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ESPN The Magazine Ignores Roller Derby Community by F'n EXpat - 42

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Edit: The original artical posted was the following
ESPN Snubs Roller Derby In Spite Of Overwhelming Fan Vote

Change made after 1st comment below.

Let me Share the Awful.

Last summer I broke my leg.  On the eighth day of having a broken leg I got the flu.  I don't mean lay in bed with body aches flu, I mean jump up and run to the bathroom so your body can turn itself inside out flu. But I had to do that with a broken leg and I wasn't very good at crutches yet and every time I moved my leg fast it hurt. I had it for two days.  Every cell in my body was taxed so hard that on the third day even though I felt better all I could do was lay in bed and have Gatoraide brought to me.  Then, my body hurt from being in bed for so long and I had to flip over every few hours to keep from cramping up into a giant knot of hurt.  Flipping over is hard when you have a broken ankle and no reserves.

That's the whole story.  I got better and my ankle healed and there really isn't any point to this story other than it sucked, a lot and I was sitting here eating toast this morning and thinking "That was awful!" and then I decided to type it out and share the worst out here on the internet, where I will read back one day and agree... yep that was indeed awful. The End.

Rediscovering What's Good

I was trying to describe how loud my house is at any given time in the day to a friend today.  He is young and single.  In my home, about every five minutes someone beckons "Mom!, mom! mom, mom....MOM!" Overlay that with what feels like a continuous soundtrack of Adventure Time or Sponge Bob from the television and whatever You Tube thing is streaming from several personal devices hung from my children's faces and lace it with NPR droning away in the kitchen and the retired neighbour obsessed with leaf blowing and mowing. Throw in the stomping of little feet and laughter and fighting and whining and every five minutes "Mom!, mom! mom, mom....MOM!" and you almost have it.

In the last two days, since the weather cooled down, the kids have rediscovered the forsaken third floor playroom in our home.  Every toy they haven't seen since last spring seems brand new and they're enjoying avoiding the in turn response to "Mom!, mom! mom, mom....MOM!" which is "Did you get your homework done?" "Haven't you watched enough ipad?" and "Who's socks are these?"  Occasionally they sneak down the stairs and into the kitchen for juice boxes and pre-wrapped food to leave on the carpet. (Which reminds me: Ella told me the other day she doesn't like 'crumbly things for breakfast' any more, I have no comment about that I just wanted to note it)

So the last few evenings have been extremely quiet for me.  It's unnerving, having gone from constant noise to just an occasional rumble from the third floor. I feel like I forgot something important.  I keep looking around to see if I left the stove on and walking up to the playroom to peer around the corner at my busy children.  Even now, I have this uninterrupted time to type my thoughts and I keep stopping every few minutes and looking around to see if someone need me to wipe or pour something. I think I'll put the TV on for some noise.

Cue the neighbour's leaf blower.

Correctamundo Kid

Jack liked Halloween because "You can catch some candy and yum it down."

Clueless, Unfunny & Gross

So this comedian I sorta liked tweeted this stuff two days ago about a very nice African-American lady that works on ESPN

Artie Lange @artiequitter · Nov 4

After having 8 illegitimate kids together @CariChampion & I marry at The Knights of Columbus in Linden New Jersey. Prob with that?! F- Off!

Artie Lange @artiequitter · Nov 4

I attempt to whip @CariChampion cuz she disrespected the Jefferson Plantation but she grabs whip & beats me I cum like a fat founding father

Artie Lange @artiequitter · Nov 4

Hey @CariChampion lets me and you get busy!

Pretty offensive right? So people get mad, ESPN says he can no longer go on their network, cue thousands of internet trolls crying about freedom and comedy.  Then the comedian issues this asinine statement:

"I'm about to say a few things I can't believe have to be explained in a rational world. I observed that Cari Champion was a gorgeous lady. I then thought it would be funny to tweet JOKES about that observation. A decision which might be the end of modern comedy. I would rather load trucks for a living then ever apologize to one of these awful PC groups ruining the country. So that's a NO. But if it upset the lady in question that's another story. Let me say to Cari Champion if this hurt u in any way I'm sorry. I'm a comedian. Sometimes I'm funny! For the record my moms disgusted w the tweets. But if I based my humor on my mom I'd be broke.

