The World is Now Safe From My Nippulars

I have been guilty of passively sexually harassing everyone in the world lately, thanks to my desire to wear thin fabrics and non-padded bra's. That's right. I shamelessy flashed my headlights. I nonchallantly smuggled raisins. It's always a tit bit nipply out.

Lately I've decided that flashing my nips is a passive-aggressive expression of my general dissatisfaction, and as such is totally immature, and I should grow up already and get a padded bra. Also, you know, I don't want to be That Girl... "yeah, this girl I work with, she's ALWAYS flashin' headlights, it's so gross..."

So I totally got new ones, at Tarzhay. It took like an hour thanks to bras being so complicated, fit-wise. So now I'm padded and the world is protected from my evil nips. Now I feel like my boobs are abnormally large but no one's been staring and pointing so I guess they look ok.

HELL to the YEAH.

I feel just like the Little Mermaid

because my calves hurt so freakin' much! Dag, yo!

This is cuz this weekend I went to a Charm City practice, and one of their skaters used to be a ballerina and she had us do 50 calf raises going up on both tip toes and back down, and then 25 on each side of going up on one tip toe. And now, I can't flex my left foot, and it's also hard to straighten my left leg. I'm trying to walk normally, although by now people at work must be used to me coming in limping or bent over or otherwise temporarily crippled due to my attempts at athletic physicality. Even so, I don't really want to call attention to it, so I'm trying to just walk it off.. hence me feeling Little Mermaid-ish. And I ain't even doin' it for no prince. Dag.

The Charm City girls rule, btw. Really nice, really cool, really hard-skatin' chicas.

She's a maaaaniac, maaaaniac on the flo'

I watched Flash Dance for the first time on Sunday. I was, um... well I was a little offended by it, actually. I was entertained also, but also, kind of icked out.

It's definitely the straightest movie I've seen in a while, which is pretty impressive, considering part of it is set in some kind of steel mill/factory in Pittsburgh. A steel mill with no homoeroticism at all, whaaaa? There's so much gayness in movies that I didn't even notice there was so much gayness until I saw a movie that was so all about straight guys ogling scantily clad ladies.

And what about it is icky... I reckon it's because the girls are not aware of the ogling. There's Jennifer Beal, being a maniac, maaaaniac on the floor, dancing (in her own private loft space) like she's never danced before... little does she know there's a CAMERA ON HER ASS! HER JIGGLING JIGGLING ASS! La la la, dance dance dance... then she goes to hang out with her ice skater friend, who is scantily clad, and they skate around... little does skater girl know, THERE'S A CAMERA ON HER ASS TOO! At one point, creepy camera guy seems to be hanging out in the rafters of the ice rink, camera stalking the two friends. La la la, then the girls all convene to go work out. Little do they know, THEIR GYM LOOKS LIKE THE SET OF OLIVIA NEWTON JOHN'S VIDEO FOR GET PHYSICAL! and... THERE'S A CAMERA ON ALL THEIR ASSES!

Even when the girls are working their evening jobs as exotic dancers in the local bar you know they're thinking of it as art more than strippery, so there's voyeurism there too.

Of course what makes it all funny is when the one girl ends up being seduced by the local evil lothario and ends up working in the BAD strip club, the one where the girls just get nekkid and don't bother to be artistic at ALL, and so Jennifer Beal goes in and drags her friend out of the club and demands that she have some self-respect. Oh Jennifer B. It's a good thing you got into fancy ballet school with your breakdancing fusion jazz.

All that said, the music for Flashdance rules. One time I was in a karaoke bar and this young lady walked in and chose What Feeling and just Tore. It. Up. It's a song that you can tear up because it's just so freakin' awesome. I heart Irene Cara forever!

A Lie of the Mind

Saturday I went to see Mr. Jeff Wills in A Lie of the Mind at Manhattan Theater Source (www.theatresource.org, playing now thru the 28th). I'll be grading it on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the best, on what I'm sure you'll agree are the essentials for a piece o' theater.

1. Ease of getting there and back: 8. I took the 5:30 DeCamp bus into the city. It used to take half an hour to 40 minutes to get into the city, but lately the traffic backs up starting before Hoboken, and inching our way through the helix, we made it into Port Authority at 7pm. However, from there it was just a straight shot on the A train to W4th and then a few blocks walk to the the theater. Finding the theater in the space was a different story - the space is a bookstore on the first and second levels, so you go up a flight of stares and end up turning left into a room with couches in it, and it's really not clear where the theater is. Because while there is a sign on the little door that says "Quiet, Performance in Progress", there is not a sign that says "Tiny Theater Located Behind Tiny Door."

