Roller Derby

You will be recognized and honored as a community leader.

Hmmm. Yup, this has definitely been on the brain. I’ve been a freelance writer now for almost two years, and believe me, it has it’s perks. No rush hour traffic. I can go to the grocery store in the middle of the day, when it’s empty. I can simmer a sauce while I work. Clothing is optional.

The drawback is I spend way too much time with myself. 

During the past two weeks, this wasn’t much of a problem. I was busy getting wooed by The Boy from New York City. Unfortunately, he turned out to be an asshole. So, despite the aforementioned Sweat, I have now given him up–without regret.

So, since it appears I am Alone Again, Naturally, I’ve been brainstorming ways to get out there and become part of a community. I would like to say that I want to rock AIDS babies at my local hospital, or perhaps lead a crusade against toxic waste dumping. But if I’m really honest with myself, the community that has recently lit my fire is Austin’s Roller Derby League.

This interest was inspired by Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut, Whip It. It’s the story of 17-year-old Bliss Cavendar, played by Ellen Page, who escapes from her small-town life of beauty pageants and pork-slinging to become a roller derby girl in nearby Austin. Suddenly she is surrounded by local rough-cuts, equally proud of their tattooes and bruises. Cavendar is “in love” with the sport, and as she skates her way to a new identity, she shows audiences how female identity itself is ever-evolving.

On Saturday nite, I had the privelege of checking out the real thing– as a spectator. The Hellcats came up from the bottom in the second half  and defeated the previously undefeated Cherry Bombs. Like Cavendar, I was in love. Sure, I was seduced by the spectacle of it all– the fishnet tights, the neon-glow outfits, Cats and Bombs duking it out in pillow fights, tug-of-war, and long jumps.

But I also, quite simply, loved watching them skate. It was the coolest display of fun and freedom I had seen in a long time. And I loved that when they fell down, they always got back  up.

Quite the metaphor for my dating life, yes?

Roller derby draws spectators that are equally refreshing. This is not the mainstream Austin that has left me increasingly bored– there are no wine tasters, no yoga-goers, and I highly doubt these folks shop at Crate and Barrell. No, it’s a gritty bunch. The women wore sequined jeans, and the men air-guitared along with the half-time metal band. Kids turned out for the fun, too. The seven-year- old girl behind me, exclaimed, “When I grow up, I want to be a Hell Cat.” If that’s not community service, I don’t know what is.

Now, I’m not rushing out to Academy for a pair of skates. I’m real with myself. I’ve never been sporty, and I’m too old to start adding injuries to my resume. But I do want to find my tribe, as Bliss Cavendar did. I’ve been tossing around ideas. Ghost hunting? Tea tasting? Knitting? Swing Dancing? I don’t know. I’m making lists and checking them twice. The service element, the good-for-humanity, the honor and leadership part… well, that will have to come later, after I fall in love with whatever new world I immerse myself in.

Until then, thanks to Drew Barrymore, the Hellcats, and the Cherry Bombs for their unique contribution to feminism. You gals may not save the world, but you sure as hell make it a lot more fun. Roll on.

Sweat

What we acquire without sweat we give away without regret.

Readers, do you recall the date I went on last week? Well, apparently my duck was not cooked. He asked for a second date, which took place last nite.

As fate would have it, the Alamo Ritz was showing a Billy Wilder flick called The Fortune Cookie. I figured this was an ideal second date. If I managed to humiliate myself, at least I would still be covering creative ground.

But all turned out quite well, indeed.  After the movie we walked around downtown looking for someplace to eat. This was rather challenging, as it was after 10:00 on a week nite. Luckily my date is also from New York, so if you’ve ever seen Annie Hall or When Harry Met Sally, you’ll understand that this really wasn’t a problem. Native New Yorkers, despite our reputations for high-maintance , desire little from an evening beyond walking and talking. And walking and talking. And then more walking and talking.

