Oh yeah I almost forgot

Last weekend Boudica made an honest woman out of me!

It was the day after my birthday and I had a party at my house, and then at one point she got all the derby people together in the backyard and we were all standing around, and then she derby proposed and then gave me this mega cute necklace with a bearing in it. And I think I said something like "What the fuck? Yes!" And then everyone cheered.

So here we are getting married:

(Photo: Elastomp)

Er, ignore the fact that I look like a slutty pikachu and she is dressed like Officer Serious Lady. Also, I was apparently too excited about the fact we were getting married to be able to do up the necklace myself so she had to do it, all Patrick Swayze-like.

And then of course there are customary mandatory hipchecks!

(Photo: Elastomp)

But anyway, it was a lovely ceremony. Then I proceeded to drink too much vodka and run around on a wrecked ankle and get hipchecked into a fridge, but that is another story.

Here is a picture of the necklace itself; it is MEGA cute. (I am bad at self-portraits with it around my neck...) But yeah, so I have a yellow one, and she has a purple one. And now when she messages me it's like "Hi wifey!!" which is super awesome. Eeeee.

Apparently people thought we were already married?! Well, we both are pretty awesome... :)

The Cannery Challenge Post Mortem

So, today was the big day. Team breakfast at 8am (where I ate my own breakfast and part of Sarge's and half of Diazeslam's raisin toast and some extra hash browns and grilled tomatoes--I fucking love hash browns). The team was obviously pretty nervous; of all the teams at the challenge ours was the only one with no bouting experience. Anyway, preparation for the challenge also involved going to the supermarket and buying the following:

• One slab of 60 bottles of water
• 30 bottles of gatorade
• 1 box of oreos
• 6 bags of candy
• 2 boxes of those nutri-grain cereal bars
• A fuckload of bananas

After that it was on to the Cannery. Basically, the Cannery is this giant shed that CRDL has which is taken up mostly by a giant concrete derby track. Anyway, there was a quick team meeting, then gearing up and getting ready for our first bout aginst a CRDL team. Whambulance was also nice enough to tape up my ankle so it didn't look all fucked up. It was a better job than I did, so yeah.

Excellent strapping job, Whambo.

Anyway, then we set up our bench. But boo, early on crapballs: I got sacked from benching because you were only allowed one benchie and the designated alternate (who was Sarge). So Bubbles had to do lineups and panty bitching and give people water and write their numbers on and everything. On the other hand, this meant that I had a free ticket to watch the bout!

I don't actually remember that much about that bout except I was yelling a lot. I think VDL was psyching itself out and it showed. One thing I noticed happened a lot was that the blockers weren't really helping out their jammer, so the jammer would be pinned behind a whole row of CRDL blockers and our blockers would be skating ahead. And there was too much bossing around and shouting and getting aggro at people from the bench which made it kind of hard for the skaters to hear actual instructions from Sarge.

Lineup sheet, Bout 2, 1st half.

Marie was the first casualty of the day by copping a shoulder (I think?) to the face and almost breaking her nose. I didn't see what happened (Boudica and I got sent on a mission to get a big fat permanent marker to write people's numbers on their sweaty arms) but we got back just in time to see her fall. Then she got up and had a towel over her nose and was icing it a whole bunch and stuff. That was kind of scary. Anyway, I don't really remember that much as I said, but the final score was 21-180-something or something like that.

Clearly people were rattled after the first bout. I guess that is to be expected; if this is a baptism by fire, then it really was a fucking good one. Marie was still out, and Sarge had a serious talking-to with everyone to make sure that they listened to him when he was yelling out instructions from the bench and stuff. Bubbles and I were frantically redoing the lineups since we had to take Marie (injury) and Rubi (exam) out of it. Also, note to self: remember that there are two halves of the bout; so you need about 40 lineups, not 20. :P Oh yeah and there was some general VDL/CRDL interesting interactions; most of them were really nice, and I guess it was weird to expect anything from how that was going to go. But I did wish I got a photo of me standing next to Bo-Rap; she was on skates (so taller than ever) and I had jandals on. I think the top of my head reached her boob. Ha.

Anyway, then suddenly it was time for the second bout. This time it was "Team Potluck", which was a combination of people from a bunch of other leagues. I was benching this one, and holy shit I was hoping that everything would go well. The first half was awesome! NO MAJORS FROM ANYONE!! That made doing lineups SO much easier. I feel that I need to yell more sometimes and be a bit more assertive, but for most part I think it went well. Plus scorewise we were doing pretty good: we were like 30-something in the first half (which was more than tht total score for the previous bout) and the margin was HEAPS smaller.

