In like a lamb, out like a lion, right?
Well rawr damnit.
This lion's dumped so much snow up in the mountains, they might extend the season. That would so rock. I can't wait to get up there again. I want to get at least SOME feel for that board before summer hits and it's skateboarding only. Last weekend skateboarding I managed to carve back and forth...same principle on a snowboard, just well, on snow. With my feet attached. I so wanna go try that out on a hill.
A little hill.
With a non-threatening kind of slope.
One that doesn't scream "I will SO kick your ass woman".
Cause I wanna get good enough to actually take a goddamn lift this season. Wimp that I am after Keystone kicked my ass proper.
I think we're going up this weekend. They wanna show me around Vail more. Hit Breck. Hit Keystone cause night snowboarding ends after this weekend and we can't have that. I can't wait.
Still haven't taken that bike out, cause um it's still too goddamn cold out. My bus pass expires tomorrow though. I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and not get a new one, forcing me to ride that bike in no matter how cold it is, or buy one for just one more month. Maybe I'll just get enough cash to do the bus every day to and from work, then ride everywhere else. Cause there's only 21 work days in april, and the pass is barely gonna make that worthwhile.
So I showed Astral how to skateboard. Lil bastard was immediately good at it. After I spent a month working on balance. The guy is good at it the first day. Not sure if that speaks for my teaching ability or what. I know, I know, he snowboards, his balance is good. Still. Pfft.
You know, I'd talk some about the whole trip to INS too, but I just haven't had that much caffiene this morning yet, and I woke up in a pretty damn good mood. Let's not ruin that, shall we.
Thursday, March 31, 2005
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Later that day
It's 2:30, and all my work for the day is done. Which leaves me sitting here for the next 3 hours, because damned if I'm gonna go home and forfeit that cash, when I give work more than they pay for anyway.
So I'm here.
I took up skateboarding recently. Recently being about 2 months ago. Boulder weather rocks, so I could. Of course today, it's freezing and there's snow on the ground. Call me weak but oh hell no I'm not skateboarding in 20 degree weather.
It was kinda one of those always-wanted-to-do-never-got-to things. Well, I did it when I was 14, but not well and not for long. I was roller skating well at 14 and I felt that was enough. The skateboarders back then were mean anyway. And I was busy trying to assimilate to be accepted, after an entire childhood of being told to fit in.
So I bought a half decent board, dicked around on it for a week or so. Worked on balance in my living room and found out I had the wrong balance. I ended up meeting some people one night in Boulder by fluke, or fate, or whatever. A group of skateboarder/snowboarders. Two of which have gone pro in skateboarding. So these are my teachers. They taught me where my balance should be over the board. Where my feet should be.
And I was hooked. The first time I went out in a parking lot, stomach turning feeling sick from nervousness, shaking, and got my ass on that board, I was totally hooked.
I did it for 4 hours the first time out. I sucked, mind you, and I couldn't push off at all without losing my balance. So I chose a little slope and worked on staying on the board. I fidgeted with my feet. I nearly killed myself, but I didn't hit the ground. I worked on convincing myself I could just step off the board whenever I wanted. No reason to fear.
Every day after that, I was out there. Venturing out onto the sidewalk...most of which are shit, by the way...practicing pushing off. That took me a good 4 weeks to get, and even now I kinda struggle with it.
The boys, they showed me how to tic tac. Move the front of the skateboard from side to side while still or moving. I practiced. My balance was still off. My weight was going to the back, and I was popping the board out from beneath me. Did that on a hill one day. Opened up my elbow, bruised my body all along the right side.
By this time, I couldn't wear a dress to work anymore. My calves were covered in dark, angry looking bruises. So were my knees, my thighs, my hips, my arms; not my hands though. Those were just scuffed up. I musta looked like a prize fighter.
And I couldn't get enough.
I can't get enough.
It's killing me that it's cold out today and I have time to kill. I'd love to be snowboarding today too, but that requires a car and I don't have that. The boys are prolly up there already. Bastards.
The day I got my balance, I felt like I'd just drank an entire bottle of tequila. No, not sick and puking. Think good tequila, $100/bottle tequila. The kind that gives you a wicked body buzz and makes you high. That kind.
Suddenly, finding the sweet spot on the board, I could do the stuff I'd be practicing and failing at. I could tic tac. Not at high speed, but I could do it. I could pedal better, knowing where to keep my toes on the board.
And the adrenaline washed through me like a hit of heroine.
I'm now an adrenaline junkie.