They're now telling me I can't appear on @Midnight tonight cause of the pressure they're getting from these groups. But who cares. I love the show & it's my living but who cares. These groups have won again. All I care about is Cari Champion. Truly. But I'm sure you'll be ok. You're gorgeous & talented. I hope that didn't offend u. To the PC army. Congrats! U won again! Gluten free cake! I've been asked not to appear on @midnight & uve ruined any chance I had at dating Cari Champion (That was a joke). I'm not racist. I don't hate women. And to u PC groups that did this I wanna be clear. Go FUCK yourselves! Now get back to saving the world. Done. Peace."


I'd like to say: No worries dude, modern comedy will go on without you.

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Best Holidays

Late October mornings are the hardest.  The days start grinding into gear before the sun is even up.  It's so hard, we decided we should all change the fabric of time, en mass to make it suck slightly less.  I'm for it, always have been. There was a time when that extra hour was a celebrated reprieve of bar time and the bonus magical hour on the dance floor.  It was an hour that appeared out of the sheer will of society and damn if I was going to waste it by not dancing and laughing under party lights and upturned Martini glasses. Making it the same weekend as Halloween was genius, ensuring it as the greatest of Party People's holidays.  Now it is the greatest of People Who Always Need Sleep holidays.

Don't Click Play at Work Mom!

Potty-Mouthed Princesses Drop F-Bombs for Feminism by FCKH8.com from FCKH8.com on Vimeo.

Science Kid

Ella opened her homework folder the other day and I heard her squeal with delight, she said

"Ooooooooooh!  Data compilation!"


That's my girl. She's amazing every day.

Two Birds with Gum-ball Machine Ring

Much like how sugar just seems to accumulate in our house from various well meaning bank-tellers and check-out-clerks we also have a good amount of small toys that just appear.  They come from prizes won at school, pridefully cherished right up until the moment my child gets off the afternoon bus and walks in the house at which time I find the "prize" next to the crumpled worn socks of the day in the front hallway.  They are hastily grabbed in a hard fought scrum of children scrambling for the innards of a pinata at a party. They are begged from the edges of parade floats and given after finishing one's nuggets and fries.  They spontaneously appear in the bottom of my purse and in the floor boards of my car, in the pockets of the children and underneath the couch; these hot wheels and whistles, tiny bottles of bubbles, Frisbees with insurance agents phone numbers on them, squirt guns, packs of just three crayons, maze books, necklaces, temporary tattoos, gum-ball machine rings, rubber lizards, inspirational wrist bands, plastic frogs, tops, fuzzy moustaches and various plastic eggs that crack open to reveal something gooey, sticky and guaranteed to dry into a giant crust of gross on your mother's carpet.

As I find these items I've been throwing them all in one place, along with the missing dice, legos, meeple, marbles and playing cards that will only be important when they are missed.  They go into one giant bowl in my dining room.  Twice this year it's overflowed and I dumped it into a grocery bag with the intention of handing it back to a teacher to give out as prizes again and then having it instead collect dust in the hall closet.  Upon walking past the overflowing bowl again today I realized the most incredible solution!  Halloween. If you get to my house to trick or treat this year, you could get a candy or you could get a little balsa wood plane, or Alvin the Chipmunk on a skateboard. I hope you don't get the goo filled egg.

Morning Alarm

This morning I woke up to PEEP....PEEP..... PEEP! I think the smoke alarm battery is going dead. And I get out of bed slightly and hear it coming from the left of the bed... there's no smoke alarm there, so I sit up wide awake thinking the neighbor's house alarm is going off. I go to the window and tilt my ear and look around furiously, then I hear it coming from the other window... it's really loud now PEEP....PEEP..... PEEP! Standing at the other window it sounds like maybe it could be driving around the neighborhood. I wonder if a small bulldozer is backing up somewhere... I can't really tell where it's coming from... I sit down on the bed and wonder if I should investigate further.  My young child rolls over, it is then I realize... it's his nose whistling while he sleeps.

