My bum and ego are a little tender today

You may recall that I considered joining the local roller derby team. I couldn’t resist when one of their team members asked me to check them out. So for the last two weeks, I have rented those hideous skates, the kind that smell of rotten vegetables and veer in opposite directions, and joined the derby girls around the rink (at a considerably slower pace).

The women don’t have their own rink, so they practice at least once a week at a local venue, preferably on a night with low skater traffic. What type of night is this, you ask? Well, it’s Soul Gospel night. A Soul Gospel night so loud that it shakes the stuffed animals in the claw machine with the spirit. A Soul Gospel night that steals the beats from gangster rap/hip hop artists and covers them with lines about the importance of faith and funky soul grooves in the name of Jesus. An interesting juxtaposition.

I quickly learned two things:

1) Even if you were a skating queen in middle school, it may take a few practice sessions before reclaiming that title.
2) Those who actually come for Soul Gospel night have not stopped skating since Solid Gold .
a. I can tell this because they are doing the Hustle.
b. They wear towels in their back pockets.
c. They’re synchronized in a dance routine that would make the Macerena blush.

During my first session, I looked like a mobile windmill, flapping my arms to gain some sort of balance. Seven-year-old boys lapped me, skating backwards, imitating my quixotic arm flailing. By the second session, I gained some momentum. Michelle felt comfortable enough to lend me her speed skates, which rock the hell out of the rented skates that smell of cauliflower. I was so excited at one point that I forgot I was skating among those who holy roll for Jesus and threw up the sign of the devil. I was overtaken with the spirit, what can I say?

But then the inevitable happened. The inevitable I was waiting for…my ass collided with the rink. I was hoping it would be a graceful fall, one in which I would recover with a triple lutz and a curtsy. Rather my fall was a thunderous collapse directly upon my tailbone. A collapse that drew the attention of most of the skaters, who pulled my crumpled body off the floor and offered advice given from the best coaches around the world: “Walk it off, girl. Walk it off.” The pain brought a whole new meaning to the music’s exclamation, “God Almighty Lord of Glory.” Except my version included many expletives and wincing.

Your enthusiasm is showing.

Do you know how to make me fall in love with an entire room of people at one time? The gym this weekend looked a little more spectacular than normal. Have they started a black market steroid ring in the back, I wondered? People were hurdling and running fartleks, all while looking fabulous. No, they haven't. The USA Track and Field Championship descended upon Indianapolis last week. And my gym gave the 2008 Olympic hopefuls access to our equipment. I haven’t been this elated since I stood next to Wayne Coyne in the Green Door, silently trying not to freak out. To attack him with gushing admiration and golly-gees, you are so wonderful, will you squirt me with some fake blood, please?

And there’s this whole room of hopefuls, outfitted in their university sweats and tattooed with Olympic rings. Summons back to a story from a college professor, who professed a sensation of great patriotism when he witnessed an Olympic event. So excited he was when an American crossed the finish line that he broke through the security lines to embrace the runner. So excited he was that he started to pat him on the back with gusto. So excited he was that he didn’t realize he had a very sharp pencil in his hand, so it looked as if he was painfully stabbing the athlete in the back with a writing utensil. This was at least until security pounced him, dragged him out of the stadium. He was also the same professor who burned down his dorm room at a state university. Recollecting this story, my college career sounds somewhat dull with all the binge drinking and all-night clubbing.

But I’m in love with these people. These people who choose to make a career out of running. Running is so different from other sports. It’s a singular sport -- sure, there are competitors on the course and trainers barking at everyone, but you’re running against yourself. You’re running against the voice in your head that says your legs are going to give in. The countless meets, the injuries, the training. All against yourself. The runners rarely talk to each other as they wait for the rain to stop. Even while waiting, they’re isolated, listening on headphones, stretching their legs against the wall. All of this takes a certain amount of passion. A considerable amount of insanity.

Because I like to beat dead horses

Before sending off Toombsday and his BFF Nathan on an Appalachian Trail Hike, we happened to notice Britney Spears giving her interview to Matt Lauer. It wasn’t like we decided to watch…it just happened…honestly.

