Laziness

Your rollerblader can be and most likely will be one of the most lazy people that you have ever met in some respects.  However, whenever there is anything that involves skating, they are the most motivated individual that you have ever met in your life.  They can be half passed out and if anything to do with another skater or anything to do with skating, you would think that they just had a shot of B12 right to the jugular.  There is no stopping them.  Laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, it’s their valium.  Skating, the hopes of skating, or the act of skating… it’s their speed!

What happens in a skate day

I have gone with them skating on many occasions.  First, it started by me being really curious about what the hell they do all day long. Then it became somewhat of a necessity when we would go out of town.  So, here it is.  Wake up, watch skate video, go get something to eat, you might have to go pick up someone ~ its pretty much guaranteed they have a video they have never seen or haven’t seen in a while, go to skate spot, get kicked out, go to next skate spot, by this time they have been skating for 2 hours… and you have to pee… to damned bad, you are somewhere in the middle of the ghetto and have no idea where the hell a gas station is… more skating, yes! Gas station to get something to drink and you can pee, skating, someone breaks something so if you are near someone’s house go there to fix it, watch a video, go skate, get something to eat, go to someone’s house to recreate tricks, drink a beer, and watch 2-3 skate video’s. It’s now between 2-3am. So, when it’s a new girlfriend of a rollerblader they get excited about spending the day with them while they are skating, they often ask me if I am going to go with them, my response is after 13 years, I have already done my time.

Always time for skate stuff

Take for example, they spend so many hours watching skate videos, getting their skates ready, changing frame, wheels, bearings… it can take hours for them to be ready to skate.  But when you are going on a skate trip and you take 2 minutes to go pee they act like you have just done something completely horrible.  Are you ready yet?  What’s taking so long?  We need to go now!  Ok, well, I will be waiting in the car.  Why are you bothering to brush your hair or teeth… are you putting on make-up or something? We are just going skating.

Skate video's and porno's

For several reasons skate videos and porno’s are similar.  You find burned versions all over the house.  Sometimes they are in strange places like a drawer in the bureau.  They have some weird names that make you go hmmmm.  They get your rollerblader “pumped”, ready for some crazy action, doing some stupid stuff, there is always really crappy acting unless you’re Rob G and a talking bench. If they are going for something serious it comes out being ridiculous.  You randomly wake up in the middle of the night and your Rollerblader is watching it on the computer with headphones on… Shall I go on?

Movies and TV

Do not be surprised when you are watching a movie or a tv show with a rollerblader and they totally miss the whole plotline of the movie.  This would be due to the fact that the whole time they are fantasizing about the skate spots that they see in the background.  Don’t worry, there might be some lady with an awesome ass, they saw that and took notes, but feel some sense of peace that what they are really fixated on is not the ass that now you’re self conscious and jealous of but more of that rail/ledge in the background!  They are also thinking about the line they could do at that spot… I personally love it when you’re watching a bad ass Kung Fu movie they start talking about how the actor would be such a badass on rollerblades, and then fantasize about that for a while.  I remember being in a movie theater and hearing all my rollerblader’s talk about how much of a bad ass Tony Ja would be on rollerblades and how he would have “killed it”

Dreams

 

All of the rollerbladers that I know have a similar lifelong dream...their lifelong dreams always include building a skate park, usually in their back yard. You can be asking them anything and you say, “what do you want?” you could be talking about for dinner and they say “a skate park in my backyard.” Ok, well, that is an exaggeration but out of a group of people the majority wants to have a skate park.  I’ve thought about this a lot because I, for a fleeting moment, thought… this is a great idea.  My rollerblader doesn’t have a lot of time and if he wants to skate, it would be cool if he could go in the backyard for a while and then go to work. 

After deeper contemplation, I am pretty sure that unless your house is sound proof you will pretty much hate this idea with time. They will be skating 24/7 which will be ok because you will know where they are and that they aren’t getting arrested for trespassing but I also think that at some point in your life, you’d want to sleep. 

I don’t know… to everything there are pro’s and con’s but I guess it’s all where you are in your life.  6     years ago, my ass would be out there with a damn hammer and some screws building whatever they hell you guys wanted.

They are salty!

They always taste salty.  It’s very apparent when they are skating and cruise past you and give you a really wet, salty kiss.  It’s one of those things where when you kiss them and they taste like they have just rolled around in salt or just spent the day swimming in the ocean. That would be because of the massive amounts of sweat that they have lost through skating.  If you question this… just look at their hats!  Seriously, don’t tell me you have never noticed that they have a black hat with a weird ass white line zig-zagged around the whole thing!    