And then there were like 4 injuries in the second half! Legz fell and fucked up her ankle or something, and Diazeslam might have broken her wrist. Tank got shouldered in the neck (WTF??? And nobody called anyone on a major for that) and Junk got smashed in the knee. I was frantically amending the lineup every couple of minutes or so; originally Bubbles and I had the plan to have two lineups that we could rotate, but then we just ran out of people. I felt kind of bad making people do like 3 jams in a row or something but we just didn't have enough skaters for that. :/

There were also a few dodgy calls. There was one when Jillie was jamming and BOTH the jam refs were calling no lead jammer... wtf? And a lot of hitting out of target zones happened, and cutting, and not much seemed to be called. I understand that everyone's still learning though, so yeah. Early days for all of us. Sarge did put in a formal complaint I think though.

2nd half lineup sheet. You will note that shit got crazy around Jam 8-9.

We didn't have enough people to continue the bout (we were down to a full lineup and maybe 2-3 on the bench), so we called it. The final score was 57-81, which I reckon was fucking awesome. I think I ended up doing an okay job for seriously having seconds to make decisions about the lineup as people got taken out of it due to injury, and we didn't have too terrible a time. Plus afterwards I got to hobble around the track and high five the random PotLuck people, not that I had any idea who they were. But yeah, overall, I think we did a really good job in the second bout and recovered a lot to pull the score as close as it was. So, hooray. :)

Oh yeah and I met ShortStop! Like about fucking time. Brad was running the BBQ and I wanted to get some food in me before the second bout (which was the one that I was benching) so I went to get a vegie burger and she was there! And Brad was all like "Shorty have you met Mouse, she is like your evil twin who is following you. She had a party on the weekend and all the derby girls were at your party first and you both have pikachu costumes although hers is sexier" or something. Hahahaha. And then there was no tomato sauce because someone put out like 4L of BBQ sauce or something instead so she got some and put some on my burger for me. Hahahaha.

And league drinks tonight! FUCK YEAH DRINKS.

Off the beaten track

So here I am in week one of injury. Bleh.

In other news, VDL is doing its FIRST EVER IN THE ENTIRE WHOLE WORLD bout on Saturday! This is extremely exciting news, since this is the kind of thing we have been working towards. A while back, I was listed on the roster but needed to get my orange star before I could. But then everything went to shit and because I was overseas and I am now injured there is no way I was going to be able to bout. Boo.

Bubbles' lineup list

But here's the silver lining. I can't bout, but I can still be on the team (technically speaking), because they need bench bitches! Bubbles (who was also injured) and I are officially the team benchies, which means that we are in charge of making sure the skaters line up in the right order for the upcoming jams and seeing who can go on in what position and making sure people get enough breaks and there are enough people on the track and whatever. Specifically, she's doing lineups and I'm panty bitch, which means I make sure people have the right helmet panties and also track penalties so we don't send a jammer in on their third minor or something stupid like that. Sarge and Marie (as captain) will also be in charge of strategy.

Homemade penalty tracking list, v. 1 I can't find a blank one on the internet, WTF??

Bubbles and I had a practice go at doing our benching jobs yesterday. Holy crap, benching is fucking hard and also frustrating! Seriously, we set up about 20 lineups in advance, and only the first one actually turned out the way that we wanted. It's really hard to do a lineup because you might have someone in it but then they are already in the bin, in which case you have a split second decision to put someone else in. And you have to take into consideration things like jammer positions are much more brutal and exhausting (so it seems) than blocking, so you can put a jammer in for one jam, but not for multiple jams in a row, whereas you can for someone who is a blocker. And then you also need to think about the fitness levels and individual skills of the skaters; some of them will be able to do multiple jams, then have one jam off, and then go back in. Some will need more than one. Sometimes you will have a really good combo that will work against particular people on another team. And you need to factor ALL of this stuff in in less than 2 minutes, while keeping in check who is in the box and how many minors/majors they have!

Homemde penalty tracking list, v.2. I don't *technically* need that last "minor" column, since that many minors and you're ejected. But oh well. For the sake of completeness, why the hell not? (Also, anal retentiveness compelled me to list skaters in alphanetical order.)

Seriously. It's challenging in this really interesting way, and I think I can grow to like it. Of course, it's not as awesome as being able to actually skate in the jams, but it is something I think I might like doing. I like putting things into different combinations, and making sure that official shit goes down as it should. It's pretty administrative in a way, but benching is an important role and probably one that would be just as important to master the skills of, as well as skating.

I still want my ankle to get better though. But yay, new skills.

Inevitable injuries

In case you didn't know about derby girl mentality, in my world:

Yes they are!