Unfortunately for me, this activity inevitably comes with a great deal of sweat. I am a sweater. I am worse than Nixon. I am one of those face-scalp sweaters, which means I often appear as if I’ve been caught in the rain. I’m not obese, nor is there anything medically wrong with me. It’s just one of my many quirks.

When we finally found an open restaurant, I sat across from my new friend, and when he beamed at me, I felt…well, a bit like a goddess, actually. And believe me, the damage was severe. A trip to the ladies room revealed something on par with 12 hours of labor, or perhaps a heart attack. But nevertheless, a goddess he saw. Unbelievable. I was even sweaty when he kissed me goodnight– three times– on the corner of 7th and Trinity before an audience of homeless people.

This morning I discovered more remnants from the night’s adventures: Blisters. Eleven, to be exact. And so here I am,  soaking my traumatized feet, and reading my fortune cookie:

Confucius say, “What we acquire without sweat we give away without regret.”

Truly, Fairy Buddha Godmother, you have the strangest sense of humor.

But you’re also right. He’s one I’d sure like to see again.

Mature Trees–Part II

You find what you’re looking for just open your eyes!

The oak tree on the side of the house decided that it had grown mature enough. His roots pulled from the ground, and I swore I heard him scream. He fell gracefully onto the group of three trees in my landlord’s front yard. She had decorated them to look like faces, so the past few months has been a bit like living in the land of Oz. But now those trees, too, are laid to rest.

The small army of tree workers arrived, and they slowly began removing the trees from our properties. The neighborhood women, dressed in their expensive exercise attire, stood by watching, solemnly shaking their heads, and saying, “It’s so sad.”

Sergeant Tree Dude says that the trees in this neighborhood could all come down during the next big storm. It’s their time. 

One of them decided not to wait that long. In that same graceful, almost slow motion way, it came down. It’s laying across my landlord’s roof, but except for one dent, harmless as a fender bender, the house if fine. Of course, the tree army had to leave before cutting it down. I’ve been informed that a strong wind could roll it onto another tree, one  beside my house. If that happens, I’ll most likely have a tree in my dining room.

And then there’s the gas leak. The trees broke one of the lines, and then I couldn’t smell those slow-cooked apples so well anymore.

I stood out in the street in the drizzle until they turned the gas off. I looked at that funny little house, and I knew the fortune was right.

Confucius say, “You find what you’re looking for just open your eyes!”

It’s true. It’s exactly what I want. I may not have this home forever. Heck, if a storm comes in, I may not have it tomorrow.  But I always want to feel the way I did this morning, which is safe and at peace in my own home. I never used to be that way. Only ten years ago, my family called me “the wandering waif.”  I was living overseas, and as soon as I got a wad of cash, I headed for the nearest plane, train, or ship. Experience and adventure was what I wanted back then. Four walls, furniture, an extensive collection of hard cover books– these were only things that could weigh a person down. At least, that’s what I thought at the time. Now I think maybe I was afraid of feeling like I did today, standing in the drizzle, wondering if my house was about to blow up.

Today, I am left with more questions than answers. In the movie Up, the main character empties his belonging out the door, and then his house lifts away into the heavens. This freed him up to have new adventures. Am I anchoring myself by caring so much about this place? Fairy Buddha Godmother, are the fallen trees your way of telling me that my attachment to a puddy-colored duplex is silly, my belief in permanence futile? Are you telling me to leave? Or are you telling me to fight for what I have?

Mature Trees–Part I

You find what you’re looking for just open your eyes!

Okay, it’s been an intense day. So intense, I need two posts to deal with it properly.

Confucius say, “You find what you’re looking for just open your eyes!”

(Again, this is the fortune verbatim, not my sloppy writing.)

When I received this fortune, I had just returned from yoga.

