"If you didn't mean it, why'd you say it? If you didn't feel it, why did you fake it?"

My trip away was good, in fact, it was great.

I went to see the Andonovski' clan, and we made peanut butter cookies, I am sure my American friends will be impressed that they had peanut butter in the cupboard, but if you look at the photo, note that the peanut butter usually goes along with buttered bread and vegemite!
The making of cookies was to try and salvage a bit of peanut butters' true nature.

The Convict City Roller Girls who attended the double header between 'GRDL Bloody Mary's vs. VRDL Big City Bruisers' and then 'ADRD Adelaidies vs. VRDL All Stars' were well rewarded. The games were great. The last match went into double overtime with the crowd thundering so loud, I felt as if I was at a stadium watching a Heavy Metal band.

I loved the way the Geelong GRDL team played, the level of pack communication and grace of their skating was something I would really aspire towards, so I was very excited to be going to their practice the next day. I actually got to skate at two practices. They have good practice space (heated!), and I found the floor surface much easier to skate on.
The skaters have been skating much longer than we have, and I felt the benefit of having those skaters around me to emulate.
The Sunday we skated in the afternoon, and most of the league that live in Ballarat, were in attendance, as they are preparing for their first bout. Leagues help each each other, so they came to get pointers from Geelong. While I am used to twelve skaters being a good turn out, I was looking at a rink with at least fifty skaters!
I was intimidated and ecstatic at the same time. I have been working really hard on improving my skating, and I was happy to be able to show Betty Bamalam and Ref Fink (who I blogged about previously when they came here to guest coach), that I had indeed learned to stop on my skates.
Imagine my surprise when at the end of the session, the Geelong league asked if I would be willing (willing!) to come back and skate in their home bouts, the first one being September 12th.
This by comparison is like my having been in a garage band that has never gigged yet, and being asked to go on tour with a band selling out clubs.
Scary, yes, but an opportunity not to be missed.

My goal is to not break anything of mine or any other skaters. (Yes, I am talking bones here.)
To not foul out, and to execute one good move per jam.
I have two practices before I am pushed out onto a floor that is likely to be attended (surrounded by) a thousand people.
The learning experience will be immense and I can bring that back, here to Tasmania with the goal of helping our league along.

I turn around and go back to the mainland on Wednesday, good timing really as our practices here are canceled because are space is rented out.

This is what happens when a girl leaves her house.
Scary!
Exciting!
(Did I mention SCARY?)

Traveling...

Like Miss Holly Golightly

I am getting to use my new solid perfume compact, and I know the world we live in but I can help getting a warm feeling when I look at this packaging.
Plus Fracas is an excellent word, and the smell reminds me of both Mark Mitchell and Zora Neale Hurston who mentions this perfume in 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'.
I was totally floored that Zok got me this perfume for Xmas, my friend Shelly gave me my last one, but all that was left of it, was tarnish and fumes...
I hope Melbourne goes well and by well I mean that I don't get lost or incur any demerit points on my license due to being frantic while lost.
xo

"Friday I'm in Love"

Oh the foolish follies of a girls heart as spring comes on-
She thinks that she can go to bed without lighting a fire, she opens the blinds in anticipation of yet another morning of warm rays pouring in, where she will be able to dry her skating gear so she can pack them clean for her roller derby excursion to the mainland...
(cut to black screen wiping that warm spring time vignette from your mind and flash to- dark black waters, thick gray clouds and a small woman bundled up in layers of clothing, holding dripping elbow pads from her hands as she then lifts one in a fist shaking it at the darkening sky...)
I know that spring is variable, especially here on the island.
Yet, I did feel duped, this must be some defect with my level of hope.
Inside I am screaming 'But look plants are in bloom'!
I should point out that early in the week I had coffee on my front porch, and chatting to Jenn, Luca, and Leona via video Skype and they were on their back porch in Seattle, I had on only a light sweater, and they were in bathing suit attire, and I finally felt close instead of very far away.
However, that was not enough for me and in the afternoon, greedily, I took a long walk with the intention of sitting out at the Beach Cafe, by the time I got to the beach I was soaked from the rain.
Well, the situation could be worse, our Magnolia tree seems to be shy and unlike the others in the neighborhood has not bloomed and therefore will not lose those blooms in a storm while I am away.