Anyhow, I’m compelled to watch the Hollywood star downward tailspin into hell type stories. I secretly hope that some celebrities, like Paris Hilton, will have an affair with a political type who, afraid that it will turn into a media frenzy before a major campaign, happen to “erase” her and cover it up with an accidental drug overdose. A girl can dream, can't she?

So when Britney’s face is streaming in tears, faux eyelashes hanging on for dear life like a winky doll, her shattered image somehow transfixes me. I’m evil. I know. I revel in her sugarcoated reality of a devastating life. That is until she glossed over her incident of letting her son Sean Preston sit on her lap while driving, using the excuse, “I did it with my dad. I'd sit on his lap and I drive. We're country.”

Tsk, tsk. We’re country. Are you now? If you were country, would you be driving a Bentley? No, you would be driving a Chevy Dualie Diesel with mud flaps of either Yosemite Sam or silhouettes of naked women. You would also have a sticker of Calvin (from Calvin & Hobbes) urinating on a competing American truck dealer, probably Ford or Dodge. You may have purchased a WP sticker because you thought it was “White Power” instead of “Walden Pond” (and I can say that because I’m brown). It’s either this or a Confederate flag. You would also outfit your dualie with a glass pack muffler so as to create a noise similar to your .22 rifle backfiring. Oh, and we shouldn’t forget the rifle rack on the back window. Now, if you were country, I would like to see some paparazzi mess with you when you drive a tricked out Chevy like this.

And for the record, none of our parents would have let us sit on their lap while they were driving. Not unless they had already had a fifth of whiskey. So let that be a learnin’ for you.

Overheard in Pilates Class, Part 2

In the middle of a Pilates 100, the last thing that you want to hear from your 7-month pregnant teacher is “My belly button just popped.” I guess that is the next to the last thing because I really don’t want to deliver a child with a handful of arm bands and balance balls. Don't worry...I'm not medically trained to deliver. I am barely capable of delivering anything significant beyond sundries or disjointed punchlines. But if she breaks water in the middle of class, I will positively freak.

Click to enlarge. Warning: Pilates 100 is capable of popping belly buttons.

She also told us that her dog Pierre, the one that we imitate in our leg segment, is dead. I find this very motivating after holding Plank (instructions and image below) for 90 seconds.

holy jebus

When I decided to live with a Kentuckian, there were a few things that I was not prepared for. This includes bourbon (who knew that mixing vault Evan Williams with classic Coke was sacrilege?), horseracing, UK basketball (and the subsequent throwing of objects), a sweet little drawl that compels me to chew on his cheeks and the slowest pace of walking or eating that I have ever known. During our first road trip to Kentucky, the first thing I noticed was their license plates, the scorn of a lot of Kentuckians. Not only does a sun beam from amidst the plate number, it dons a smiley face along with the slogan, “Kentucky. It’s that friendly.” Really? I wondered, are Kentuckians really that friendly?

Shh…yes, they are. They also have smashing taste and are quite beautiful. But despite this, some try to eclipse this claimed pleasantry with a variety of sun-shaped stickers. Of these include a similar-shaped sun with a frowny face. This past year, however, the sun has been squashed for a more agreeable plate that proclaims their “Unbridled Spirit.” The spirit that becomes unbridled after many mint juleps, Maker’s Mark and their signature bluegrass.

I didn’t realize that Indiana had a similar issue with their plates until just recently when I spotted a plate with deliberate duct tape covering the state website address. Then I noticed that people have license plate covers that are specially designed to cover the address. When I first moved here, people also told me that they didn’t like the agricultural depiction of wheat and a farmhouse. “We’re more metropolitan than that,” they proclaim. Yeah…uh, sure.

I’m certain that this is just the surface of a marketing strategy gone awry. Once states develop an objectionable plate, the specialty plates emerge -- the breast cancer awareness, the alma mater pride, the sports fanatics, the children are wonderful so let’s fund their education and health plates abound. In Indiana, I have noticed that a lot of SUV drivers will purchase the Environmental Awareness plate, which is ironic. I know that they think they can remove the taint of their greed with the plates, but let’s get real. You can’t wash away the blood of the puppies you slaughtered when you bought your Escalade.

