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.