(By the way, I got a great deal on their Unlimited yoga pass, so perhaps that’s what my Buddha Fairy Godmother had in mind with that whole “unlimited opportunities” fortune. And meanwhile I go and get all sappy about the creative process…)

Anyway, today’s fortune seemed quite appropriate, because Kundalini Yoga is the yoga of awareness. It’s more than just stretching and breathing, it’s yoga with all the bells and whistles– chanting, dancing, woven blankets, gong meditation, all of which culminates with a group singing of “The Longtime Sunshine” song. When I descibe it to my family members, their expressions scream: “Oh, shit. She’s a goddamn hippie!”

But eccentric though it may be, I always return from a session feeling both relaxed and awake. Previous to my study, I didn’t think these two words could even exist in the same sentence. When I cracked my cookie, I was thrilled. I opened my eyes, just as the fortune said.  Then I scribbled on and on in my journal loving words about what was most immediately in front of me: Home.

I’ve spent all of my adult life living in apartment complexes, and during those years I would drive to residental neighborhoods and take long, meandering walks along sidewalks and beneath mature trees. Back east neighborhoods like this are not hard to find. But here in Texas, you’re more likely to find a strip mall or a compound of trailers with a sign out front that says “Fireworks: Buy 1 Get 11 Free.”

Well, last April I finally found my storybook residence: a two family house, built in 1947, converted into a duplex.

To be honest, the neighborhood is a tad upscale for my comfort. The porches are lined with white rockers (adult and child-sized), and Adirondack chairs abound with such frequency its as if they sprouted with the magnolias. Most families own dogs, and many are color coordinated with their owners. The other day I saw a pair of tow headed twins walking identical white labradors. And it’s a healthy neighborhood. Everyone jogs, or sprint walks, or cycles.

I’m an odd addition to this idyllic setting. I rent, I’m single, and my Adirondack chairs are plastic. The only person stranger than me is Old Man Polka. (I promise I’ll talk about him in another post…)

Still, I love this place. I love the square kitchen with its high white cabinets and pale green tile. I love that over the gas stove there is a ledge, lined with my tea canister, my sugar bowl, and a little Asian come-here cat. I love the dining room, which is where I am now, writing beneath a chandelier of hurricane shades, brass, and hobnail milk glass. Most of all I love the trees. I live on the second floor, which means that from all ten windows I see branches, leaves, birds, and squirrels. In the mornings, when I do dishes and look out the window, I think: I am Shanghai Girl, and I live in a treehouse.

Anyway, this morning was perfect for a domestic love-fest. We’ve had steady, gentle rain for three days, and the temperature had finally dropped. I read. I slow cooked apples with cinnamon, brown sugar, and nutmeg in the crock pot. For the first time in months I felt the kind of safety and peace I had not known since childhood.

Then I heard a noise in the yard.

My Secret Admirer

One who admires you greatly is hidden before your eyes.

This one is just so well-timed. Yesterday I felt the seasons shift. It rained, gentle yet persistent, and last nite as I drifted off to sleep, the breeze billowed the curtains like ship sails. It’s the time of year when coons get restless and topple garbage cans, and when everything seems dusted with cinnamon.

When the weather turns chilly like this, I think of school images: the sound of an old pencil sharpener, plaid field hockey skirts, notes folded into footballs, doodles in notebook margins. And then, of course, I think about crushes. It doesn’t hurt that I’m reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. Sure, it’s the story of a murder, but Sebold shows us tender glimpses of first love: a gold half-a-heart necklace; a love note torn by birds and woven through a nest; skipping school in an empty auditorium.

So, perhaps I do have a secret admirer. This is the perfect season for that sort of thing. But I won’t use this space to try and figure out who it is. That would just be embarassing. Instead, I’ll ponder what it would be like to be wooed by a secret admirer. Not the realistic version, though. In real life, I’d get a text message that says, “Ur Cute!” or he’d use Facebook to kidnap me to the Galapogos Islands. No, I’m going to wish for a grotesquely idealistic courtship bereft of iPhones and Blackberries. Ready?

Dear Secret Admirer,

Woo me as if I were Rosalind, and affix loving odes to tree branches. Observe my cleverness, and give me a mystery to unravel. Embedded sententious phrases in crossword puzzles or leave offerings in the hollow of an old tree. (But do not use any of these ideas exactly.)

Do not use Instant Messager, Facebook, E-mail, Text Messaging, or Twitter.

Do make use of rooftops, fountain pens, antique stores, root vegetables, yarn, rhyme and meter, references to literature, colored construction paper, chocolate, fundamental principles of geography or life science, buttons, sewing scraps, or circus themes.

Do not use stuffed animals.

Do understand the difference between wooing and stalking.

Sincerely,

Shanghai Gal

Opportunities

You will soon be greeted with unlimited opportunities.

Okay, first off:  I got my big compliment! My dear friend and fellow blogger, Anna, thinks this blog is ”brilliant.” Muchas gracias, Anna. Brilliant is even better than Sexy.

Next, more good news. The Shell station in my neighborhood sells fortune cookies at 10 cents a pop! The business is run by a friendly Korean couple. As soon as I opened the door I was blasted with the scent of fish oil and garlic. Besides the usual sundries and junk food, this remarkable convenience store offers a variety of Japanese beers, decorative chopsticks, and manga comic books. And if you’re nice to them, they’ll let you pet their adorable Pekinese.

This new source for fortunes is a great relief. Less than a week into the project, and already I had visions of a follow-up blog entitled My Life in Elastic Waistbands.

And the best part is, this recent discovery dovetails with today’s fortune.

Confucius say, “You will soon be greeted with unlimited opportunities.”

Indeed. Unlimited fortunes from the Lady with the Pekinese. Isn’t it a comfort to know that something out there comes in unlimited quantities? Right now jobs are scarce, and most people don’t have enough money. Certainly, the number of available men is limited, otherwise I’d be out dating instead of sitting here writing this blog. And guess what else? Here in Texas, we don’t even have enough water. My lawn looks as if has been urinated on by 100 elephants. 

But I got me plenty o’ fortune cookies.

Of course, fortune cookies COULD run out, too. It’s certainly feasible that struggling restaurants , in a attempt to cut costs, could jettison the fortune cookie (and maybe those Chinese Zodiac placemats, too). Then that cool fortune cookie factory in San Francisco would close, and in thirty years I’ll be telling my grandchildren, “Back in my day, there was such a thing as fortune cookies…”

So perhaps the better perspective is that writing itself rests on the principle of unlimited opportunities. Today it’s fortune cookies. Tomorrow it might be hurricane lamps, or an expedition to Madagascar. That’s what I love about writing. I could be flat broke, broken-hearted, fat and ugly, but no one can stop me from putting words together. It’s the one certainty in an uncertain world.

Compliments

You are about to receive a big compliment.

Greetings from my dining room table, where I am currently gorging on take-out Peking Shrimp and Combination Lo Mein. Today my project took me to a little dive called Magic Wok, right in the heart of the University of Texas campus. It’s the sort of place I call a Hangover Hospital. Most other patrons would be horrified by these noodles, glistening with grease, but based on its location, I’d say Mr. Magic Wok has the right idea. And I scored four fortune cookies, so it’s all good.

Confucius say, “You are about to receive a big compliment.”

Now that is more like it, Fairy Buddha Godmother. I like this much better than the dessert fortune. Readers, I shall keep you posted as to whether this forecast materializes.

In the meantime, I can’t help but think about past compliments.  What’s the best compliment I’ve ever received?

When I was a sophmore in college I lived in a coed dorm. One of my neighbors and I shared a mutual interest. (In other words, we wanted to jump each other’s bones.) But before that happened (yes, it did!) my friend played go between and asked him, “What do you think of Nikki?” Now, the gentleman I speak of (who shall remain nameless) was kind of a serious sort. So, with his most serious expression, and in his most serious tone of voice, he said, “I think Nikki is the sexiest woman I have ever met in my entire life.”

