed to be focused on) and 3, if I skate first, when it’s light out, my essay is less likely to get written and if I use skating as a reward for writing my essay, it’ll be a crappy essay I rush through and I will have less light for skating. So. Masters degree comes first.

The wheels I ordered last week are backordered, so I will not be trailskating tomorrow morning. My plan instead is to go to the less-awful lot across the street and practice tight circles and crossovers, because it was suggested that it’s harder to fuck up your crossovers in tighter circles than on the bigger ovoid track. After bathing and stuff, I’ll head over to the Armory for tailgating and derby! Tickets are still available! Buy them now and no waiting in a long line beforehand! Go in! Get beer! Watch derby! Go to the afterparty! Get more beer! Dance with us! Watch some hockey with us! Party with us!

So. Skating. With having to retake my comps and uberscheduling my life I have less time. (seriously, this is my calendar, with non work hours scheduled(click to embiggen):

From janx

It looks like that all the way through July, when comps are.
All the hours not scheduled during the week are work, commute, or sleep hours. The weekend allows a bit more flexibility, but still not a lot of spare time, especially since some of the hours not scheduled on weekends are not scheduled in case I need to add extra study time.

Because of this, I know I will not make it into meat camp this year.

That doesn’t mean I won’t try. Not trying, as Eric points out more eloquently, is bad. It’s disappointing yourself. Failing yourself. Failing your supporters. I am not going to do that anymore than he is going to anymore. But I am not at the place with my skating where I have the skills to make it. I accept this. I will get better, because I will work at it. When I want to stop because I am tired, I will keep going. (When I want to stop because it hurts, I’m gonna stop. Because ow, pain. Unless it’s an endurance drill, because, well, that’s sort of the point.) Once comps are over, I will have more time to skate, more time to train, more time to prepare.

And if I manage to squeak in under the wire? That’s awesome. But I’m not counting on it. And that’s okay. It’ll give me another year as head bouncer, which I love doing, and then when I *do* make meat camp the girls I’ve been practicing with in preparation for this year’s tryouts will be able to help me even more.

REMINDER: SATURDAY MAY 12 from 1-4: TAILGATE! from 4-7:30 or 8ish: CHAMPIONSHIPS! From 8 on: AFTER PARTY AT KELLY’S IRISH TIMES! BE THERE.

Cycling ’round again

Hi! I slept last night! It was amazing! I loved it! Although I could have done without waking several times toward the tail end of nighttimes, but that’s okay!

Last night after work I ran an errand that took way longer than it should have and then had to make dinner, so day one of New Schedule studying started a bit late. But I let it go later than scheduled, so no big. (more on errands in a sec.) From about 5pm I was so tired that I was certain I’d fall asleep while studying, but I didn’t! Yay! (Also, I learned that it’s totally normal for the bones in your pork chop to bleed when you sear it. (I called my mom to make sure.) Normal, it turns out, doesn’t make it look less creepy.) Then, after studying, I went to bed. And slept. (And dreamed that I was living with The Boy and Puppy but The Boy was never around and Puppy kept coming into rooms just as I was changing my clothes all the time. Oh and a terminator’s head exploded without actually exploding and it turned my cell phone mostly clear (with golden brown bits). There was also a bit with roller derby, because all my dreams include roller derby now, even if only on the periphery. Also dreamed about listening to No Doubt, which was obviously prophetic because this morning I saw a post on FB about No Doubt releasing a new album.)

Errands: I went by target to get some foam hair curlers to practice wet-setting my hair (and then styling it) before Deja Bruise. While I was there, because I only have 1 pair of shorts to work out/skate in and my sports bras are not sufficiently supportive (I bought them when I was a b cup. I am now a d cup. NOT USEFUL.) I stopped by the activewear section. Apparently the only people who wear sports bras according to Target are tiny-tittied or uninterested in pretty undergarments, or both. They had 1 style of sports bra that actually used cup sizes instead of “S, M, L” sizing. All of the bras in that style were white with weird seaming, and all but one of them was a 34B. The other one was a 36DD. I WOULD LIKE SUPPORT WHILE I DO MY SKATING AND OFF-SKATES WORKOUT, PLEASE. I’ve found some via internets, but they all cost like 40 bucks for the cheapest one and I do not have that kind of money for a single garment.

