schnozzfest

Hi! I have a new blog. It’s just next door, here. While you won’t need to update any linking you’ve done to me (more on that in a minute), you WILL need to subscribe to the new feed, or this will be the last post of mine you EVER SEE. Not to be all theatrical about it.

I realize this tiny move seems odd, but from a technical perspective, I assure you it makes sense. I’ve run into some privacy issues recently, and telling the Googlebots to ignore this directory and then shifting to a new one is a far milder cure than, say, deleting all of my archives just so I can continue safely here.

This site, along with SchnozzFest.com itself, will redirect to the new one within a few days. If you still want to read the archives, though, this page will continue to work. Any linking you’ve done to individual posts in the past should still work as well.

I’ll see you over there!

Passed. Am exhausted. Also very happy. Thanks for the well wishes!

[COMMENTS ON]

I blog a lot more when I’m restless. I’m usually restless because I’m anxious. I’m usually anxious because of one of these reasons:

1. An editorial deadline is munching on my poor procrastinating flesh, and I am tired and hungry and dirty and sad and I still have eight hours to go and I hate myself and everyone else. This happens like every two weeks, sadly.

2. People on skates are trying to kill me EVEN MORE THAN USUAL.*

When either of these two things happens, I have to resist the temptation to run to the Internet immediately and hide my face in its petticoats. This week, it’s been the second one. So, because I am far too nervous to sleep, I figured I might as well give you a State of the Rollergirl post. I can never tell if I talk about derby too much or not enough. For those of you who would love to hear more about it, I really wish I had a rollergirl ticker, all fetus-traipsing-along-a-ruler style. Perhaps instead of a slowly growing baby, you would watch an out-of-shape, klutzy-looking rollergirl evolve into a self-assured badass with gleaming muscles as she slowly skated her way from one end of the ticker to another. Instead of a little blurb about recently growing ears or lungs or whatever, the fetal rollergirl could note cheerfully, “I am now four months along. I can bout without crying (at least not beforehand) and can get up by myself, and I’m preparing to shed my third callus!”

Anyway, because I don’t have a ticker, I will tell you that today is my written test and my bout test. If this confuses you because I’ve already played in a bout, think of it as karate: there are belts, sort of. Wait, why am I using a karate metaphor? This is the Internet, for God’s sake. Okay, so think World of Warcraft or whatever those games are where you devote all of your time online collecting magic stones or elf nosehairs or God knows what in order to continually getting more powerful. There you go.

Our league has four levels of rollergirl: newbie (can’t bout or even scrimmage, must be off skates at public events—must pass skills test to advance), rookie (can scrimmage and bout and skate around at all the cool parties, but only plays publicly at special events, like demo bouts or festivals—must pass bout test and written test to advance), rostered (plays on a permanent team throughout the season—must be nominated, be elected, and pass time trials to advance), and travel (plays on the travel team at the national level, though is still also a rostered skater as well, as the different types of seasons don’t really overlap too much). I’m currently a rookie, and this set of tests will put me up to rostered, which is probably going to be where I get off the Crazy Train, just for my own personal reasons. Like not wanting to die.

People often laugh when I say I have rollergirl tests, as if these tests are surely just some sort of hokey formality, and to those people I say LET’S SEE YOU TRY THIS CRAP IN FRONT OF FIVE JUDGES, BIG SHOT. Girls fail them all the time. Sometimes repeatedly. And they put on a brave face and then cry the entire way home because they’ve worked for half a year or more to take this test and the next one isn’t for months. (For example, the last bout test was in August.) So, though I realize I’m being all ridiculously militant about something just because I personally happen to care about it, and that’s unbecomingly subjective of me, the tests, they are not cute, okay? Please don’t scoff at my personal goals while I’m nervous. I AM VERY ILL-TEMPERED WHEN I’M NERVOUS.

