How To Disappear Completely

"Don't take yourself too seriously...there are plenty few things worth hating nowadays..."

I have Todd Rundgren stuck in my head, even though to my dismay I couldn't find my copy of his Ballad CD...I have a feeling this means it is time to organize the piles of music lying around my desk and shelf. It was probably fortuitous that such was the soundtrack of my mind this evening as unfolding events shall reveal...

I arrived at practice a little early to find a team member shooting some hoops in the gym. We were joined by another. It was one of those low key exercises in which we were all shown to be definitively not-players of that particular sport. But we managed to sink enough shots to be reasonably happy.

Monday night fencing practices are shared with the beginners class, so we varsity team members can't actually fence weapons (because the beginners have them all). So attendance is depressed on Mondays. I, however, have to come on Mondays because of the way my schedule works out. So I am always there. Because the coaches are busy with the beginners, the epee team captain took the few of us varsity members as were still there and trekked off to the stairs. We were supposed to train our fast twitch muscles (which are the most important in the fast lunge movements of fencing) so the team captain directed us to race up and down four flights of stairs as fast as we could, two at a time. I was the only female but was bound and determined not to be left too far behind by the supra-six foot tall guys. That was probably a mistake, as we shall see, because even though I finished the course, I suddenly did NOT feel well and trudged off to the women's washroom where I was almost privately sick, except that the other female who happened to be there (helping out with beginners) walked in right at the exact moment I was about to lose it. And now I am grateful, because then she let me finish and then came back and asked if I was okay and gave me a great big hug at the end of practice. The epee captain felt really bad, I think, since he was in charge, and gave me a toonie for the gatorade machine.

But the rest of practice was great, because I felt as if I had passed some rite of passage: "So, Sarah, just so you know, later on in the semester we will all laugh about this and say, so remember the time when you threw up way back when." And I said, "yeah, and I'll be like bring it. Give me five flights now. I'll take you." So it was all good. And after practice he showed me how to do self-defense moves, the wrist-hold break. Breaking the cross-wrist hold (right on right or left on left) was really intuitive. The same-wrist hold was not so easy to learn, because you have to twist in the other direction. But I think I am an ambi-twister, now. And I joked about making the perpetrator grab the correct wrist if I was ever attacked: "No, no, no. Wait. Hold on. This time on THIS hand...."

So the Bill Cosby jokes came out: "I used to practice self-defense on my brother. You know, tighten the arm and then swing round and get them in the jaw with the elbow. Well, I got so good at it that I would walk down dark alleys with $10 bills hanging out of my pockets. Sure enough, I felt the gun on my back. I tightened my arm and swung round. And what do you know? He was a midget."

And then I learned more about Canadian politics. I mentioned I was from the Sates and so was asked if I was Republican or Democrat. I replied that the one issue I care most about is pro-life, so that's why I vote Republican. And surprisingly, I got a positive response. But hardly anyone really likes Bush up here. And I don't know...he doesn't really even seem like the most responsible president in terms of spending to me. But what are my alternatives? The Democrats are NOT going to be better. And that is my one rather ill-informed political statement for the semester.

And I walked home, my head a little higher, daring the street lamps to shut out as I passed by, since now I know how to twist wrists...