Now I've... had... the time of my life...

Epic. That's the best word to describe Saturday night. 'Epic battle' even.

Let me try to run through the sequence of events as best I can...

Friday I spent the better part of the afternoon and evening crafting for my complete boutfit. This included pimping my dress, making my top hat, cutting out and sticking the letters 'kiss this' on some underpants, making an armband cos my number can't be seen on top of my tatoo and also making some bows for Kat's dress. Naturally, my opinion of what I could achieve outshone the actuality of it, and this crafting carried over to Saturday. This turned out to be a good thing, I had no time to be nervous.

Jump to 4:45pm and we were at the showgrounds. Still no sight of nerves. I noticed that there were people already lining up to get in. This made me feel important and excited but still not nervous. We practiced our skate out and then did some warming up. I felt confident on my skates. I started to feel nervous. Just kidding, still no nerves. I was feeling weird about this, cos I was always nervous about hockey, I'd get nervous about a practice. We kept having to come and go from the track to the changeroom, each time there were more and more people. This distraction was almost enough to make me forget I was wearing a dress.

Then the bout started. I'm sorry to say that I can't remember much of it but on the bright side, I think I've come up with an extremely important scientific hypothesis: adrenaline has a negative effect on memory. That aside, here's what I can recall...

I got to jam. More than I thought I would. This was good cos like I've said before, jamming requires less thinking and knowledge so I reckon it's easier. The bad thing: Three jams in the first half (as jammer I mean) and who was I against? The same person each time... Barrelhouse Bessy, only the best jammer (and blocker for that matter) in the league. Here's the clincher though: the first time I jammed against her - my very first jamming jam ever... I got LEAD JAMMER. I just about shit my pants coming out of that pack and the ref pointed at me! Naturally, she caught me, hit me and I called it off before either fo us could score anything, but my point had been made, and I was high as a proverbial kite for the rest of the bout.

After that, it's kind of a blur of fun and loud noise. Yes, we lost, but I do feel we took it to them in a big way and also, we won the afterparty by a mile.

Moving on to that. We partied at the Wheatsheaf, which was great except that we couldn't get out the back, which was bs but otherwise good. Then, the real partying began when we went to the karaoke bar in the city! I might say that I am a pretty terrible singer. In spite of that, when drunk, I feel that everyone must be subjected to it and if they like it or not, I don't care. We took over the place. I felt kinda bad for the poor bastards who waited for their songs and then we crammed up there. I think I might've done some karate dancing on the floor and I cracked it at staff for not having 'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen. As with every karaoke bar, there were the people who are serious about it. An old Lady kept getting up there. I think she was waiting for us to appreciate her singing, but we did no such thing. There was a tranny there with perpetual fripples too. We get it. You're a chick and you're cold.

When we got home, needless to say Kat and I were plastered. Thankfully I remembered to take my hangover cure. As I was doing so, Kat came in the kitchen. I hugged her and felt something dig into my hip. I pulled back to look, and noticed she had her swimmers on, it was the buckle that had been digging in. I said 'whyareyouwearingyourtogs???...hic' and she simply retorted with 'getfucked' so I laughed and let it drop. In the morning when we woke up, she alerted me to the fact that she was wearing them. I laughed again cos I remembered the night before and then she said: 'the worst thing is...' and pulled out the front of them to show me the tag, 'I got them on back to front!' I said 'but haven't you been to the toilet?' why didn't you fix them?' Her reply was 'cbf' and that was that.

So that was my first bout experience! It was all kinds of amazing and fun and my team is one big ball of derby love and my league is too and it was just... rad.

Here is a lil pic of me doing my thing (well something anyway), I'm the one with the messy dreads on the left.

Til soon,

Tx

P.S. Anyone who reads this, please send loads of positive thoughts to Sydney Roller Derby league, they're going through a tragic time and could use all the good vibes and love we got.

Tx