author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

So several things have happened between last post and this one--most excitingly, a couple roller derby bouts; most disappointingly, an abject failure to keep to my morning routine--but today I want to talk about/document/gripe about my poor flip phone.

Flip phones are rugged little things. I've had this NUU F4L for, ooh, at least since before the pandemic I'm pretty sure, I'm honestly not sure how to check. In any case, I've dropped it countless times, gotten it lightly splashed, kept it in my pocket during scrimmage, and otherwise treated it roughly. Through it all, it kept on chugging. But last night at roller derby practice it finally met its match. As I was sneaking glances at a web text in between drills, I wanted the browser to stay on and open to that page, so I left the phone open. On the floor. Next to my water bottle. Also next to the track boundary. During a drill involving extreme footwork.

Yep. Poor thing got under someone's wheels. And the interior display got borked.

Happily, it is a flip phone. It is not expensive. A new NUU F4L plus its activation fee comes to less than $150. Also, after opting for the insurance plan, my monthly bill is still going to be less than $35. We're talking a lot less headache than when John has to replace his Android. Also a lot less set-up on the new phone, since there are no apps to download. Just swap in my SIM card and the 64gb mini-SD where my tunes and playlists live, and I'll be good to go.

...except I'm not actually certain that my text messages live on that SIM card. I hope they do. I have a few conversations I want to hold onto, for sentimental purposes, but there is no option to save the whole thread or forward a collection of messages. All I can do is forward single messages to myself at my email address. And I'd rather not have to do that. Also, I spent a significant amount of today combing through text logs for people I hadn't added to my Contacts yet, and also for any photo attachments I wanted to keep (again, just in case text messages don't transfer over with the SIM card). Photo attachments to texts don't automatically save themselves anywhere useful. You have to highlight the message, long press the big central button, then choose "download attachment" from the menu. And if you're me and you're using this particular device, you do this multiple times per photo, because the phone has a bad case of button-lag such that it isn't always convinced I'm doing a long press, but thinks I'm just selecting the message instead, and then I have to hit the Back button, which, again, sometimes the phone just ignores.

With all this button-lag, this "I swear I am trying to push the button, I'm PUSHING the damn BUTTON, noooooo I only wanted to push it once" factor, it was, honestly, about time I replaced this unit. I'm just glad I didn't pull that trigger and then let the phone get crushed under someone's roller skates.

But now I am ALL BACKED UP. Text photo attachments downloaded. Photos from Downloads and Gallery moved over to my computer. Phone contact list updated and exported. Everything's ready to go.

FedEx tracking estimates the new phone will be delivered Thursday, which means realistically I'll probably get it Friday, which means that, by the weekend, I'll be able to see the corners of my screen once more, and small text on the web browser will be legible again, and maybe I'll get a few years without button-lag, which will be nice.

All the above complaints aside, I don't regret my decision to continue sticking with the flip phone. Not only is it inexpensive and rugged, not only is it of a size to fit easily in my jeans pockets, not only does its battery charge last several days to a week (depending on wi-fi and bluetooth use), but also it is not eating my soul.

Which: no shade on anyone with a smart phone who interacts with it most of their waking moments! But I just don't want that to be me. It's already kind of me, what with my constant laptop use; but the laptop introduces just enough friction that sometimes, when I'm out and about, or when the laptop's in another room, it's easier to just... not. So instead I end up knitting at the pub after practice with friends, or reading a physical book over a quick brunch at a local restaurant.

(Or, admittedly, reading something on my phone's web browser that I Saved For Offline Reading. I'm not made of stone, and Project Gutenberg is right there.)

One day, I suppose, Credo Mobile will stop offering a flip phone option--or more society infrastructure will require use of apps and QR codes such that I can no longer get by with Bluestacks, I suppose that's possible--and I'll have to upgrade to a smart phone and a real data plan. Until that day, I'll just keep toodling along in the low-tech slow lane, a loyal member of Team Flip phone, texting like molasses via KT9 and occasionally grumbling "I said H, I pressed H, why will you not---no, only one H, dang it--"

Hello! Last week kind of puttered out and took the Thursday blog post with it, but I am feeling MUCH BETTER today. Despite today starting with a physical therapy appointment and ending with leading a roller derby practice, I got a LOT of writing and writing-adjacent stuff accomplished.

