Apparently I'm not capable of writing things longer than 140 characters anymore, but it's more that things are a little busy than blaming the typical whipping boys, Facebook and Twitter. So this is what's going down:

1. The washing machine just broke. I haven't washed clothes in forever and the homeowner is touring the middle of nowhere in China.
2. I have a flat tire in my driveway.
3. Amy's cat needs to go to the vet and I can't get my (ex)roommate to help out even though she moved out early and without warning

and this all stuff I can't get to because:

4. I have a non-functional digestive system that landed my ass in the ER (fun times: being alone and not knowing anyone you can give enough information about off the top of your head to serve as an emergency contact, insisting she will show up soon and give them her address) complete with poking in all sorts of places I wasn't interested in and some of my favorite sentences, "You play roller derby? We just had one of you girls here on Sunday!"
5. CT scans suck. The technicolor shit they shoot up your veins really makes you think you're peeing. I thought I'd ruined some really expensive equipment even though they warned me this would happen. And let's just say when you don't even tolerate water without a protest from said non-functional digestive system, a barium milkshake is NOT going to be pretty. But, you know, I found out my death wasn't imminent, so what's a little radioactivity and imaginary urine between friends?

Though I have to say that all the medical personnel I met through this week were truly lovely.

I'm going to recover, and soon, but in the meantime, it sucks. I didn't have anything but clear liquids for a week, and for five days of that, I couldn't even have broth so it was just me and water and sometimes Gatorade, and god bless IV fluids. I'm eating now, but that so far has amounted to two pieces of toast and some Jello. Needless to say I'm too weak to do much, including drive. You know, if I could fix the flat first.

Sigh. Life does not have room for this shit. But hey, at least I'm not dying, and I'm eating, so it's really not all bad.

So I've been thinking a lot about religious freedom in this country since I've gotten steeped in the gay marriage debate. (How did I even get here? I used to be firmly steeped in the No One Should Get Married camp and the Don't Try To Make Us Normal camp. Ah, age and seeking security, it changes us all) I've got what some people would call a conservative streak on some government issues (how did any one party co-opt this idea anyhow?) but I think of it as my Jeffersonian streak. I'm a Democrat, I think that government can be a force for public good and I'm all about paying my share of the highway system and police and firefighters and national parks and mail service and the military and the arts and the sciences and the education of the children in my community, but I'm also wary of government gaining too much power, or too much power being consolidated into one branch of government. Hi. I'm a pretty typical American leftie. Thus, in the gay marriage debate, I find myself actually supporting the right of churches to tell their followers that I'm the cause of Hurricane Katrina, because I love the Constitution and this big crazy experiment that is Jeffersonian democracy and the Constitution says the government doesn't get to fuck with the churches and vice versa (I'm watching you, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, stop passing California all that money under your desk), and that's how it should be. Even the churches that scare the crap out of me.

Anyhow, this little article hit my radar: Should the Courts Make Medical Decisions for Kids?

Y'all, if I were a person of faith, I'd be scared shitless. So what do you think? I don't have any answers either. Clearly this child's life is in danger due to his and his parents' religious beliefs. Still, given that the parents believe that their child's soul is in danger if he gets the chemo, they do believe they are acting in his best interests. And one could say that their beliefs are completely irrational, but who gets to decide that? I mean, I'm pretty sure that there's not a religion on the planet that wants it to be me seeing as I don't even believe in an afterlife so all rituals to acquire a place in heaven seem pretty ridiculous to me. There are also plenty of religious as well as secular people who doubt more routine Western medicine when it comes to their children, like refusing them vaccines or giving birth at home despite the possible risks. I know that the risks are only "possible" in these cases and I freakin' hate the slippery slope argument because it is usually a total fallacy, but you know, I'm thinkin' out loud in my blog. Anyhow, if I truly believed I was acting in the best interests of my child, I'd be pretty damn pissed if the government came tromping all over my parental rights as well as my religious freedom, and like this mother, I'd be tellin' all y'all to suck it. yeah, I said that in my Southern accent, too.

But who gets to be right in the eyes of the law? The parents who are free to practice whatever religion they want in this country, who believe they are protecting their son's immortal soul, or the state that just wants to keep the kid alive even if it steps all over the parents' religion and therefore possibly a lot more people's religion? This kid is facing a very real death in the near future without treatment. Who gets to decide how big a price he pays?

I have a lot of things to say about gay marriage, but since I have to get myself dressed and to a roller derby bout it will have to wait. I leave you with this:

Separation of church and state goes both ways, NOM people. It doesn't just protect the state from becoming a theocracy, it keeps the state from imposing its values upon the church as well. The state isn't going to make a church recognize a gay marriage, because they can't, thank you Constitution! Churches have always made rules about who can get married there, like all the hoops that bona-fide Catholics have to jump through to get married in a Catholic church, you can't just walk in off the street and demand a wedding in the name of equality. And churches have always been free to preach what they want. Once upon a time they taught the Biblical defense of slavery, for crying out loud. I'm not saying the gays are equal to slavery, I'm just saying that no one is going to take your church away if the state (a separate entity, thank you Constitution!) recognizes gay marriage.