Where was I? Oh, yes, so it recently came to my attention that the Indiana BMV approved pro-life plates. PRO-LIFE PLATES! Until now, specialty plates contribute to the awareness of mostly benevolent causes, i.e. supporting health, environment and education. But now this state has decided to drift into issues concerning women’s rights. Doesn't this smack of special interest? PRO-LIFE PLATES, people!

Bravo. Very metropolitan, mind you. Aren’t bumper stickers with fetuses solving quadratic formulas emblazoned with “Choose Life” enough? I guess not. At least these plates will serve as a visual aide, a precautionary mark that the people driving those cars are slow, pay no attention to their actions, and put pedestrians in danger (read: old white men a.k.a. incapable of carrying a child or driving for that matter).

Please note that the author neither condones nor denies your right to do anything to uterus. It's your uterus; it's your business.

Additionally note that the author does not discriminate against her elders. That is, if her elders practice wisdom, tell good stories, and/or cook her food.

parental control

When I visit my sisters, they are always commenting about how they are turning into our mother. I can not vouch for this metamorphosis. Don’t get me wrong. My mother is the epitome of sweetness and conscientiousness. Always concerned about doing the “right thing,” and being there for her family. While there is an ounce of this within me, it’s mainly collecting dust on a shelf, crowded out by the black tar heart inside me.

But I’m sure my sisters are referring to the funny quirks, like the strange habit of starting a conversation with someone and then that person tells her, “I have to meet someone at 9:00.” And she goes on and on with her story even though there’s no one in the room. It’s as if the discussion wasn’t directed at any particular person but a very captivating conversation with herself.

There’s also the cute habit of her saying all things British, like advertisement, aluminum, and herbs (Because it’s got a fucking “h” in it. Thanks, Eddie Izzard). My brother and I used to make fun of her for this and then later realized she picked up on it from watching copious amounts of Masterpiece Theatre. She isn’t being pretentious either; she honestly thinks it’s the only way to enunciate.

But really the weird habits I’ve picked up have been through my father. It’s lately becoming more evident as time wears on, and I both have to laugh at and strangle myself at the same time.

Like most kids, I helped out with the family business in the summers. While for some kids this meant waiting tables or filing papers, this meant helping my dad as an assistant hygienist in his dental office. This was equally amusing and disgusting. The amusing end of the spectrum is discovering the different levels of gagging that people have when an instrument is put in their mouths. Like ticklelishness, there are different ranges. There are those who gag as soon as it is past their teeth and others that can be jabbed in the little ball-hangy thing (a.k.a. the uvula) throats without reacting. The disgusting end of the spectrum is discovering deathfog pockets of chewing tobacco and pus that smell like opossum roadkill.

At the end of the day, after instruments were sterilized and the floors were vacuumed, I would wait for my father in the car. The routine was the same everyday: He would lock the door and then go to the back of the building to turn off and lock up the nitrous oxide (I’m embarrassed to say that I never took advantage of the NO2). Then he would go back to the front door and check the locks. He would enter the car and then look at the front door, “Did I lock those doors?” I would always assure him that yes he did. Then he would get out of the car, check the locks and then return to the car. Sometimes he would leave and sometimes he would question himself and return to the door to check the locks a third or fourth time.

Though annoying, I’m starting this same habit myself with doors. Cars are generally left unlocked in the country -- we never had to worry about our neighbors and strangers breaking into our cars. But it’s a general concern of mine since my car was broken into twice in OKC. The routine is the same: I lock my doors every time I get out of the car. But I check it once, maybe twice. And then, from inside the house, I press the security button just to make sure it’s locked. Sometimes Toombsday and I have driven all the way to Louisville from Indianapolis with me thinking that my doors are unlocked. “You checked them,” he says. But what if I didn’t? “You’re crazy,” he confirms.

Little does he know about the front door routine that I’ve developed. I lock the door every time I leave, and then I start the car and get ready to drive away, then I wonder to myself, “Did I lock the door?” Then I stop the car and check the doors again. Yes, maybe I am crazy.

