look out!

i had no idea i was so out of shape.

after finishing some paperwork for school, i decided to reward myself by whipping out the rollerblades and skating around the building.

i don't know that i'm still considering it a reward.

when you see folks rollerblading on t.v. or in the movies, they move with a speed and agility unattainable by yours truly.

t.v./movie skaters=graceful

me on skates=everything but

it's not for lack of trying. i attempt the long, fluid strokes, but i have short legs, so i wind up looking more like that "rollerblade barbie" that dave barry so famously used to set a pair of underpants on fire. (minus the fire part- so far.) i'm pretty sure i'm advancing two inches with each push-off. instead of feeling graceful and athletic, i feel like bambi learning to walk on ice.

however, at least i haven't managed to crash headfirst into anything yet, so i guess i should abandon this and do a few more laps.

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i've had my rollerblades for years- since high school. many years before that, i had roller skates- the very old school kind. money certainly didn't grow on trees at our house, so my parents bought us those adjustable metal skates that we'd buckle onto our shoes. we used to skate around our basement on them- making little metallic clicking noises on the tile floor as we went. several years later, the skates were pressed into service for an olympics of the mind (renamed "odyssey of the mind" after the folks behind the olympics got cranky about the name) competition. it was for a good cause- our performance of "mind reader and side-kick" (featuring yours truly in a rainbow brite costume- don't ask) did pretty well in competition, and i don't think we could have done it without our wheeled transportation.

the baltimore county department of parks and recreation held "skate night" every wednesday night at woodlawn elementary school, which had been abandoned just prior to our move to woodlawn. the school was just down the hill from our house, so it was pretty convenient for me to be dropped off before skating and picked up afterwards. for a buck or two, you could rent the standard brown skates and glide (or stomp or slide) around the school gym for a couple of hours while a parent played "we built this city" and other contemporary tunes and, of course, "the limbo rock". i was no limbo master, but occasionally i'd win the free pass for the following wednesday, and once i advanced to some sort of regional tournament. (i sincerely hope the purple t shirt from that event- in 1986, i believe- still lurks around one of my parents' houses somewhere.) still, it was hard not to marvel at some of the girls- they'd find a way to pass under the pole when it was no more than a foot off the ground- usually with some sort of split involved.

i stopped going to skate night for some reason. as i recall, i started getting bullied by some of the big kids. if i remember right, there were a couple of older boys who would horseplay and trip other skaters, but i don't know that any of the adults ever saw it. all i remember is that i wasn't allowed to go anymore.

those were the days.

fast forward to high school. heather became my best friend about halfway through our tenure at park hill. our houses were maybe a couple of miles apart, and sometimes we'd bike from one house to the other. when heather got her license, she'd drive over to visit, and sometimes she'd bring over her purple rollerblades. (well, they weren't actually the rollerblade brand, but i call all inline skates "rollerblades". anyway, you get the idea.) sometimes she's skate while i rode my bike. sometimes i'd skate while she'd ride a bike. sometimes (this was my favorite part), we'd each have one skate- though that never lasted long, because skating on one rollerblade is just odd.

as soon as i had enough money together, i got my own set of rollerblades. (thank goodness i can wear kids' sizes- that ability saved me a nice chunk of change.) heather would come over, and we'd rollerblade probably about halfway from my house to hers, and then back. usually we stayed in the middle of the road (i don't claim to always set the best example, but we were young and invincible.....and the sidewalks were a bit rough sometimes.), though we occasionally wound up on the sidewalk- or flying headfirst onto someone's lawn. when we went off to college (northwest missouri state for me, mu for her), our rollerblading habits (well, mine at least) tapered off a bit. occasionally one of us would visit the other, and if we had our skates with us, we'd haul them out and get a little exercise.

my rollerblades were one (two, technically) of the first things i packed into my car when i moved to south carolina after college. i get them out on occasion- but not nearly as often as i used to. the wheels could probably use at least a rotation, if not an outright replacement, but i haven't crashed into anything major yet because of them, so i think they can go a little bit longer.

speaking of crashing, that's exactly what i plan on doing as soon as i get home in about 45 minutes. goodnight.