That Natural Look

It's Halloween and of course I'm looking at a bazillion cool makeups that will end up melting into my contacts by the end of the night causing a dense fog no one should drive in.  I thought I'd try to test a couple out tonight and got the smoky greys and blacks out.  I gently traced the lids with a nice jet black and blended out into grey and then finally layered in a lovely blood red at the end in an attempt to match the red the derby team I'll line coach this weekend will be wearing.  It ended up looking like the coal miner's take your daughter to work day.  Ten minutes of soap in the eye later I started again with liquid liner, drawing the perfect cat eye, followed by another perfect cat eye on the left side.  I stood back and looked at two perfectly non-matching cat eyes. arg. Maybe people will only look at me via profile and nobody will notice. After more soap in the eye, I gave up.  I'm going for good lips.

Three new paintings for Fall Art Scene.

Three new paintings for Fall Art Scene. They started with "Riding Hood's Heart" which went on the window outside of Bennie's Cleaners for Art Attack. It's just temporary and I loved it so much, having just laid my dear dog to rest after seventeen years of companionship, I repainted it only much smaller this time.

A tiny excerpt of "Riding Hood's Heart"

I wanted to do more, using the same palate I am in love with from Riding Hood's Heart, the very same paints I scavenged from the bucket of left overs at 317, when I was worried about covering all that large glass.  The paints that the late Tom Littrell left behind and that we in the 317 Artist Collective utilize when an emergency of scarce color arises.  I wanted to keep using Tom's paints. It felt sacred to me.

Tom Littrell 

I wanted to paint more strength, and in my search for strong characters I remembered Valkyries. The name Valkyrie translates to choosers of the slain. They ride into war and choose who will be whisked off to Valhalla.  They are feared and revered, they are the companions of heros, it felt right.  So  - I painted the "Ride of the Valkyrie"

A tiny excerpt of "Ride of the Valkyrie"

At this point, I didn't mean to be reusing the word "Ride" but then it seemed like I needed a third.  "Rider on the Storm" was the title that came before the painting. A lone captain in her boat, she's tiny among the landscape and steadfast in her resolve in her travels and adventures.

A tiny excerpt of "Rider on the Storm"

I love each of these paintings very much.  They ended up on the canvas exactly as they were in my head and I'm thrilled to show them this Fall at Art Scene.

If you'd like to come see (or BUY!) the whole of these paintings, not just a tiny excerpt come down to, 317 Studio & Gallery at 317 Market St. Rockford, IL, tomorrow or Saturday Night and then wander around the corner to see the temporary window mural that inspired the paintings.

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FRESHWATER MERMAIDS of NORTH AMERICA (22"x28" framed print) will also be at 317 Studio & Gallery for Fall Art Scene.  There are only 3 unframed signed and numbered prints left ($40.00) and there will be 11 posters ($18.00) for sale of the same.  So if you need a thing for the wall of your ice fishing shack... come get your poster this weekend.  

I chewed 20 pieces of Gum and thought I was going to die

I chewed 20 pieces of Gum and thought I was going to die.  Dad always brings over these bags of gum he gets at the Amish store.  They are delicious.  I like to chew them until the flavor is gone and then spit it out and get a new one. I can do this because I'm a grown-up.  I could add this to the list of fun things grown ups can do, but really eating a ton of candy until your belly hurts, is something a kid does.  That's what I did, only this time no adult said to me (including myself) you'll hurt yourself eating all that candy.  So I chewed about twenty pieces, one right after another.  Then my belly hurt like that time my appendix burst and I couldn't even move.  Being crunched over hurt, straightening out hurt, every move sent stabby pains deep into my gut and all I could do was sweat and say "ow ow ow ow ow." I thought I was poisoned.  I may have been poisoned - it's not real clear what's in a gumball.  My companion suggested I had gas, but I didn't, I wished that were the case.  I started to work out how I was going to crawl down the porch stairs and into the car for a ride to the ER where I would totally admit I chewed twenty gum-balls in a row and poisoned myself with Amish gum.  I wasn't even worried about being embarrassed - that's how much pain I was in.  Then I drank a glass of milk and felt slightly better - so I drank more milk and said markedly less 'ow's and eventually I stopped hurting.  I still like to chew a bunch of gum-balls in a row.  The same brand even.  I just try to limit myself to five.... and definitely no more than seven.

