Ups and Downs

After my bitchfest last week on this-here blog, I drove off to San Diego with cough medicines and skates in hand to take part in the Blood & Thunder Roller Derby Camp. Over 100 skaters showed up from around the country and even Canada to get some helpful tips and trips when it comes to playing roller derby. I was one of about seven coaches that led classes in everything from basic skating form to blocking(my first specialty) to off-skates cross-training to introducing the banked track to the overwhelmingly flat track brethren(my third specialty). This was like a mini-Rollercon, minus the big parties.

I have to admit that I dreaded going, based on the timing with my new job starting and all, but I ended up having fun.

Yeah, shocking.

The main highlight of the weekend was a game between skaters from the Blood & Thunder camp going up against the San Diego Derby Dolls. Note: the B&T team was chosen Thursday night. San Diego's been skating together for a couple of years. The result of the game? The B&T team won...something like 120-79 after two 20 minute periods.

WOW.

It's all in the attitude and teamwork, not necessarily the skills.

At the afterparty I pulled out the Sharpies and started drawing on everyone in sight(my second specialty). I forget how many people I tagged, but derby photographer-extraordinaire Boss Hogg got photos of just about all of them. He got some funny photos of one of the skaters who got her chest drawn on by moi and then she insisted on sitting in my lap afterwards. Too bad I'm not gay...

A funny moment happened when several of the skaters came up to me after I escaped Sharpie duty and complimented me on my classes. They then told me that they learned so much not because I was such a calm, patient teacher, but that I had such a crazy look in my eye that they figured that they'd better pick up what I was putting down REALLY fast before I hit them.

Uh...thanks?!

But you know what? I actually think everyone liked me in the end. I even texted as such to several people on my way home. Well, I texted, "Chicks dig me!" The husband texted back, "Stop the presses!"

Sarcasm, anyone?

I even challenged the ever-adorable Raf to a chick magnet contest. Him, me, a pile of Sharpies, and a line of women.

I just might win, even though his hair is longer than mine.


Here's the last of the Famous Dead Dog Doodles:















You get The Shining reference, right?!

Last summer I had control of the office temperature of all the sequence directors because I had the thermostat for said offices in my office. That would be great, if the temperature for all three offices were the same. They weren't. The system is cheap, and the thermostat's reach wasn't very far. Which resulted in my office being an arctic zone while the other two directors sweltered in tropical office hell despite me putting the temperature to as low as it would go, and I'd wear a hoodie while drawing despite outside temperatures rising into the 90's.

Every couple of days Action Boy would wander in and mutter something about how stuffy his office was and would start fiddling with the thermostat for all three offices. I reminded him that a) it's already at the lowest setting and b) I was already freezing my tuchus off, and would demonstrate it by placing my corpse-cold hand on his person. He'd flinch and leave, after more mutterings. So this drawing was left for him my last week on the job.

Such the comedian, am I.

My comeuppance is that now I'm in Action Boy's old office. Ay, carumba!