My stomach gets jumpy and quivering right before I get out on the board. Not out of fear, or nervousness. Out of the anticipation of that rush.
10 minutes out and I'm flyin. No drug, and I've tried a lot of them, no alcohol (with maybe the exception of absinthe, dunno haven't tried that yet) can touch this.
The people who jump out of airplanes (intentionally), the people who get dropped at the top of an inaccessable mountain to board all the way down snow no man has ever touched, the people who thrill-seek....
I get it now.
Skateboarding gave me that bug.
Snowboarding is next. Once I stop falling and stop being afraid of what kind of speed I can get hurling myself down a mountainside in the rockies.
So I'm here.
I took up skateboarding recently. Recently being about 2 months ago. Boulder weather rocks, so I could. Of course today, it's freezing and there's snow on the ground. Call me weak but oh hell no I'm not skateboarding in 20 degree weather.
It was kinda one of those always-wanted-to-do-never-got-to things. Well, I did it when I was 14, but not well and not for long. I was roller skating well at 14 and I felt that was enough. The skateboarders back then were mean anyway. And I was busy trying to assimilate to be accepted, after an entire childhood of being told to fit in.
So I bought a half decent board, dicked around on it for a week or so. Worked on balance in my living room and found out I had the wrong balance. I ended up meeting some people one night in Boulder by fluke, or fate, or whatever. A group of skateboarder/snowboarders. Two of which have gone pro in skateboarding. So these are my teachers. They taught me where my balance should be over the board. Where my feet should be.
And I was hooked. The first time I went out in a parking lot, stomach turning feeling sick from nervousness, shaking, and got my ass on that board, I was totally hooked.
I did it for 4 hours the first time out. I sucked, mind you, and I couldn't push off at all without losing my balance. So I chose a little slope and worked on staying on the board. I fidgeted with my feet. I nearly killed myself, but I didn't hit the ground. I worked on convincing myself I could just step off the board whenever I wanted. No reason to fear.
Every day after that, I was out there. Venturing out onto the sidewalk...most of which are shit, by the way...practicing pushing off. That took me a good 4 weeks to get, and even now I kinda struggle with it.
The boys, they showed me how to tic tac. Move the front of the skateboard from side to side while still or moving. I practiced. My balance was still off. My weight was going to the back, and I was popping the board out from beneath me. Did that on a hill one day. Opened up my elbow, bruised my body all along the right side.
By this time, I couldn't wear a dress to work anymore. My calves were covered in dark, angry looking bruises. So were my knees, my thighs, my hips, my arms; not my hands though. Those were just scuffed up. I musta looked like a prize fighter.
And I couldn't get enough.
I can't get enough.
It's killing me that it's cold out today and I have time to kill. I'd love to be snowboarding today too, but that requires a car and I don't have that. The boys are prolly up there already. Bastards.
The day I got my balance, I felt like I'd just drank an entire bottle of tequila. No, not sick and puking. Think good tequila, $100/bottle tequila. The kind that gives you a wicked body buzz and makes you high. That kind.
Suddenly, finding the sweet spot on the board, I could do the stuff I'd be practicing and failing at. I could tic tac. Not at high speed, but I could do it. I could pedal better, knowing where to keep my toes on the board.
And the adrenaline washed through me like a hit of heroine.
I'm now an adrenaline junkie.
My stomach gets jumpy and quivering right before I get out on the board. Not out of fear, or nervousness. Out of the anticipation of that rush.
10 minutes out and I'm flyin. No drug, and I've tried a lot of them, no alcohol (with maybe the exception of absinthe, dunno haven't tried that yet) can touch this.
The people who jump out of airplanes (intentionally), the people who get dropped at the top of an inaccessable mountain to board all the way down snow no man has ever touched, the people who thrill-seek....
I get it now.
Skateboarding gave me that bug.
Snowboarding is next. Once I stop falling and stop being afraid of what kind of speed I can get hurling myself down a mountainside in the rockies.
Stupid People
Yes, I know, everyone hates stupid people.
I really dislike them. I also dislike people who would take advantage of stupid people, so that when my happy ass comes along and points out...um, you've been taken for a ride big time you know that...I look like some kind of rat.
Generally speaking, people are pretty ignorant about websites. They have little clue what kind of work goes into one. The code behind it. The design. Actually I think they don't *care* but hey. Doesn't matter.
I develop websites. I come up with the design, make the graphics, do the behind the scenes coding so it works how and where it's supposed to work. My stuff is cross-platform, cross-browswer compatible, which, when I say that, usually makes people's eyes roll back in their heads. It would horrify them what I sit and do all day.
