Now That I'm Here, Now That You're Near . . .

Last night, I went roller skating. My husband's cousins and their kids came to town for the day and there were like 5 million kids at my in-laws' house. The kids were going crazy, someone brave came up with the idea for the 14 of us to go to the roller rink and off we went. Alek had never been on skates and I hadn't been for I don't know how many years, so we were brilliant, naturally.

Alek and I share the unenviable trait of giving up easily. Something doesn't come to us naturally? Not worth doing. Move on. Alek fell down a lot last night. After about one full minute of roller skating, he was near tears and said he didn't want to do it anymore. I thought he was going to sit on a bench all night. But after a little rest, he came back out onto the rink. He used the wall a lot, then he would try skating on his own, then he would fall down. He kept this up for two hours.

He improved over the course of the evening, although I am not sure we can call what he was doing skating. He would run on his skates for several steps and then roll for a while, waving his arms like a crazy person trying to stay balanced. It was one of the most awkward looking things I have ever seen. But he stuck with it. At the end of the evening, he declared the evening "awesome", was anxious to go again and was feeling proud of himself for being such a fast learner. It was fairly adorable. I was proud of him for sticking with it and glad he had a good time.

I had a great time and I'll tell you why -- I love roller skating. I can't do any fancy tricks; I can't even skate backwards, for goodness sake, so you might wonder WHY, why do I love to roll around in a circle for hours on end.

You all know that I'm uncoordinated and can't play any kind of sport worth a darn, right? Roller skating is the only semi-athletic thing I can do. I can balance myself on skates and then propel myself forward. This is an enormous feat for one such as I. It makes me feel like less of a loser that I can do this very simple thing.

Also, I get to listen to music while I skate. Always a plus, although I knew a total of two songs they played last night -- over the course of two hours, two songs. I would have felt old, except I thought that for the most part the music they were playing was overwhelmingly terrible, so I just felt that I have good taste. However, I did get to skate to the rhythm a little bit and that was fun.

Last but not least, there is the Xanadu factor. Xanadu, as you may know, is a classic film starring Olivia Newton-John as a roller skating muse who inspires Sonny (Michael Beck) to give up his steady paycheck painting album cover reproductions and open a roller skating night club with Danny (Gene Kelly -- yes, really). They name the roller skating night club Xanadu, in reference to the poem "Kubla Khan" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which is just one of the many ways in which this movie takes itself way too seriously. As an adult, I can tell you that this movie is just awful. Josh and I watch it occasionally on one of our "bad movie nights." However, I loved this movie as a little girl and (don't tell Josh this) I love it still. And I have to say that I think the music truly is good. I have the entire soundtrack on my MP3 player. Stop laughing.

Whenever I roller skate, I think of Olivia Newton-John in this movie. She looked so graceful when she skated, moving her arms fluidly, every move in perfect harmony with the music. I try to be her when I skate. After my years-long roller skating break, I was a little rusty when the evening started, but after the first hour or so, I was starting to get the hang of it. Eventually, I started swaying my arms, unconsciously mimicking my roller skating idol.

Totally pathetic. :)

On the up side, it turns out roller skating is great exercise. I earned like 12 activity points (it's a Weight Watchers thing) last night.

The other interesting part of the roller skating excursion was when this guy proposed to his girlfriend in the middle of the rink. Had set it all up before hand with the DJ. I don't want to comment too much on this except to say: ooooo-kay.

Digital cameras were being, IMO, overused last night, but that means that eventually I will have pictures of me and Alek in all our roller skating glory to post here. Stay tuned!