The written test should be easy enough; I’m a whiz with visual memorization, so the only real worries I’ve had during my study of those 21 pages have resulted from of my discovering all sorts of fouling scenarios that had never occurred to me. Like choking someone with their chin strap by pulling up on their helmet. I am not making this up; such an inventive method of retaliation is, thankfully, not allowed, according to Rule 6.2.3.1.3, “Choking by helmet straps.” Now, I like to think that I manage the whole “you are my friend”/”you are trying to knock me down” rollergirl dichotomy fairly well, but if anyone I know tries to pinch off my oxygen supply by garroting me with the half-inch strip of seatbelt material fastened under my chin, I feel as if I’m at least going to need an apology later.

The bout test is far more intimidating, the kind of intimidating that makes you tremble like a feckless little leaf in a Category 5 hurricane. Most of the testing session, which is THREE AND A HALF HOURS LONG, will focus on this. One or two rookies at a time will play, and the eight or nine other people on the track will be seasoned veterans doing their damnedest to intimidate, confuse, exhaust, and knock over those rookies. From what I hear, the test has more to do with sanity and safety than anything: it’s less about winning than getting back up and continuing to play, no matter what happens, without falling apart mentally and retreating into a corner to mutter to yourself—or, more dangerously, grabbing onto other players on your way down or committing other panicky no-nos. You should also try to avoid ending up in traction, because while that won’t negatively affect your score, it renders the test results moot, seeing as you won’t be playing derby—or even brushing your own teeth, in the more extreme cases—for a long time.

At this point, you’re probably assuming I’m mainly afraid I’ll get seriously hurt, but you’re giving my sanity far too much credit. I don’t think about that a whole lot anymore, mostly because I’ve already smacked into the floor so many times that my wonderfully protective pads are starting to give me a raging God complex. When it happens, it happens. I’m committed to the sport, and once that’s true, there’s really no reason to terrify yourself with the possibilities. Life hurts no matter what, in some way. At least this particular way gets you a lot of friends and comes with Vicodin.

I actually think more about failing, about embarrassing myself, about letting my coach down, about being stuck as a rookie for many more months while my friends move on (the most soul-crushing scenario of them all … ugh). I really, really want to be on a permanent team, to have a smaller group to bond with. My coach tells me I’m more ready than I think I am, that I’ll be fine, and honestly, I believe her, at least on an intellectual level. I play a lot these days, and while I lose about 99 percent of the time, I do play, correctly and without hurting anyone around me. (Though I did once fail to “fall small,” tucked into a ball, instead sliding spreadeagle and thus dragging along another person with my legs. Oops. The rink wall was kind enough to stop us both, albeit rather abruptly for my tastes.)

All the same, this test ratchets up the pressure AND the aggression by a good long way, and judges will be watching and scoring me, and I will be testing mainly as a jammer (the ball-runner of derbyland), which is in my experience is the most nerve-wracking position. (Note that I didn’t say hardest or most important, because that’s not the case at ALL. An excellent jammer is nothing without her blockers, and vice versa.) It’s also the position I’m generally recruited for because of my scrawniness and speed, which is a depressing prospect when you consider how badly I usually do it. Did I mention that as a jammer, you share the track with four people whose express purpose is to take you out at all costs, including going down with you if they have to? As one fellow wee person said to me ruefully, “Sucks always being the hunted, doesn’t it?” YES, IT KIND OF DOES.

But enough of all this. First of all, I really do think I’ll pass, which would mean that this weekend, I’ll be at a party where someone announces my name and I hop up and join my new team and we all freak out and cheer and they make me wear a funny hat and force me to do shots of tequila. And if I don’t pass … well, it’s not like I’m going to quit. I can’t mentally will myself to be a better player, at least not overnight, so if I’m not ready, I’m just not ready, and I shall console myself by poking my leg muscles with my finger and reflecting on how much flabbier they were half a year ago. (So. much. flabbier. It’s embarrassing to think of it now, how weak I made myself with sheer neglect. My body deserves better and I hope I can keep giving it that, derby or no.)

