The setting: The car, windows down, on a beautiful soft night after the rain has swept the day's muggy heat away. On the way home from a punishing roller derby practice of brutal scrimmaging and exhausting endurance drills, THE ROLLERGIRL is driving, one arm out the window, while THE BOYFRIEND sits in the passenger's seat cueing up music on the iPod.

RG: What a beautiful night.
BF: Mm.
RG: (coyly) Hey, you know, we don't have to go straight home.
BF: Hm?
RG: We could, you know, pull over on that dark street we used to visit... you know... enjoy the evening.
BF: Why?
RG: You know. Make out a little.
BF: No thanks. You smell kinda bad.



Honest-to-God true story from tonight.

(I just read "Rollergirl: Totally True Tales From the Track" because my mom heard about it on NPR and bought it for me. It's good, but my life is just so much more glamorous than that girl's. I need to be the one writing a tell-all memoir.)

Missing Image ;(

That's a real bruise on Sissy's ass. That's also her real hair.
OK, I uploaded that one twice and it won't show up, so if y'all want to see Sissy's bruised ass (which is bruised again) you'll have to come to the bout THIS SATURDAY NIGHT.



Just a couple teaser pictures for you. Lower photo by Ron Douglas

Apparently we've never blogged the catfish/green bean wrestling before. Too bad. It's amusing. But Pleco(saurus) hates it when we watch now.

I had an awesome time at roller derby practice tonight. This bout is going to be crazy awesome great. I can't even tell you how much.
I might wind up jamming one or two jams. I really feel like I'm skating well lately. So we'll see.

I have to pimp the upcoming bout. It's next Saturday, the 23rd. It's the LAST ONE OF THE SEASON. It will be ALL THREE teams in a round-robin-- so, a full hour of roller derby, not counting timeouts and halftime and the like. I swear to you, it will be awesome.
ALSO:

The night before, Friday June 22nd, at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, FREE: their Gusto At The Gallery Event is roller-derby themed. Yes! There will be an exhibition/demonstration of how modern flat-track roller derby is played, performed by members of the Queen City Rollergirls; there will be booze, there will be a 70s dance party and also! There will be a free showing of the movie Kansas City Bomber.
FREE.
FREE.
June 22nd.
This is CULTURE, people!! It is also free. And it is roller derby. Also we're going to try to give out coupons for discounted admissions to our bout the next day. SO.
June 22nd, Gusto at the Gallery, Roller Derby Nite. I think it's 3 pm until like, late, I dunno.
June 23rd, 7 pm, Rainbow Rink in NT, it is the Battle Royale, the Season Finale, and I promise we will be way less lame and probably more violent than some notable season finales of late.

Also I am making a personal promise to all of you that I will kick ass.

So.
(e:zobar) is at the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies' Annual Convention, in Oregon of all places.
I am horridly jealous, as I have never been to OR or indeed any of the Pacific Northwest or for that matter the West at all except 1 brief visit to SoCal and a trip to AZ as a 12-year-old. (OMG. FUCKING GORGEOUS DESERT. It's a damn shame I can't deal with too much sun.)

Anyway.
More importantly:

I am home alone. It's just me, here. Me, and the plecostomus catfish (creatively named "Pleco", or "Plecosaurus" when I'm drunk). Me and the catfish in his tank, and the liquor cabinet, and wireless Internet.

This oughta be good.

The catfish, I might mention, is shy, and so if you look at him, he flips out. Somehow, despite being about as inert as it's possible for a living thing to get, he notices when you look at him from across the room, and tries to dive under the gravel in the tank.

I'm about evenly torn between totally trashing the house and cleaning it top to bottom. We'll see how the weekend progresses. It's still only Wednesday.

(e:zobar), I never knew you were so proud of doing naughty things to me. I think you should exercise your pride more frequently. My vagina will just be over here, ok? So if you need it, you know, to be proud of, you know, I'm here for you.

Anyway. I had never actually attended a Pride event before, so this one was exceptionally exciting for me.
I was sick as a dog, though, which reduced the amusement value.

The whole thing should really more accurately be named, "The Festival Of Awesome T-Shirts" because I saw so many hilarious clever shirts.

A few samples I can still remember:
"I FOUND JESUS-- he was behind the couch the whole time!" (worn by a dude standing right next to the first group of protestors, who I skated up to in complete innocence and handed handbills to without even noticing they were yelling about my shamelessness in their megaphones. I told you I've been sick.)
"Girls are better at eating pussy." (I suppose out of diplomacy I shouldn't comment. but out of pride one should practice more. right??)
"I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is" (worn by the husband of a rollergirl)
"Don't like abortions? Don't have one" (seen it before, but it's worth mentioning)
And then there were a lot of cool or clever graphical ones I can't really convey here, but they were cool, take my word for it.

