Hell on Wheels

I want to be a roller girl.

I learned to roller skate when I was 5 years old.  In a strange and awesome juxtaposition, my church based kindergarten in rural Carriere, MS had a skating rink.  What is even more ironic, it wasn't the only skating rink in the town of 1500 people, max.  On rainy days, instead of going outside for recess, we would file single file into the skating rink and cut loose.  On the weekends, my mother accompanied me to the "real" rink in town where I received a series of skating lessons.  I took to it like a fish in water.  Skating was my 'gig'.  When I wasn't skating in a rink, I was perfecting my backwards skating skills in the hallway of our home.  I had my own skates (the sign of a true roller skater) as well as insta-skates, which transformed my tennis shoes into clanky skates.  For my 8th Christmas, Santa (yes, I still believed at that point) brought me the most superfly phat pair of white boot skates I had ever seen.  I don't hear "Xanadu" by Olivia Newton John, or "Lady" by Kenny Rogers (couple skate) that I don't feel a twinge to cross my right foot over my left.  By the time I was a teenager, I could couple skate (backwards).  To this day, I can proudly say that I never suffered a fall or flattened someone else's fingers in my adventures.  Sadly, skating rinks began disappearing in the late 1980s and I took a hiatus from my love of gliding along to funky music.  Not coincidentally, the artist Cameo also saw a drop in record sales.  In the mid 90s, my best friend from college bought me a pair of rollerblades for my birthday.  Rollerblades were okay, but TOO MUCH WORK.  This was actual exercise...not fun.  And, honestly, I didn't want to identify with the granola chics, whizzing about the campus on their blades with their extremely muscular calves.  I gave another half-hearted effort to the roller blade movement in the early part of the last decade, taking in the Mississippi River views as I tried to assimilate into the Harbor Town crowd.  Didn't last long.  Try rollerblading for 1.5 miles, against the blustery wind on a chilly March day...you'll never put on another pair.  Or at least, I didn't.  I just began to regain feeling in my shins...3 months ago.  Plus, I hated the gear.  I now use my knee pads to do floor scrubbing work. 

I would love nothing more than to lace up (lace...not latch) a pair of roller skates and glide around a rink.  Unfortunately, in Memphis, doing so means taking my life in my own hands and risk greater injury getting from my car to the door.  Last night, I saw a preview for "Whip It", a coming of age roller derby movie.  Now, I am old enough to be Ellen Page's mother (if I had been a YOUNG teen mother), but I couldn't help the excitement at the prospect of putting on massive amounts of make up and a pair of skate...basically, 1987 all over again.  Except with shoving, potential injury, and a moniker.  I quickly talked myself out of this prospect after being shoved by a big dose of reality.  I was sitting at home on a Saturday night in a nightgown with a redbox movie and a Sprite.  I'm no roller girl.  Sure, I have enough pent up aggression to open an institutional sized can of whoop ass, but I'm old.  I am old and tired.  I am old and tired and healthy.  And I would like to keep it that way.  I sure got a kick out of envisioning myself caked up with Max Factor and bandaids, being all aggressive and mean.  I laughed out loud when I thought about the moniker my far younger teammates would give me: Grandma Murder.  Or maybe Katherine Hipburn.  Or Ma Bell Hell.  Or Olden Girl.  Auntie Mame.  Either way, I awoke this morning feeling rejected by something I had rejected myself.

So, after I did my elderly routine of reading the paper with my coffee and watching CBS Sunday Morning, I entered phase two of my lazy Sunday morning routine...I opened my laptop.  I couldn't control my fingers from typing in "Memphis Roller Derby" into the google search field.  I was led to this.  There, I found, with quickening pulse, that there seemed to be no age cutoff.  But I found something else, far more restrictive and yet such a common theme in my life.  It wasn't that I was too old to do it, it was that I had once again chosen a course that would divert me from fun and exciting to safe and predictable.  DAMN, grad school.  Taking up my time for things I might actually enjoy.  I didn't miss the irony in the fact that there was a time that grad school represented fun and exciting, something that I always put on the back burner while I pursue my safe and predictable activities of working and getting married.  And now, that very thing has become the albatross.