And you can still teach your kids that homosexuality is wrong and no one's going to take your kids away. That's the great thing about the First Amendment. I'm super nervous about when I have kids and they get beat up on the playground by kids who think their lives are "wrong," but I'm hoping those people don't forget the whole Golden Rule part of being a Christian and also teach their kids not to hit mine. And I don't get why people have problems with the hate crimes bill because it covers violent crime, not hate speech. Last I checked, "assault" under any circumstances wasn't "free speech." I knew I lived in a dangerous world, but it's a little creepy hearing people get all up in arms about their "free speech" rights to beat the snot out of me just because I'm gay. Just sayin'.

And it's weird to hear the whole "special rights" crowd freaking out about hate crimes legislation when religion is a protected class under the hate crimes bill. How are they "special rights" when they're also YOUR rights?

Also, growing up white and never having dealt with any sort of racial prejudice or people talking about a group I belong to in unflattering general terms on television for weeks at a time, I can't help but take these debates personally. As in "SRSLY? I'm the reason for the fall of civilization? How the hell did I do that? Did I leave the oven on?"

ETA: Just to clarify, since I didn't make this absolutely clear, that I appreciate the difference between "religion" in general and "Christians" in particular, and the subset of Christians I think of as "the scary NOM people who have middle America convinced I'm here to kill your children in their sleep."

Spring always smells the same everywhere.

It doesn't really, not objectively. New England April smells like damp and cold mud and brand new flowers and Texas April smells like new trees and warm winds from the gulf. But it does smell the same viscerally, that spring smell. And here it is April, and it smells like it.

I've always been weird about anniversaries. Not always real ones, but I'll get hit with memories of what I was doing this time last year, this time three years ago, this time ten years ago, to the point where I don't tell people anymore because I'm tired of hearing I live in the past because I don't actually. Anyhow, I finally figured out it's the smells. I'll get hit with a gust of wind off some tree and I'll remember exactly where I was the million other times I got hit with a gust of wind off that same kind of tree over the years.

This year it's a problem, though. Every smell, which is connected to memory as we all know so this is all more gut feelings than rational thought, but every smell seems to remind me of last year. What I was doing as I squandered the last weeks of Andrea's life. The stupid conversations I had about stupid girls and stupid plans. Prattling on about how I'd see her in May. My absolute failure to see what was right in front of me, that May was only coming for one of us.

She was in remission, her longest yet, but she was having complications from her previous surgeries. She didn't tell me she was terminal. I only found out by reading the comments on a Glamour blog that came out with her article. I'm still unspeakably mad at myself, because she did try to tell me in her Andrea way, something about how the doctors couldn't do anything more about her lungs and they were just going to send her home and hope she didn't get sick.

I told her that was preposterous. That clearly the solution was to move somewhere where she wouldn't get pneumonia. As per usual, I went bulldozing straight to ways to solve everything through sheer will (foolishly, because how on earth would that have worked?) rather than sitting back, listening, and seeing what was sitting there right in front of me. That my best friend was terminal, that I had one last chance to be with her, and now was the time to move my trip up and let her spend the last time on earth the way she wanted. She did anyway, but I wasn't there.

The way she wanted is why I think she didn't tell me in black and white, because she wasn't a girl who believed in terminal first of all, but I also think she didn't want to deal with my bulldozer. I was always pushing. I never accepted anything, any step of the way. When the asshole doctors at Dana Farber wouldn't give her the answers, I was badgering them and badgering her to push them harder. When she didn't want the chemo I drove her to the chemo and we both watched poison drip into her veins. On the other hand, I was also always there to say "yeah, another cup of coffee" and "we should totally go to eighties night, I'll hold your hair if you throw up" and "you need vodka" because I suck at the cancer diet. But don't go thinking she was weaker than me because she wasn't, she was stronger than me in a million ways. I was just bolder, and bitchier.

I could afford to be, I haven't faced death for real. She did it four times. I think she didn't tell me because she knew I couldn't do anything. She knew how hard I'd try.

Of course, I could be having all this angst over nothing. I found this out on a comment in a Glamour blog. There were all kinds of people who treated Andrea like shit when she was alive who commented about how she was their best friend and related "facts" about her. Someday I'm gonna track all those bitches down and punch them in the face. This could be one of them. I fixate on it anyway. I've thought about it all year.

But every time I walk outside it smells like the weeks leading up to that day. That day the call came that she was sick again, and the truth came down like a shot of cheap whiskey, burning and foreign, but you don't really feel it until it gets to your stomach and punches the shit out of it.

Everything has been different since that day. I didn't believe that such a day could happen because I change a little every day, like everyone else. I've had some days in my life that could be The Day Everything Changed, but they aren't really. There was the day the police came to tell me my dad shot himself, that could have been a contender. Or the day I was in a Maid of Honor dress, holding a bouquet of wildflowers and basil, and I learned my mother had disappeared, that was a big one. The day someone I loved hit me, it could have been that. The days I've burned down my own life and left for a new one. But none of them really changed everything like the day I found out Andrea was unconscious again. I promptly dropped a few hundred dollars I didn't have on getting a parking ticket, a ridiculous trip to Anthropologie, and a couple bottles of Maker's Mark. Hey, I said I was a fighter, I didn't say I wasn't self-destructive. Case in point: goal for the next year involves fewer stories that result in me chiming in "oh my god, I didn't remember that! That was like a month or two after Andrea, right? Shit I was so trashed that night."

Goal #2: less going through my cell phone book and wondering "who the hell are these people? god, how drunk was I last night?"

Goal #3: move somewhere that April doesn't smell like this and I don't think about it anymore. I don't know if that's possible.