Today is day 2 of New Schedule (I know, it’s tough to remember day two follows day one.) On Thursdays I skate at Anacostia with the other meat girls. Miso Knotty, retired Bombshell, will be there too to help us out (she is also one of the skaters who ran the 2nd derby 101 clinic, so she is planning on putting us through our paces a bit! 25 in 5 and pace line work was mentioned.) Tomorrow (day 3 for those of you having trouble keeping up) is another study day (laundry, too). I was reading an article about how Switzerland is considering a system where everyone gets 2500 francs a month. I don’t know how much money 2500 francs is because I am lazy and not googling it, but I would like to be given money monthly so I wouldn’t have to worry so much about whether or not I can pay my bills. This program would replace unemployment insurance and social security style income supplement programs, but it would not just go to not-working people, it would go to everyone. IT’s certainly an interesting idea. If I was the beneficiary of such a program, I would be able to do stuff during the week outside of the hours of 6:30 to 9:30! How exciting that would be! The current schedule has me skating Mon and Thursday evenings, hanging with The Boy Tuesday evening, and studying Wed and Fri evenings. Saturday mornings also get skate time, and most cleaning and errands are scheduled for Sunday. Saturdays and Sundays have plots of unscheduled time which I expect to use on spending time with The Boy sometimes as well as doing extra stuff (like, this weekend, derby. or, another time, baking. or reading. or tv watching. or whatever.) But if I didn’t have to work as much? OMG ALL THE THINGS I COULD DO! WHENEVER!

Oh hey, lunch time is over. Oops. GO TO THE DERBIEZ THIS WEEKEND

Focusing on positives

I couldn’t sleep AGAIN last night. Normally when I have a migraine, no matter how much I sleep, once it is gone I can still sleep through the night. Not last night. My brain just kept having the same imaginary argument over and over. But I am not going to talk about that. (Although if things go badly after lunch, I might make a second post for it.) I’m going to focus on good stuff.

-I didn’t die or crash my car at any point in the past week
-Fitzy has become both snuggly and purry at night, and it’s so cute!
-I can afford to go to Deja Bruise this season! It’s gonna be so fun!!
(Deja Bruise is the league and pit crew only end of the season party for DCRG. There’s always a theme and there’s an open bar and you get to dress up! I was just starting my new part time job when it happened last year so I couldn’t go then. This will be my first!)

Derby Biz:
The DC Rollergirls are happy to have staff from the Center for Missing & Exploited Children join us at Saturday’s bout. Please stop by the Charity Table to learn more about the organization, learn about Missing Children’s Day, pick up some neat giveaways for children, and meet their mascot, Clicky. We also encourage you to visit their website and view missing children in our area.

If you’re planning on coming to the DC Rollergirls bout this Saturday, our normally priced $10 parking is jumping to $20 due to the Chili Cook-Off at RFK. Don’t forget the Armory is a VERY easy walk from the Stadium/Armory metro station!

and:

From Roller Derby Saved My Soul

Migraines and Insomnia are Both AWFUL.

Yesterday I was super productive. I cooked. I cleaned. I laundered. I scheduled. I socialized. I rearranged furniture.

What I didn’t do was sleep. It sucked. I didn’t like it. I was tired. I wanted to sleep. My brain wouldn’t turn off, though. When 2:30 rolled around, I got up because there was a plasticky, crunchy noise in the living room. Normally this means Fitz is misbehaving, but he was in bed with me, so I could not imagine what Zelda was up to. It turns out that my moving of furniture revealed to her keen kitty senses a package of catnip that 1800 PetMeds had included when I ordered the kitty intestinal lube for Fitz. She destroyed the packaging and poured at least 2 ounces worth onto the carpet and rolled and licked and huffed all night. No wonder she was an unwed teenage pregnant homeless kitty before the Baltimore shelter found her! She’s bonkers for the ‘nip, man! Fitzy, who I would have guessed inherited her addiction, was surprisingly unimpressed by the catnip.

While Z got her fix (and after I took the package from her and sealed it up in a ziplock bag which is now locked in a cabinet) I spent a while watching pin-up hairstyle tutorials on youtube, since slumber was busy scorning me. I fell asleep sometime after 4 and woke with my alarm, but I was all migrainey and ended up missing work today. THis worries me, because I was told to come in even when I have migraines rather than appear unreliable. However, when the migraines come with enough dizziness that I can’t walk in a straight line, I am not going to endanger myself or others by driving to work, and if I walk to the metro and take the train in, I am just as unreliable-seeming because I’m way late AND I’m miserable and icky feeling at work, and it seems if I’m going to be tarred with the “shitty employee” brush, I may as well do it where I can barf in peace. And here is where I get defensive:

IF any of you think migraine just means “very painful headache” and that I must be a wuss for skipping work, I’d like you to die in a fire. Migraines are a neurological condition which MAY include headache as a symptom, but may also include nausea; vomiting; synesthesia; visual, aural, gustatory, and olfactory hallucinations; blurred vision; delirium; vertigo; weakness; polyuria; and many, many others. Alice in Wonderland? All of the wonderland sequences were inspired by migraines. When Alice grows extremely large and extremely small? That’s a neurological condition associated with migraines. It is in fact known as the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. So before you tell a migraineur “suck it up” and “work through it” think. You wouldn’t tell Michael J. Fox to act despite his ALS. You wouldn’t tell a person with a broken leg to walk it off. I do the best that I can, and I work harder because I know that a migraine can happen at any time so I better be ready when it does, and if that isn’t good enough for you, then you aren’t good enough for me.

Anyway, that’s why today’s post is late-I spent the day recovering. Now I am going to look at pictures of bunnies so I am not in a horrible mood and on the verge of tears for the rest of the day.