Now, when I take over an existing website, generally the code is horrible so I toss it. Actually all the code is always horrible. Because someone's sister's cousin did the site in frontpage 3 years ago. It's a nightmare. I can rebuild it though. Make it better. Faster. Stronger. I can drag these sites into the 21st century kicking and screaming.
A server, if you don't know, often comes with the decrepid website. Oh now here's some fun boy. People telling me they're paying $20 a month for 250mg of space and 5 gigs of transfer. No frills. No PHP, no CGI, nothing.
Hell. Free sites come with that.
So I get to say um, yeah, your site is gonna be too big to fit in 250 mgs of space (400+ page graphics intensive website as well as login script), so you need more. And oh by the way, someone's been fucking you up the ass for the past 2 years...that hurt? Did they at least use lube? Give you a blow job every month? Something? Cause damn, I'm a woman and even I wouldn't want to be fucked THAT hard.
Now I get to deal with the people who run the site. The admins. Fun fun. The people pulling out their respective cocks to fuck the people I now work for. I'm never sure if I should smack them or congratulate them. But now I have to deal with them and say yeah, I want at least 10 gigs of space and 200 gigs of bandwidth, just to be safe. I want cgi capability, I want ColdFusion on it, I want PHP, I want database and email capability jesus CHRIST man where's your decency. And I want all this for under $10 a month. Cause I can get it for about $5 online with another host. Just giving you the courtesy because these people who are my bosses seem to like you.
Maybe they've just been fucking the bosses so long, the bosses have come to like it.
Maybe stupid people should be dragged out into the street and shot.
Then who would I work for.
I really dislike them. I also dislike people who would take advantage of stupid people, so that when my happy ass comes along and points out...um, you've been taken for a ride big time you know that...I look like some kind of rat.
Generally speaking, people are pretty ignorant about websites. They have little clue what kind of work goes into one. The code behind it. The design. Actually I think they don't *care* but hey. Doesn't matter.
I develop websites. I come up with the design, make the graphics, do the behind the scenes coding so it works how and where it's supposed to work. My stuff is cross-platform, cross-browswer compatible, which, when I say that, usually makes people's eyes roll back in their heads. It would horrify them what I sit and do all day.
Now, when I take over an existing website, generally the code is horrible so I toss it. Actually all the code is always horrible. Because someone's sister's cousin did the site in frontpage 3 years ago. It's a nightmare. I can rebuild it though. Make it better. Faster. Stronger. I can drag these sites into the 21st century kicking and screaming.
A server, if you don't know, often comes with the decrepid website. Oh now here's some fun boy. People telling me they're paying $20 a month for 250mg of space and 5 gigs of transfer. No frills. No PHP, no CGI, nothing.
Hell. Free sites come with that.
So I get to say um, yeah, your site is gonna be too big to fit in 250 mgs of space (400+ page graphics intensive website as well as login script), so you need more. And oh by the way, someone's been fucking you up the ass for the past 2 years...that hurt? Did they at least use lube? Give you a blow job every month? Something? Cause damn, I'm a woman and even I wouldn't want to be fucked THAT hard.
Now I get to deal with the people who run the site. The admins. Fun fun. The people pulling out their respective cocks to fuck the people I now work for. I'm never sure if I should smack them or congratulate them. But now I have to deal with them and say yeah, I want at least 10 gigs of space and 200 gigs of bandwidth, just to be safe. I want cgi capability, I want ColdFusion on it, I want PHP, I want database and email capability jesus CHRIST man where's your decency. And I want all this for under $10 a month. Cause I can get it for about $5 online with another host. Just giving you the courtesy because these people who are my bosses seem to like you.
Maybe they've just been fucking the bosses so long, the bosses have come to like it.
Maybe stupid people should be dragged out into the street and shot.
Then who would I work for.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
Slide
I have no clue how to start this. Even need to go find the theory on the way of the warrior, because I really don't wanna quote it wrong. I'm online, I could go right now and find it. Slap it up there and look like I really do have it all together.
I'm sliding.
Sliding is like one step above laziness. Because in the end, I don't want to go find this theory and quote it, especially if it makes me trendy or clever. I know what it means. Does it matter if a mass of faceless people know? No. Not to me. The people I hang out with, they know what it means. Cause they do it all the time.
