Skate

The olympics are over! Which really just means that I have now missed at least two olympic cycles with no proper TV, and therefore no ability to actually watch the figure skating. Because, guys, figure skating is awesome. When I was a kid I would pretend I was a skater, twirling around on the slick grass (AKA overgrown weeds) in our front yard at night, just the porch light on. I could never even stand upright on skates, and actually didn't really mind so much. The handful of times I even tried were all on school field trips. We took one trip to a roller skating rink and one to a super-ghetto ice skating rink per year. I steadfastly refused to actually *do* anything while I was there. For years. I would just sit in the stands and have a perfectly lovely time entertaining myself for several hours. I, mustering determination only slightly stronger than my omnipresent fear of failure, put on ice skates ONCE and oodged around the outside edge of the rink while holding on to the railing desperately. Yeah, that was enough of that. But I love watching the olympics. I think I am still slightly heartbroken that Timothy Goebel had to retire after only one medal. Looking at the videos now he looks so tiny and young! But at the time I could have just eaten him up! 12 years ago! I lived a totally different life in a totally different world 12 years ago.

The news coverage this year has been all Nancy Kerrigan v. Tonya Harding. All. The. Time. Which sort of cracks me up. I remember watching that year. I distinctly remember watching them do their free skate while I sat on my grandmother's bed with the other ladies of the family. The whole scandal had been EVERYWHERE for the past month, so everyone knew about it. But I was 12? It's not like I had an opinion. I had never seen either of them skate before. I remember feeling sort of dreadful for Harding, who skated like she was terrified and unprepared, and feeling utterly unimpressed with Kerrigan, who managed to medal (as far as I could tell) simply because everyone felt sorry for her. The girl who won gold was Russian and amazing, and she was wearing the ugliest costume on the planet. All fluffy maribou stuff to match her fluffly 90s hair.
It's weird the things you remember all of a sudden. Things that take you back to a different time and place. Green paint. A shelf of porcelain cat figurines. My little white leotard with pink rosettes just below the chin.