Not that educating myself actually prevents me from getting down and dirty; but there are time constraints.  Due to my hatred of poverty, I must work and go to school at night.  Most night classes occur on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  I can see myself signing up to kick some ass, only to meekly tell my team captain (Betty Gravel or Kim Reaper) that I must be excused from practice on these nights because I have class or study group.  They would probably stub cigarettes out in my palms for this infraction.  I say this only based on perception, because I assume that these ladies are hard core.  Like the normal chickens pecking the lame one to death, I would be seen as semi committed and subject to scorn.  Another irony, I am choosing the path that leads to me helping bring comfort to people over the path that would help me bring pain; even though both are equally appealing! 

I think about another time that I had to choose a path.  By the time I was a junior in college, I was fed up with formal education and wanted so badly to drop out and pursue beauty school (I just dated myself...by referring to it as beauty school).  My parents were aghast at this notion, and since they were my benefactors, I felt obligated to finish up the degree.  There are more times than not that I am glad I did.  But, sometimes, I think about what my life would be like if I had chosen the other road.  Joining the roller derby league isn't a career choice, and I am likely overthinking this, but I know myself well enough to know that it has to be one or the other.  Devote my evenings to grad school, or devote my evenings to recreation.  I spent my adult life so far devoting my time to the safe options, so as to build a future that wasn't so constrained.  And here I am.

I saved the website to my favorites folder.  A way of putting it on the back burner for now.  I will be 38 years old at the end of my grad education.  Perhaps if I start taking Boniva and add a couple of glasses of milk to my day, I can build strong enough bones to start then.  Maybe by then, a Senior league will start up.  Oldies but Baddies.  Declining Women.  Bitches on Wheels.  Watch for me!  I'll be the one popping Aleve and grinning. 

Come on Baby Tell Me What's The Word

I watched one too many news reports last night. Generally, I am a news freak and often find myself watching one broadcast and tivoing another. I am fairly sure that this stems from the total reverance that fell over my home as a child when the news came on. Everybody best shut the Hell up and listen to Walter Cronkite. Most of the time, I can watch with a detachment that is necessary in this day and age. However, sometimes, something strikes me and cuts right to the bone. The murders of Sgt Paudert and Officer Bill Evans of the West Memphis Police Department is one of the stories that got through. I got up this morning and didn't feel one bit sorry for my previous post; however, I feel the need to "move on" and post something light and entertaining to negate the bile.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I carted some kids around in my car last week.  My attention was focussed on the projectile vomitting; however, I did get a chance to bond with the two thirteen year old girls also in my charge.  In doing so, I realized that times change and situations certainly differ; but deep down,  all kids are the same.  As the happy chatter in the car turned to the last day of school and summer vacation, I was transported back to rural Troup County, Georgia, circa 1987.  Last day of school, seventh grade.  Best last day of school ever.  I mentioned this to the girls, that seventh grade was my favorite school year by far and they looked at me as if I had sprouted 6 horns.  Much like I probably would have had some square social worker advised me in the same manner all those years ago.

My best friend was Tina Williams.  We liked Original Jams and Swatch watches.  I met Tina on the first day of seventh grade when she slipped off her jelly shoe and showed me her blue toenail polish.  We were two peas in a pod from there on out.  Seventh grade was a pivotal time in my youth.  I was very fortunate to have both parents at home, very little family drama (that came much later), all the things I needed and most of the things I wanted.  My parents installed my very own phone line in my bedroom that Christmas.  I got 3 way calling.  Tina and I pulled all nighters on the phone on the few weekends that we weren't bunking at each other's homes.  We both had Garfield phones.  Normal never seemed so perfect.

The last day of school began with a note, from my mom, stating that it was okay for me to ride Tina's bus home with her.  Tina's bus driver was far younger and cooler than my shriveled up bus driver who banged an axe handle on the metal ceiling if we were getting unruly (way before bus cams).  Her bus driver let us have a paper fight.  As we made our wobbly way up to the front of the bus in anticipation of our stop, I could taste the summer that awaited us on the other side of those doors.  For a month leading up to this day, Tina and I would pass notes that showcased our math skills, calculating the precise number of days and hours (sometimes, if we were really bored, seconds) until the early June day.  Tina had a touch of OCD, as she would often draft agendas that looked something like this:

3pm-get on bus
3-4:07pm-ride bus
4:08-arrive home
4:09-5:00pm-get acquainted with things
5pm-5:15pm-snack
5:15pm-6:30pm-get ready
6:30pm-leave for movies

and so on.  We arrived at Tina's equally normal house, empty (I wasn't even a latchkey kid.).  In time, her little brother would show up and we would use some of our "get acquainted with things" time to torment him.  Tina and I would put our records on, literally.  The sounds of Cameo would fill the house until her very tired mom would arrive, loaded down with groceries that we helped carry (so as to get dibs on the good stuff). 