Their ideas

Their Ideas

They come up with the most random ideas ever.  You can be building a house together and ask them about if/ how they’d like to construct a storage closet and they are speechless… they have no input in it what-so-ever.  Ask them about storage in the garage and they look at you like you’re speaking Portuguese.   Mention something about skating and they are a regular Albert Einstein.  The guy can’t add or remember his zip code but damn he can build a perfect rail, box, or anything you can think of… unless it’s practical. 

I do love their ideas, I must say!.  Oneday they decided they would gather massive amounts of cardboard so that they could paint flames on them and put them up next to the rail so that it looked like they were skating through fire.  They constructed p-rail’s and boxes that would blow your mind.  Focused brain power for something they love = extraordinary outcomes!

 

T

Identifying people by their skates

Kinda like when it comes to them giving directions, they identify people by their skates.  Someone will say, “you know John, right?”,  “John? Who’s John?” “He’s the kid with the Valo’s.”  Oh yea, John! He’s sick! I’ve often have been with my Rollerblader in other cities or states and he was chosen to be a judge… Why they don’t choose me is a mystery… I mean come on… who wouldn’t want to hear me scream that was an awesome alley oop left side backslide piss stance? Regardless… when he’s been judging a competition… Where he and another judge aren’t  quite sure of all the people’s names and there has been a sheet of paper where they are taking notes that say black shirt Asian kid with Deshi’s, Black shirt Asian kid with Xsjado’s, white guy with black shirt and Deshi’s.  This is one of the few things I understand because it’s logical and makes sense. 

I used to sell shoes and could look at a person and know what brand of shoes they were wearing and approximately know how much they spent on them, same idea but much more meaningful… If you’re a true girlfriend of a rollerblader.

Don't sit where a rollerblader has been... swamp ass

If your rollerblader, or one of his friends, has been sitting somewhere… don’t sit in that spot.  If you have been sitting on your couch talking to everyone, watching them recreate the days skate tricks or whatever, get up and go to the bathroom, and return to find your seat taken and another one open… Do not sit there!  You seriously are better off sitting on the floor.  The reason for this is when you sit in the open spot, you’ll get wet.  I can not tell you how many times this has happened to me!  While you go pee there is a change of places and if you sit in the open spot, your back and ass will be wet!  Most likely you’ll smell like ass because, let’s face it, their swamp ass leaked all over the place!  I don’t know about you but I’d rather go do laundry, clean the kitchen, or sit my happy ass on the hardwood floor then have someone’s ass sweat all over me.

Slang!

Be ready to hear that your new boyfriend was raped... that means that he fell on the rail and it smashed him in the butthole.  I heard someone scream that my rollerblader “GOT RAPED!”  Excuse me?!? He came wobbling back to me and said, “Ouch! My butthole!” 

 

Since I heard phrases like that… I decided to use my own… My frequently used word has been  “sportfucked”  Yes.  That’s mine!  So when they say, “So and so sportfucked that rail” It means that they did some really awesome trick on it and killed it… They fucked that rail up!  

Jealousy

Jealousy will destroy you!  I could say that you will always lose when it comes to skating but that's not fair and it isn't even about that.  I've heard people say that they don't get to spend enough time with their rollerblader or why is he skating on his day off when we could be together?  Let's think about this for a minute... why would someone go out and do something that makes him feel alive, is part of who he is, and be with his friends doing something that he loves when he could sit at home on his day off and watch tv with you?  Hmmm... I don't know but that seems pretty obvious to me.  I don't hear him bitching about you going and getting your nails done.  Just breath... know that your rollerblader is with you for a reason. They want to be with you but you may never hear that, you probably won't hear that from most men... It's kind of a given.  Also, know you are the most important person to them but rollerblading is the most important thing to them. Once you have acknowledged and accepted that you two will have a happy future.

Video Games

            I would like to clarify something and tell you that it is not only skating and skate related activities that your rollerblader may suffer from a time warp. As far as video games the whole time warp thing applies here as well. Oh and if they lose to you repeatedly they will be very upset. It is possible that they will be a much worse winner than they are as a loser. I have witnessed on several occasions these same people with ADD/ADHD become so addicted to a video game, much like they are towards skating that they will stay up all night and do nothing for days except play the video game until they beat it. After they beat it they might continue to play it simply because they have not gotten everything in the game or they want to get a higher score. This could also be because they are planning on playing this game with one of their friends and they have to be the best.