But I'd mostly like to talk about that roller derby practice.

Our league experienced a high level of membership turnover during the pandemic hiatus. A lot of good people left the league. On the other hand, so did a handful of toxic people who'd had disproportionate influence on league culture. As a result, our league--the remaining members along with the brand new members--utterly reinvented itself, and very much for the better.

Here is one specific and powerful positive change that affected me personally: Where once I got the message loud and clear that my role was and always would be to shut up, listen to my betters, and do what I was told --what I was now hearing was, "You've been around a while. You've seen this league through its ups and downs. You're good at this sport, you're effective at sharing that knowledge, and you're kind about it. Why don't you join the Training Committee?"

That was 2021, when we returned to play, revamped our practices, rebranded ourselves, and reinvented our culture. But growth did not stop there--how could it? we are always learning--and so now, as we kick off the 2024 season, our Training Committee looks very different than it did three years ago.

The biggest change this year is that we've divvied up into subcommittees, one for each practice level. I've joined the subcommittee dedicated to training our beginners (cryptid-themed team name: Jackalopes; team color: Orange) and preparing them for their skills assessments.

This new organizational structure has had a remarkably positive impact on me.

Before, when we were just one big Training Committee, and the question "Who can lead Travel Team practice this Sunday" went out to all of us, I felt a like a vile little slacker for never saying, "Me." I was giving in to my imposter syndrome. I was refusing to step outside of my comfort zone. I was signing up to train the beginning skills because I had to train sometimes, and I didn't feel capable of more. I felt like I was guilty of making my insecurities into other people's problems. Like I was failing to pull my weight.

And--wow. What a disservice to our newer skaters, to view training them as the job for people who aren't good enough for anything else! And I never really looked at it that way, not truly. It was more like--OK, in avoiding the training spots I was uncomfortable with and gravitating toward the ones where I was more confident, I felt like I was guilty of eating dessert while dinner got cold on my plate. Like, by never taking a turn leading more advanced practices, I was shirking a responsibility.

But now that script has flipped. The call that went out was, "Who wants to be on the Orange Team subcommittee," and I said, "Me!" not because it's the only work I'm fit for but because it's work that I'm good at. It's a strength. And it's work that I love. I love this sport, and I love making this sport accessible to others. (It's why I head up the Recruiting Committee, too.) I didn't wind up training the "newbies" by process of elimination. I jumped at the chance to make it my specialty.

So tonight I had the joy of welcoming seven new members to our league and teaching them their very first roller skating skills. I got to watch them light up as they made their first strides. I got to bask in their great big smiles as we ended practice on a team cheer. I felt like I was exactly where I belonged, and it made me so happy, I can't begin to tell you.

So. What's the lesson here? Something like: Don't beat yourself up for what you perceive as your weaknesses. Work to improve where you need improvement, sure, but never forget to value your strengths. Do the things you love. They are valid contributions to this world.

Hello! Happy New Year! Happy new blog post! [Insert ritual self-deprecating quip about not having posted in seventh months, assume appropriate New Year's resolution as read.]

Things I did in 2023:

• Had two new poems published in Eternal Haunted Summer: "Fiat Nox" and "The Curious Incident of the Black Dog of the Night"
• Had a previously published poem designated a Rhysling Award Finalist (but not, ultimately, winner)
• Skated a hell of a lot of roller derby with the BCRD's "Flatirons Phoenixes" (A team) and "Boulder Bolters" (B team)
• Also skated in a mix-up bout in Salt Lake City and was awarded MVP Blocker
• Learned how to cook biryani
• Completed two solo LibriVox audiobooks: Lud-in-the-Mist (Hope Mirrlees), What Dreams May Come (Gertrude Atherton)
• Uploaded a whole bunch of Friday Fictionettes (but not, alas, as many as I should - I'm still behind schedule)

Things I would like to do in 2024:

• All of the above, only moreso; where applicable, on time
• Attend my 30-year high school reunion
• Attend WorldCon in Glasgow
• Blog! Here! Regularly!
• (Maybe make this blog look more attractive? Ye Gods, this post looks like ass)

To those ends, I will:

• Renew my intention to get up on time, that being 7:00, every weekday (thanks, Focusmate!)
• Renew my intention to write every day (and not just my daily freewriting and fictionette work either)
• Renew my passport

That's it. That's the blog post.

