Thing about being in a new town is, I don't know very many people and I don't have my set patterns. Thus I accept pretty much any invitation that comes my way. This is how you end up joining a curling club when you've never really curled before. I mean, how hard can it be - you hurl some rocks down the ice, you holler "sweep" every now and then, you drink some beer and feel Canadian.
Except, of course, I am very very bad at the curling thing. It doesn't help that I was recruited to my team as a result of someone dropping out (yes, they were desperate) and thus I had no opportunity to take any clinics. It really was a matter of being tossed out on the ice, and instead of naturally gliding like all those other ladies do, I fell on my butt a few times to start the whole thing off. There is this slider thingy that goes over my shoe when I throw my rock, and it's easy to forget about and it's, as you would imagine, very slidey.
Lest you think I am kidding about how bad I am, well, let me tell you that last week, the opposing team stopped the game and offered to give us some basic coaching. The one who worked with me really was a curling coach, so that was pretty cool. Of course, after the game, we were chatting with our generous coaches and the skip from the previous week came up to the group and made a really big deal out of extensively thanking these ladies for teaching us something, since we so sorely needed it and wasn't it incredibly generous to take the time to help us out. Because, like she said, we're really really bad. Worse than that, etc. (Hi? Me, I'm right here! I can hear you! This is how you encourage people in this club?) Last night, at the post-game beer, the opposing team's skip told me I should invest in Curling for Dummies. I think those anecdotes pretty much illustrate just how very much I suck at the curling thing, and the post-game beer is not making up for it. The ladies are nice, but I'm ... well ... I'm just not that happy about being so glaringly bad at a sport. I'm not *good* at any sports, but I can often manage to fly under the radar enough that I'm at least not discussed in terms of, can you believe someone who sucks this much comes out... (most of the ladies are really nice, but still, it bugs me. )
Fortunately, not everything is going this badly. I'm running better than I have in a long time, for instance. On November 1, I decided that I would accumulate 100 miles before the holiday parties started and my focus shifts to eating baked goods. I'm at 22.5 so far. Me, I do well with goals like that. Just like having a bike trip to get ready for in the spring made it kind of easy to crank out those 1000 early season kilometers, having that artificial finish line in mind helps too.
November is hard. Even when the weather is as good as it was this week, it's a tough month to get through. The days are getting so short that I have to remember to take bike lights with me in the morning, because there is a good chance that it's dark when I return. My weekend friendships from the summer disappear once there is no kayaking to do. My life gets kind of quiet and lonely every November, and that's not been made easier living in a town where I have so few friends.
It will get better. When the snow flies. Until then, I have 77.5 miles to pound out.