Don't Be Stupid

Doctors and nurses wear masks for hours in the operating room. Soldiers wear gear in the desert countries, covering their faces for months. Hunters wear silly looking camouflage to, well hunt. So please wear a mask when you're in Walmart or Costco or the Piggly Wiggly. The Broadway community lost an incredible talent in Nick Cordero recently. I didn't know him, but I saw him on the Tony Awards and all I can say is WOW!! Talented, nice AND good looking? He was also very healthy with no pre-existing conditions. And he died of COVID-19. How healthy are you? Healthy enough to take that risk? Because it's like playing Russian Roulette and every chamber except one, has a bullet. Do you really want to point the gun to your head and fire? I recently read a post from a skater who declared that she and her ice dance partner would NOT wear a mask in competition. Don't be surprised if you're disqualified. I don't know. Is skating more important that my health? No. Do I want to return to the ice? Of course. Is it worth dying for? Not even close. Just wear a mask people. No one is taking away your rights; stop trying to play the victim. Many of those who are screaming that wearing a mask takes away their rights are the same fools who are calling the cops on black people for standing, sitting, reading, bird watching, waiting for a tow truck, leaving a store, walking down the street or just being. Long story short: wear a mask. Don't be a "Karen". Don't be stupid. Don't you want to live to skate another day?

I'm Tired - Off Topic

Long time, no see. And today's post will be off-topic, to a point. You see, I'm tired. I'm tired of seeing videos of black people minding their own business and having some nosy pain-in-the-ass say they don't have the right to be there. I'm tired of these same people calling the police because they feel "threatened" by someone sitting on a bench, walking in a parking lot, going to a mailbox, walking to their apartment. I'm tired of the police-calling people believing that they are right and SHOULD call the police because, well, why not? I'm tired of the police beating up on people. And killing them. And since they police themselves, what do you know, they get away with it. Black Lives Matter. That's not to say YOUR life doesn't matter, but to the police and many officials, black lives don't matter. The last time black BODIES mattered to those racist people, we were on the auction block. These are the same people who have no problem with the Confederate flag, or their generals, but understand how seeing anything related to the Nazi regime could trigger emotions to others. It's the same for black people. The same emotions. The same anger. Recently, a post blew up on one of the skating groups I belong to on Facebook. A woman was upset because of the protests and the people who were not wearing masks. What upset her was those people were allowed to protest without masks, but she couldn't skate. Skating was her therapy. This was translated by many people in the group as "my not being allowed to skate is as important as the protests over Black Lives Matter". Needless to say, it caused quite the stir. We all want to skate; I understand that. But, not being able to skate will not get you killed. Being black, CAN get you killed. There is no comparison. There are too many bullies on the police force. I should know, I went to school with two of them. One of them used to light firecrackers and hold on to them until almost the last second, and then throw it at someone. And laugh. I think he's a captain now. The other one would try to start fights with smaller kids; he tried to start a fight with me once. My dad, being my dad, taught me how to fight. I kicked that boy in the nuts; he never bothered me or my friends again. I think he's a captain too. Cell phone cameras help, but the police usually get a slap on the wrist and are out at the local bar before the person they've killed has been buried. All the cell phone footage in the world isn't going to help if the procedure is corrupt. Those slaps on the wrist will continue because it doesn't effect most people. Think about it. Do you know anyone who has been stopped, harassed or questioned by the police while going about their business? I do. Me, my sisters, and almost every black person I know. A bouncer at a club who stopped a fight was killed by police basically because he was the only black person around, so must have been guilty. The cops broke into a woman's apartment with a no-knock warrant and shot her; they had the wrong apartment and she was asleep. I could go on, but I'm just too tired. Tired of the hate.

How Long Has This Been Going On???