There should be another tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Hello and happy 4th of July! No big plans at our household, just eating good food, being lazy, spoiling the bunny, and trying to tune out the random party noises from next door. Also the random explosions (fireworks) that, oddly enough, don't seem to bother the aforementioned bunny. Let's start off with a picture of Mister Captain Holland Fuzzy Bunderpants, why don't we, so you can see for yourself just how unflappable that guy is.

It's a day off from roller derby, and I'm taking advantage of the extra evening writing time to do a blog post. For once! When did I last post here--May? Seriously? OK then. Here's the round-up of Stuff What I Been Up To Since May.

When last we left off with the blog's intrepid hero, she was about to drive off to Salt Lake City for a couple of roller derby bouts. (Two, not three; one of our opponents had to withdraw at the last minute because of a COVID outbreak within their league. It's still out there, y'all. Mask up and be safe.) Well, we won the sanctioned game by a decent amount and we lost the regulation game by not much at all, doing our rankings no harm thereby.

The games were fun, and so were the team's various excursions around the city. Team dinner was at The Bayou, where I had something they called "alligator cheesecake." It was more like a souffle, except with a graham cracker crust, and I will have to take their word that there was actual alligator sausage in there. Tasty, in any case. There was also a smaller lunch outing to Mark of the Beastro, address 666 S. State Street. A+, would dine on vegan omelets with Satan again.

But dearest to me was the morning after everything was over, after I had checked out of the hotel, when I met one of my oldest and closest friends for a walk around the park before hitting the highway for home. There we are in the photo gallery, all big smiles with tulips in the background. Love you bunches, Cat--let's try not to take so long about seeing each other again! Give your doggos lots of love from me, and all the best to your family.

After Salt Lake, our next engagement was a home bout (sanctioned) against No Coast Roller Derby on June 24. The visiting team won that one, but a number of them assured me that we did not make it easy. It was a very hard fought game. As for the afterparty, I honestly couldn't say who won that one. Both teams showed up in strength and numbers and with great appetite. There was an after afterparty down the street at a sandwich shop and bar for those still hungry after the first location's kitchen closed, but I was tired and did not go. Whoever won the afterparty, it was not me. I am at peace with that.

Next up, this Saturday will find us hosting a double header, two mix-up bouts featuring first the Boulder County Devils (our junior league) and the BCRD adults second. After that, the league will take a well-deserved four-week break!

In writing news, I have a brand new poem out in Eternal Haunted Summer, in their Summer Solstice 2023 issue. It's called Fiat Nox, and it's a sort of Miltonian call-out, I guess. Big thanks to the editor for picking a lovely illustration to pair with the poem!

Big thanks also to my teammate and that night's carpool partner who responded to my whining ("argh, tonight's the deadline, I wanted to send in a poem but I don't have one yet and I'm going to be tired after tonight's scrimmage") with the exhortation to GO! WRITE IT! IT'S NOT TOO LATE YET! YOU CAN DO IT! The fact that the poem got written at all, let alone submitted in time for the editor to consider it, is something like 90% her doing.

Meanwhile, I can attest that the whole Rhysling Finalist thing actually happened, because while I may have imagined many things, I am certain I didn't hallucinate the proof copy of the 2023 Rhysling Anthology that was sent my way. You can order this attractive volume for yourself at that link. Whether in print or PDF, I guarantee it's chock full of excellent poetry.

Oh and hey! Fibercraft news. I'm knitting a new pair of socks! They're all rainbow and they're not nearly tall enough yet.

All for now - more soon, I hope. I really do intend to do this once a week thing. Will I manage it? ONLY NEXT WEEK KNOWS.