Sometimes I'm shocked a whole year has gone by. Other times I'm shocked it wasn't a hundred years ago. I'm so far away from that girl I was that when I see pictures of her, pictures of me one year ago, I think she looks so young. But if given the choice between still looking so young or saving myself one day at a time and paying the price on my face, I'd rather save myself. Since I couldn't save Andrea, or even know when it was time to pay attention to every moment because they were fleeting.

I'm not failing both of us.

oh the amazon "glitch."

y'all, I'm firmly in the camp of boycotting them. I know I should wait and see what corporate does. I know I should see if they put their money where their mouth is. I know they have historically been a gay-friendly company. Let the dust settle and see what we have before organizing an all-out boycott.

I've also been on a hair-trigger since Prop 8 and knowing that a majority can take my rights away at any moment makes one a little suspicious of said majority, okay?

Maybe it is a glitch, but someone living writes the programs. Someone out there, who may think they're not homophobic and everything, probably equated all things gay with all things sexual and blanket-labeled them "adult." (because being gay is apparently only about sex in the minds of a lot of conservative straight people. but there are a lot more hours in the day, people, and I'm still gay during all of them.) I realize this isn't likely considering a search for "homosexuality" I did last night brought up titles on how to keep your child from being gay (btw, according to said book, all it takes is fathers being involved in their sons' lives. because every heterosexual male I know has a perfect relationship with his father and every gay male I know hates his dad. that makes total sense) or what Jesus thinks of the gay (btw, it's not pretty) or how to be ex-gay (which to me sounds like being ex-blue-eyed.)

When this came out, suddenly my experience with amazon this weekend made sense. This girl I hang out with, April, had to do an assignment for her human sexuality course. The assignment was to read a pop psych or self-help book on any topic in human sexuality and write a paper. The book could cover relationships so long as it also covered sexuality. She wanted to read something that would be relevant to her own life and we could put to good use and obviously we don't know the titles of any lesbian self-help books off hand, it not being a genre I troll on a regular basis.

No worries, we thought, Amazon lets you browse this sort of thing by hopping from book to book with the "if you like this, you might like that" feature and running keyword searches. But we came up empty-handed since unranked books don't show up on these. Oh, there were plenty of books on having sex so long as you're a girl who likes boys. I mean, All Kinds of Stuff I Don't Want To Know About And I'm Not a Prude. You can still find erotica and Playboy. There was the Whole Lesbian Sex Book but well, that's not really the genre the professor is looking for since the book doesn't really have a thesis and is more of a basic instruction manual. There's a Girl on Girl video in the Girls Gone Wild series, but that's not exactly helpful either. I remember saying, "I can't believe there isn't a single book in the entire English language that covers lesbian relationships and sexuality."

Well, there might be. But you couldn't browse on Amazon for it this weekend.

In addition, the whole thing smacks of book banning. Mass hysteria can make books go away even in this day and age. My high school banned I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (seriously) after the populace of Round Rock, TX reacted in outrage after a few "concerned parents" took issue with that and nearly the entire AP reading list. All "objectionable passages" were printed out-of-context in the newspaper, resulting in angry mobs as well as high school students who now didn't actually have to read the books to find the sex. Way to be, Round Rock. The scandal took months and in the meantime, no one could read any controversial books which essentially left us with A Separate Peace (ironically, I think that's the gayest book I've ever read) and Pride and Prejudice. It also opened my eyes to the reality that adults didn't know everything and could react with the same drama and hysteria as your average freshman girl. It showed me that ignorant people could have power over me that could have a major personal impact on me. (i.e. I got to Smith having missed out on some major works of English literature. I couldn't have majored in English even if I wanted to.) That shit will shape your ideas of the utility of censorship and the tyranny of the majority at the age of 16, let me tell you what.

So even if Amazon does a full-out apology for making it so you can't browse for books on lesbian parenting or not committing suicide if you're a gay teenager being taunted by your peers or even Heather Has Two Mommies ("adult material") but will let you search for sexually explicit heterosexual material, boycott them on the basis of their search filter existing without the choice to opt out. Or even the knowledge that it exists. They can fix this. They can mark things "adult" on the basis of being explicit, not whether they acknowledge the existence of gay people. There are ways to let people choose if they want to be exposed to "adult" material or not. I mean, I don't want to be smacked with porn every thirty seconds so I do Google image searches with that "moderate safe search ON" stuff. Google can do it, why can't they?

Wednesday was a warm day in the 80s. Nevertheless, I wore my hoodie half-on-half-off at the softball game I attended in the late evening and it was cooler by the time I got home.

I hear the A/C crank up. It's set to 72 degrees. It is 73 degrees inside the house. It is 62 outside. I grumble "OPEN A DAMN WINDOW," and turn the damn thing off.

It was brisk today, but comfortable enough to run around in a t-shirt, wore my hoodie occasionally when the wind picked up but not often. I got home and the indoor temperature was 66 degrees, outdoor again at 62.

I heard the heat crank up. Set to 68.

for fucks sake. honestly.

For starters, I have this program through work that you enter your food intake and exercise into. I hate food and exercise diaries, but I have been bribed to fill out the forms because if you do it every day, you earn enough points in a year to get a $200 Southwest gift card. Sold!

Anyhow, in preparation for the bout I've been skating a lot and entering that into the program, which calculates your calorie needs. It has now decided that with my level of activity, I now require 3200 calories a day.