Working from home has advantages: you don't have to change out of your pajamas, but you should. Showering is also an excellent idea; please do it. I think this is week 3 since the virus has taken over everything and while shelves are void of toilet paper (please explain THAT to me), life is pretty much normal. It's times like this that you realize how bad your internet is or how to tolerate the people you love when they won't keep still or just know they are always right about everything. And I mean everything. According to Instagram and Facebook, several adult skaters are using Pic-Skates to skate outside while awaiting the coast to be clear. If it's nice outside and you're in a park and there are a lot of people around you, isn't that defeating the purpose of social quarantine? I am reminded of the people outside my apartment building who decided to have a party on Friday night. How was that helping? I myself and trying to keep from drinking every alcoholic drink in my apartment. So far, we still have something left. Between working 12 hour days and drinking, somehow my sleep isn't what I would have expected. It's not terrible, but if I have one more dream about living in the old west during a cholera outbreak, I think I'm going to scream. Keep yourself busy. I set my watch to go off every 90 minutes so I can do something active, like kettle bell swings, sit-ups, push ups or a 5 minute spin. On Saturday, I spent 30 minutes trying to put on false eyelashes. I succeeded in getting eyelash glue all over my face and one eyelash stuck to my eyelid, but no where near the right location. We will get past this. As some of you know, I am in NYC. I have a dear friend who thinks NYC is going to become like the movie Escape from New York. I've never seen it. All I know is Kurt Russell wears an eye patch and NYC is a prison. We are New York. We survived Hurricane Sandy. We survived losing so many during the throws of the AIDS crisis. We survived 9/11. We will survive this. Will be bruised? Probably, but we will endure. Be careful out there. How Long (Has This Been Going On) recorded by ACE. Written by Paul Carrack.

A Spanner In The Works

For those who don't know, a "spanner" is a British term for wrench. And spanners, we have in spades. Where do I begin??? I had a long talk with my coach about dance, and how I hate it. However, it has assisted in my flow, so I told her I would continue, but I would not spend an entire lesson on dance. Not now, not ever. She agreed, somewhat reluctantly. Being 5'6" and having long legs makes a very good line in dance; but it helps if you enjoy it. I'm working on it. So I re-cut my new music. This music holds a special place in my heart; it was the last piece my mother recommended. And yes, it's slow; it's very bluesy. Think film noir. It's been choreographed using those elements I have right now. I've already thought of some things I'd like to add as time goes on. I had ordered a dress from China, in early February. They said it would take ten days to arrive. Twenty days later and I was started to be concerned because I didn't have any shipping information. So, I went to a dance clothing website and ordered two black dresses. They were lovely. One arrived, almost choked me while I was putting it on, so I requested that they exchange it for the largest size. They agreed. I have that dress and while I can lift my arms in it, it's still a dance dress size XL, which translates to a large. I'm not a large right now; I'm an XL. Sectionals (Easterns since I'm on the east coast) came around and I was not participating. However, they did have a second-hand shop. Two friends saw a beautiful black dress (one had heard my music) and thought it was perfect, and purchased it for me. And it is beautiful. A little small, but beautiful. It fits my music perfectly. The dress I ordered from China sent me notification that it would arrive on April 6th, eight days AFTER my competition. No worries because the second dress I ordered from the dance store also arrived. If you also add the black I already owned and was initially going to wear, I am the proud owner of five black dresses for what will end up being three programs. That's when the spanner was tossed in: the Coronavirus. Slowly, everything screeched to a halt. First, I was told I could work from home if I was sick (I had caught a cold on Tuesday night, by Saturday morning, I was fine). Then my main rink closed. Adult Nationals was canceled. My other two rinks closed and finally my competition was canceled. On top of that, my vacation which was only a trip to Lake Placid was canceled because everything is closed. The rink, Whiteface Mountain, everything. Another stay-cation. I have been reading other skaters' thoughts on the cancellation of AN, Worlds, World Syncho and my competition. I'm trying to be as optimistic as possible, considering I've wanted to do this competition for about six years. It's okay. I will even more prepared for the next competition, which may be in October. I'll be thinner. My jumps will be bigger and stronger, my spins faster and yes, even my dances will be better. (On a side note, I put in two mohawks in my footwork for my program. This way, I'm forced to do them.) So yes, quite disappointing, but such is life. Regarding the virus: STOP WEARING MASKS!!!! If you buy up all the masks, then healthcare workers won't have them when they are taking care of people who HAVE the virus and then it never goes away. You know what you need to do? WASH YOUR HANDS! COVER YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU COUGH AND SNEEZE EVERY SINGLE TIME EVEN IF YOU ARE OUTSIDE! And STOP SPITTING. Okay the spitting thing probably doesn't matter; it's just disgusting. Anybody need a black skating dress?

Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Broadcast

Where in the Sam Hill have I been? It's been longer than a minute since I posted; life kind of got in the way, along with the holidays. So, happy holidays! I actually wrote several blogs by hand but never typed them into the system, so if you will indulge me, I will now give you the short version of all of these entries... Keep in mind, this was around the holidays... I belong to two figure skating groups on Facebook; both about competitive adults. Due to a post about figure skating decorations, a rather heated, mean-spirited debate occurred. Personally, I find figure skating decorations, nick nacks, etc, really fun. From sheets to cups to holiday ornaments, I think it's all fun. Thanks to one group, I now have a new skating mug that doesn't have a blond haired girl doing a counter-clockwise layback spin. But something triggered people in the group. Something about a store that I have never heard of before (I'm not sure it's in my neck of the woods) upset people. I looked up the controversy and all I will say is that the privately owned company is ultra-conservative regarding women's reproductive rights. Do I agree? No. Am I going to berate someone for going to that store? No. It's your money. Skating merchandise on a Facebook page about adult skaters I have no problem with. What I don't want to see on that page is your child skating or doing anything else. Post it to your own page please; I don't care. This is, after all, a page about and for ADULT competitive figure skaters. With that in mind, because someone used the words "recreational skater", it triggered yet still another big, ugly, mean-spirited debate. Those two words upset one (and really only one) member of the group so much that he (I checked) beat the original poster to the ground, stating that this was a competitive group and if you were a recreational skater that you should find another group. The person who wrote those snarky comments hasn't competed in several years and his Facebook page doesn't mention skating at all. Was that a fair definition? Aren't we all, in some respect, recreational? I found the following definition for recreation: Recreation is an activity of leisure, leisure being discretionary time. The "need to do something for recreation" is an essential element of human biology and psychology. Recreational activities are often done for enjoyment, amusement, or pleasure and are considered to be "fun". Unless you also teach skating or are being paid to do a show, isn't that what we are all doing? We all started the same way with "push, glide, push, glide." Struggled with crossovers or turns and stops. Celebrated our first jumps and spins and our first "real" costumes. It was wrong for the triggered individual to go off on the original poster, who had just joined the group and I believe has already left it. I don't care what you call me; I've probably been called it already. That takes me to the Holiday Show I skated in. How can I describe it? The drawing of an old-time train wreck would not download, but that describes it. It all started with none of my skating dresses fitting. My sister was kind enough to go to a dance store and buy me a skirt and a leotard. They didn't fit either. She picked up the largest they had. The leotard fit (thank you spandex), the skirt did not. I found out that the skirt didn't fit the day of the show. No worries, I added some ribbon and tied the skirt to me. Okay, crisis number 1 adverted. I arrive at the rink. Parents, stop giving every adult the stink-eye. I don't care what your kid does, really, I don't. And I don't see you on the ice, so shut up. I'm in the locker room getting dressed (I had on most of my clothes) and a mother is looking at me like I'm going to cook her kid and eat the kid for lunch. I continue listening to my music, trying my best to calm my nerves. You see, I had only skated the program twice to music and was basically making it us as I went. That proved to be a poor choice. My knees were knocking during the warmup. When a kid who didn't reach my hop did a double/double combination, I thought "this was a bad idea". But it was too late; I paid $40 and I was going through with it. The sound system at the rink (at all rinks now that I think about it) wasn't very good. I lost track of who was skating and suddenly it was my turn, but I didn't know it. In my defense, they did mispronounce my name. I pulled off my jacket, forgot to take off my gloves and skated the WORSE PROGRAM OF MY LIFE. I managed to do one jump and no spins. And when it was over, I think I took a bow, skated off, got my bag, changed my clothes went home and had a drink. When I mentioned it to my coach, she said, "well you never practiced it." Touche. This brings us to more recent events. I signed up for a competition at the end of March because I enjoy torturing myself. My music was the second movement in Fancy Free by Leonard Bernstein. My coach and I had a massive difference of opinion about whether or not I felt the music. I simply hated her cheorgraphic choices; I am not a bunny hop person. She suggested the program that was to be my free dance (had I taken the Bronze dances and were going to Nationals; I'm not). She said it was more "dancy" because I wasn't going to get many points for my technical elements (thank you for those kind words). I remembered an old program, but couldn't find the cd, so I downloaded it and cut it, badly, but cut it and sent it to her. It's slow, very slow, funeral dirge slow. I'm waiting to be told it's too fast. My next choice will be one long whole note for two minutes. I have had some confidence issues because of work, school, skating and my weight. It doesn't help to have your coach constantly tell you how good another skater is, especially when at one point, you were better than her. It doesn't help to have someone constantly ask you what you're eating. It doesn't help to have a manager tell you you're wrong all the time, even if it's not your work. I'm working very hard on improving my confidence, I just need everyone to mind their business and shut the freak up. So this brings you up to speed. I'm still here, still a lefty (have you ever tried doing footwork opposite the flow of traffic during a crowded session? It's like playing Frogger. Look it up.), still fat, still trying. "Good times and bum times, I've seen them all and my dear I'm still here. Plush velvet sometimes Sometimes just pretzels and beer But I'm here I've run the gamut, A to Z Three cheers and dammit, c'est la vie I got through all of last year And I'm here Lord knows, at least I've been there And I'm here Look who's here I'm still here" * *I'm Still Here by Stephen Sondheim from the musical Follies - 1971.

