ok so it's been a while again

God, it's been over a year?  my bad.  anyway.

I have been very bad about attending practices; that needs to change.

I've done a buncha games since my last post - a tournament in State College, PA, jam timing at JRDA Playoffs and at a tournament in Waterloo, ON, mentoring a crew at Fresh & Furious.  

ok so it's been a while

 let's see what's happened

1. went to a few outdoor practices until it was getting dark too early in the evening

2. stopped going to practices once they were indoors because, well, COVID

3. over the last few years? months? who tf knows at this point, I had this squishy bump between my skin and my left kneecap.  If I put any pressure on it, it would hurt like a mofo for about a second, and then it would be fine.  In January I finally had enough and had it removed - it turned out to be a big piece of fibrous fat.  I decided to stay off skates until the beginning of April.

4. went to a practice for fresh meat skaters to assist with rules-related teaching.  Everyone was masked.  Went to a restaurant afterwards with everyone.  Masks were removed.

5. I got COVID (along with six other people who were at the restaurant).  I was fully vaccinated (J&J) and boosted but it still happened.  

6. got really annoyed with everyone and everything

7. felt like a really bad cold that left me even more tired than I usually am

8. eventually got better

9. tried going to a practice on-skates at the beginning of April

10. fell a few times due to (a) the floor of our current practice space isn't the greatest, (b) not being able to find my indoor wheels and having to put really old hard wheels on and (c) trying to do toe-stop work

11. my knee got really ickily squishy and fluid-filled afterwards

12. decided to wait a few more months before going on skates again

13. went out to Buffalo to be an NSO for one of their games (penalty box timing, something I haven't done that often.  it went well)

14. bought new wheels (I like my wheels like I don't like people - as narrow as possible); see Section 10(b) above.  Just need to put them on my skates.  

15. NSOed a bunch of juniors games and a scrimmage this past weekend (jam timing, which was fun and resulted in this which was just amazing, penalty box timing for level 1 juniors which was THE MOST ADORABLE THING EVARRRRRRRR), scorekeeping which I had missed more than I thought, and scoreboard operating, which went pretty well except for the few times I fucked up stopping a jam because I kept hitting the "start jam" keyboard button

16. the league is going to be practicing in a space with a much better floor soon, and once we're there I'll go on skates again and be very careful, and wrap my knee and wear a gasket and all that and hopefully that will do the trick

I.... have derby practice tonight

outdoors, and no contact, but....

I have derby practice tonight.

I HAVE DERBY PRACTICE TONIGHT!!!!!!!!

will we ever return? IT IS A MYSTERY

so the weather is starting to get nice again, I should probably start skating outside again

I should start seriously checking out the paved trails near me

(lots of "I should" sentences)

ow and ow and ow

 so on New Year's Day I dropped the edge of a table on my right big toe

toenail is a lost cause

I suppose if it had to happen, I'm glad it happened while derby is not happening

...

normally this time of year I would be doing a year in review thing, where I'd post links to some entry from each month that encapsulated my derby experience of that month

instead I'm just going to sigh very heavily

I do want to say that I was lucky to have the experiences I did have this year - I got to be a THR!  I officiated three games, which is three more than a lot of people this year!  I got to see my son be a frickin' awesome NSO!  

so yeah, wear your goddamn masks and hopefully we can get back to this sport soon.

some people are optimistic

 my son and his best friend exchanged Christmas presents early

he was given a pair of black combat-ish boots

he said he probably wouldn't wear them on a daily basis but would definitely wear them to derby things

I said "if there are derby things"

and he said "there will be.  don't worry."

I will hold onto that

--------

decided to read through past entries

"Then we're on break until September, so it'll be three weeks of no derby.  That will be odd."

TRY EIGHT MONTHS OF NO DERBY WEEP WEEP WEEP SIGH