Now, I eat a lot. I'm a big girl. And I love vegetables and fruit and lentils and veggie burgers and eat a lot of those, but I also eat a lot of macaroni and cheese, Reese's peanut butter cups, and ice cream. Love them. Once I get these things in my food diary, trying to estimate generously to make up for the fact that studies show Americans tend to underestimate their portion sizes, I can easily get up to 2500 calories a day without trying, but my usual intake is anywhere from 2100-2600. This week I haven't gone grocery shopping or had time to eat though, so it's more like 1800. So my question is: with a daily caloric deficit of at least 600, how the hell do I continue to put on weight? It's muscle weight, but how the hell am I making something out of nothing?

With this amazing talent, I should start eating the federal budget or something.

Anyhow, I've also been shopping. Because I'm going to be in a bout, and we all walk the fine line between sexy and slutty and I'd like to stay on the "sexy" side of it, and my thighs are not exactly my best feature, I try to cover them on the sly. They also require some decoration because they are a long expanse and look awkward when there is a short skirt and nothing else to break the line. So we arrive at the thigh high and garters solution. Cool. I shopped for those last time I went bout clothes shopping. They're black fishnets. They're from Torrid (the plus-size Hot Topic) so I don't get that awesome mid-thigh muffin top that happens when I try to put these things in standard "one size fits all" thigh-highs. Let me tell you, few things feel weirder than a mid-thigh muffin top rubbing against the other mid-thigh muffin top when you walk. It's just wrong. And some of us may not be fat, but we are knock-kneed, and our thighs have rubbed together since we were five and people should leave us alone about it already.

Well, thigh-highs, well-fitting or not, still leave some exposed thigh, and sensitive exposed thigh at that. One skater gave me the solution of wearing nude hose under my thigh-high fishnets to reduce risk of fishnet burn, which is track rash you have to pick fishnets out of and leaves a semi-permanent (and sometimes permanent) fishnet pattern. Side effect: hiding my cellulite from the world when my skirt flies up under lighting. Awesome.

Requirement for this: sheer-to-waist pantyhose that don't have that Control Top look so it looks like I'm actually bare-legged under there.

Problem: I wear Q-Plus sized pantyhose. Seriously. I know that technically, 5'10" and 180 pounds is just barely within "Queen" on the size chart, but one must take into account that my legs are A) longer than the legs of your average 5'10" woman, and B) my thighs are bigger around than most everyone's. As I do not want the crotch around my knees by halftime, I err toward Q-Plus. Queen Plus, bitches. That's like Empress. Hell yeah!

Ever try to find Q-Plus pantyhose WITHOUT a control top? Yeah, me neither. But let me tell you this: good luck with that. Any non-control-top options end at size B. Also, when you are tall and thin and ask salesladies to help you find any Q-Plus pantyhose at all, they will tell you that you're not fat and insist you try another size, which leads to the indignity of reporting your height and weight stats and pulling your Thighs That Could Snap Tree Trunks (TM) out from under your leather coat for reference. And you know what else? I know I'm not fat! I just also happen to wear Q-Plus pantyhose and a size 14 which is not a crime in this country, okay? I do not need your reassurance!

I finally found some at Wal-Mart. Where there are no salesladies and there was ONE pair of sheer-to-waist pantyhose in queen size. Pray the crotch isn't by my knees by halftime.

That done, we have the problem of underwear. Ever bought underwear for the express purpose of a convention center full of people seeing it? Me neither. Here's the key: it must not ride up. It must be some full ass-coverage, none of this boy-short-or-bikini that only covers half your ass shit that we all get away with under our clothes. Maybe that's just me because I have an honest to god white girl ghetto booty. But definitely no boyshorts, or "cheeky shorts" (gag), because those don't even cover the asses of the models on the front. And boxer briefs for girls just look weird with a garter belt. I'm all about the genderfuck, but they also have the problem of the leg part just rolling up and being uncomfortable by the time warm-up is over. I know from practicing in them.

The team I'm skating for tends to wear white cotton under their Catholic schoolgirl skirts (go figure), so I find myself at Wal-Mart looking for, I am not shitting you, giant white cotton granny panties. Surprisingly, these are not hard to find. They even come in "low-rise brief." In Hanes-speak, granny panties are known as "briefs" in case (like me) you did not know. Why they are called "briefs" is beyond me because they are far from brief. If I named underwear, I would call thongs briefs, but no one asked me. Anyhow, to prevent any piece of my ass from falling out I purchase a size larger than my size and go on my merry way. They only come in a three-pack, but I vow to only use them for derby, and shun the only ones that are available in singles, ie nylon. I'm sorry, but giant white NYLON granny panties are just a step too far.

I get them home. My god, I have t-shirts smaller than these panties. April looked at them and said, "Holy shit, there is no way those fit you."

I put them on. They fit perfectly. At least for falling-on-my-ass purposes. Oh the indignity. At least there is no risk of mixing them with the rest of my underwear. I swear to god, you could make couch pillows with my granny panties, even though they're the low-rise version. Those bitches better not ride up or I am going to be pissed. They guarantee not to on the front, so we'll see.

