first step towards redemption

the lord's team played the heathens from florida, and we smitted them several times in the first quarter. they ended up defiling our endzone, but only once. that's acceptable.

in spite of concussive sx, i went for a little skatey poo. it was without intent. it started cat pissing rain the moment i left, and the three stair park across the street was half wet, and half dry. it works as a stone curb spot, if you are willing to skate as slowly as possible. i warmed up.

i cruised down the overhang sidewalk to a top tier microspot, which is a nothing to two stair metal angle iron, with a column on the exit. it's backside for me, and it has never wanted to grind, despite being a metal angle iron. i had forgotten about it, but since i didn't feel up to skating real spots, i spent some time there. i ended up waxing it, and the motherfucker still wouldn't grind. but each attempt made it 10cm of it more grindable. by the end, the whole thing was grinding. there are also some loading ramps on the sidewalk there, so you can do tricks into them and do flatground, and then have a short, weird metal grind, then a cross road, then up a two stair. by the end, I have my confidence back.

sort of. i was still spooking at all kinds of cracks and nonsense. i worked pretty hard to get through the first quarter of my flat ground warm up, but the cracks continued to spook me. I never feel; i just felt like a coward. i rounded a convenient corner to go home, and came up on a new planter installation. it's all bumpily black rails, three sections of which are 10m long. the surface is the nastiest square tiles we have, and poorly laid ones, so there are tons of cracks and loose ones and ways to eat shit. the solution is to skate across them at somethign like a 45 degree angle, and then straighten out at the last minute, like a 777 coming in for a landing in a strong crosswind. i got on the bumpily micro rail. i got on it dozens of times. i never rolled away. it's a very long and flat street, so pedestrians could see me from about five minutes ahead. an old man was walking his dog up towards me, and when he finally arrived, he shouted 'awesome, awesome' in mandarin, and gave me thumbs up. he watched me keep trying it, but he gave up on me.
i left frustrated, but on the way back, i realized that i could satisfied htat i was skating shitty tile sidewalks again, without fear. it's an important step. if you cant do your flatground on a rough surface, your flatground doesnt matter.

i got back home and painted an elaborate skateboard. i sanded it on the sidewalk as people gawped at me, and then killed the next five hours working on it, before f1 starts. one hour to go. i'm happy with the deck so far.