However. The coolest part of the whole day, at least to me, ruled so hard I just can't get over it.
So there are a pair of protesters, one with a megaphone and the other with a sign that says, like, Jesus hates you, or something to that effect. Whatever. The megaphone dude is going on and on, really loud, about how "YOU ARE ABOMINATIONS-- YOU SHAMELESS WOMEN WHO LIE WITH WOMEN" (I assume this was directed at my group, who were all rollergirls; most of us are straight or bi [and of the bi girls, most of us are in monogamous heterosexual relationships so it's more a matter of self-identification than anything else] but you know, whatever. We were skating in a Pride parade, so we were sort of ready to be called lesbos. I don't think any of us mind.) Then the dude started going on about marriage, probably because the float a little ways behind us was about legalizing gay marriage (like nine out of ten of the floats were...)
So I hiked my shirt up and flashed him my bra, and yelled "JESUS LOVES YOU TOO!"
The dude looked at me and pretended not to see me, but the next thing he said was "THE ONLY REAL LOVE IS BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS HUSBAND."
Then there was kind of a pause.
"ER I MEAN WIFE."

I died laughing.

So someone on LJ was writing
about some fascinating gender politics stuff she'd been reading, in particular someone's observations of body language issues between men and women. I responded to that with some points about how, growing up, I was always the largest of my peers, and how that formed me-- I went to a girls' high school, and am quite big for a woman, and so got used to thinking of myself as huge, which is odd now that I live in a mixed-company world in which men are often significantly larger than I am-- but not in my head, which still thinks of myself as so big...

And someone else on LJ was ranting

about how the current constant state of ill-informed panic about how Americans Are Fat Oh Noes Dieting Is The Answer! is based almost exclusively on poor science and statistics with no adjustments or controls, combined with generalized willful ignorance of the contributing factors. And I wrote her an amen, sister! And in the course of my amen, I looked up what my BMI actually is.
So I found this helpful government website about obesity.

It had a handy-dandy BMI calculator, which I used to make my point (5 feet 7 inches times 190 pounds equals 29.8, which by their chart scrapes me in just under "obese" in the "overweight" category).
Which depressed me a little. I suppose. Much as I talk a big line about how I don't think my weight is at all an issue in my health, and I think women my size should refuse to be pigeonholed as Fat, etc., etc., it still is depressing to think that, well, yes, I'm clinically obese, and yes, I really am that big.

But then I kept reading on that website-- I clicked the link called "limitations of the BMI" because the original poster, on LJ, had mentioned her disgust with the use of BMI as the sole indicator of obesity, and I had heard rumblings about it but had never really seen coherently explained what other factors could be used.
So I clicked, and read, and became really super enraged at my stupid doctor. (I know I blogged this on here but it was a while ago so let me explain-- no, let me sum up: My knees were hurting because I was exercising too much what with the 40 hours of waitressing and 10+ hours of roller derby, so I went to the doctor, who said yes yes you should rest, and then asked my height, did math in her head, told me I was obese, and instructed me to exercise more. Yes. Exercise less, but exercise more. She then told me, when I pointed out that I already exercised a damn lot, that I should cut down on my carbs. That was the sum total of her advice to me. So your knees hurt and you have eczema: Why don't you diet?)

So anyway. Apparently BMI is only the slightest bit meaningful, and so to determine whether someone is actually obese or not, you must take other factors into account.
Jesus fucking Christ, I'd never have guessed that one.
What other factors are these, to give this poor innocent doctor a chance to not be a fucking idiot?

Well, for one thing, waist size. Yes, just a simple number, not at all adjusted for height. If you are a woman and your waist is over 35 inches, you are obese.
Hm. The largest my waist has ever been is 34 inches, so, by that statistic, I'm good. (At the moment it's 32 or 33 depending on when I last ate, pooped, or retained water.)
Doc, it's not looking so good for you.

But wait! Another chance. There's a whole list of risk factors and if you get two or more you should talk to your doctor about losing weight. (How's that for non-intensive language?)
Blood pressure-- but she'd just tested, and mine was fine-to-low. High cholesterol-- but, again, she'd just tested, and mine was ridiculously low. Family history stuff-- no. Smoking-- no. Blood sugar-- no, mine was excellent. Triglycerides-- didn't even mention these. Physical inactivity-- oh maybe that's it. Except oh wait no it isn't if you actually fucking listened to me.
The only issue I had was that my HDL cholesterol was slightly low. Which apparently would be solved if I exercised more. Which I would do, if she'd stopped going on about my fatness long enough to actually pay attention to the issue that had brought me into her office which was crippling pain in the knees apparently caused by overexertion!!!

• pant pant pant*

I wish I could stop being angry over this, but I am just so pissed. I hate not being taken seriously. And now that I am more informed I'm even more angry.

My activity level has dropped. But the pain in my knees has been coming back when I've been more active-- any activity that involves a lot of standing up, walking around, even running, and my knees start to ache after a few hours. I still am fairly active, and it hasn't stopped me skating, but it hasn't gone away either. Maybe it's not just overuse? I don't hurt them at work anymore. But it's not gone entirely.

I'd go to a doctor about it, but what's the point? Now I'm between health insurance again so it would be out of my pocket, and I already know now that all they'll want to say is that I'm fat, even though the national heart lung and blood institute tells me I don't have enough risk factors for my weight to be a health issue.

Great!