I was always a pretty accident-prone kid. I wasn't clumsy or anything and I don't think I bruise that easily, but I was always running around in the playground banging my shins into the monkey bars or falling over and getting scrapes or something like that. Once I fell on my head because I tried to swing off the monkey bars upside down and flip onto my feet, and of course I failed at that. My mother had a lot to put up with raising me, because pretty much every second day I would come home from school with some new cuts or bruises. But I was always really gung ho about pain and injury. Unless it was stupidly bad, I would keep going until I fell apart and/or had to go to hospital. One time I even got blisters all over the bottoms of my feet because I really wanted to play tag on the painted concrete tennis court we had at school, and I didn't have runners so I just took my school shoes off and ran in my socks, and my feet got all burned. I think I was six or seven years old. My mum had to pop the blisters on my feet that night when I got home.

Totally from punching.

Derby really brings out a similar attitude in me I think. I am usually not a pussbag or drama queen when it comes to injuries. Hell, I have a completely screwed up and cartilage-less knee because I was injured when I played hockey and still liked running so much I ground it all down. Stupid, I know. But anyway, I like getting new bruises sometimes because they are trophies of a sort. My league has an injury page where people can post of their pictures of bruises and cuts and whatever. There are some pretty impressive ones! I have permanent bruses on my knuckles from my wrist guards being a bit too long, but they aren't huge or anything, even if they are pretty original for where they are.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite pictures of my injuries:

In this picture:

Corked thigh, Recovering torn ligaments x2 and torn tendon, bruise from attempted baseball slide, Pulled groin muscle from plow stops, Gout/arthritis in my big toe knuckles, Blister scars from breaking my feet into my skates, bruise from a skate wheel to the shin, Ground down/no cartilage in my knee joint (prederby injury), Bruises from my gasket being too tight, Bruises from deflecting a soccer ball with my leg and a bruise from where I think I poked my leg and it bruised.

Other injuries aren't always that awesome. In the early days of training, we were doing speed laps and I fell over someone on my side and hurt my shoulder. At the time I thought it was just sore and whatever, and I continued on with doing laps. I think we had to smash out as many as we could in 5 minutes, so I kept doing that. All I got was a little bruise there though, so it didn't look so bad.

I tear my shoulder and all I get is this measly bruise?

But then I couldn't rotate my arms, like in a windmill. Actually, I couldn't even raise my arm anything really more than 60 degrees or something. It sucked. I went to the physio. The verdict: torn rotator cuff, and also torn bicep (where it joins my shoulder bones). Gah. It was awful. I couldn't do pushups or planks. In non-derby land, I also didn't have the strength in it to pull my seatbelt on in the car, or push a shopping cart. This was about 3-4 months ago maybe. My shoulder is still a bit sore, and definitely weaker than my other one. I can do pushups and planks and whatever else now, but even sleeping on it for too long is a bit painful. I know it's still recovering, but it still has time to go. I just really wanted to get back on skates. I didn't need to take time off skates, but I couldn't do a lot of the things we were doing at the time, like four point falls, or crawling through people's legs during stuck-in-the-mud. That sucked. But at least I could skate.

Then, two weeks ago, I was trying to whip Boudica and I fell backwards and smashed my head on the track. I thought I was fine, and I didn't feel like I needed to go to hospital then or anything. The moment my head hit the track, I kind of just saw these bright flashes and then I tried to get up (there's the 3 second rule, remember) and couldn't.

This is what stuff looked like when I was concussed

But at the time I could read stuff out loud without getting all garbled and confused, and my pupils were dialating or whatever. So it didn't seem that bad. I refused offers to be taken to hospital, and instead went to my office to do some work. I was reviewing a paper that I had written to send off to a journal, and I started getting really sleepy reading it. It was about 4pm. I thought maybe the paper was just mega boring or something and that was why I was getting tired. Then I decided to go home because I wasn't really being productive at work. I live five minutes away, but when I was driving I couldn't actually see the road. Like, my vision was all blurred and I had to concentrate really hard on the road in order to drive straight. That was super scary. I called my friend Chris and he drove to my house (since clearly I was in no condition to drive) and then he took me to hospital. The triage nurse was a derby fan, so that was awesome, and we had a pretty good talk. Haha. Apparently I had problems spelling things when I checked in, and I couldn't recall my phone number properly. But yeah, resting up and having some ibuprofen and everything seemed to work out okay. I am probably still mildly brain damaged or something though (which isn't that great for my non-derby life, since I need my brain to finish my Ph.D.)

Gratuitious ass shot, with Batman underpants!