Well, hi. So it turns out I have this blog. Let's brush the rust off the controls and do a round-up post of Stuff What I Been Up To Since January.

In roller derby news, which I'll start with because that's always a thing, my league, Boulder County Roller Derby (nee Boulder County Bombers), is thoroughly renamed and rebranded. We have jerseys with our new logo on the way and everything is very exciting. Meanwhile, our travel team program is up and running and so are WFTDA rankings. Sanctioned games are a thing again, and we have now played three of them: one against the Denver Standbys here at home, and two in the Taos-based Rumble on the Rio tournament a couple weekends ago. We won all three.

This weekend we're going to Salt Lake City to participate in Wasatch Roller Derby's Galactic Brawl tournmant. We'll be playing three games, two of which will be sanctioned. If there is live streaming of those games--and I don't know that there will be, but if there is--you'll hear about it via the host league's Facebook page (see the "Galactic Brawl" link).

In mundane life news, we lost a car and gained a car. The black 2013 Chevy Volt got totaled thanks to Some Dude rear-ending John, thereby causing a five-car pile-up on eastbound Arapahoe Road approaching 95th Street. Happy to report that there were no injuries! But, like I said, the Volt didn't make it. There followed a couple of weeks during which we were in far closer and more frequent contact with our insurance company than we generally like to be, meanwhile gaining a certain category of life experience we'd have been just fine never having to experience, thanks awfully.

And then we went looking for another used plug-in hybrid to replace the Volt with, and, wouldn't you know it, Boulder Hybrids had a red 2013 Chevy Volt with a price tag of not unreasonably much more than the settlement pay-out on the totaled Volt. Indeed, what with the replacement Volt being a Premium rather than an LT and having 10K fewer miles on its odometer, it was a damn good deal. And we drove that sucker to Taos for the aforementioned Rumble on the Rio tournament. And the 10-years-out-of-date onboard navigation system was entirely adequate to get us there (freeing up John's smartphone for very important business by which of course we mean VIDEO GAMES). So that all worked out.

In writing news: My poem, "On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland", published in the Summer Solstice 2022 edition of Eternal Haunted Summer, made the Rhysling Award long list. The Rhysling Award is given each year by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, whose members each get to nominate one work in each of the poetry categories, long and short. There were slightly more than 100 preliminary nominees in the short poem category, which is quite a lot, but I got to be one of them, and that's pretty darn spiffy!

That was announced back in February. Fast forward to just now, when I went Googling about to see when the finalists would be announced, so I could mention that date here. Surprise, surprise--turns out, the finalists have been announced. While I'm still not seeing anything in SFPA's official communications, I found several blogs and poetry publications congratulating the finalists. For instance, here's File770.

There are 50 finalists in the short poem category, and my poem appears to be one of them. Eep!

An anthology of the finalists will be put together and mailed out soon, and the SFPA membership will begin voting in July to determine the eventual 2023 award recipients..

So... yeah. That's my news for the year so far. Happy Beltane!

Next step in returning to Normal Life: Roller derby practice! gasp - hack - cough

No, it wasn't quite that bad--I didn't actually have an EIA coughing fit or anything. But, yeah, it turns out my cardio is garbage right now. That could be a covid-recovery thing, but it's more likely to be a two-weeks-off-skates thing. (In general, I really haven't experienced any extra post-covid fatigue or weakness that couldn't be explained by something very normal, like, not exercising for two weeks, or driving all the hell over Boulder County, or not getting enough sleep the night before.)

But I got a lot out of practice nonetheless. It was Scrimmage Thursday. We had scrimmage-shaped drills, where we discussed strategies relevant to particular mid-game scenarios and then ran those scenarios. Between the discussion time and the need to swap out skaters on the track, there were lots of natural opportunities for a skater still rebuilding her endurance to take a break for breathing and hydration.

Our Social Media Maven took lots of photos and video at tonight's practice. Some of those photos are up already on Facebook and Instagram. (To those of y'all coming in from the Facebook rebroadcast of this blog post, I am aware that it's kind of silly to take you from Facebook over to this blog and then back to Facebook for the roller derby photos. But there are worse things in life than Silly.) Check back later for video footage.