And now that I’ve gotten my nerves straightened out, at least a little, I can start doing what I always do before a derby test, which is focusing on recent improvements. Of which there are many. I’ll even tell you about them sometime soon, whether I pass or not. Unless anyone knows how to build a rollergirl ticker that includes a measurement of average bruise circumference and a prediction for how many years it will take to actually start winning. On the other hand … maybe I don’t want to know!
—
*The standard level of malevolence no longer really ruffles me. It’s amazing what you can get used to. You know how people say things like “I could never join the military/vote Republican/live in the Congo/be an undertaker/use a Mac/be gay/et cetera et cetera”? I used to understand that, but now my response to pretty much everything is, JUST GIVE IT SIX MONTHS. THE DEPTH OF YOUR INDIFFERENCE REGARDING THE POINTY TIPS OF AMAZONIAN TRIBAL SPEARS WILL ASTONISH YOU. We’re such fluid creatures, really, far more adaptable than we give ourselves credit for, and so frequently now I find myself wishing that more people knew that. At this point, based on how insanely far I’ve come in such a short time (mentally speaking, anyway—I still suck at derby), I’m pretty sure I could share my hut in the Congo WITH my girlfriend AS we worked to improve the cosmetic appearance of dead people USING eyeshadow tips we looked up on our Mac WHILE discussing our devotion to the political success of the religious right DESPITE the fact that it would mean I would have to endure another deployment to Iraq. I just don’t want to, is all, because I’ve always been more of a PC user.

[COMMENTS ON]

MR. S: I don’t want to alarm you, but I think I may be passing the peak of my physical attractiveness.
SCHNOZZ: …
MR. S: …
SCHNOZZ: Did I just get in a time machine and land in 2003?

Feel free to now form your hand in a flat karate-chop shape, extend your thumb at a right angle to your fingers, then place your hand just over your top lip, palm down, thumb to cheekbone, and then say “daaaaayum!” Such is the custom.

Also, if he tries that with me, he’s dead. I’m the funny one around here.

[COMMENTS ON]

I promise that title will make a lot more sense soon. Well, not a lot more sense, but a little. Mostly I just think “fairy-stomping” is a really neat compound adjective.

But anyway!

Do you know that decluttering technique where you’re supposed to put a bunch of stuff you aren’t sure you want to keep into a box, date it, and throw it out without looking after a year if you haven’t had to get into it for anything? Well, I have the virtual version of that for you, which I discovered sort of accidentally this week but am very thankful for now.

This one’s not for the folks who are young and fresh and exploring blogland with dewy eyes and boundless enthusiasm. No, no. You people still need to find your niche, your cluster of amazing people who will actually get you and make you feel less alone and weird, and improve your life immeasurably with their influence.

This one’s for the jaded old crones such as myself, the ones who have been loitering around these parts since “AOL” and “the Internet” were pretty much the same damn thing, the ones who read Maddox when his site wasn’t a deliberate anachronism and was actually SUPPOSED to look like that. The ones who enjoyed Dooce’s pre-Leta LA stories about her and her long-legged “roommate,” the ones who were around to read Chez Miscarriage back before she protected her archives (I would link her, but you don’t want to look unless you can handle dangling from some gossamer-thin shred of hope forever and ever, as I have been doing since October 5, 2005, and will someone please just hack that damn site and pretend to be her and tell me it’s really over, so I can get some closure?) The ones who, in our continuing restless search for any kind of quick and dirty intellectual stimulation we can get our neurons on, have read and written more what’s-in-your-fridge memes and spam subject-line jokes and posts about Google searches than we would ever, ever want to admit to a therapist.

You know, the ones who have sacrificed their entire lives just to vigilantly keep track of the entire Internet all at once, just in case something … happens. To someone. Somewhere. If a blogger gets pregnant in the forest and you aren’t around to see a picture of the second line on the pee stick, does the resulting human still make a noise? You don’t know, but YOU AREN’T WILLING TO RISK IT.

It’s tiring, holding up the entire Internet to make sure that every baby born is a real one witnessed on Flickr by yours truly. But such is the burden I’ve graciously undertaken all of these years in order to ensure that no child is forced to live out his or her days in some terrible realm of limbo and hypothesis, where they might be forced to exist (and I use the word loosely) alongside all the blank-faced unblogged children, ominous creatures who were born without pseudonyms and cast no shadow. In this way, I sacrificed both my vision and valuable sleep hours, and I did it all for the children. (You’re welcome.)

