Last Day of Vacation

Today is my last day of my vacation from work.  I know that most of you feel the same way I do about work and are dreading heading back into the office/field/shop or what have you.  I for one, love the company I work for, love the people I work with (for the most part), enjoy getting out of the house daily, and most certainly love getting paid.  But I am sure you would agree that its hard to find the meaning behind it all. Sure, in my job I take checks from customers and apply the payments to the proper invoices, for the service they acquired, for the business that makes something or provides a service to someone else and thus employing others along the way and in the end we all get a paycheck.  But I suppose its only human to want to see some kind of greater good come out of the 2080+ hours we spend each year typing away at a keyboard, pushing a mouse, and shuffling papers.

One of the things I have done recently to fight this feeling of monotony was to become involved in my local roller derby team.  I mentioned earlier in this blog that I had started attending the Ref U! course taught by the Detroit Derby Girls.   I have since completed the course and am now an actual staff member of the league.  I have started working a few bouts, doing NSO positions like Outside Whiteboard, Penalty Box Timer, and Scorekeeper.  It has been fun and exciting so far.  I have met a lot of new people and have been building new friendships all along the way.  It's honestly amazing just how busy derby will keep a person.  I am just a volunteer staff person, without the obligations of mandatory practices, however, in order to make sure I know how to do my job well, I have to practice, obviously.  But its even more than that, its the social events, and the ever changing and evolving business of the DDG.  I came into this thinking that I would get to understand the game better, and that I would get to help out.  For anyone that is out there and looking to get into NSOing, make sure you have the time and the ability to travel. 

Now knowing what is exactly required of me, I now have some decisions to make.  How much do I want to dive into this? Am I happy just wading in the kiddie pool, or would I like to be come certified and eventually work my way up to being a lifeguard? (My apologies for the weird swimming metaphor).  Derby to me right now is still overwhelming.  It seems that any time I have a break from the madness, I start doubting if I want to get back into it again.  But as soon as I show up to practice, the fun floods back and and I am totally geeked all over again! 

I am missing my first, and hopefully only, bout this weekend, and I am sad.   Sad that I will miss watching some of my friends play their first game of the season, and sad that I wont be there for any silliness that goes down or to help Stat Army win the after-party. But part of me knows that if I want to be in control of my own life, and not feel like I am being overwhelmed or giving too much of myself to this crazy sport, I have to say no every once in a while.  I know, you are probably wondering how I could feel overwhelmed when I haven't been around derby much in the past few weeks.  And honestly its more because I have heard the stories of other staff members being burnt out and that is one thing I want to prevent from happening from the get go.  I want to take this at my own pace, and provide as much of myself as I can, but under my own terms and conditions. Its volunteer work. I will do what I can to meet the requirements of my league, but it will be up to me how much more I give.

Sounds crazy right?  I mean how have I gone from super fan to cautious volunteer in just a matter of months... Trust that things happen on a derby league just as fast as they do on the track. Am I happy I got involved? Absolutely!  But I am taking it one day at a time, one practice at a time, one bout at a time, and one season at a time. There is no sense in making this fun job as painful to go back to as my real job.

Talk About Needing A Sick Day

Wednesday I had sushi with Matt at our favorite location, Wow Sushi, and he was still recovering from a cold that knocked him out last week. By the end of class that night I was starting to get the feeling I was coming down with something, my throat was sore, my nose a little stuffy, it wasn't good news.

By the next morning, when I should have been getting ready for work, I was feeling awful, and knowing that this cold had kept a few of my friends home from work for a few days I thought that maybe I could stay home, get some rest and maybe take this thing out before it got any worse. I called in sick to work, slept till about 11 and ate some grapefruit, an orange, really trying to get some good vitamin C in me.

Mikey, being the greatest boyfriend ever, decided to make some homemade chicken noodle soup for me. He had to leave for a little while, so I got the chicken in the pot and got it boiling. When the chicken was done, I pulled it out and started working on cutting up some veggies, starting with my least favorite the onion.

My family loves to tease me about how accident prone I am in the kitchen, I have cut my fingers, burned my hands, and drop endless amounts of food on the floor, for Diesel to come by and gobble up. So there I was, all alone in the house, and I nearly slice the tip of my finger off. I rush to the sink and get it under some water at just the right time to see my mommy pull up. Its funny how we can have situations under control until we see mommy and then break down like little children. Oh yea, I start to cry and she comes in and thankfully she's been studying medical everything, so she goes and gets some gauze and some tape and gets it to stop bleeding long enough for her to look at it and try to determine if I need stitches. Rule of thumb is that if a cut is on your hands, feet or face, you should get stitches cause you move them too much for it to heal right. Thankfully, I am skilled at slicing my fingers, and my knife was nice and sharp so it appeared to be staying closed without assistance.

With a new band aid, my mother then asks, "When was your last tetanus shot?" Good question, I think I was still in high school the last time I ever volunteered my arm for a good needle stick. Which actually, as I think of it, my last tetanus was just before I fell off a ladder onto a box of nails, while I was building the set to the show Fall of the House of Usher, in tenth grade. So my answer was about 10 years ago. She insists that I get a new one. So off the the pediatrician that she works for part-time to get a lousy tetanus shot. And I didn't even get a lollipop.

So now, my arm hurts, my head hurts, my finger kinda hurts, but its actually more annoying with a band aid on it, I can't breath and I am still home sick from work.