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.