On training at Tuesday we were scrimmaging, and it was fantastic. I love scrimmaging. I can usually get through the pack really quickly, and I also had my first proper turn being lead jammer! I made several passes before I called it, but it was awesome to be able to do that on my first jam. I also took a bunch of pretty hard hits and fell a few times and got some mighty ass bruises. The colours are just coming up as I write this. They're pretty awesome. And they match!

But anyway, back to scrimmaging. There I was, skating away and jamming my little heart out. Then, about four jams in, two people stacked in front of me. I tried to avoid them but fell. I stacked but not badly, so I was thinking I could get up and skate around them before they got up. But when I was getting up, I took two steps and rolled my ankle. Fucksauce. They had to blow four whistles. Seriously, I couldn't even lift up my leg to rotate it to see whether anything was broken. Two years ago I rolled my other ankle playing soccer, and tore two ligaments and a tendon, so I know how it feels, and it certainly felt pretty much the same when I tried to skate. I had to sit out for the rest of training on the sidelines, icing my ankle and sulking because I couldn't scrimmage. About ten jams later, I had been icing it for a while and I thought I'd test it out. I asked Sarge if I could go back on. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey Sarge, can I go back in and skate?

I did get a nice hand-meat bruise though.

Sarge: I don't know, can you?
Me: Sure I can! I want to skate.
Sarge: Okay, stand up then.
(I stand up)
Sarge: Stand on one leg.
(I stand on my munty leg)
Sarge: Move your weight around like you are doing a one-leg slalom.
(I do that, and try to look as if my leg isn't hurting like the dickens)
Sarge: Well, if you think you can do it, put your skates on.

I put my skates on. Then I take like two steps, and with the added weight of my skates on, pain is seriously shooting up from my ankles. It was awful, like I was gasping so much from the stabbingness in my ankles and up my legs that I couldn't even swear properly. Instead, I just had to sit back down, take my skates and helmet off, and then go and watch Sarge give everyone else a pep talk in the huddle. Lame. At least I could be useful as bench bitch, I guess. But there was seriously no way I could skate. In fact, there is seriously no way I can currently skate. This sucks.

And what is worse is there isn't even any bruising to show for it. Gah.

This is what my legs look like right now:

Stupid compression bandage. But lesson learned: I need to listen more to my body when it is screaming at me because I am putting it through a whole world of pain. Otherwise, I will just put myself into a situation when I'm going to get MORE injured, and that will mean MORE time off skates. And that is just too much sadface for me to handle.

Brick and mortar

Slightly blurry picture of the shop interior, featuring Dax the dog.

I'm in Toronto at the moment, but unfortunately I don't have a whole bunch of time to do derby-related stuff though, which kind of sucks. (Explanation: I had to fly here for a funeral. Gah.) But I did randomly get to google roller derby stuff, and there are so many teams in Toronto!! SO exciting. Check out their website, at Toronto Roller Derby. So much stuff! Plus there is lots of info there about the upcoming Roller Derby World Cup, which will be held in December this year. Squee!

Alas, I didn't get to bring my skates with me (well, it would be kind of inappropriate for the occasion I think), and the derby season seems to pretty much be over here. If I were here for longer, I would probably see if I could borrow some skates and go to a training session. The fact that a derby girl or boy can go anywhere in the world and get to train with other leagues is super awesome. Anyway, the cool thing about the site is that they linked to a skate store in downtown Toronto. Now, I've never actually seen a real roller derby store before, because we just ordered our freshie kits from Sydney Derby Skates and Derby Skates, but they don't have an actual store. But today I had some spare time apart from doing family stuff, and headed down to Rollerbug Skate Shop near Ossington.

Squee, cute-as-fuck skates!!

It was pretty cool, to be in an actual skate shop! They had tons of space so you could test stuff out, and the store was pretty new in that location so it looked awesome. Skate stuff is WAY cheaper here than in Australia; it's kind of stupid. Plus there was a dog in there! Anyway, here's a photo of the store. Check out their Moxi Ivy skates! SO CUTE. 

Unfortunately they didn't have like ANYTHING I wanted; I wanted to check out some gumball toe stoppers and they had run out, and the smallest set of hired hands wrist guards were still too long for my stumpy finers. Boo. However, Triple8 is apparently putting out a new line of derby-specific pads next year, since now they recognise that most skate pads are designed for guys that are much bigger than us. The current small size for guys is probably what should be a smallish medium for women, so if you're small for a woman you're pretty much fucked unless you can find junior sizes. But it was cool; I talked to a bunch of people in the store about derby and how it's taking off in Australia and everything, and they were really excited and supportive and we talked about the World Cup and everything. I wish I had some VDL merch to give them! Oh and I considered buying a set of Scabs, but I didn't really need them. Oh wells.