"Get ready" consisted of locking ourselves in the bathroom and taking turns getting a shower, each pledging to turn around so that the other could modestly slip behind the shower curtain.  The non showering party would sit on the toilet seat and read aloud from the book of Song Hits or Tiger Beat.  Hair conditioner ingredients were discussed and the summer of 1987 was when Tina and I discovered that there was afterbirth in the Hask Placenta conditioner that kept our permed hair so crunchy.  Exiting the foggy bathroom, the make up extravaganza was next.  Tina and I both preferred Natural Wonder eyeshadow in China Blue Frost and Electric Amethyst (yes, both on each eye).  Follow that with Electric Blue mascara and you've got yourself a face!  Jovan Musk intermingled with Sand and Sable cologne and we were ready.  Original Jams, check (I feel the need to clarify original because we had a friend who's mother made "jams" on her sewing machine and we were having none of that).  Swatch watches, maybe two, check.  Impervious hair, check.  Frosty Fuschia lipstick, check.  We piled into her parent's pistachio green Ford LTD and away we went. 

I don't remember the movie, but it was likely "La Bamba".  We were not there to see the movie, though.  We were there to gather intel.  What were the cool chics wearing?  Who broke up since 3pm?  Who had found true love on the bus ride home?  Who was on restriction?  I had a boyfriend, Greg.  Greg and his ilk met us there and we all took our seats.  It bothered me that Greg got a popcorn because I hate when people touch food and then offer it to me.  We giggled.  I smooched Greg.  Tina and I rolled our eyes at each other.  We compared feet to see who had the biggest.  Greg attempted to fix Tina up with his friend, Poncho (a regular white kid...unsure where the name came from).  I attempted to cheer Tina up when Ponch declined.  Later, we walked to the quick stop to purchase Cherry 7-ups while we waited for the pistachio green car to take it's place in the limo line up. 

Piling into the car to the strains of mid 80's country music, Tina and I sang along all the way home....entertaining her parents, I'm sure.  When asked about the movie, we were unable to report anything beyond some Mexican guy who was in a plane crash with Buddy Holly.  Arriving home for more snacks, we prepared for our all night music video fest (Superstation WTBS!), budgeting a few hours of sleep in preparation for the first official whole day of Summer. 

That was 23 years ago.  Whenever I hear someone mention the last day of school, I am right back there.  I think about "The Young and The Restless", The Iran Contra Hearings, "Dirty Dancing" (which I hated, I was a cynic even then), motorbikes, Hubba Bubba gum, Michael Jackson's "Bad", Always Maxi Pads with Wings, Baby oil and Iodine as sunscreen, Sebago foot (which comes from wearing the leather shoes without socks in June), and endless days of doing absolutely nothing, yet experiencing absolutely everything.

Try as I might, I always fall short of recreating this time each year.  I wanted to tell those girls, DO NOT GROW UP!!! I wanted to tell them that it will never get any better than this.  They are in such a hurry, one even discussing the fact that she is already looking at cars in anticipation of getting her license (4 years in the future).  I wanted to tell them that someday they would be shopping in Kroger and would see the summer bbq supplies and feel like they had been shot.  Someday, they would be in the car and would get behind a school bus and some kid would shoot them a bird from the 'cool kids only' backseat and they would want to cry.  Someday, they would pull on a bathing suit and waste minutes of precious sun time standing in front of the mirror wondering where their waist went.  As I opened my mouth to educate these girls, I realized that my car had just turned into a pistachio green LTD and my message would be deemed "uncool". 

And in the wise words of Cameo:  You try to put on those airs and act real cool but you've got to realize that you're acting like a fool.  Even Original Jams have evolved.  They now make sensible sundresses.