Dusk is the best time to go skating, especially on my street.
As the sun dips below the horizon, and the streetlights come on, traffic begins to evaporate. You're left with an open street, all to yourself. It's so nice. You still have enough light to see and skate safely, but you don't have to worry about sunburn. And, being out of direct sunlight means the temperature is cooler, as well. What could be better?
It reminds me of when Andrea and I used to tear up downtown Wilkes Barre on our rollerblades, after dark. The Children of the Night have returned for another summer!
Tonight was great. As soon as I got home from work, I sat down for about 5 minutes before I was putting on my gear and grabbing my board. I did the 3k loop I mapped out a few days ago and then headed back towards the house. If I wanted to keep my 5k a day commitment, I'd need to keep going. And so, I did.
My new favorite thing to do is to skate a block or so up the street, turn around, and coast down the slight decline we have here. It's not a very steep drop, but you can get some pretty good speed on this hill. Although, I'm not doing it for the speed, I skate down this hill because I love to carve these huge, lazy curves back and forth. Just like surfing, or snowboarding. I started doing them to shed speed because I was afraid of going too fast, but now I consider them the main feature. They are so much fun!
I just push down on my heels, lean backwards, and carve a half-moon left turn. Then I lean forward to straighten out the board while pushing down with my toes to carve another half-moon towards the right. Back and forth, back and forth. Then, near the end of the descent, I start doing another carve, but keep it going into a 180 so that I'm facing up the hill I just came down. At that point, I start kicking to push myself back to the top to do it all over again.
Like I said, I only needed 2 more kilometers to make 5k, but once I got started, I couldn't stop. "Just one more," I kept saying to myself. "For real, after this one, wrap it up. The sun's gone." "Ok, check the app. I'm sure we've passed 5k, time to call it a night." "Well, what's one more kilometer? Might as well get in as many as I can..."
I ended up skating 7.42 km (4.6 miles). And, I mean, I just had such a ball. I kept thinking, "This has to get boring after a while, right? I'm not doing any tricks, or anything, just riding down a hill..." But by then I'd be pushing myself back to the top for another run.
Plus, side note, we have really cool neighbors (finally) so I spent some time sitting on the porch with them in between runs, playing with the dog and the cat, and their ferrets. (They have ferrets!)
I'm just super stoked that Summer is finally here, and I hope it stays like this for the rest of the Summer.
It has been well over a year since I last posted. I can explain, really...
When I last updated this blog I mentioned that I was moving on into more entrepreneurial directions with my free time. I was going to design LGBTQ+ positive stickers for sale and ended up designing jewelry, instead. Well...
Thank goodness for supportive friends who helped me maintain that for as long as possible, before I realized it wasn't a very lucrative field and was more work than it was worth. So, I abandoned it and pursued my career in art, instead. Because, as it turns out, I like drawing, painting and designing more than laboring over cheap glass beads and macrame. *shrugs*
In what has been a complete surprise to me, the art career has been much more successful. I currently have art on display at the AFA Gallery in Scranton and a few shows coming up. Honestly, I didn't think I was any good, which is why I hadn't picked up a paint brush in years, but since December, I've been painting up a storm. In fact, if you'd like to see any of my work, please feel free to jump on over to my artist's profile page.
In the meantime, since we've been touching base, I've taken up the sport of skateboarding. Or, to be more accurate, cruising.
A long time ago, I expressed a passing interest in longboarding, but I wasn't serious about it. Since then, my interest picked up until I was pretty dead set on getting a board and giving it a real go. I tried out a Landyacht board, but wasn't yet comfortable enough with the size of the board to convince myself I could do it; nor did I think I'd stick with it. So, I passed on the Landyacht and got something smaller -- a 28" Goldcoast cruiser with 58mm Cherry Bomb wheels.
To be honest, it scared the ever-loving hell out of me. The first time I went down a short hill, I thought I was going to die. I'm still not sure how I was able to pull it off without eating shit (I was literally shouting, "Stay low, stay forward, stay low, stay forward!!" at myself while fighting "the wobblies" the entire time) but surviving the experience filled me with enough confidence to return and try again. It's been 2 months since then, and I'm still alive. I'm still very much a novice, but I love every minute of it.
So, that's what I'm up to, these days. I haven't inline skated in quite a while, but I'm ok with it. I'm getting myself back in shape and having a gay ol' time (it IS Pride Month, after all). Until we meet again, peach be with you, mother fuckers.