2. Space and Chair Situation: 7. The theater is very very small, but the sightlines are good. They've got some issues with their HVAC, so they blast cold air before the show and then it gets warmer and warmer during. The chairs had cushions but my ass was numb after 10 minutes.

3. Audience: 9. They smelled like soap and fine shampoo during Act I. I had to take a point off during Act II because someone cut one, but in general they struck me as being fine individuals.

4. Script: 9. Sam Shepherd, what a guy. I had to take a point off because he just goes on and on and on sometimes and that can get boring. Still tho', for family comedy-drama's with plenty of homoeroticism and inecestumous sexual tension, plus western accents, you can't go wrong with Shepherd. Also, dude, he's married to JESSICA LANGE.

5. Hotness of Actors: 10+. Todd D'Amour, DAMN! When you buy tickets to A Lie of the Mind, you're gettin' tickets to Mr. D'Amour's gun show fo' sho'. That dude is RIPPED. What's that you say, Mr. D'amour, your next show is a one-man show based on A Streetcar Named Desire, titled Stanley? Color me THERE (if it's a musical. It's a musical, right? "A stranger's just a friend you haven't meeeet! STREETCAR! tm Simpsons.)! Also, Mr. Jeff Wills sports a more than usually luscious mane of flowing dark-brown hair. The ingenue gets almost naked and is pretty hot too. Basically everyone's pretty attractive.

6. Actors and Direction: I'm not going to give these a number, because these items, unlike hotness, can't be quantified. The actors individually were pretty good, and as an ensemble they were tight, and direction-wise, there were some pretty pictures onstage and the story was told in a straightforward manner, which I appreciate very much. If I were a reviewer I'd say it was, 'an ambitious attempt that produces more compelling moments than stumbling ones.' But I'm not one, whew, so, yeah. I got bored at parts, but was mostly involved. The two moms in particular were very very good.

7. Overall experience: 5. You'd think the overall score would be higher, but I have to blame DeCamp and some Jersey assholes for the low score - I got back to Port Authority in plenty of time to catch the 11:45 bus, which was 45 minutes late. This was bad enough but add to it some jerk calling DeCamp every 5 minutes and blustering about how they've lost a customer. Yeah right, like there's another better bus he can take. Jerk.

So in conclusion, go see the show, but dress in layers, and if you can, take the train.

Stuff I did this weekend

-mailed in my registration renewal for my car. This is, I believe, the very first time I've actually noticed that I got a DMV notice in mail, and did something about it.

-did my taxes.

-read The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. My roommate has a copy and I think I picked it up because Stephen King has it in his list of books he read the year he wrote On Writing. And it was gripping, I couldn't put it down. The last 150 pages are pretty uncecessary tho'.

-went to midnight liturgy in Garfield. Very pretty, very very very cold processional. Also, turn the bells off when the priest is speakin'!

-Watched Just Like Heaven and American Psycho. Mrs. Pinchloaf said J.L.H. is a good romcom. I thought it was ok. American Psycho was about 90% awesome. I heart Christian Bale forever!

Googling for Blobs

(I accidentally typed Blobs instead of Blogs in the title of this post, and wen to delete it and decided Blobs is better.)

So Astra Zombie said tonight that she came upon my blog after googling Garden State Roller Girls. Sooooo, it's never occurred to me to manipulate googling to get mo' hits on this thang, but here's my attempt at developing my readership: Boobies! Paris Hilton! Cute Kittens! Puppies! BOOBIES!

Aaaaand, I'm out.

I Am A Quitter

Yes, it's true. Here's a list of things I've quit, not in any particular order, because if I had to put them in order, pshh, I'd probably just quit.

-intrumural soccer in 5th grade
-orchestra
-violin lessons
-church scouts
-ballet lessons
-trying to be an actor
-trying to be a stage director
-backup singing
-the cross-country team
-my two bands, Perpetual Crush and Cuddle Party
-job in college as a server at a country club, after a mere two weeks
-going to biology 101 after 3 classes
-songwriting group
-playwriting group
-trying to read The Lord of the Rings books (I know, y'all hate me now. But I saw the movie, shiiiiit.)
-guitar lessons
-knitting
-face painting business

So, as you can see, I'm an impressive quitter. I quit things that are difficult, and things that I have some talent for, and things that are not difficult, but that I can't be bothered with. I'm not proud of this fact, but it is a fact. I was reminded of this partly because of reading Jeff's blog, Odin's Aviary, where he referenced Gary Hopper's acting class. Gary warned us not to be dilettantes. I turned around and was a dilettante. (Sorry Gary. You can have fries with your Big Mac anytime tho', unless I've already quit working at Mickey D's by the time you order.)