The second habit, which I’m finding very amusing, is my habit of talking to the television or movie screens. Growing up, whenever my family had the opportunity of being in the same room together without starting an argument or mapping out life plans for each other, our family would occasionally watch movies. This is where I get my fond interest in swashbuckling and kung fu films. But on occasion when my mother chose mystery and suspense films, my father would start asking the television questions during pivotal scenes: “Wait a minute. What’s going on here?” or “No! Why are you going to do that?” He’s always demanding to know the characters’ motives or jeering at the bad guys. It was all very annoying. I would always look back at him and snort, “We’re watching the same movie, aren’t we Dad? We don’t know more about the film than you do.” And then in my angst-riddled adolescence, I would roll my eyes and sigh.

But now it’s becoming a strange habit of mine as well. I was watching “The Hills” this week (yes, the continuation of LC’s OC adventures). When Heidi called LC to sneak her into the Teen Vogue party, I was pleading with L.C., “Don’t do it, L. She’s not you’re friend. No friend would ask you to jeopardize your internship like that.” And I sat there legs curled up, chewing my nails, completely mesmerized by the spiraling downward fall of debutantes, I demanded from her, “No! Why are you going to do that?” Toombsday looked at me again, secretly contemplating his escape.

Like my sisters, I could loathe these strange traits. I could learn to let go of the nagging frustration of my obsessive compulsive locking of doors and refrain myself from demanding plot constructs from Lake Placid. But it’s the two things that I have gained from being my father’s daughter. And I’m much more grateful for these quirks, than say, my dad’s snoring during ballets or my mom’s ass-swishing walk.

June 2006: Nonrequired Miscellany

Web site: fartparty.org. If you inked the real me and put her in comic form, she would look like this. Seriously, I laughed so hard in my cubicle that I had to run to the bathroom and cry from tears of joy.

Music: The Mysterious Production of Eggs by Andrew Bird otherwise known as the most underrated album of 2005. While you were all combing your sideswept bangs and color coordinating your leg warmers to Sufjan Stevens’ Illinoise, Andrew Bird was recording some gorgeous stuff. His songs are subtle with lots of texture and a wide range of instruments. He also manages to interweave non-dreary lyrics about death. He recorded all the instruments on this album and is currently on tour. Stream his entire album at his website. Then buy it, cheap skate.

Book: Wake up, Sir! by Jonathan Ames. He’s considered the “edgier David Sedaris.” I like to think of him as the Henry Miller with a sense of humor. Though all of his works are fantastic, this one has an interesting circular/repetitious plot of self-destruction. The protagonist is the epitome of an anti-hero who fancies the subterranean life of alcohol and women (like Hemingway) but finds himself in compromising situations. This novel is a bittersweet exploration of alcoholism, the Great American Novel and a trust fund. Sounds like all my friends.

UPDATE: He has a new collection of essays entitled I Love You More Than You Know. Excellent so far, but I haven’t finished it. All interested individuals who would like to take me to New York to see his show, please apply herein.

EXCERPT

I saw this psychic rearrangement happen to a girl I knew in high school. She was a blonde with a good figure, but she had an enormous, catastrophic nose. She was ostracized and had no friends. Then one summer her parents sprang for plastic surgery. When we all returned to school, no one knew what to make of her. Then a football player asked her out. Suddenly she had friends. She became “cool.” She was considered beautiful, pretty, but I could see that in her eyes there was still the look of the ugly girl she had once been, a hint of fear that it would all be taken away from her. By the end of the year that look in her eyes was almost extinguished, but a trace was left. Still, her psyche must have felt a lot better. With a short nose to go with her other attributes, she was destined to be courted often and eventually married and impregnated, which was the goal of most of the girls from my middle-class New Jersey high school. But then her children would have big noses. No escaping one’s self. Her husband would wonder where his children’s noses had come from. Perhaps the marriage would dissolve. He might suspect infidelity. She wouldn’t be able to tell him the truth -- I’m ugly.