Okay, so at the risk of turning roller derby into the least sexy thing ever, this is now the account of what I'll be wearing under that little plaid skirt:

1. First pair of underwear, a pair in my actual size, because I can't wear pantyhose without underwear and sweat like a horse, that's gross.
2. 1 pair of queen-size sheer-to-waist nude pantyhose
3. 1 pair of giant white cotton granny panties because the decorative underwear goes on the outside
4. 1 garter belt with thigh-high fishnets attached
5. 1 pair of thick athletic socks for extra foot cushioning/sweat-wicking
6. 1 pair of striped knee-high socks for decoration and calf-protection
7. Kneepads
8. Skates

Also there will be medical tape around the balls of both feet. I had no idea this was so involved. I mean, never in my life did it occur to me I would have to wear two pairs of underwear and two pairs of stockings and two pairs of socks for anything. I used to think the worst fashion crime ever forced upon me was having to wear shorts, socks, AND pantyhose to work at the damn Disney store. At least this is way more fun than working at the disney store.

So there you go. Oh, and I have had to shop for some derby items at "intimate boutiques" which leads to an education in the equally complicated amount of clothes and accessories required by strippers. I had no idea.

I feel the need to de-friend people on Facebook, not because I dislike them, but because they do too many polls/tests/quizzes/SuperPoke!-ing. With the damn new Facebook (and trust me, I'm not usually one to care about a goddamned layout on a website to get all up in arms about it) this spam appears on my newsfeed. While once in awhile this is interesting and entertaining ("Hmmm, I wouldn't think those would be her desert island albums but neat!"), the sheer volume of some people makes me want to put my shoulder through their ribs.

What is the etiquette of suddenly de-friending people because you can't respect them anymore based on how much they need to tell the world their top five of EVERYTHING?

I ask this as a self-absorbed person who blogs about shit that doesn't matter, like Facebook, and makes you have to scroll through it on your friendslist.

*and yes, I've tried to filter my newsfeed, but the problem isn't the applications, it's the (few) people who use them all the freakin' time and take up pages of my feed with it.

So the Natasha Richardson thing is totally unfair and tragic and I really do feel for people touched by random horrific tragedy.

However, the outpouring I am seeing everywhere I look, from twitter to facebook to hearing people on the street, leaves something to be desired, in my mind. Maybe I'm a horrible person. Maybe I'm hardened and petty and I shouldn't be rolling my eyes at the genuine emotion of my fellow humans.

But seriously, y'all. I want to look at all the people who are expressing shock and sadness that these things happen and say, "Oh really? You're freaking out because it suddenly dawned on you that the world is cruel and unfair and random and tragic because of the sudden loss of someone you NEVER MET who means absolutely nothing to you? I WANT TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE, YOU LUCKY BASTARD."

sigh.

I'm working on a real post (I know, shocker) but for now an announcement:

I got picked to skate for the bout on March 29! You should come.

New England sometimes sneaks up on me, proving it's become part of my nervous system and my bones and my blood even though I'm not its real daughter. But then, I'm not really anyone's real daughter, so I go with it.

I forget, sometimes. Yeah, I check the weather in Northampton because for some reason my heart doesn't beat as well if I don't know what the seasons should be doing. The mountain laurel is blooming here, and it is February (February!), and I can't help but look on it as an abomination, like I'm a fundamentalist looking at me. I mean, I'm actually offended, as much as I love the fact that when I walk by it smells like grape Kool-Aid, and I love the feeling that spring can manage to bring me, even here.

But anyhow, I got home today, and New England slapped me in the face: my roommate had the A/C on and it is February (February!) and to add insult to injury, No One Was Home.

I can't seem to get across to anyone here the exact level of righteous indignation I am justly feeling without bringing in religious metaphor. There are people who are frugal about the thermostat here, sure, but I don't know anyone here who freaks out like every roommate I ever had in western Massachusetts. I mean, seriously. I had to sit down and take deep breaths and count to ten and open a beer.

Where I come from (and I don't mean Round Rock when I say this), we have date-specific ideas about indoor climate control. I don't care how fucking cold it is, it's a sin to turn the heat on before October 15. It had to turn off by April 1 unless there was an April ice storm. Put on a damn sweater if you're a pussy. We didn't even have an air conditioner, thanking the heavens we could go to jobs with A/C on the hottest days of summer and going skinnydipping in the river on weekends and taking cold showers in the evenings. Yes, it does get hot. You suck it up.

My roommate, who I love to pieces even when she drinks my beer, don't get me wrong, grew up in Sugar Land. It's a pretty wealthy town outside of Houston, named for the Imperial Sugar factory. In her mind, "Room Temperature" is a constant thing of about 72 degrees. She turns the heat or A/C on accordingly to maintain it. She knows nothing of the steely resolve in not using it being equated with Puritan virtue. She doesn't think you should sweat in the house or put on additional clothing, so she fusses with the thermostat with no more thought than you'd have getting water if you were thirsty.

Me, I believe in using the opening of windows as climate control so long as the temperature outside is anywhere between 60 and 85 degrees. Actually, scratch the upper limit, it's 87 now and I've thrown open the windows and my back is sweating the sweat of the virtuous and just into the couch behind me. And, as you've already figured out, I'm super self-righteous about it. I'm now armed with the whole Carbon Footprint argument, so I'm actually pretty insufferable as I root through the trash for recycling, hang my laundry outside, and refuse to acknowledge the existence of modern climate control. You should see me launch into my tirades when the electric bill comes, challenging why I am expected to pay half when she dries everything in the dryer including her boyfriend's laundry (everything! even fancy dresses and underwear! It's the second biggest appliance energy suck out of this house after the fridge!) and turns on the A/C in fucking FEBRUARY.

