the world is your acorn

Join my MarchMadness! No money or commitment, just fill in the brackets and earn trash talking rights.

For the women’s tourney, http://games.espn.go.com/tcwomen/group?groupID=1490 {deadline is March 17}
and for the men’s tourney,
http://wetalktrash.mayhem.sportsline.com/e (password=”wetalktrash”) {deadline is March 15}

Hope to see you there!

I went to a skating rink today to do some observations for a class that I’m in. The assignment was to go watch some learning take place. My little team of three chose to watch ice skaters. After we observed for a while we rented skates and jumped in on the free skating session. It was pretty fun, even if the rented skates were cruddy and the ice was horrible.

I haven’t been on ice skates in about ten years. I used to ice skate once or twice a week, starting at around 4 years old. There was a pond in our neighbor’s backyard, but we also had classes at the University ice skating rink. My dad, brother and I all did it together. Eventually classes became private lessons with a coach, which became performing. Which was awful.

I was a shy kid, extremely self-conscious with low self-esteem. When my mom finally let my hair grow longer than the bowl cut I sported for the first 6 years of my life I generally wore it draped over my face so I could feel more invisible. So ice skating was not a very good match for me. During practice sessions I was afraid to practice because I didn’t want people to see how bad I was. Which meant I never improved very much. My parents had always taught me to strive to be the best, but never stressed what had to be done to become the best. I always just thought you just were. And if you weren’t the best, then you tried to hide it. Or you quit.

Anyway, I really liked the athleticism of ice skating, and the momentum and the precision. I skated freestyle for a while, then switched to dance. That happened partially because my dad was switching to dance and I was really skating because he wanted me to. The other reason I switched to dance was because I was not getting better. I couldn’t land jumps because I was afraid to try and fail. Practicing dance patterns was much less conspicuous, and making mistakes while practicing was much less noticeable.

Eventually I stopped going with my dad. I did not enjoy it, I wasn’t getting better, and I hated that in order to be a skater you have to be a spectacle. You have to pick your head up and wave your arms around and smile. You wear tight outfits and short skirts and pretend you’re having a fabulous time. You have to be feminine and graceful and rhythmic and happy. I was shy and awkward and a tomboy who did not want to be noticed by anyone and afraid to make mistakes.

In a way I’m still that kid. Afraid to show weakness, too self-conscious to enjoy life a lot of the time. I don’t know how to get over that. Maybe that should be my resolution for the year, to work on it.

This morning The Little Red Haired Girl had to work, so I took the opportunity to do some of my chores, read for school, and make mac and cheese for lunch. That leaves me responsibility-free* for the rest of the day, so we are now camped out on the couch watching womens hoops/football, drinking beer, and eating carrots and dip. Well I’m doing those things, and The Little Red Haired Girl is waiting for a nap to happen to her.

There’s something really luxurious to me about the sounds of sports coming from the tv. I don’t have a regular sports-watching schedule or season or anything like that. Usually life is too filled with errands and schoolwork and housework and socializing to sit for the many hours it requires to properly get into tv-watching of sports. So hearing that background crowd noise and the drone of the announcers recalls for me some kind of balance, or peace, or leisure. Like a “I handled my shit and now I get to chill” kind of a satisfied feeling.

* Of course that really just means everything else I have to do can be put off until later.

The WNBA’s defending champions, the Sacramento Monarchs, met with President Bush yesterday at the White House. It seems strange to me that those players find it an honor to meet him. It’s the kind of sexism and homophobia that he exhibits that kept professional women’s sports from thriving for so long, and even still it struggles. Many lesbian athletes remain closeted, afraid to fill the stereotype and give naysayers more reason to disparage women’s sports.

“One of the things you’ve done is you’ve set a great example for young women athletes,” Bush said. “As the father of twin daughters — who had trouble finding a backboard, I might add — sorry, girls. I love the fact that there are role models, though, for young women, that somebody can look up to and say, ‘Gosh, I want to be like her. I want to realize my dreams by being like Yolanda.”‘

“Not my daughters,” is what he’s really saying. Bleh.