...and that's all. (Look, a short post for once!)

(But only a semblance, mind you. Life has been Full of Things, as we shall see here.)

Hello! Hi! Is this thing on? *tap tap tap* It would appear I am blogging again. Yay!

So anyway, what all has happened since June? Well.

I had some technical issues. There was a long, drawn-out oopsie with this website, where suddenly, starting in mid-April, I couldn't log into any private directories, and after lots of frustrating back-and-forth with my domain host's support--I mean, lots, like, MONTHS during which they tried to sell me SSL certificates, they lost track of the issue among all the different support technicians involved in the email chain and had to have it explained again, and failed to even investigate the problem as I reported it--but eventually someone finally did investigate--and it was revealed that my .htaccess files were pointing in the wrong direction. The pathway that was JUST FINE up until that point in mid-April suddenly became invalid. And why was that? Well, it couldn't possibly be because some process or other had deleted the relevant .htpasswd file from where it had lived for decades, could it? No, of course not!

All of which is to say that I'm low-key in search of a new domain host. I'd love it to be a small, woman-owned business, but I know that lightning like DrakNet can't be expected to strike twice. (My current host, a small orange, is the company to which the owner of DrakNet sold the business when she was ready to retire from it.) I'm having trouble even finding alternate webhosts at all--I mean, where webhosts means "the people who store your files on a server so that domain registration can point to it, and give you access to databases and scripting and certain out-of-the-box software you can use if you wish" rather than "someone who'll design your website for you and/or give you a limited template content management system because you don't actually know HTML or CSS, let alone PHP or mySQl."

And then searching for "woman-owned webhosts" on Google was even more fraught. That's how I stumbled upon an intriguing forum thread from 2007 in which answers to same question ranged from "Silly feminist, why do you care about the business owner's gender?" to "Women won't own webhosting companies until webhosting is made simple enough for their ladybrains to understand." In the 21st century, y'all. I guess this is the techbro version of "women don't write hard science fiction because they can't hack the science, lol."

Anyway. Anyone know anything about Earth Girl LLC?

I went to WorldCon! Incidentally, this involved taking my very first train trip since 2020. Amtrak has long since stopped requiring masks on board, more's the pity, but I traveled in sleeper so I could close the door on my own private roommette, and I had my meals brought to me in my roommette, and I wore a mask every time I left my roommette, so I felt pretty well protected.

WorldCon was in Chicago, where the sister of an online acquaintance of mine has a condo up the north end of the Magnificent Mile, and so the two of us stayed there without charge, which was really nice. It did mean a commute of a little under a mile between our lodgings and the convention, but whatever, that's why I brought my skates. I did a lot of skating in Chicago, not only to and from the Hyatt Regency but also up and down the Lakefront and the Riverwalk. It was great!

And it appears that, after all this time, I've finally reached that point in my con-going where I cobble together my schedule based less on what panels I want to see and more on the people I'd like to hang out with. Oh, I went to panels, sure, and a poetry workshop, and a craft circle too. And I did throw my name in the lottery for Table Talks with Big Names in the Industry. But more often I signed up for a Table Talk because "Hey, I know that person from Codex or Viable Paradise or from Cat Rambo's online community. It would be nice to spend some time chatting with them." And that was lovely.

This was my first time attending WorldCon since 2011, when it was in Reno. Turns out I still very much enjoy the experience and hope to do it again in two years when WorldCon goes to Glasgow. I also very much still enjoy taking the train--and I'll be doing that again Very Soon Now, because...

I'm going to World Fantasy in New Orleans! Got my attending membership some months ago. Finally got my hotel room yesterday. Today I had a chat with Dad about logistics for family-and-friends visiting before the con, and later today or maybe tomorrow I'll wrangle my Amtrak dates.

The idea behind visiting Dad and them before the con is so that I don't expose any high-risk loved ones to whatever I might have chanced to pick up during the con. World Fantasy has posted the same COVID-19 policy as WorldCon did--which is to say, must be vaccinated to attend, must wear masks properly at all times--but risk remains, so might as well be smart about this.