We don't want a hand up, or a hand out, we just need to be paid a fair wage for this hole we've been digging for you.

You've read the story... struggling adult doesn't know how she's going to make it until random stranger tips her $1,000.00 / until football player pays for the kid's operation / until anonymous angel buys her groceries / until undercover boss pays her house off and sends all the kids to college and gives her the first vacation in her life. It's a story that's supposed to warm your heart and make you feel great about humanity and inspire you to maybe pay it forward.  Get out there and give, change a life by throwing a couple hundred dollars at a  poor person, save someone from the brink of ruin.

I can't help it every time I read one of these stories I get seriously pissed off.  What about the millions of people who didn't get that magic windfall?

People should be able to work hard and pay for their own.  A bartender should be able to afford a few appliances, a waitress should be able to buy Christmas presents, but we now live in a society where basic needs can't be met by people who work their asses off.  People we see every day, the cashier, the gardener, the lady wiping the snot of your kid's nose at preschool. I'm supposed to be all choked up at the sudden un-freezing of Scrooge's tiny cold heart at the end of Undercover Boss - instead I am pissed that we are in a place where folks can't afford to buy their own house any more or afford to pay for schooling.

The people on the top get to feel good for throwing a few scraps to the people at the bottom and the people at the bottom are supposed to thank them and be ever so grateful for that angel who paid for their coffee and we area all supposed to clap and cheer about this heart-warming scene when instead we should ALL be outraged that not every American can afford coffee.

Please understand, I'm not trying to discourage charity or paying it forward, or big tippers, I'm just saying we should all be ashamed that are so many opportunities in this country to rescue. We should stop feeling all warm and fuzzy on the inside when we read these stories and instead opt for frustration and outrage that the relief was needed at all.  A thousand dollars here, eighty thousand there... it's pennies barely missed falling from the top earners' wallets, into a vast bucket of need.  Working Americans need a bigger more permanent rescue than a nice tip or a tax credit, we need a living wage.

Pencil Bag to Wallet Bracelet Hack

1 Pencil Bag 

1 Piece of Velcro

1 Needle and thread to sew Velcro on. 

= 1 Zipping, bracelet that holds chapstick and money and locker key.  

Speak It!

The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company [Kindle Edition]

Hey! Go buy the digital edition of my book! The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company [Kindle Edition] and then say nice things in a review.

Fight for 15

Whomever said don't cry over spilt milk obviously never had to make that milk, work thirty minutes minutes to buy it, or put a hungry baby to bed.


*As of 9/18/14 Gallon of Milk $4.05/Minimum Wage $8.25

Equity

“My Least Favorite Trope (and this post will include spoilers for The Lego Movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Matrix, Western Civilization, and—cod help me—Bulletproof Monk*.) is the thing where there’s an awesome, smart, wonderful, powerful female character who by all rights ought to be the Chosen One and the hero of the movie, who is tasked with taking care of some generally ineffectual male character who is, for reasons of wish fulfillment, actually the person the film focuses on. She mentors him, she teaches him, and she inevitably becomes his girlfriend… and he gets the job she wanted: he gets to be the Chosen One even though she’s obviously far more qualified. And all he has to do to get it and deserve it is Man Up and Take Responsibility. And that’s it. Every god-damned time. The mere fact of naming the films above and naming the trope gives away the entire plot and character arc of every single movie.”

-Elizabeth Bear

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