Mohawks.... Grrrrr!

I hate mohawks. There, I've said it... again. I hate them. I hate them more than I hate ice dancing. Mohawks are probably the reason I hate dancing. They suck. They suck big time. Okay, MY mohawks suck. And as a result, I hate ice dancing and mohawks. Lately, all of my Sunday lessons have been on ice dancing. The same stupid dance week after week because of my mohawks. I hate the Swing Dance. As a clockwise skater, I don't have the opportunity to use a right inside mohawk. I don't use it for a flip jump, I don't use it for a split jump... I just don't do them. Fast forward to the Silver Moves in The Field and I find myself not only having to do mohawks, but having to do OUTSIDE mohawks. That, in itself is the biggest joke of all. Just an FYI to the figure skating governing body: not everyone has turned out hips. So skating the Swing Dance more than five times in a lesson usually results in achy hips. I suppose I should stretch more often, or I can avoid doing the Swing Dance.

I Wish I Knew

It has occurred to me that in my last post, I quoted a song title in my title that approximately 0.01% of readers will recognize. "What Do The Simple Folks Do?" is from Camelot. Camelot is a musical that seems to have almost been forgotten. It doesn't seem to be produced often, even in regional theatre. With book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Lowe, it's a beautiful score with a song or two that you might recognize. You should give it a listen; but just the original Broadway recording, don't listen to the movie. And that is my musical theatre trivia for this post. You're welcome. Work has been taking up a lot of my time. So much so that I work weekends and should be working now. There has been no consistency in my skating time for the last three weeks. This is due to having one coach who is a technical specialist for competitions, another coach who runs the test sessions at the rink and a third coach who visited her child in college. As a result, I've been sleeping in... shhhhh.... don't tell. However, I have been skating with a lovely group of adults (with a few exceptions that I will explain in a minute). They are so talented. Jumps, spins, footwork.... they're great. And I feel that I belong in a Learn-to-Skate class. Not there is anything wrong with Learn-to-Skate classes. However, at this stage of the game, I expected to be getting better; not worse. There is major hesitation before doing anything. I look like I've just started skating and I've been doing it for years. I have no idea what's going on. And it changes not just from day to day but minute to minute. Suddenly I have trouble doing a waltz jump. Then I can land my loop. Then my salchow goes away and doesn't ever really return. I seem to have lost the ability to spin, but was hitting a decent backspin just two months ago. I can blame this all on a lack of sleep, no exercise, more extra pounds than I need, but I just don't know what's going on. I skated better when my skates hurt so much that my feet would go numb. Now? I just know what to do. Don't get me wrong, my lesson are going fairly well. I have mastered the Rhythm Blues and almost the Swing Dance. Next on the list is the Cha-Cha and something else (I'm still having timing issues with the mohawk on the Swing; it's not my favorite). I can jump, sometimes, when in lesson. My spins, which were my best element, still elude me. And I'm still working on the right forward inside 3 turn which comes and goes like Joe Turner. (Joe Turner's Come and Gone is a play by August Wilson. Read it; it's good. Non-musical theatre trivia for this post.) Once again, I blame everything on my weight. Maybe that's the issue; I don't know. I do know it's frustrating because I look like I can skate and then I try to do something and it doesn't work. It tends to all work when I get really angry. This brings me back to the other adults I've been skating with. These are the idiots who spin in the corners. Who see you doing a program and don't move for you. These are the people you ask to move over because you're about to do an element in your program there, who say "sure" and then don't move. These are the people who cause YOU to fall because they've decided to dart in front of you. These are the people who, after telling them that spinning in the corner is dangerous, almost cut you in the face doing a camel spin. These are the people I threatened to sue if I got hurt because of them. These are the people who cause parents to say, "adults shouldn't skate on sessions with kids" because they don't look where they're going and they don't think the rules apply to them. If you are one of those people, STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW! Jumps go in the corners. Spins are ONLY in the center, unless you are doing your program. No ifs, ands or buts. Those are the rules of EVERY rink I have skated in, regardless of the state the rink is located in. It's for safety and to prevent someone like me from suing you. Back when I was ice monitor, that would get you kicked off the ice. No refunds. I have music to cut since I signed up for a holiday show. Wish me luck.