But then I joined roller derby. Lest you have not been reading my blog up to this point, I am not good at it. I am not a good skater. I am not a good athlete. I am the fat girl in gym class who never gets picked, and for good reason. I'm slow, I'm clumsy, I'm not aggressive, I get knocked out of bounds and knocked down.

Still, it's a fun thing to do, and when I first started back in late September, I asked my cap'n if, you know, it was a huge problem that I really really sucked. She basically told me you get out of it what you put into it and then yelled at me to get back out and skate rather than just sweating on the sidelines, so I shrugged and did.

Then I got tired of falling down all the time, and not being able to stop or turn or do anything, so I took lessons, and learned how to keep my balance and stop and do crossovers. Then our de facto skate tech observed that maybe I wouldn't be so slow if I wasn't skating on the cheapest skates/wheels possible, so I ponied up for extra-grippy skateboard wheels and Bones Swiss bearings, and lo and behold, got a bit faster. And also I got knee pads and elbow pads and wrist guards and a helmet, and eventually better skates, and eventually skated in a scrimmage with my team, and well, here we are.

So having said all of that, I STILL really really suck. The thing is, I got the basic skills down, and I got a bit more in shape, so I passed the skills test and I'm on the team, but I'm still the slowest, still the most likely to fall behind the pack. I regularly get headaches and feel like throwing up after practice. I have trouble with almost every aspect of the sport - speed, strength, agility. Our season starts May 11th, and there's a very great chance that I will be The Worst Skater quite obviously in front of hundreds of people. It's not a pretty thought. So the logical choice for a veteran quitter like myself would be to throw in the towel, no?

The thing is, I absolutely can't. I can barely even let myself consider the possibility. It's not going to happen. I realized this absolutely at our scrimmage in Philly. In roller derby, as in nothing else I've ever done, we all depend on each other so much that losing one skater is like losing a limb. We've got 11 girls total skating 2 30 minute periods. 5 girls on the track per jam. Jammer should get to sit out after jamming. Some girls will be called out for penalties. If one girl's out, that means another girl has to be there to replace her, or that the other girls have to work harder to make up for the loss. (And did I mention the gasping for oxygen sweating headache nausea of extreme exertion? If one skater's out another one's getting double the torture.) Derby is about sheer physical endurance as much as anything else, and for that reason alone, we can't lose anyone.

And the really crazy thing is, it's not just that I can't quit - I really have to try. Like, try really hard. Because if I mess up our chances for a win, and I know it's because I didn't give my 110%... Well that'd be bad. I might even cry. So this leads me to the interesting situation of finishing practice with a huge headache and sweating like crazy and feeling like throwing up because I've been pushing so hard... and feeling guilty because I sat out one jam. This, to say the least, is a new experience, because not only am I a quitter, I'm also a champion slacker.

It's definitely worth it though. My team-mates and league-mates are so supportive of me, and of everyone. It's hard to believe that a bunch of girls who joined a sport where one routinely yells, 'BEAT A BITCH!' could be so very nice in person. But it's true, I tells ya. Which only adds another reason that I'll never give up... if I were letting down 10 girls I don't like, that'd be one thing, but they all totally rule.

So in conclusion, roller derby saved my soul. Hugs and bruises. Bitches get stitches. Etcetera.

Useless Emails I Get

-Oh boy! A Friendster Friend update! Oh, wait. I'm not really friends with anyone on Friendster anymore, all my friends are on Myspace.
-Some band I saw one time at an open mic is playing EVERY SINGLE WEEK! in a state Idon't even live in and if I did the place is a dive anyway so I'd never go
-The Washington Opera, for some strange reason, thinks I have money to give them.
-Someone I know but who I'm not friends with has sent me an email, but not a friend request, via Myspace! How am I? Fine. And you? Fine. Good. Let us never speak of it again.
-One billion emails from a songwriting association board. I went to one meeting. It was fun. If I want to I can read an in-depth discussion of how to write catchy lyrics and who's nominated for the WAMMY's this year, but guess what, I don't wanna.
-Ticket Master reminds me not to miss the Foo Fighters! I'm touched, but it's really not necessary, I don't plan to miss them much at all.

It's such a taco party up in here

Starting a new trend, people... talking about taco parties, taco fests, etc. It's the reverse of saying a scene is a sausage party. Like this:

So I went to practice last night, and it was fun, but it was a total taco party...

Pass it on! Go!