Day# 1 - Week i - 2010

Ice Skating: 75 min of queuing in the cold for 35 min of pain on the ice


For my first trick, my girlfriend and I decided to go ice skating. Not really my very fist time. I had done this before when I was 18. But things change - and so do people, in weight and speed. My first rink was also a closed one. This one was an open air one in Millennium Park. To get in, you have to stand in line around the outdoor rink for about 75 min. The temperature? 13F (-10 C). The weather conditions? Humidity at 80% and a windchill to make it feel like its actually 10 degrees less than it is.

Your skin burns from the cold and you lose feeling in your limbs and face in 15 min. The remaining 50 min are just sheer torture. But to make it slightly better, we had hot chocolate that turned cold in no more than 5 min. And to keep us company, a line of trembling ice-skaters stood shivering with us. 75 min feels like an eternity. Only bearable because the company was not bad.

75 min go by. Feels like a slow painful day. Then skates on and off to the rink. Make sure you give the company of 4 who cut the line by sneaking in with us and behind the "bouncer" the stink eye. You line-cutters suck. Big time. Now for the baby steps on the ice. It feels weird. It's like being a toddler all over again. Rediscovering the world through your new feet: a pair of hard to balance/use skates that are the only thing separating you from crushing your bones on the ice.

And sure thing. The bigger they are the harder they fall. With my 220 lbs and 6'2", seeing me fall on my back is a spectacle. But being the performer is a whole different story. My 2nd fall was not a simple slip on the bum. It started the classic way (legs up in the air first), and then it took a turn to the worst. As I quickly grabbed the ramp to stop myself from hitting the ice hard, I unintentionally pulled myself closer to the side of the rink. A millisecond later, my left butt cheek landed on the solid side of the rink absorbing 1 G-force exercised over 220 pounds of the flying biological blurb that is me. Pain. Then I landed again on the ice. Pain again.

Sadly, the first pain was much worse than the second. I stood up and felt my soul about to rush out of my nostrils and the pain, like an electric wave, rush like a flow of energy from my left butt cheek to the hairs on my head. I couldn't scream so much it hurt. I closed my eyes and waited for the pain to burn through me as my girlfriend and my friend stood stunned at the sight and waited for me to make a sound - anything that could prove to them that I was not traumatized and lost my ability to speak.

The first words that came out of my ass as I started feeling the heat of my swollen left butt cheek were: "baby... I feel my butt bone scream. You gotta grope it". I was hoping she would grope it and that I wouldn't scream of pain - the only test I could think of to test whether the bone was broken or not. She, of course, couldn't help cracking up with laughter and said: "what??" - "Just grope it baby!". She obviously didn't and I was left alone with my overwhelming pain. For the next 25 minutes.

The bottom line
 You put yourself out of your comfort zone. You walk like you would if you were 90. But you learn to control yourself and respond to new stimuli. Why else would you do anything new anyway? Surely not for the public humiliation - or the pain in the butt, literally.