Though I do feel like I gotta explain that now. I'm not some bum who sits on her ass all the time, too lazy to get up and do anything, or care how she looks. I work hard while I'm at work. I play hard when I'm not. I spend a lot of time up in the mountains outside of Boulder, hiking, snowboarding...ok mostly falling when I'm snowboarding still. I'm learning how to skateboard. I'm trying to re-learn french and teach it to a few friends so we can talk about the trendy ski people when they're being assholes. In fact I'm so active, that I'm shedding body fat like a winter coat. A few years playing mmorpgs put like 30 pounds on me that I didn't ask for. Now I'm getting rid of it.
So sliding isn't traditional laziness. I just don't care. I don't want to be socially acceptable, beyond being able to keep a job. I don't have a career. I don't have goals or ambitions for greatness in the corporate world. I don't care to climb your corporate ladder. I'd much rather watch as it falls, take my skateboard and go on my way. I design websites, but I do that cause it's fun. Not because it ever made me a lot of money. Actually made me kinda an outcast in Binghamton, NY, where there were only 3 other people designing sites, all of which were guys. Not a lot of women do it here either. Maybe computers scare the pretty rich girls. Who knows.
So I took up skateboarding this winter. It was a nice winter in Boulder, I could. Whenever it's sunny and above 40, I'm out there for hours, trying not to die on this lil piece of wood. It's a total rush, I love it. I love it so much that I get bummed when it gets dark. Or snows. I'd say rain, but we're in Boulder now boys and girls. Doesn't really do a lot of raining here. When it's nice, I travel everywhere with that lil board because there just might be a sweet spot of pavement for me to go practice on, wherever I'm going. And I'll drop everything to skate around for a few hours, perfecting balance, getting ticking down at a speed, finding the sweet spot on the board with my toes...just to be on it. The world can fuck off, I have skating to do.
Since I've been carrying this board around with me, I find people behaving differently. Which is awesome. I dress up for work, dresses, skirts, heels, jackets, so I deceptively look like I belong to the adult world. Teachers, other business people will smile at me and even say good morning. Everyone's nice, warm.
When I bring the board, I'll wear my boarding clothes and bring my formal stuff to work, change there. Well. Things are different then, boy. The same teachers and business people refuse to look me in the eye. They scowl when I flip the board up to get on the bus. Suck at their teeth when I ride up to the stoplight. I get nods and little greetings from other skateboarders especially. The atmostphere changes.
I like it.
I don't ever want to be mainstream. I don't want to be like anyone else. I'm already not like any woman I've ever known; not like any woman any man I've met, has known either. That's great. Women are chronically insane, I don't wanna be like that. I don't spend more than 20 minutes getting ready for any occasion. I paint my nails cause I like the raspberry color, but it never lasts more than a day before I'm chipping it skateboarding or snowboarding or something. Ok I dye my hair. That's my girly thing. I hate shopping, especially when I don't have any money or I'm not dead sure what I want. I have like 4 pairs of shoes. And that's only cause I needed hiking shoes and flip flops, living here. My closet isn't even entirely full; I don't collect clothes. I don't collect anything fluffy...if you look in my one room apt, there's nothing ornamental in it. Waste of space, that shit is, just more stuff to dust.
Money doesn't entirely matter outside of paying rent and bills, either. Yeah I wouldn't mind winning the lottery but I don't play. I don't wanna be ms. corporate and have all this money and all the stress that goes along with it. I wouldn't mind striking it rich at something...like a one hit wonder kind of thing. Something where I don't have the pressure to keep it up all the time. Bam, be brilliant, rake it in, sink back into the shadows and live to be happy. A book would do that. Working on that, off and on. Website design won't do that. Not doing it alone, anyway.
The people I hang with, most of them travel along the same wavelength as this. Work is not your life, it's just something you do for money. May as well get a job you like, as long as it pays the bills who cares if it's going anywhere. Going anywhere...it's going in the bank, that's it. What I do outside of work is so much more important. That's where life is. On the deck of a skateboard. On the side of a mountain. On that trail you leave and hike for hours into the wilderness. In the moment you do something you fear doing and find out you can't stop doing it.
It's taken me most of my life to find people who think the same way I do. I'm grateful every day I get to spend around them. I get to really be me around them, no filter, nothin. And they dig me, they keep calling me to go hang out. Helps immensely to shed a restrictive past and finally come into my own, finally be me.
I'm sliding.
Sliding is like one step above laziness. Because in the end, I don't want to go find this theory and quote it, especially if it makes me trendy or clever. I know what it means. Does it matter if a mass of faceless people know? No. Not to me. The people I hang out with, they know what it means. Cause they do it all the time.