Despite the literally immeasurable contribution to humanity my efforts have produced, I think maybe I need to realize that sometimes, I’m going to have to mentally let go and let people journey off into that Magical Great Unknown that they used to occupy after high school/college/that one time in the bar before the Internet provided the world’s most stretchable tether. This amazing technology relentlessly lines millions of people up on a shelf for your compulsive perusal and forces you to observe the events of their lives instead of reading a book or brushing your teeth, just in case your willful refusal to do so will cause them to collapse into nonexistence, just like Tinkerbell in the absence of applause.

I know you think that the very power of your eyeballs is keeping them alive, but I’ve done some research into this and I’m pretty sure that’s not true. They still exist independently of your perception, and your confusion on this matter actually results from your unawareness of where they are or what they’re doing. While this unsettlingly numb sensation started sliding out of vogue as early as 1995, and much earlier if you ever used a pocket protector, people used to endure this all the time, back before MySpace. According to them, it feels quite natural once you get used to it. But we’ll just have to see.

Are you ready to do this? Are you ready to move on? Is it long past time to say goodbye? Especially to someone who doesn’t know you and won’t miss you in the least? I’ll warn you: it can be surprisingly hard to abandon whatever old favorites you started with, back in the day. Even old favorites who are no longer talking about anything you identify with and have never acknowledged your existence and really just want to be allowed to exist in peace without you feeling unjustifiably annoyed at them all the time.

But it’s better this way, okay? It’s not you. And it’s not them. You’ve simply grown apart, that’s all. It’s perfectly normal. Or at least it used to be before feed readers undermined the natural order of the universe and cursed us all with compelling psychic powers.

Ready? Okay then. I’m going to help you do it. Be strong.

Step 1. Delete your feed reader account. Or all of your bookmarks. Don’t even look. You’re not allowed to copy anything down first. Just do it. Right now. No cheating.

Step 2. Add them back in based entirely on memory, thus focusing mainly on your friends and family and favorite genius writers (that’s me), omitting the 507 strangers to which you aren’t even attached enough to remember on command. Wow, look, you’re only subscribed to like, an elite blogging force of thirty people, the vast majority of whom you’ve actually met and converse with outside of blogland. Doesn’t that feel good? All cozy-like and manageable? Remember, if you get weak, all those other blogs are likely just a Google search away. But you won’t miss what … well, what you don’t miss. Perhaps you can reserve some iffy blogs for the occasional spontaneous site visit. If they’re that great, you won’t forget about them even if they aren’t in your feed reader. Try to avoid adding anyone you haven’t enjoyed reading lately; focus on the blogs that still give you those little butterflies when you see an update.

Step 3. Now that you aren’t drowning in an unhealthy level of communication overload, try actually commenting on those blogs or sending one of these pals a friendly e-mail, something you never had time to do when you were singlehandedly reading sixteen separate accounts of the latest San Francisco earthquake and nineteen separate accounts of the New York Marathon in a heroic attempt to keep hundreds of innocent little Never-Never Land fairies alive. Bonus points if you actually READ the posts now, instead of skimming them absently while eyeing the huge pile of links still ahead of you.

You can thank me later, when I see you out and about somewhere because we both have a life now. And friends, I’m assuming, because I hear that consistent personal communication will get you a few of those. I don’t want to get too crazy here, but maybe you could even call your mother. Using the phone. Remember the phone? Feel free to use it ironically, if that helps you cope. It’s retro.

Of course, if you’re reading this post in a feed reader right now, that’s SCHNOZZFEST.COM, yes, that’s S-C-H-N-O-Z-Z-F-E-S-T with a C. People always forget the C … so make sure you don’t when you’re typing in the very first blog that comes into your mind after you delete all the others.

This is, of course, a joke. I’m glad you were here, but if you’re so over it (”it” being my unparalleled brilliance, obviously), I actually won’t take it personally at all. And neither should anyone else, for God’s sake.

Good luck. Maybe, if you work hard and maintain discipline, someday you can have lots more free time to sit around writing posts telling everyone else what to do, just like me. I never asked to be a role model or a paragon of blogging achievement, but I assure you I take the responsibility very seriously.

Now, in a command that should never ever be removed from its surrounding context, I implore you: Go stomp some fairies!

[COMMENTS ON]