Wow. Even just typing that sentence 15 years later gives me a lift. And it just goes to show you that no one can take compliments away from you. We should recall them often. I certainly wish I had remembered that compliment last nite. I went on a date, and Fairy Buddha, I was SO nervous. And you don’t need to tell me, “He probably didn’t notice,” because he came right out and said, “You seem very nervous.”  I know. Ouch.

But, I’m going to do by best to not let that happen again.  From here on out, for the rest of my dating life (which I hope doesn’t last too long…) I am going to remember that 15 years ago I was the sexiest woman Serious Boy had ever met. Then I’ll strut into the coffee shops of America with Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” bowm-bowming through my head.

And to those of you reading, do yourselves a favor and make a list of the best compliments you’ve ever received. Heck, go out and buy a Compliment Notebook and start recording them. Not only will it make you feel like you’re wearing anti-gravity boots, it’ll give your grandchildren something to read at your funeral. We spend so much time cataloging our faults and striving for self-improvement. Why not stop to remember something that makes you feel good?

Cheers,

Sexy Thang

Dessert

It would be good to treat yourself to dessert.

It is Day 1 of my experiment. I’m writing from Din Ho, one of the most authentic Chinese restaurants in Austin. It’s located in one of those shopping centers where all the other establishments are Asian, too: a Vietnamese restaurant specializing in Crab and Asparagus soup, a Vietnamese supermarket, and a joint called Coco’s, an Asian-variety 1950′s soda shop. 

Din Ho is the ultimate Chinese food experience. As soon as I walk in, I see those tell-tale ducks, glistening like candy apples, their necks bent in submission. A pig head glares at me. Craggy fish with bulging eyes skulk through the murky waters of an enormous tank. I order the standard Duck Noodle Soup, although the menu lists over a half a dozen other varieties: Duck Noodle Soup with Chinese Wonton, Duck Noodle Soup with BBQ Pork, Duck Noodle Soup with Dark Meat Chicken, etc.

In a place such as this, I’m sure to start my Fortune Cookie Journey off with a gong, right? I imagine the kind of fortune that has me giving all of my worldly possessions to charity, or, at the very least, speaking in tongues.

Confucius say, “It would be good to treat yourself to dessert.”

Really? That’s my first fortune? My Fairy Buddha Godmother clearly has a sick sense of humor.

Nevermind that I currently own only one pair of jeans that snug. Nevermind that I was recently told, “You should try dating black dudes. They are all about the big booty.” And nevermind that Din Ho doesn’t even serve dessert.

But there it is:  ”It would be good to treat yourself to dessert.”

I decide the only logical way to deal with this silliness is to go next door to Cocos and order some Bubble Tea, which is tea or a frothy coconut drink with tapioca balls, which settle at the bottom of the translucent cup in a way that is rather disturbing . Usually the tapioca balls have pieces of petrified fruit in them, and I order an apple-themed variety. At glance, it’s just another fast food drink in a plastic cup, except that the straw is about twice as thick. That’s so the tapioca balls can pass through. Once they do, you chew them, like gum, except after a while it’s acceptable to swallow. I must admit, I’m a little overwhelmed. It’s a drink and a candy all at once, and I am a big fan of simplicity– especially when it comes to food.

 As I drink this bizzare invention, I think about last Chinese New Year, when about ten of us ate a giant Lazy-Susan feast at First BBQ. Then we ambled across the parking lot to a Bubble Tea shop very similar to the one I’m sitting in now. It was a whole gang of us grown-ups, crammed into the bright shop, balanced on high stools, sucking on those enormous straws, and chewing like kids. We passed around our cups, sampling one another’s tapioca flavors with no fear of germs (this was before Swine Flu, folks). That night I was not overwhelmed at all. I thought Bubble Tea was the coolest thing on Earth, and I was completely happy.

So, I guess, this first fortune wasn’t so silly after all. It reminded me that anything–even Bubble Tea–can glow the light fandango when shared with the right people.

Maybe it it would be good to have dessert. But since I am rarely literal, perhaps it would be good to make more memories with good friends.