FINALLY!

This is so exciting.  I get to say something I never thought I'd ever be able to say.  Ever:

I can skate better than someone on TV!

I've just begun watching "Skating With Celebrities" and saw the very first pair compete -- Kurt Browning and Deborah Gibson.  And I can safely report that everything Gibson managed -- I can do!  (At least, I could, back when I skated.)  I never really could get a good one-foot spin going, but I could go three revolutions.  (A spin has to go 5, I think, for it to legitimately be called "a spin.")  And those little bunny hops she was doing? -- check.  And the way she sorta couldn't stand up from her lunge without pulling her leg out to the side?  I can totally do that.  Because, you know, I kinda suck as a skater.

I've been wanting to go back to the rink and start skating again.  I've been hesitant to do this because they just had the Nationals on TV, and every little girl wants to be Sasha Cohen (or Michelle Kwan, even though she wasn't even at Nationals) -- which tends to make the local rinks really crowded from this time of year straight through the Olympics.  Until such time as the little girls learn that it actually takes, y'know, effort to do a waltz jump.  (Like Bruce Jenner did.  I can do them, by the way.  And his two-foot spin.  Oh yeah.  I was all over the two-foot spin.)

Which is actually why I think a show like "Skating With Celebrities" is doing a public service.  Because, in addition to providing what will probably be a decent demonstration of all of the simple little skating moves I used to do, (and therefore would try to explain to people), it is also an excellent illustration of how phenomenally stupid you look when you're first learning to skate.  It isn't all these beautifully graceful spread-eagles and layback spins.  It's arms waving wildly to keep you from losing your balance, and spins where -- if you accidentally bend at the waist -- you start wobbling around like you're drunk.  I have great hopes that this show will actually discourage people from going to the rink, and make it a slightly less crowded experience for me.