This came to mind because Kris said she was surprised I’d not seen, Gone With The Wind.  I responded:

“Yeah, well I never saw Star Wars until 20 years after the fact. This in spite of having a boyfriend with a full Darth Vader costume back when the movie came out! I don’t get out much… but really this is what growing up isolated without a tv does to you. Don’t ask me about popular culture…”

It made me recall the first time I ever had skates on my feet. I was teenager! When I say I am from the desert, I mean I from the desert.

(swearing below the break)

I wrote this in 2003. I am 19 in this story. By now I’ve found out the soldier is married with a baby on the way and I was lost. I didn’t want to date anyone but repeatedly found myself on dates anyway for a variety of reasons and this was one of them.

My whole personality is on display here.  Venus Neptune delusion, imagination and pretending, Mars Mercury violent mind, Capricorn planning, Libra and freedom-loving Jupiter of course.  I used to write this way and I kind of miss it…

Skating

I was 19 and working in the old man’s bar when the chat turned to skating. Not thinking ahead, not seeing it coming, I told the people at the bar I’d never been skating, and I never had. Sound impossible? Hardly. I’m from the desert. This is half the reason the bar was packed each day anyhow. The curious lined up to see just what else I didn’t know.

There was a stranger there that day, a young man within my dating range. He said that he was a skating enthusiast and he immediately offered to take me to the rink.

I had no interest in going to the rink with him but the way he did it, I have to admit he was smooth. He snookered me. The way he invited me made it difficult (for Libra) to say, “Not with you, fucker!” so I had myself a date.

One of the old men asked, “Do you think you can you skate, Elsa?”

“I don’t see why not,” I said as if my ability to skate should be obvious.

“Well, it’s something you have to learn. You have to learn to skate.”

“Pshaw! I can walk can’t I? I can walk so I can skate. I don’t see the difference.”

It was that kind of conversation going on and that weekend I went to the rink with the guy.

Well, the first thing to say is I didn’t kill him and I think I should be credited. I didn’t even make him bleed though I believe that I’d have been justified if I had.

Oh calm down. I do not mean stab him. Just stomp his ankle with my skate or something and here is why:

I was there to be mesmerized. They had disco lights going in there. The music was  throbbing and all these people are whirring around in the pulsating black light. That’s what I want to do too, but guess what? I couldn’t. I couldn’t because this bastard would not let go of me. He was going to teach me to skate, see. And he is going to do it with his arm around me, sometimes both arms and his leg alongside and touching mine from my hip to my skate. Are you getting the picture? I want to ~ROLL, but this guy was draped on me like a leech.

Did I tell him to let me go? You bet I did.

“But I don’t want you to fall.” He said.

“Why not?

“You may get hurt.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

“No. Elsa, you can get hurt skating,” he said as if he was my parent. “I want to take care of you.”

Oh brother. I do hate having to be polite but you know I have that damned Libra, so what happens is I spend the next two hours with leech boy hanging on, in awe and slightly jealous of people who skate by me and skate well.

This is back when people danced on skates and there were plenty of them doing just that and I was fascinated. You have to appreciate were I come from. This was exotic big city stuff to me and well, you know what they say. This guy may have me restrained but he does not own my mind.

Ignoring him the best that I could, I got kind of high watching the array of skaters. The dancing skaters, the backwards skaters, the little kids crouched down cannonball style, the girls and boys and the girls and girls skating together. I studied them.

I especially focused on the small children. How the hell can they skate so well I wondered, as I walked around the rink with my date hanging on me. And then I figured it out, or at least I thought I did. Eureka!

I decided they skated so well because they were fearless. They weren’t worried about embarrassing themselves. They weren’t worried about splitting their pants or breaking a leg and missing work or something like that.

I took note of this and decided that I’d come back someday and try my kamikaze theory of skating. I decided that this skating thing was definitely for me, and the way to learn to skate was full bore.

This decided, I put up with Leech, coping by telling myself that he was not going to get laid, no way, no how, while smiling at him prettily, of course….