Film: Tommy Lee Jones’s The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. It took me a long time to see this movie because I expected a film about minutemen, crazed human hunters slinking along the Texas-Mexico border. Jones’s directorial debut is breathtaking, embodying the physical struggle of pursuing the American Dream while also navigating the boundaries of friendship and morality. We are so adjusted to Hollywood’s special effects that it’s easy to forget about the special effects of Mexican sunsets, southwestern terrain and Tommy Lee Jones’s gritty expressions. I’m sure the Director of Photography wanted to kill Jones in the end. Think Don Quixote meets Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.

Enjoy!

Questions I often fielded while working at a chain bookstore:

“I’m looking for this book that was reviewed on Good Morning America. I think it has a green cover.”

“I’m looking for this song that was featured on NPR. It kind of sounded like this: laa, la la la, lo lou.”

My favorite response to the music question was to scratch my head and ask the customer to repeat the song. Then after a couple of feigned off-key interpretations of Carmen’s Bizet or some botched rendition by castrati Josh Groban, I would look at him quizzically and then direct him to my co-workers, which can be understood as “If you have to ask me such a ridiculous question before checking the NPR website, perhaps you would like to entertain my colleagues with Irish lullabies?” This would provide at least five minutes of amusement before directing him to the Muze, a black hole of an online music directory that freezes while trying to locate a customer’s request.

Karma has evidently returned the favor for all of my tomfoolery. I went to the same chain this past Memorial Day for a new selection. (I am fresh out of anything interesting to read and rerun episodes of The Dog Whisperer just will not suffice.) I forgot my New York Times list of the Best American Fiction of the Last 25 Years at home. Pretentious, yes, but I haven’t read any Phillip Roth or John Updike yet. I do disagree with their #1 ranking of Toni Morrison’s Beloved...entirely overrated. (But DeLillo gets three honorable mentions. Woot!)

I forgot that the store’s hands are tied when it comes to lists since they mostly fabricate their own lists. When I asked the Yanni-looking bookseller about it, he said that he was off last Sunday and couldn’t recall seeing it. This he told me after discussing the emotional realism of the latest John Grisham novel. Silly me to think they were in the business of selling books.

Unwilling to dive headfirst into the abyss of popular fiction, Toombsday suggested some Hunter S. Thompson. But alas, we couldn’t find him in the fiction section. After a few minutes in fiction, I slapped myself on the forehead, “Why would HST be in the fiction section? After all, he is the godfather of gonzo journalism.” There wasn’t a nonfiction section in sight. So I approached another bookseller… but I should digress at this point.

During my three year jaunt at B&N, I learned that there are similar traits and/or stereotypes that can be found in any book or music seller. There’s the jaded “writer,” the failed community theatre actor, the cutesy pie with thick glasses and baby doll shoes, the S&M dominatrix, the pill popper, the president of the local Critical Mass, the list continues. Where was I on the list? Probably somewhere in between jaded “writer” and thick glasses. But this isn’t the point. The point is that I stumbled upon the failed community theatre actor when I asked about nonfiction.

“Nonfiction?” he stammered. “Everything but fiction is nonfiction. That’s pretty much the whole store.”

I wasn’t in the mood to tangle…like, listen here King Lear…don’t tell me that New Age Transcendentalism is nonfiction. Or redecorating with feng shui is nonfiction. And explain to me why Sherman Alexie and Louise Erdrich are abandoned in the Native American section next to books about finding your spirit animal? Why are they excluded from the same fiction section that Toni Morrison is located in? Nonfiction my ass.

But it’s Memorial Day and these guys are subject to the retail hell of assisting people who don’t have to work on federal holidays. So take it from me, instead of getting all snippety when a customer asks you a legitimate question about a book, do what I used to do. Look it up in the computer and then frown at the screen. Say, “It looks like we might have one in stock. Let me go check storage.” Go back to storage and talk to Chris for a bit while he is inventorying books. Then go to the customer and say, “That’s really odd. It’s not back there either. Maybe it is on hold for a customer.” Then go to cash wrap and look through the books. Snicker a bit at someone’s request for Harry Potter. Then say, “I’m not sure where it is. Can I call the other store or order it for you?”

By this time the customer is so annoyed that the book does not exist but so grateful that you took all that time to look for it that she may accept your John Grisham recommendation instead. But I doubt it, King Lear. I sincerely doubt it.