Though I do feel like I gotta explain that now. I'm not some bum who sits on her ass all the time, too lazy to get up and do anything, or care how she looks. I work hard while I'm at work. I play hard when I'm not. I spend a lot of time up in the mountains outside of Boulder, hiking, snowboarding...ok mostly falling when I'm snowboarding still. I'm learning how to skateboard. I'm trying to re-learn french and teach it to a few friends so we can talk about the trendy ski people when they're being assholes. In fact I'm so active, that I'm shedding body fat like a winter coat. A few years playing mmorpgs put like 30 pounds on me that I didn't ask for. Now I'm getting rid of it.
So sliding isn't traditional laziness. I just don't care. I don't want to be socially acceptable, beyond being able to keep a job. I don't have a career. I don't have goals or ambitions for greatness in the corporate world. I don't care to climb your corporate ladder. I'd much rather watch as it falls, take my skateboard and go on my way. I design websites, but I do that cause it's fun. Not because it ever made me a lot of money. Actually made me kinda an outcast in Binghamton, NY, where there were only 3 other people designing sites, all of which were guys. Not a lot of women do it here either. Maybe computers scare the pretty rich girls. Who knows.
So I took up skateboarding this winter. It was a nice winter in Boulder, I could. Whenever it's sunny and above 40, I'm out there for hours, trying not to die on this lil piece of wood. It's a total rush, I love it. I love it so much that I get bummed when it gets dark. Or snows. I'd say rain, but we're in Boulder now boys and girls. Doesn't really do a lot of raining here. When it's nice, I travel everywhere with that lil board because there just might be a sweet spot of pavement for me to go practice on, wherever I'm going. And I'll drop everything to skate around for a few hours, perfecting balance, getting ticking down at a speed, finding the sweet spot on the board with my toes...just to be on it. The world can fuck off, I have skating to do.
Since I've been carrying this board around with me, I find people behaving differently. Which is awesome. I dress up for work, dresses, skirts, heels, jackets, so I deceptively look like I belong to the adult world. Teachers, other business people will smile at me and even say good morning. Everyone's nice, warm.
When I bring the board, I'll wear my boarding clothes and bring my formal stuff to work, change there. Well. Things are different then, boy. The same teachers and business people refuse to look me in the eye. They scowl when I flip the board up to get on the bus. Suck at their teeth when I ride up to the stoplight. I get nods and little greetings from other skateboarders especially. The atmostphere changes.
I like it.
I don't ever want to be mainstream. I don't want to be like anyone else. I'm already not like any woman I've ever known; not like any woman any man I've met, has known either. That's great. Women are chronically insane, I don't wanna be like that. I don't spend more than 20 minutes getting ready for any occasion. I paint my nails cause I like the raspberry color, but it never lasts more than a day before I'm chipping it skateboarding or snowboarding or something. Ok I dye my hair. That's my girly thing. I hate shopping, especially when I don't have any money or I'm not dead sure what I want. I have like 4 pairs of shoes. And that's only cause I needed hiking shoes and flip flops, living here. My closet isn't even entirely full; I don't collect clothes. I don't collect anything fluffy...if you look in my one room apt, there's nothing ornamental in it. Waste of space, that shit is, just more stuff to dust.
Money doesn't entirely matter outside of paying rent and bills, either. Yeah I wouldn't mind winning the lottery but I don't play. I don't wanna be ms. corporate and have all this money and all the stress that goes along with it. I wouldn't mind striking it rich at something...like a one hit wonder kind of thing. Something where I don't have the pressure to keep it up all the time. Bam, be brilliant, rake it in, sink back into the shadows and live to be happy. A book would do that. Working on that, off and on. Website design won't do that. Not doing it alone, anyway.
The people I hang with, most of them travel along the same wavelength as this. Work is not your life, it's just something you do for money. May as well get a job you like, as long as it pays the bills who cares if it's going anywhere. Going anywhere...it's going in the bank, that's it. What I do outside of work is so much more important. That's where life is. On the deck of a skateboard. On the side of a mountain. On that trail you leave and hike for hours into the wilderness. In the moment you do something you fear doing and find out you can't stop doing it.
It's taken me most of my life to find people who think the same way I do. I'm grateful every day I get to spend around them. I get to really be me around them, no filter, nothin. And they dig me, they keep calling me to go hang out. Helps immensely to shed a restrictive past and finally come into my own, finally be me.
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