"Bring on the night...I couldn't stand another hour of daylight..."

y


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After a solid week of rain, where I started to feel as if everything might start to mold, the day turned fair, even warm, with ample sun and light breezes.
I took a people slash talking slash news day off. I woke with a desire to clean my laundry-storage-skate gear room, and to clean all the mud off my shoes worn throughout my aforementioned rainy week. I turned down all offers of social interaction and was much the better person for that decision.
Of course the sunny day meant many people were out, and when I could no longer resist the pull of a warm day, I had to skate in the parking lot of my local school because the courts were taken up.
I did many small things and really nothing at all and for me that was bliss.

For Shelly-
Things that overly occupied space in my mind (or is that took up synaptic energy).

Robots; the amount of money spent on them, where they are being tested (such as aged care facilities and warfare), and the technological advancements of their abilities.

The fact that THOMAS MIDGLEY who worked for General Motors was responsible for BOTH adding tetraethyl lead to gas/petrol all the while ignoring the horrible, health effects of lead on people, such as kidney failure, blindness, and cancer because it was cheap and stopped the 'knock' that can be heard in engines, he followed that genius with the invention of CFCs a.k.a. chlorofluorocarbons that errode our ozone layer!
I mean seriously, where is the movie about that guy?

Les Paul has died. For non-museos, he invented multi-layered, or eight track recording, and the first solid body amplified guitar which is how guitar players such as Jimmy Page were able to create that sustained note, I think that the 1958, Sunburst, Les Paul was the first guitar I knew by name.
My father used to put Les Paul & Mary Ford songs on the mixed tapes, that he made me, and he would sometimes hint that Colleen partly came from Mary Fords real name being Colleen, but I never believed that.

"One wing isn't enough, it isn't even enough to leave"

Things I learned recently:

My iphone takes more interesting photos when I hit the camera accidentally.

Last year there were displays all over Stockholm about a botanist named 'Carolus Linnaeus' and although small paragraphs were in English, I knew I was missing the essentials. I have since found out that he is credited with simplifying, and systematically naming every known living thing, he is the reason that plants have two word names.

John Banville the author who won the Man Booker prize for 'The Sea', also writes under pseudonyms, such as crime fiction under the name 'Benjamin Black' and he talks about himself (themselves) as if they are different personalities, which on the level of Psychology I found intriguing.

I have come to believe that Zok truly makes me a better person-or perhaps happier person, and therefore nicer person.

Black eyes are cool but having one makes your head hurt.

"...everybody had a good year, but we never saw the sun shine..."

Perhaps you are wondering where Zok is, or what he is doing...
What is communication like on the fifty-eighth day of absence?
Perhaps you think messages arrive in the form of real post, or sky writing.
But ahhhh, he is too subtle for that, he knows how best to reach a girl who resides in the cold of winter, barely getting along on a diet of oatmeal and peanut butter and jam sandwiches because her rainy disposition has turned to lethargy...

"...everybody had a good time, everybody let their hair down..."

This is what the sky looked like on the day of my friend Erica's birthday in my time zone. While she was likely hiding from the heat with her leopards, I was dodging rain and trying to appreciate the rainbows with the moon rising behind them. When there are rainbows five times a day, they existence starts to become akin to power wires or tree tops.
If Erica had been here I am sure I would have appreciated them more, especially as I would have been eating cake, eating cake is always allowed when you are with Erica, birthday or no birthday.
She lives in the land of cupcake shops.
We don't have cupcake shops.
We are lousy with rainbows though.