Quality time

 If they are spending a lot of time with you, this is not only because they are missing you and want to spend time with you. It could mean that in a few days they will be telling you that they are going far away for about 3 days to Kentucky or Chicago and they will return say one and a half weeks later... remember, I warned you about the whole time warp. The time warp can translate into days if they are with skating friends that they have not seen in a while. My rollerblader left to go to Chicago on Thursday night and said he would be home on Sunday night. He came home the next Saturday. I mean there were some extenuating circumstances but without those circumstances he would have been home on Friday night.  Did I happen to mention that we were moving into our new house that weekend?  No worries though, I was spastic but all the Rollerbladers came to the rescue… It’s amazing what free pizza and beer can motivate people to do!

What you don't know... won't hurt you.

            Don’t have light colored sheets. Or make sure that you like to wash sheets frequently. You really would rather not see the blood stains from their day of skating.  Also, be advised of the fact that they could just jump in bed around 3-5am after a full day of sweaty skating.  For Christmas I got nice fancy cream colored sheets. Of course within the first week he had busted his shins open and there were blood stains everywhere. This really grossed me out because we had been sleeping on dark colored sheets for the past 5 ½ years and I really had not thought about it at all. Maybe I had but had pushed it into my subconscious you know to protect myself. With that said I still think that I will go back to my trusty old forest green sheets. You know, out of sight out of mind.

Dirty Hands

            This is also a phenomenon that is shared by most rollerbladers and yet just another thing that I do not understand. Do not be surprised when your super hygienic boyfriend, not mine, goes out skating for the day, their hands are black or bloody, they come home and eat something that requires using their hands like pizza, hotdogs, french fries, or chicken nuggets and then sometime later for some stupid ass reason they will notice that they have black hands seem a little shocked and will go and wash them but really what is the point? They have already eaten all that crap. I mean how can you eat when you have black or bloody hands and not notice it? That must be the caveman ancestry coming out in them. That is a good point, there is a lot of times that they may revert back into their original state and start banging on things...me man you Sheila

RIT Dye

Ah yes, the RIT dying parties.  Your rollerblader might have discovered the wonder of dying his skates and skate parts.  This can quickly turn into a RIT party.  Dangerous in the fact that you have boiling water, drunken skaters and permanent dye… a lethal mixture... all running loose in your house  So, it is likely that you will experience one of these parties at some point in time.  They will all get together and dye wheels, boots, cuffs, frames etc.  I thought that they bought certain skates because of the color not inspite of the color, but hey… what do I know?  There is a reason that I am only the girlfriend of a rollerblader.  The one that makes sure there is a cheap, enormous stock pot, one whose sole purpose is for the RIT party.

Regardless, what will end up happening is drunken rollerbladers up all night making a royal mess that only they are capable of making.  You will get up in the morning to go to work and find newspaper soaking wet with dye and skate parts on top of this paper.  These things will be stuck to your stove. You may also find your sink or strainer is full of wheels.  In addition to that little mess, you will find RIT dye EVERYWHERE.  I am talking on the floor, all over the counter, the ceiling anywhere you can think of you will find tiny colored spots scattered.  The fun part is, you spend a little bit of time before work doing a some cleaning and feel pretty impressed that with a little bleach you have saved your kitchen.  Just wait.  For the next month you will find the tiniest spots in the most random of places and regardless of how thorough you think you were, there will be more.

Wax and your car

When you think about it, it really goes without saying and is pretty obvious.  However, it's not really something that you think about when you go somewhere, unless you get wet from sitting in the seat. 

It's kind of a guarantee that if your car has been skating there is wax, it's somewhere, it's hiding, and it can be a disaster.  Common sense tells you that when a candle is lit it melts all over everything.  Common sense also tells you that you don't drive around with candles in your car, just know that now it's pretty much a given that it is somewhere.  The problem is that you don't know how much is somewhere and if you find a sliver you might think I got it!  Unbeknownst to you, that sliver just broke off of a much larger piece that's on the opposite side of your car somewhere. 

We've lived in South Carolina and in Florida where your car is 150+ degrees.  My rollerblader is really good about getting the wax out of my car in general but there have been times when its melted into the floor board, on cd's, on my seat belt, in my cup holder... wherever. 

Our friend, Jason K., had a pretty brilliant solution to that problem.  He'd take a huge sheet of paraffin wax, melt it down in a pot, and pour it into paper cups.  That way when they'd go skating they could just peel the top section off the paper cup, use the wax, put it in the cup holder, and pretty much contain the wax melting disaster. 

You can kinda gauge how big of a wax fan your rollerblader is by the candles that go missing in your house.  If you start missing a lot of candles then start checking your car.