Where I come from, they make people flinty goddammit.

Maybe it's just a symptom. I'm homesick lately, and I have these moments where western Massachusetts crawls up and grasps my heart and gives it a squeeze and I think my whole chest will implode. I look outside and wonder when it is up there just about daily. Is the sap flowing? Are the snowdrops as early as the mountain laurel here? Is it that part of February where you think you'll never make it because the salt has made permanent mountainscape drawings on your boots and the ice and snow are brown and grey and the trees are brown and the sky is grey and it's been like that since December and you think the static in your hair will be there forever? I even miss that. Yeah, I have a great life here, don't get me wrong, but it's just not home. Maybe it's just that the place got itself into my bones though the water and the air and it's just there forever.

Or you know, I'm just a self-righteous asshole thermostat control freak.

Po-tay-to, po-tah-to, as Britta would say.

On the con list of having a keener sense of smell than most people:

Something died under the house. I don't want to deal with it. Normal people won't smell it for another day or two. My smoker roommate may not smell it until next week.

Tra la, I'm off to nurse an injured rollergirl, I may not be back until next week. Do I deal with it before I leave?

On the pro list of having a keener sense of vengeance than most people:

My roommate drank an entire bottle of my vodka and half a bottle of my Maker's without replacing it. I leave with my conscience clean.

p.s. I didn't get to skate the bout, but check out me selling Spank Alley raffle tickets: http://www.austin360.com/alist/mediahub/media/slideshow/index.jsp?tId=146159 I'm picture number 57.

Guess who might be skating in the bout on Sunday? Oh, that would be me.

Technically, I'm the "alternate alternate," which means I train with them all week to learn strategy, I don't drink during the bout, I go shopping to find a damn outfit (a retired skater loaned me her dress, I had to get a skirt for under it because it's kind of a shirt on me, fishnet thigh-highs, patches, whatnot, a thing on my back with my name on it, stickers for my helmet, etc), I bring all my gear to the bout, and I'm up if someone bites it. Teams don't usually pick an alternate alternate, but they have a history of unfortunate injury and they have a few girls with issues brewing who might have to bow out last-minute, no fault of their own. So I'm waiting in the wings, just-in-case. I have learned so much just prepping for a bout with a team that the experience has been worth it.

BTW, if you come, we don't set the drink prices at the convention center. The only properties in the city with enough insurance for us to skate with spectators present are owned by the city. The city does all their concessions through Aramark. Aramark is charging fuckin' $5.50 for a Lone Star, which is ridiculous. You want cheap drinks? The cheesy sports bar across the street has drink specials on bout days. Go there at halftime.

I've also got my derby photo shoot on Sunday. I have no idea how to comport myself during a photo shoot. Life seems a little weird. It's actually kinda hard to believe that the fishnet-clad, bright scarlet-haired roller derby girl is me.

So flirting is one of my favorite sports, as we know. And we also know I have some bizarre and very specialized personal magnetism that goes on overdrive when I hit the door of a Starbucks. (Except that one time. Sigh.)

So I've been minding my own and this girl had been particularly gregarious. But you know, Southern Starbucks employees tend to be, and we all know I kind of have a thing for the dark, silent baristas who say little and whose single glance is a victory. Also, she doesn't trip my gaydar. This is not to say my gaydar is perfect, and I'm not out looking right now, but seriously. I started calling her Straight Girl Who Flirts With Me At Starbucks. I laughed about it, saying I was probably kidding myself and she just likes that I tip dollar bills when I only get brewed coffee. Anyone who's worked behind a counter knows you flirt for tips. (I was particularly shameless at this during my tenure at the bux, giving coy smiles to all the boys, with absolutely no actual attraction involved. It's damn fun.) So I've been enjoying this dynamic for a little while. Straight girls are so cute and noncommittal when they flirt with women.

Well, uh, maybe she's actually flirting. There was the time the other day when she checked out my ass. And I mean she Checked Out My Ass. You know how when straight women check out your ass, they've actually got this look in their eye that says while they are studying your ass, it's more of a sizing-up and comparison study of your ass than anything else? This was not that. We then had a conversation about my birthday coming up and she offered to sing if I came in. Again, I filed this under Very Gregarious Barista. She also knows I'm a rollergirl, and there's some kind of mystique that comes with that and everyone wants to be your friend. (Which is fantastic, but one has to keep this in mind when someone's being all nice to you.)

I didn't go in on my birthday, but I went today. And I realize I'm a little dim and don't like to flatter myself, but she looked up and smiled the second I hit the door, and from the bar she said, "So what'm I makin' for you today?"

Ever hard-to-get and not in need of an espresso beverage, I said, "Oh, I'm just getting brewed coffee."

"You're comin' here to talk to me anyway."

(Other barista) "You're making conversation for her today."
"That's right! Come over here, because I'm makin' conversation for you today!"

So I go over and try to chat as non-awkwardly as possible because as we all know, even if I have absolutely no intentions, the second I realize a pretty girl is flirting with me, my eyes go to my shoes and I drop stuff. Also, gregarious people are fun to talk to. She asked about my birthday and what I got,

(btw, breakfast in bed, flowers, spa treatment, homemade salmon, and being treated like a queen for a day by that rollergirl I've been hanging out with. NEENER NEENER. (One NEENER less than a full neenering because I also got crazy bad allergies and felt crappy.) I just said "spa treatment" to the pretty barista though.)

and then. Then. Then she said, "I tried to make you a mix CD but my computer crashed."