I'm very much looking forward to a convention in New Orleans. I'm looking forward to Halloween costumes and people-watching and good food. I'm looking forward to skating around the French Quarter! I'm looking forward to visiting the Royal Street Rouses to equip myself with snacks and beer. I'm looking forward to wandering between convention programming items with a bottle of Abita in my hand, because it's Louisiana, suckers. Although I suppose with public masking required I may have to plan my beers with somewhat more precision than I did during World Horror 2013.

Anyways, that's coming up, and I'm stoked.

I skated a whole heck of a lot of roller derby! We had our season closing event on September 17, pretty much right after I got back from WorldCon. We set up the venue Friday night and on Saturday there were three (3) bouts, two of which I personally skated in. I was sooooooore afterward, but very happy.

In the intraleague mixer, my team won by three points. That's a seriously close game! There was a point midway through the second half where it was tied at 150, and I had to bite my tongue because most of my teammates would prefer not to know the score actually, and I prefer to respect my teammates' needs for preserving their Game Mentality. (This is a subtweet.) But I did sidle over to one teammate I knew did like to know the score, to whisper "Eeeeeee it's tied it's tied it's tied!!!!" and she went "Eeeeeee!" back.

Eeeeeeee!

The last game of the night was us versus Denver's C team, who beat us authoritatively but told us at the afterparty that we'd made them work hard for it. We were pretty proud of the score we put up against them.

So. Turns out, that was my last roller derby experience to date, because right after that event...

I caught COVID. Alas! My two-and-a-half year record for avoiding the plague came to an end when I tested positive on September 22. I'm fairly certain of the how, when, and from whom of contracting the virus, but all I'll say here is that it was most likely not directly from skating on the 17th, but rather from a social outing later that weekend.

Obviously I hold no grudge whatsoever against the person I got it from. They didn't know they had it until two days after they passed it on to me, and I didn't know I had it until I'd had plenty of time to pass it on to John. Once I knew, I tried to isolate, but that was probably a futile endeavor from the start. He tested positive a couple days after I did.

We'd both just gotten the new booster, like, less than a week before we got the virus. So aside from not having the benefit of a full two weeks post-shot, we were fairly well protected. That's probably why our symptoms were no worse than those consistent with a really obnoxious cold. But I had that dreaded rebound--return of symptoms plus new positive test--that turned my Day 7 into a new Day Zero, so I'm only on the exit ramp now.

But I am on it. I will say that with certainty. It's Day 7 again, I've gone three days with no symptoms at all, and I tested negative yesterday. Hoping for another negative test tomorrow morning, and feeling pretty confident I'll be able to leave the house and go among the nice people again Real Soon Now. With a mask on, of course.

(Maybe then the dreams about "What am I doing out among people when I'm contagious? And why aren't I wearing a mask?!" will taper off. Because yeah, I got those. Multiple times. Thanks, brain.)

And those are the highlights. There's probably more, but this is a long enough post already, and I might as well save some for tomorrow. Because I am going to try to blog again tomorrow. And the day after that. So do please stand by.

So I've got TWO things I would like to share with you, one on a semi-urgent RIGHT NOW basis, and that first and most urgent THING is as follows:

This afternoon! At the Boulder County Fairgrounds! We got ROLLER DERBY! Doors at 5, first whistle at 6 to start the Juniors bout, and then we got Boulder County versus North Texas starting around 7:30 PM. That's U.S. Mountain Time (UTC-6), and the reason I'm bothering telling you so is, thanks to a lot of hard work on the part of our media maven Rickashananay, we are livestreaming via Twitch! Which means I get to invite you, out-of-town friend or fan or acquaintance (you know who you are), to be in the virtual audience and watch us skate from the comfort of your own computer or smartphone or other internet-enabled device.

Here's that link: https://www.twitch.tv/bouldercountyrollerderby

Of course, if you're reading this from somewhere in central Colorado, you should get the heck over here in person because roller derby is always better that way. Tickets will be available at the door all afternoon long. That's the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont, Colorado, on Hover Street between Nelson Road and Boston Avenue, in the Exhibit Building--just follow the signs.

