2006-11-13
Unsteady as She Goes
I got totally drunk last night.
Well, not totally, but for literary effect: Totally drunk, like blotto, constant-stream-of-chatter, zinging one-liners, life-of-the-party loaded.
(Not really but PRETEND, okay?)
So I'm having this thing where the last couple of practices have been sloppy for me. Not so much bad or harder than they should be or even like I'm messing up but they've been mediocre and that's.. not cool.
I like to be in the A Group or else clearly Throwing Everything Away and being a complete fuck-up.
Middle ground allows way too many options and I find that it's difficult to distinguish myself from the others in the Middle.
I decided to drink it up at scrimmage.
That was basically a good decision, since I didn't have a job I had to be doing, since I was kind of feeling uptight and bitchy and since, well between me and the Internet, I need a little escape from derby right now.
I love it, no questions asked.
But it's like this: Usually there's a three month drag from the time you are accepted to the time you take your skills test and are eligible for drafting.
Normally there aren't 20 girls fighting it out for an unknown but assumed to be small number of spots.
We were accepted on August 1.
We haven't tested.
We haven't had a draft.
The date is still unannounced.
I have no idea how I'm doing, physically or in terms of commitment.
Although I am taking things in stride, so to speak, I am also reaching critical mass in terms of wanting some feedback as to how things look for me and what might be coming up in the future for me.
I never hung the derby thing entirely on being drafted to a team but I never ruled it out, either.
At this point, I am confident of my strength of skill but I am also watching my already lacking patience drip away like blood from a gash on my shin or something.
No doubt.
I'm losin' it over here.
Consumed with Stalker Sarah, old-skool obsession with regard to having some official idea of how the hell I am doing.
I feel like we weirdly don't often see some key decision-makers and so there's a very good chance that they don't know my skills.
There's also a good chance that a situation with a raving lunachick of unfounded self-righteousness has colored people against me.
There's a surprisingly limited number of instances where I could be found wincing in pain, flat on my ass, choking back tears, not paying attention, or otherwise sliding down my slippery slope of "Fuck This" and while there aren't many of them, you can be guaranteed that they were witnessed by a key decision-maker.
Obviously, my personality isn't exactly going to close any deals for anyone if maybe they saw my quivering lower lip one night and thought, "I bet she'll grow out of that."
Someone, not a decision-maker, told me that my performance was unexpected.
At first, I thought this was great.
Now I think, "If she didn't see it coming, then why would any key decision-makers see it coming? Why would they choose me if they think I'm not going to be able to do THAT?"
I'm guessing these feelings are going to pass but I should state for the record, that I don't want to be mediocre at this, that I'm not mediocre.
I'm actually really, really good at it and I really, really want a shot at the mext level of it.
arizonasarah at 1:00 p.m.