09 April, 2008

IF I HAD SKATED YESTERDAY!:



Yesterday I walked around the local skate park because the outdoor section just opened for the year. Then I walked around the local college's campus to see what I am missing now that I can't skate.

...Why the masochism?...

And, since I can't skate, I made up this story on what happened yesterday. I made sure the experience sucked so I wouldn't hate the fact that I'm now lame and can only walk.

...Maybe I need Heelys...

Anyway: "Yesterday":

Skating sucked yesterday... In the outdoor section, all the (wooden) ramps at the skate park were warped from the winter, and dropping in was like picking my way through a minefield... "OK I'll drop in here, have to miss those nails and that indentation (on the vertical part of the ramp, no less), then deal with the crack right before the fun box (at some parks not-so-aptly named), then immediately get my feet together for a 180 -- but have to jump before the exposed screw at the top of the box -- then land and navigate fakie (backwards) between the water puddles."

After only two hours of dealing with the not-so-fun boxes and treacherous ramps I ended up going to Lummox University. The place is even more of a skate park now than it was when I was a teenager, learning everything I know now. I was totally blown away: the perfect street course. Rails of all lengths and gradations of steepness, a huge gap to 180 over that allowed you to choose, by picking your launch spot, how far you needed to jump and how far you wanted to drop, and on and on.

And all within an area the size of a football field.

Why did I even go to the park? I already had jammed my left shoulder by misjudging my speed when launching to a disaster soul... I had no idea I would be going as fast as I was, since I hadn't dropped in on the ramp I used until that trick, and so I seemed to hang in the air after my jump, waiting to come down to earth so my skates could catch the ledge. My back skate did, but by then my front foot didn't know what to do with itself. I had almost launched the entire fun box, and I was straightening my skate out to land on the flat just when it caught the last half-foot of the ledge.

This made my front foot wash over the top of the ledge. which led to my entire body spinning ninety degrees atop the ledge, then to me taking the two-foot drop (from ledge to ground -- five feet for my shoulder) on my shoulder. At speed.

Back to the university:

I decided to give it a go at my favorite rail of all time -- an aluminum tube made smooth by thousands of previous grinds, hundreds of them my own -- long enough to make you proud you could actually lock in and ride out your grind for that long, but not long enough that if you fell you would be going too fast and hurt yourself (the rail runs down eleven steps).

I had a porn star (grind -- my balance mostly on the soul of my front skate, my back skate on the rail between my second and third wheels) locked in on my fourth try, but was a little off balance when I came off the rail fakie, my preferred may to dismount rails (the best-looking), with my left wheels not quite level with the ground. My boot was almost sliding along the concrete -- and all my weight was on that skate. This caused me to bend my knees until my ass almost touched the ground and my arms to spin like windmill blades as I attempted to get my balance onto my right skate.

Suddenly my left foot gave out entirely. My left skate's ankle strap exploded which, I soon found out, carved scrapes into my lower leg as it buckled into the skate. The scrapes on my lower leg, together, look like a shark bite.

(From pseudo-landing the grind to buckle explosion took only about two seconds, in which I covered a distance of about five feet.)

Naturally, I immediately removed the broken skate and heaved it into a wall while yelling FUCK! as loud as I could. I had almost proved to myself that I was perhaps three-fourths as good a skater as I had been almost a decade ago.

...My behavior is not kid-friendly in that it is completely childish, I thought as some parents who walked by gave me reproachful looks, holding their kid's head between them as though trying to insulate his mind from the word I had yelled. They turned away from me the moment I looked at them, vehement, likely afraid that my anger at botching the landing could be turned on them...

I calmed down an iota as I thought the situation over, seething while examining my skate: that's what the ankle strap is for: to break in a situation that would otherwise break your ankle. So I suppose I can't complain too much.

I should definitely use the broken-skate-thing as a reason/excuse to finally quit skating... But my christ it's harder to give up than smoking...

[Lots of fiction lately. I apologize, but guarantee it's more interesting than any presentation I could give of my actual life.

In case you're curious:

Pain seems to be about 5/10 with 40mg OxyContin daily, but more experience at this dose is, of course, necessary.

Anxiety with 6mg Klonopin daily: 5/10. A friend and I agreed a few days ago that "If you're not freaked right the fuck out all the time, you're not thinking hard enough."

...The things you let yourself believe to get by...]

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