Ashley's Fables: The Tale of the Rollerskater and Inertia

I have been itching to rollerskate here lately.  As a young teen, I rollerskated often at Skate Country and in various driveways and parking lots.  I also have been itching to spend some time outdoors at one of the lovely parks in our fair city.  Because of my past driveway-skating experience, I thought to myself, "Oh Sequel!  There are a great many parks with sidewalks which are paved similarly to the skating driveways of Ye Olde 1998!  Perhaps thee might take the rollerblades out midday when few are about and have fun skating tymes!"  So I put on an old T-shirt and some jeans I didn't mind scuffing up - these would prove to be the only decisions made all afternoon that would not qualify as "Profoundly Stupid."

So I consulted Professor Google and found a local park which is near my home and has a nice multi-purpose "trail," which in this context is code for "sidewalk we wove through the woods."  Upon driving and parking, I was pleased to see picturesque flower beds and a nice smooth sidewalk with some small, innocuous inclines and declines.  So I put on my blades and tottered out in the sunshine, a little Bambi-esque at first because it's been a long time since I've skated.  But after a couple of minutes, I got my sea legs.  Then I reached a small hill, on which the sidewalk curved around to make the slope a lot less sharp than it is if you take the steps straight down.  There was also a handrail available.  "Great!" thought I.

Scientificism the First: Inertia does not care how sharp or not-sharp the slope is, most especially if you are on wheels.

I started to roll down the slope, feeling a little nervous.  Then I got a lot nervous, because my speed got a lot faster.  I tried lowering my skate brake- not so effective.  Realizing that the longer I waited to take action, the worse the inevitable stop would be, I reached for the handrail.

Scientificism the Second: Inertia thinks the best way to deal with being dissed by a hand grasping a hand rail is this:

So, not such a smooth start.  But the sharpest part of the decline was only a short distance, so being the optimist I am, I kept both hands on the handrail and lowered myself down until the sidewalk was just about even and decided to give it another go.

Scientificism the Third: Inertia does not think "just about even" is even enough.

My skates began rolling much faster than I wished, so I resorted to my old trick from Skate Country: when in doubt, skate off of the smooth surface.

Scientificism the Fourth: Inertia deals with moving from rink floor to carpet much more calmly than moving from sidewalk to grass.

Second spill of the day and still within sight of my car.  Still, I thought perhaps some of my troubles could be explained by being out of practice and also by being less-than-aerodynamic.  So for my last attempt, I decided to bend my knees so that I could use my weight to steer and maybe survive the elevation changes that way.

Scientificism the Fifth: Inertia appears to be cool with that.

I crouched on my skates and took a couple of curves uneventfully, if more quickly than I would have liked.  I began to get that weird mixture of terror and euphoria you get on a roller coaster: you are not in control of this experience, but MAN is it fun!

Until, of course, one of those curves is 90 degrees.

Scientificism the Sixth: Inertia laughs at your feeble grasp of physics.

CRASH.

I looked at the rest of the trail and realized that, although they were slight to the eye, there were elevation changes all along this trail, and I hadn't even approached an incline yet.  At first, I was despondent.  I wanted to try something new and had totally made an idiot of myself.  I felt like a failure and a loser and wished to melt into the tree roots that had broken my fall.

But then I realized, "Oh Sequel!  Thou art an amateur comedienne!  Document this, thine spectacular failure, and let the world gaze upon your complete humiliation in blog post form, where you can at least claim First Dibs on making fun of yourself!"

So let's laugh at the fallout from my falls!  Yay!

Right hip caught the impact from the last fall.  This is why the beat-up-able jeans were a good idea as opposed to shorts: no scrapes on the skin beneath.  Not even a bruise.

Left knee caught the impact from the second fall.  As with the right hip, the jeans protected me from scraping and bruising.

Caught myself with my left hand a couple of times.  Dirty, but not bad at all.

Little scraping on the right wrist

The worst of the injuries: a teeny elbow scrape.  Elbows, by the way, are very hard to photograph in a way that makes it obviously an elbow...this is why my eyes are all up in this picture.

A shot from In The Field...this was about a minute after the final fall.

Shirt all grass-stained.  Fun!

All things considered, it was actually not too bad.  I wasn't hurt and I gave it a good few tries before giving up.  Andrew's come back from dredging with WAY worse injuries.  So now it'll be parking lots and superflat sidewalks (hard to come by here in the foothills of the Blue Ridge).  Like, really flat.  Like, maybe I'll take a level with me next time...