When your car goes on a skate adventure

            If they take your car skating you should be aware of a couple of things. First of all there will most likely be no gas in your car. This is because they probably got home somewhere around 3 to 5am and they are so tired that it completely escapes them that you have to be at work at 8am and you have not left extra time to go get gas.  To be safe just anticipate that this will happen.  Secondly, if your car was the primary car used in the trip out of town and all around town, the smell will be horrific be very careful when you open your trunk or car door because you will be knocked out from the smell.  Also, be aware of the fact that there will be many random items in the car so just do a quick check to be sure.  Learn from my mistakes that have included part of a subway sandwich that had meat, cheese, mayo on it that I was unaware of and left to fester in the heat.  The things that you will learn to care less about are the bags of chips, nuts, or seeds that have exploded everywhere.

If they indeed did get home around 5 and you work at 8 it is quite likely that the seats will be wet.  The best thing I can tell you here is to bring a towel with you so you don't go to work with a wet back and ass and have a garbage bag because subway leftovers that fester in the sun or have been locked up in your car are really rank.  Also, don’t forget to look for wax, it is somewhere and it's going to melt. 

Attempting to take pictures and film

Don't.  Just don't.  That is unless you are one of those people that are great with a camera.  I thought I was because I can take a nice picture, I figured how hard is it to video something, I have two hands and can hold a camera. 

So when he's said I really want some pictures or to get some clips... I eagerly volunteer. What happens is I can't guess what trick he's going to do, if he tells me I nod my head like I have a clue.  He says "ready?" Hell yea I'm ready! I take the picture and without fail it's a picture of him mid air jumping onto the rail.  It's a picture where you can't see his feet.  It's a picture where you can't tell what he's doing.  Or on the very rare occasion it has the potential to be an awesome picture and he falls.  Adjust camera settings, he directs you where to stand, and inevitably you take 80 pictures and 3 are ok. 

The same goes for filming.  If you're really interested in filming for him, it's best if you learn to skate so you can follow the lines and can kinda figure out what he's going to do.  It doesn't work if you try to run alongside them because if you're as graceful as I am, you'll run right into something.  So, generally the commentary that friends would add into my filming are "oh look, he's far away, he's doing something, now there's a close up of his back, he went over something, is now doing something, and... did he fall?"

Age does not matter

Rollerblading is one of those things where age doesn't matter.  Unless you're looking at it from the perspective of people that have had several injuries and banged up their body to the point that they aren't able to skate as much.

I'm talking about how people in general stay within their age groups because people are at similar points of their life and are able to do the same things.  Rollerbladers vary so much in age and a tight crew can consist of people from 15 to mid 30's.  People outside of the rollerblading culture sometimes think why the hell is this 30 year old hanging out with a child.  The answer for a rollerblader is simple, they love to skate and it brings them happiness or they are amazing and they have fun skating together.

I remember being in and then later out of college and going with my rollerblader to pick up some kids that were really nice, fun people that shared a love of rollerblading.  That's all it takes.  We would go meet their parents, they would see that we were responsible people and would take care of their kids, and they'd send us on our way. 

The two drawbacks were when we'd all go to a skate spot that had rails and they were too short to jump on the rail and all attempts to help them launch onto it failed and they'd get pissed and not want to talk to anyone until we went to a spot that they could skate.  The second drawback is when you had to have them home by 10:00 so they could go to school in the morning, they'd all get sucked into a time warp and you return them home by 2:00 am and you felt like you were in as much trouble as they were.

 

Are you dancing? Having a seizure? What's going on here?

Be prepared because at any moment they will bust out skate maneuvers on the flat ground no matter where you may be at the given time.  They may try to come up with excuses or ignore the fact that you're staring at them like they have lost their mind but they are planning out what tricks they are going to try during their next session. They may appear to be, and cover it up by saying they are dancing poorly but they are not...trust me. They don’t even realize it most times, at least I don’t think so because they become oblivious to the outside world when they get lost in their head while thinking about skating and I think their body just naturally follows without realizing.

 

I've been standing at a hostess booth at a fairly nice restaurant and he's just started doing stalls on the stairs, spinning around like a maniac, or grinding on nothing.  You can try your best to keep them focused but you'll realize you just have to let them get in a few tricks. 

 

Just try and keep them away from steps or any sort or ledges when you're taking a stroll or trying to have a real conversation with them.  Just lead them away in a different direction.  Also realize that this is almost impossible as being a rollerblader has also made their feet automatically attracted to such things.