I'm really excited about this because it'll be our first time hosting a visiting league, and our first time playing a league from outside of Colorado, since 2019. It's true! You know why. And for that reason, we'll be skating in masks to protect ourselves and our opponents, because it's a thing.

And the reason I'm really hype about it all right now this second is, I'm DONE with my part of venue set up. Because I happen to know how to do it, I get the bout-day responsibility of making sure we have a track. I head up a team of three or four people in taping the track boundaries, jammer and pivot lines, 10-foot marks, outside referee lanes, penalty box boundaries, and any other associated marks. Well, today my team was ON POINT and we were done in less than two hours, and now all I have to do... is look forward to playing the game I love. I am an exceedingly happy skater right now!

(Also I am stuffing my face with pho. That's my pregame ritual and you can't take it away from me.)

So that's the urgent-right-now bit of news. The other bit of news is this: The Summer Solstice 2022 issue of Eternal Haunted Summer is out, and with it, my brand new poem, "On the Limitations of Photographic Evidence in Fairyland". Do check it out!

As y'all know, the two major activities taking up my life right now are writing (see blog title) and roller derby (see blog post categories). And as it turns out, you get to see me--online--in both of those capacities, right now. More or less. Like so:

Watch me skate! This past Friday, May 20th, my team drove down to Colorado Springs to play against Pikes Peak Derby Dames. It went great. I mean, we didn't win, but we played hard, staged an amazing comeback, and learned a heck of a lot of the sorts of things you just don't learn until you go up against a stronger team. (Stronger for now...)

And you can watch! Roller Planet livestreamed the event, and that footage is archived and available. It does require a paid membership, but it's pretty darn cheap. I ponied up the $3.99 for a month of access, and wow I'm impressed with this outfit. It's good, high-quality video with three cameras and scoreboard infographics, and the audio includes a direct feed from the announcer's mic so you can actually hear him say derby-useful stuff like "Rickashanaynay is your leeeeeeeeeeeeeead jammer!" and also less explicable things which, OK, whatever, glad you're having fun, we are too!

Anyway. If you're interested, go over there and subscribe. Then, once you'll all logged in, click through the top-row menu to CONTENT -> SPORTS, then scroll down until you find the Pikes Peak Derby Dames games. At this time there are three games listed, and you want "PPDD All Stars vs. Boulder County." If you're looking for me, I'm #504 with the long braid, the gold shorts, and the fleur-de-lis leggings.

Come listen to me read a story! Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 25, will be my second appearance on Story Hour. I'll be one of two featured authors, the other being Brian Hugenbruch. Showtime starts at 8:00 PM Mountain Time and runs--you guessed it--about an hour.

If you click over to the Story Hour website, you'll find links to both the Zoom and the Facebook livestreams. I recommend going with Zoom if you can manage it. Zoom is where it's hosted, and Zoom is where you can participate in the live chat with the authors and host, and if you put Zoom in Gallery View you'll be able to see everyone at once. I mention that last because some of y'all may be hoping to see Holland bunny-bomb the proceedings. Last year he came begging for treats just before I took the mic, so he didn't make it onto the Facebook video. Alas!

Facebook is also where you'll go to see the archived video after the show is no longer live. That goes for last year's appearance, too--but be warned, that one turned out to be a bit of a tear-jerker. Be cutting onions or something so you have plausible deniability.

Next time: Thing the Second, but for real! (I reviewed my notes after last post and realized that Medical Appointment Tetris was not in fact Thing the Second. It was most likely Thing the Third. But who's counting?)

Oh hi there. It's been more than a month since my last post, so maybe let's use this post to tie up some loose ends from that post.

