Proud
I went to Pride March on Sunday and participated in the march with Vagine Regime, who are the queer community within roller derby. I had skates on from about midday right through until I eventually fell into my car again at about 9 o'clock that night. Despite the fact that there was a lot of sitting about, this meant that I had wheels on my feet for nine glorious hours and I now have a serious itch for more street skating.
The march itself was great. There was a lot of noise and a lot of happy people and a lot of people who were specifically stoked to see a bunch of queer women on skates making a spectacle of themselves in the middle of St Kilda. We collapsed in a happy sweaty pile under a tree for a while before more or less randomly dispersing. Myself and Kaylee wound up in the company of a lovely couple, one of which is a relatively recent addition to Northside and the other skates with East Vic. A comedy of errors culminated in a frenetic street skate in a pack of four down Flinders St, over the bridge and along Southbank and through to Crown Casino carpark. We were all comfy on skates and while the pace wasn't punishing, we were all smooth and moderately fast and there were few enough pedestrians that we could just open up and skate as hard as we wanted to without incident. We got to Crown sweaty and grinning and exclaiming over how amazing a skate it was. There was an interlude of not finding the car, giving up on being good by walking and donning skates again in order to search the carpark more quickly including an en masse descent of a ramp at speed to a lower level. Various losings of tickets to leave the parking spot and triumphant findings of ticket later we finally got out of there and paused for one last beer in a pub just off Chapel St before dropping new friends off at Malvern station.
I do like derbygirls.
The march itself was great. There was a lot of noise and a lot of happy people and a lot of people who were specifically stoked to see a bunch of queer women on skates making a spectacle of themselves in the middle of St Kilda. We collapsed in a happy sweaty pile under a tree for a while before more or less randomly dispersing. Myself and Kaylee wound up in the company of a lovely couple, one of which is a relatively recent addition to Northside and the other skates with East Vic. A comedy of errors culminated in a frenetic street skate in a pack of four down Flinders St, over the bridge and along Southbank and through to Crown Casino carpark. We were all comfy on skates and while the pace wasn't punishing, we were all smooth and moderately fast and there were few enough pedestrians that we could just open up and skate as hard as we wanted to without incident. We got to Crown sweaty and grinning and exclaiming over how amazing a skate it was. There was an interlude of not finding the car, giving up on being good by walking and donning skates again in order to search the carpark more quickly including an en masse descent of a ramp at speed to a lower level. Various losings of tickets to leave the parking spot and triumphant findings of ticket later we finally got out of there and paused for one last beer in a pub just off Chapel St before dropping new friends off at Malvern station.
I do like derbygirls.