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June 21, 2007

Coming Up for Air

There has been no time for reflection of late. It has been a time of folding, cutting, stapling, banging, scoring, punching, taping, pressing, and living in squalor. It has been a time of weariness and clutter. It has been a time of roller derby.

"What?" you say, suddenly more interested. "Did he say roller derby?"

Oh yes I did.

But first things first. Happy Birthday to Emily Piendak who managed to turn 30 late last week. We drove to Timonium in recognition of the solemn event.

Of course there was cake.

Emily did us the kindness of making sure it wasn't poisoned.

After the cake, there were golf clubs.

A girl only turns 30 once, right?

There was even a Big Bertha, which, it turns out, is as big as my head.

Knowing Christian to be the type that gets antsy and jealous when other people get presents and he doesn't, we brought him a gift of his own: bacon-flavored toothpicks.

Five minutes after opening the gift, Christian's teeth were cleaner than they'd ever been. His mouth was resplendent, if a bit bacony.

After cake and golf clubs, we went to roller derby. Emily deserves all the credit for making this happen.

I briefly considered telling you in great detail about the many rules of roller derby, but I realize that it's late and that the nuance really pales in comparison to the fundamental point: women on skates try to knock each other down. Do I need to go on?

Roller derby isn't exactly easy to photograph, but here are some of the "roller-girls" warming up. They are delicate flowers, the roller-girls.

Actually, that's not true. The are like stout oaks who could crush you with a glance. Especially my favorite, Flo Schizzle.

You may admire Flo Schizzle from afar. You may photograph her when she is turning the other way. You may violently yell for her to knock someone down. But you may not say, "Hello Flo Schizzle, you delicate flower." At least, I wouldn't recommend it.

There are four teams in the Baltimore league: the Junkyard Dolls, the Mobtown Mods, the Night Terrors, and the Speed Regime. There being four of us, we quickly formed factions.

Christian was rooting for the Night Terrors.

And Emily for the Speed Regime.

The Terrors and the Regime just happened to be squaring off in one of the two "bouts" of the day. The tension between Christian and Emily was palpable, each of them talking smack, calling members of the other's team "delicate flowers" (though conspicuously quietly for smack talk, most likely in an attempt to avoid being overheard by one of the delicate flowers in question).

Roller girls were everywhere,

Knocking one another down, thrilling us considerably.

The gurney waited to accommodate mishap.

Fortunately there was none. The evening ended peacefully with a latenight drive back to Chestertown.

Where reality returned. This is the reality. Our barn may be too small.

Witness the clutter:

And this.

I am sure we are offending the combined gods of OSHA and Martha Stewart.

We will be condemned to the eternal torment of picking up scraps of trimmed paper.

In the midst of the chaos, a godsend arrived. A brand-new paper trimmer with the ability to cut through 300 pieces of paper in one mighty slice.

Our current cutters cut through 30 and 10 pieces of paper respectively, so the new machine represented a potent upgrade. Behold its mighty lever arm.

Unfortunately, the new trimmer, which we bought on the cheap, was assembled sloppily (by others, mind you) and is not quite square. So although the entire stack of books I made using it were produced with a previously unknown efficiency, they are also all slight parallelograms.

Even Robbi got into the action.

In our overwhelming optimism that we will be able to stir up interest and sell a few books at the MoCCA festival this weekend, we have been making huge piles of each of our books including nearly 100 copies of Ten Thousand Stories, by far our best seller.

Robbi had the good sense to bring a folding table from the other side of the barn. This way we could make books and watch movies at the same time.

I wish that she had had this epiphany long ago.

For a long time now, Robbi has been growing her hair for Locks of Love, the rationale being that she doesn't feel that she is doing any real "good for the world." After months of waiting for her locks to reach the appropriate length, she realized that the time was nigh.

Before:

After:

Between "before" and "after" she ran through the various stages of dramatic hair transformation.

Anticipation:

Action:

Surprise:

Wicked glee:

Jouissance:

Perhaps it is a subdued jouissance, but believe me when I tell you that the girl is happy. She hates having hair. She would especially hate it in Alaska, where we will be exactly four days from now.

(Note that no butcher knives were actually employed in the course of Robbi's shearing. A professional haircutter was charged with the removal. A trained actor was used in the dramatization.)

Late last night, after the hair cutting, we did a dry run with the MoCCA both, getting a sense of how we might set it up come Saturday morning.

We like it. The black cloth, a perfect complement to our pervasive white space, really makes the books pop.

We're going to make a bit of signage, have our business cards on hand, and will see what comes to pass.

Tomorrow we head to Baltimore to deposit our cats in the basement of a dear and loyal friend, the fetching, witty, and benevolent Supi Loco. I will be curious to see whether she is still our friend after spending a month with fatter and fattest.

I leave you with a parting shot of Emily's birthday party. I strongly recommend the roller derby. Because it is the sort of thing that makes this world remarkable.

Happy Birthday, Emily. Can't wait for next year.

Posted by bogenamp at June 21, 2007 01:11 AM

Comments

Posted by: Emily at June 21, 2007 11:16 AM