Friday, August 28, 2009

Ice Skating

I don't think I've been ice skating since I was 5 years old. It's just something that's never interested me and I don't remember ever really having much fun. I never liked falling down on my butt when I was a kid and I would have rather have been somewhere warm. Plus there's no snow in ice skating. Mainly I just remember being stuck in uncomfortable shoes, hanging onto the wall, and scratching up ice crystals to make snowballs with... oh I remember that being hilarious.

Anyway, after listening to the new Owl City CD nonstop for about two weeks (half of the songs of which seem to do with icy things or explicitly ice skating) I decided that I wanted to go again. And so I got a whole new perspective on the sport. A mature adult perspective if I might so bold.

Ice skating has a lot of going in circles. I never processed that as a child. If almost anything but ice was out there, it'd look like the most boring, dumb activity ever. If it was just regular ground, and everyone went there to walk around in circles on it while music played, occasionally changing direction (oh how exciting) or watching as some extremely skilled walker went break dance spinning in the middle.. if that was the case, it'd be dumb as hell. Even something like a swimming pool does seem to fit. Ice skating rinks and how people act in them is unique because if it didn't involve ice, the Texan's worst enemy, no-one would see the point in it. But since it is Ice filling the rink, people find it acceptable to mill around in circles while a radio scratches in the background. Why? Because trying to move on ice is like juggle huge water balloons and trying to learn spanish.

I learned a valuable lesson trying to ice skate again: sometimes doing mundane and boring things is interesting when you put a handicap on it. I'm hoping my legs get stronger for next week, apparently its 2 for 1 on Thursdays and the price is already pretty cheap. Go figure.

Here's to falling! John

No comments: