my-ruin's Diaryland Diary

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Cronicals of 2006: Roller Derby is a fucking BUSINESS

I have no discipline when it comes to 'blogging'. After years of the existence of this page, its finally mine. No one reads it anymore but me. I love it.

Last time I was here to write I went on and on and on about roller derby. I was really excited and had to get that out somewhere.

I started up with this particular league in July of '06. Worked HARD!! Three 2 hour practices a week, plus 2ish hours driving per practice - do the math, its about 4 hours per practice. I had fun for the most part. After a month or so I was an official league member with the "privilege" of paying $40/month dues + a bunch of start up fees, USARS and all that fun stuff. All in all I spent about $900 in SIX MONTHS! I didn't know I could do that.

I came up with an okay derby name with I won't post due to google. Sometime in October '06, due to a busted knee pad I hurt my left knee pretty badly.

My first contact practice back: in an attempt to jump over another girl who had fallen in front of me, I went and tore my shit up in my right knee. After I landed, I realized I couldn't get up. I sat in the middle of the rink for the remainder of the practice.
I was able to walk around the bar (after practice) okay. I thought it would be like the other leg, where after two weeks I was fine.
This was the beginning of November.
Our expo bout was December 10th. Everything was going on as normal. I was still skating at practice (minus scrimmages) even tho it hurt alot and my leg would swell to a size that would rival the leg of an elephant.
It wasn't until exactly ONE WEEK before out bout that my captains told me (and one other girl with injury) that we wouldn't be skating inthe bout - in front of the entire team.
I was pretty okay with not skating in the bout, I wasn't ready to fall on my knee yet. I was pissed that they didn't say anything before hand (i would have been okay with being a blocker - i hardly ever fall in that position). People had already purchased tickets to come see me. Some of them were coming 80ish miles to this fucking thing (one way)!!! My boyfriend's family had tickets. This part pissed me off most.

We had a month off after the expo bout. I attended ONE practice (and stupid me, gave them $ for dues) before I quit.

I didn't want to quit. I was trying to figure out an alternative with my ONE team mate I liked to talk to.
I asked the chairwoman what I should do, as far as alternatives go and whatnot.
She told me my team is fucked up and asked what was going on with us. I told her I didn't know, but they like to focus on the wrong things and one of our captains has breast cancer - it was a huge mindfuck for all of us I think.

Anyway in our talk she asked "so you woudln't care if you were on a different team?" to which i replied "no, i don't care what team im on. we're ONE league, as long as i'm skating its fine".
Her reply to that was "well skating really isn't the important thing here, roller derby is a business. You did more of yr fair share for the bout but if you want to fuck us now... i don't know thats really fucked up".

Thats when it cemented.

On the car ride home from that one practice after our break, a "team mate" went off on me about how i wasn't doing anything to get back on skates and blah blah. What that translated into was "you don't have health insurance to see a doctor so yr useless to me". At least thats how I took it.

I never stopped skating!!!!!
There are a ton of girls on the league with out health insurance. She also said "if yr gonna quit or become a ref you better decide now, so it doesn't effect the draft". Wow.
Its pretty much all about derby with her as far as this went. At this time I couldn't walk THREE BLOCKS without my leg turning to jello. Never mind derby. This is effecting my every day life. I can't bend, jog...nothing. Still!
In the month I haven't skated I've felt much better

But it feels SO FUCKING GOOD TO LEAVE ALL THAT DAMN DRAMA BEHIND ME.

Roller derby...
There aren't many girls who actually think the sport itself is anything. Its about the ego, the street cred, the coolness factor.
Not me. I can't relate to these fucking people. I'm glad I'm out, but I really miss the drills and the scrimmaging.

12:46 pm - 03.01.07

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