tammytoes

Last night, the Sugar Kill Gang skated to victory at the Rocky Mountain Rollergirls’ Triple Threat Bout, capping off an undefeated short & intense season. Bouts are always a blur for me. Some highlights of last night: dedicated friends and co-workers chanting my name as I rounded the track while jamming, red/blue/pink bodies smackin’ the ground, a nine-year-old telling me that roller derby “is really cool,” warming up to The Dead Kennedys, a torpedo whip in the fourth period, and an unprecedented feeling of teamwork and spirit. I love my team. I trust my team. They move bodies for me. They give me strength. They cheer me on when I knock someone out of bounds. 1,000 people turned out to watch us skate last night. I joke when I tell people this, but it’s the truth: this is the closest thing to a rock star that I’ll ever be. In pink terrycloth. Who could imagine?

The days before I left for NYC, people kept asking me, “What are you going to DO there?” New York City is especially a place for DOING. And people who visit seem to either want to live in the doing or become overwhelmed by it. I went to the city less to do than to be – and spend a few days consciously being, at that. But the doing was wonderful too. So I carry away happy thoughts of conversation over yummy greek food, being asked if I ride horses by the bartender at an Irish pub, murmering in the whispering galley at Grand Central Station, marveling at the bright lights of Times Square, eating a pretzel in Central Park that tasted like a hot dog.

I am a lousy writer about landscape and geography. But New York City is a place that is both concrete and imaginary. The NYC I visit is always somewhat disappointing compared to the one in my imagination. The concrete beneath the feet, the harsh air, the pace of life: abrasive, tough. And then when I step back and marvel at the city as a place where people live, breathe, love and move through their lives, it is immeasurably better than any city I could ever imagine.

Over breakfast at Mud, Lanie and I concurred: it really is all about Elizabeth Bishop.

“Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?”
- Questions of Travel

We went to see Harry and the Potters in Brooklyn at Fort Seriously. Fort Seriously is the home of a cute woman who sold us sexist beer for $2 and her roommate. They are generous, perhaps to a fault, and allow total strangers to use their personal bathroom. They have an adorable skinny dog. As people piled in to watch the show, they stood on Fort Seriously’s couches, perched on their beds, and looked at the occupants’ cd collections. A hundred people and a somewhat grueling set by a cassette tape DJ later, Harry Potter(s) took the stage. If I were tell you how much this rocked, you wouldn’t believe me. Suffice to say that Voldemort did not stop the rock that Saturday night.

We attended the Gotham Girls Championship bout on Friday night at the Skate Key in the Bronx. I cheered on the Queens of Pain, but secretly hoped the Manhattan Mayhem would jam their way to inspired underdog victory. Roller derby can be explained, but it can’t be comprehended until it is witnessed. And then you will be a convert, no doubt. Consider, for a moment, the spectacles: a mascot in a bondage suit working up the crowd to chant “Submit, submit, submit!”; an elementary school birthday party running out on to the track to hug a favorite rollergirl; a crowd of over 1,000 people singing happy birthday to other attendees; fast packs, hard jamming, jammer take-downs; sisterhood on skates; a 10-year-old holding a sign reading “Beat Me” and cheering with glee. The most radical thing about derby? It makes people happy. On the subway returning from the bout, a stranger noticed my skate case and told me just how exciting her first bout was. Another convert.

I landed in a poetry reading, the perfect weather for a Fall arrival in New York City. Lanie was sitting on an old countertop when I walked into Casa, and eight years vaporized in a feeling of surreal familiarity. Later that night, I ate a cupcake with butter icing and drank whiskey out of a paper espresso cup and fell in love with poems about a robotboy. This moody, happy, rainy, literate weather continued all weekend. I walked by these pumpkins on my way to Soho from the Met. Perhaps it’s because I’m in a time of transition, but the orange made me as happy as anything within the museum.