This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Just stick a knife in my head.
–Rick
In life you try a lot of things out, if you’re a person who’s at all open to new experiences.
A lot of them are fun. Going up in a hot air balloon. Massages. Sensory deprivation tanks. Hockey games. Spin classes. Riding a motorcycle. Going to Burning Man. Printmaking classes. Ice skating. Belly dancing. learning a new language.
Some are not fun, exactly, but are a challenge worth finishing. Training for and running a half marathon. Painting the exterior of a house. Planting a vegetable garden. Getting a certification for something at work.
Some are not fun at all. Drinking yerba mate. Being on fire. Trying certain types of sushi. Drinking so much you end up with a night full of spinning rooms and then a hangover.
Other new things are…fine…
You wouldn’t necessarily do them again, but they were worth a shot. The roller derby was like that for me. There were a lot of things to like. The nick names like Minstrel Psycho, Screaming Beaver, French Tickler and Irie Belle. The cheesy announcing. The way the audience dresses. Women shoving each other around. The tattoos. I got to wear the kind of clothes I really like to wear. It was fun..enough. Probably not fun enough to do regularly. We probably had more fun Facebooking roller derby than actually being there.
Facebook Roller Derby would be a good title for something…
Anyway, somehow we always manage to have at least a little fun. My friends all have a gift for it. Even just hanging out around the house is fun with them. Improvising karaoke, playing Mexican Train, talking about who Rocky got such a big hickey from that a teacher said he couldn’t go to a friend’s graduation. Dumb things. We all laugh easily.
The older I get, the more I recognize how important that is.