....

Um, y'all? I think if she actually makes me a mix CD I will not only have to admit she is flirting, but I will have reached the absolute zenith of barista flirtation. I will be the champion. Seriously. Of course, only content analysis will reveal if she wants in my pants or she wants to be BFFs with a rollergirl.

I'll keep you posted.

Two people at work have been watching that wretched Katy Perry video and have decided I look like a redheaded Katy Perry.

I died a little inside. (I think it's about as valid as the comparisons to Drew Barrymore and Winona Ryder.) The funny part is that I'm quiet at work, and don't really talk about my personal life. It's not so much that I'm closeted as I just don't say much. Well, one of them playfully asked if I kissed a girl and I liked it. I'm quiet, so I just gave my knowing smirk and left it at that.

Continental Airlines sucks ass and put me on a plane from Houston to Seattle on the 21st. Three hours into the flight, we turned around and went back to Houston, where we were told that the late hour of 12:30am meant we could not check into a hotel as there were no hotels nearby with rooms and no transportation running. They also said that they couldn't rebook us just then but helpfully mentioned that we could try again at 5am. FYI, the counters open at 7. I was 172 on the standby list so Carolyn coughed up 400 dollars I'll be paying her back and booked me on Southwest because she is a freakin' angel. April called Audra who wrote to my derby league's mailing list and scored me two rollergirls who would pick me up at Houston Intercontinental, drive to practice in Austin (they were going anyway), drive me back, and let me stay the night before dropping me at Houston Hobby the next day, all to save me from another night on the airport floor. I fucking love roller derby. I finally got to Seattle on Tuesday, and I've got some very terse letters to write to Continental Fucking Airlines. Seriously, y'all, don't fly that shit. They didn't tell me a damn thing that was true all three days, they didn't want to help anyone, they didn't do a single thing to help, and they didn't give a damn. I mean, it's Christmas, at least pretend to care.

Southwest Airlines, however, rocks my socks and gave me free Bailey's at 7am. And Seattle, once reached, was absolutely beautiful in the snow.

In derby news, y'all know I have always been described as having junk in the trunk. A white-girl ghetto booty, if you will, with thighs to match. I've spent years running my ass off, literally, and had finally stabilized the sucker into a respectable size 10. (For comparison, I wear a size 4 shirt. Hi, I'm Meredith, and I looked like a tall skinny pear.) I was happy. Then I started derby, and it was moving into a svelte, rock-solid size 10. I looked hot in my Sarah Palin getup at Halloween with the little pencil skirt I bought.

Then my ass started growing. I was putting on some more muscley layers or something, so I forgave it for a little while. But y'all, it won't. stop. growing. It's like it's become a separate entity. I mean, it's fun that you could bounce a quarter off it and all, but I have gained 20 pounds. I had to buy new pants in a size 16. That's three sizes in two months! And it is growing straight up. If it keeps going at this rate, I'm going to get to the point where I can't stand still at a party because someone might set their drink on it. It's like it doesn't even belong to me. It's like an entity worthy of a zip code. And the thighs to go with it! They are like tree trunks! Tree trunks that can crush cars!

I know it's weird to go on like this, but y'all. seriously. My ass is huge. I realize that it is huge because it can do some seriously awesome things and I'm strong like an ox or something, but my eating-disorder-having past complete with dreams of being described as "willowy" has absolutely no idea how to deal with being 180 pounds and having an ass that can support beverages. Maybe I'll feel better when I can knock badass girls to the ground with it, but my hitting skills just aren't there yet. They told me derby would do amazing things to my butt, but I was not expecting it to go all Miracle Gro on me.

I'm sure your life is enriched knowing this. But seriously, y'all. My ass is huge.

In other derby news, the first bout of the season is on Sunday. The champion team from last year (the Holy Rollers) vs. an all-star team made up of the other teams' best girls. It's the All Scar Army bout. And tickets at the door are $15, but if you get them from me, they're $10. Come on. You know you gotta see this shit.

I have some kind of infection.

I also have a near-pathological (but not quite, I'm not sick guys, I promise) fear of being mistaken for a hypochondriac. So I ignore things that should perhaps be treated, due to the fact I "don't feel THAT bad."

So I've had a sore throat and sinuses that wouldn't drain (no matter how many times they were assaulted by my Neti pot) for oh, three weeks. Whatever dude, everyone gets little sore throats. And I got shit to do. I've got to skate my ass off and go out with my friends and go to work and live at my general speed of 90 to nothing because that's what I DO. What I don't do is get sick.

Well, one of the lymph nodes in my throat swelled up to the size of a small egg on Thursday night. As there was more shit going down than my near-inability to swallow (story to come later: had a peeping tom AND an electrical outage that knocked out the heat at 2am on a freezing-ass night, but the peeping tom was damn scary, standing with his hands cupped around his face at my bedroom window, the window behind my damn bed. That will grab your attention and make you forget you can't swallow), I ignored it. It also didn't feel so good and got even bigger on Friday and made food into a crazy idea since it was shoved up against my esophagus or something. Also my throat swelled up to the point my uvula was touching my right tonsils. "How are you even breathing?" became the question of everyone who looked down my throat.

Because I'm me and I had to say "hey guys, check this out!" and open my mouth.

Pretty, huh? But I had scrimmages on Saturday! With veterans! Therefore, I wasn't sick. Also, by Saturday, it wasn't like I could go to the doc until Monday, so screw it. Well, by Saturday my ears hurt like hell and I couldn't balance, so I just sat on the couch and pouted during scrimmages. I scheduled some time with my acupuncturist friend to drain my lymph nodes.

Sunday came and I went to see her, and she looked down my throat. "Looks like this isn't just for fun anymore Mer, you have white spots down there now. Are those new?"

"Those are new. Damn."

So she did that Chinese lymphatic massage to drain the nodes, and all hell broke loose on my neck. Well, visually. I felt a lot better after, just more tired, but the baby in my neck got a little smaller. But my neck now looked like I got a double hickeys from a pair of Electrolux vacuum cleaners. Like a bike ran over both sides of my neck. Like the worst track rash EVER.

"I've never seen this do that to anyone," she said.




In my usual way, this is a "hey guys, check this out!" There is one of near-equal size on the other side of my neck, and no, nothing about this hurt at any time. BTW, people don't know what to say to you when you're a girl with a reputation for getting into some Random Weird Shit and your neck looks like this.

I sucked it up and went to the doctor on Monday. And for those of you terrified, I explained what it was on my neck and my doctor was very approving of the technique and glad I did it. She also tested me for lots of various infections since I came back negative for Strep A, put me on antibiotics ("I don't like to prescribe these without a positive strep test it's clear you have some kind of infection,"), gave me some samples of stuff to drain my ears, and then gave me steroids so I can swallow food again ("I know you don't like these, but that swelling won't go down on its own at this point, at least not anytime soon").

Then I got my usual Very Stern Talking To about When to Go to the Doctor. ("I thought we had this discussion when you came in two days after you got a concussion.")

And yes, I'm starting to feel better, which may or may not have to do with seeing a health care provider or two. Whatever, y'all.

I'm in!

No matter what happens with the draft on the 12th, whether I get to join a team or I'm an alternate, the bottom line is I can stop saying, "No, I'm actually just a bitch-in-training newgirl," when someone asks if I'm a rollergirl. I passed the final eval. I'm going into the draft. I get to say, "Yeah. I'm a rollergirl," next time someone asks that.

Now I seriously need a name. Suggestions expected in the comments section!

And I for real need to save for a pair of skates that I don't kill by bending their plates in under three months. (drawbacks of being what is called a "large skater" dammit, you need aluminum plates!) We get them wholesale, but even still, a pair of Riedell 265 Wickeds are gonna set me back $250. I'm trying to think of it as merely two pairs of running shoes, and they will last longer than two pairs of running shoes, so it doesn't stress me out. Because now I won't have to buy two pairs of running shoes, after all.

And yes, Eli, they have pink wheels. :) Though I gotta say, I put some new grippy purple wheels that smell like grape, seriously, on my old skates to get a little more time from them, and it is fun as hell to convince people to smell your wheels because they smell like grape. Everyone thinks you're kidding. Because, really, if a rollergirl starts a sentence with "Smell my..." you should not ever, EVER smell whatever it is. Especially if that sentence ends with "wrist guard."

So yeah. Prepare for this blog to talk about things like aluminum plates, grippy new wheels that smell like grape, nasty-ass bearings, blister care, taking bitches down, broken ankles, the inability of Playland Skate Center to stock decent outdoor wheels, arnica gel, hurting so bad I wish I could die, and other things you never wanted to know about, on a much more regular basis. Because I'm a goddamned rollergirl, and y'all aren't going to forget it.

p.s. if roller derby absolutely bores you out of your skull, let me know and I'll make a filter and won't keep you on it, you high-maintenance pansy-ass. I mean, just for you 'cause I love you, just leave me a note in the comments.

Today at practice, they pulled a giant plastic garbage can into the middle of the track and let us know that we couldn't get off the track unless we were injured. And if we needed to puke, we had to puke into the can and then get back up on the track, none of this going to the bathroom stuff, that's for pussies.

I have now learned that this means practice will be particularly intense.

Look, I'm still alive. I've been busy. And I got this flu shot that turned out to be, shocker, a shot of flu, and I've spent the last week feeling like ass. So since I have nothing to report, I give you my scary scary Sarah Palin Halloween costume:

I'm missing Andrea tonight, so here's something Andrea knew without me ever having to tell her. I want you to know too so she's no longer 50% of the people on the planet who know this fact about me.

So I don't like to talk all the time. I do like to watch the way people move. I like to watch the way they talk. I like to try to figure out if what they're saying matches what they're doing and what they're thinking. I like listening to stories. When I'm paying attention, which isn't all the time admittedly, I make a very good listener.

I'm also not very judgy. I figure I haven't got a leg to stand on anyhow, and I've been judged and found deficient by everyone from those snotty girls in elementary school to my own parents to God, and I know it feels pretty shitty, so I really don't want to visit that feeling on another human. I'm not saying I'm above snarky comments from time to time, or being overly blunt, but I do make an effort to be very open-minded when it comes to big things. I like to figure out where people are coming from, and figure out what makes them tick, and you can't do that when you're being judgy.

These two things lead a lot of people to say the high compliment, "I feel like you really get me."

I don't contradict them, because that's a lot of yourself to put on the line. I smile and keep silent. But here's the truth: I don't understand a single thing any of you crazy people do, ever. I do not get you. At all. You are all eternal mysteries to the point where I feel like I was dropped here by an alien race.

So now you know.