Regarding the computer repair saga: Space Invader is finally whole and healthy. But it's been a ride. In between last post and this, the LCD was replaced no less than three times, as follows:

1. Went to repair depot after the self-destruction incident previously described. When it came home, it looked good out of the box, but when I turned the system on, there were weird horizontal lines across the middle of the screen. Troubleshooting with Dell over the phone confirmed that the LCD, not the graphics card or the Windows installation, was at fault.
2. On-site technician replaced LCD again. Everything seemed fine for the next 6 hours. Then more horizontal line visual defects manifested, this time across the bottom two inches of the screen. More troubleshooting confirmed that yes, it's still an LCD problem. Or at least it's not a graphics card or Windows problem.
3. Went to repair depot for full diagnosis and, as it turned out, yet another LCD replacement. I was skeptical. They reassured me that they'd discovered tiny cracks in the LCD and it really did need replacing.

And indeed, this time when the computer came home, everything was fine. And has remained fine. Also, I now have a new charging cable. While I lost touch with the original phone support technician who said he'd see if I could get it covered as a one-time exception, I did wind up including the cable with the laptop on its latest trip to the repair depot, so the techs saw that there were exposed wires and could not let that stand.

Yay! Hopefully I may now hope for more than six months of uninterrupted use before the next problem arises, whatever it may be.

Regarding the item known as "Thing the Second": Right. There was another saga I was going to tell you about. That was the saga of Medical Scheduling Tetris.

Basically, I scheduled all my regular annual check-ups around late March and early April. Like you do. But when you do that, all the follow-up happens rather all at once, too. Which meant there were several weeks in which I was doing very little except recovering from one thing and preparing for the next thing. Which is to say:

• "Hey, you're over 45 now. Time for you to get a colonoscopy screening." About which, the less said, the better. It is done and I don't have to do it again for another seven years. Hooray.
• "Hey, that mole we scraped off your face at your annual dermatology skin check? So very much melanoma. We're referring you to a specialist to have every bit of it excised ASAP or sooner."

So now I am a veteran of what they call "staged excision" or Mohs surgery. This means they take as little skin off of you as they think they can get away with, then examine it to see if they need to take more. (I had the "slow" version, in which the excised skin had to be sent away to an outside laboratory, rather than examined in-house then and there.) I wound up only needing two rounds of excisions before the lab said that the margins were clear and they could sew up the open wound that had been just hanging out on my left cheek all that time.

So that was easy. For certain values of easy. "Easy," as in, "an hour at a time of outpatient surgery under local anesthetic." That kind of so-called "easy."

Honestly, the worst part for me was not being allowed to play roller derby. From the moment they first cut my face open until a week and a half after getting sutured up--so, from April 12 until April 30--I wasn't allowed to skate. Or bike. Or jog. Or dance. Or jump up and down. Basically, no hard exercise, no heavy lifting, nothing to raise my heart rate and risk getting things bleeding again. My friends, I was climbing the walls. (Only not really, because that would be exercise.) I kept going to roller derby practice, soaking up the drills mentally if not physically, helping train the newer skaters to the extent that I could from my sneaker-feet, but I couldn't skate. And then I could skate, and I did, a lot, but for another week I still couldn't derby, because full-contact derby involves risking getting hit in the face, which the dermatology specialist didn't want happening while I was still in a vulnerable stage of healing. Not that they wanted it happening ever, but they absolutely forbade it happening until May 7.

And then May 7 came along, and I could do all the things again, including a very rough-and-tumble scrimmage in which I did in fact take an unexpected blow to the face, which just goes to show. I was so happy I could have cried. "I hit my friends! They hit me! It was great! And check out my new bad-ass scar!" Yep. We roller derby skaters are a special kind of weird.

All of which leads to...

A special roller derby announcement! This Friday, May 20, I will be skating with Boulder County Roller Derby against Pikes Peak Derby Dames in PPDD's home venue, the Xfinity Roller Sports Arena in Colorado Springs. Doors open at 6 PM, and first whistle will be at 7. (Mountain Time, naturally.) If you're in the area and can make it, AWESOME! Be there and say hi! Otherwise, they do say on the event and ticket sales page that livestreaming will be enabled by Roller Planet. (I know very little about Roller Planet beyond that they exist and there is a small monthly subscription fee involved.)

So that's happening. And now you know.

Next time: An upcoming author appearance! And other writing news! Including new and exciting schedule variations! Yay!