January Nerves

It’s funny.  Even though I am far away from the competitive world, I can just feel that Nationals is close by.  I think my body has been programmed to get really nervous around mid-January.

I haven’t kept up much with the going-ons in the competitive world. However, the other day those mid-January nerves began to kick in and I found myself online, researching the world of competitive skating 2011.  

Somehow I found my way to a site where people were predicting upcoming results, or analyzing past competitions or programs or teams.

And something struck a nerve.  I totally absolutely understand the desire for people to express their opinions about something they are not involved in first-hand.  It is along the same lines as reading a tabloid and then discussing the spilt of Sandra Bullock and Jesse James (who, by the way, is getting married to Kat Von D? what?! :> )  And, I get people guessing the outcome of an upcoming competition.  I have heard of that thing called betting.

But what makes me laugh is the questioning of choices.  Choices of choreographers, music, costumes, or even lifts. 

To answer those questions, I think we should focus on the basic idea that people make choices because, well, they thought it was a good- nah, the best!- choice.

I remember Tanith (Belbin) saying “it wasn’t for a lack of effort on anyone’s part” that they did not have the result outcome that they had hoped for or expected at a competition some years ago.  It is such a simple things to state -- everyone involved tried their best-- yet you feel you must make it clear.   

So, just to be clear, I have never, on purpose, made a bad choice.  I have always thought it was a good-- nah, the best!-- choice.  But, alas, sometimes I am just a dumb ass.

Okay, so this venture into the online competitive skating world got my wheels turning.  I started to do a compare and contrast of the competitive skating world and the show skating world. Wait.  Clarification:  The competitive skating world and the show skating world, relative to me. Of course. 

One of the most drastic changes has been the fact that in the show world, not every performance is special .  During a competitive season you really only get to perform a handful of times, and each time you do it feels pretty important.  And Brent and I always did a good job making each program feel special in that moment.  Well, now that we perform multiple times a week, it is a bit different. A few shows feel good, a few bad, and most just right in the middle.  As Jillian, a show veteran in our cast, would say, “Just another day at the office!”  I swear I skated out there sometime last week and thought, “what are all these people doing here? It is just a Sunday afternoon in Cologne.  I wish they would stop looking at me.  I am kind of tired.”  Whereas before, during a competition, I knew why they were looking at me-  I was competing at THE U.S. FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIP! (best said in a booming, echoing voice like a movie trailer voice-over) and that only happened once a year and was pretty damn important!  

Which leads to me to note that the level of mental stress for us has definitely lessened.  This has been a welcomed change.  Though that is not to say that there is not a set of stresses in the show world, but they come more in the form of challenges.  For example, the ice size changes from city to city, and I am told in France we will see the smallest ice imaginable.  Or the ice condition is just plain bad.  Or there is giant hole downstage, right where you do three big tricks.  Or there are two pink feathers where you do a lift.  Or there is a giant fountain in the middle of the ice during your number.  Or your heel splits mid-show and you have to go into another pair of skaters for the second half of the show.  All challenges, often annoying, but definitely less stressful.

And I guess that “annoying” feeling comes with the territory, considering that this is a job now.  Jobs can be just that- annoying.  As much as I tried to put it off, that is a lesson I must learn as I approach my thirties (how embarrassing!)  But the great thing is now I have a license to complain, just like a grown-up. “Argh!  I am so annoyed at my job!”   I didn’t really earn that right while competing.  It just makes no sense to say “Argh! I am so annoyed at this thing I pay to do” or better yet, “Argh! I am so annoyed at this thing that my closest friends and family help me pay to do!”

The coolest thing about being in this show world, having a job and having some income, has nothing to do with skating at all.  It is the fact that I can help fund my boyfriend  through wine business school, which he found when Brent and I were offered the Holiday On Ice contract.  So, Mark is living in Dijon, France, pursuing something he has been passionate about long before moving to Philadelphia to work as an accountant and help pay his girlfriend’s rent.  

It feels really good to help someone pursue their passion.  And Mark has been really grateful for the support.  Having previously been on the other side of the coin for so long, I hope I have been as grateful.

If you are reading this, chances are you deserve another big THANK YOU.  Hope you know that I am “paying it forward” as the saying goes, and we should all share some good wine together under Mark’s tutelage.  Prost!

Laundry

It’s the small things that prove difficult here on tour.  One such thing- laundry.  

There has never been a laundry mat just next door or across the street from any given hotel.  The only time there was one nearby was during our stay in Utrecht, where we were rehearsing for five weeks.  I had no idea how good we had it then.

I have gotten into an every two weeks schedule.  It takes me about two weeks to have a desperate need to do laundry.  Which is crazy because when I fill a bag with all my dirty clothes it just looks like the saddest smallest bag.  It is mind-boggling that I can’t get on comfortably with my life without first getting this small bag of clothing clean. Yet this small bag makes up for at least 50% of my wardrobe.  Sigh.

So, every two weeks, also known as “every other city”, I trek around Germany with a few skaters and a small bag of dirty clothes.  In Bremen the laundry mat was four tram stops away, in Dortmund we walked twenty five minutes, in Erfurt we walked ten minutes (in the snow, backwards and barefoot!) and then took the tram for ten minutes.  The journey is always an adventure, filled with self-doubt (“are we sure we are going the right way?”) and that is after the entirely different adventure of asking for directions to a “waschsalon” at the hotel reception.

Essen was the next city in which I had a few things to wash, and I was so excited and impressed that the hotel already had directions to a few laundry mats printed out!  Surely this would be one of the easier laundry days on tour.

Right after we checked in to our hotel (Ypsilon Best Western) Charlene and I headed out to the closer of the two laundry mats.  We followed the directions without any problems and ended up at “Clarissa Steeger “ about fifteen minutes later.  It was a strange looking laundry mat.  It looked more like an apartment.  The door was closed, so we rang some doorbells but nothing happen.  We looked at a small German sign with some times on it and figured out that the laundry mat had closed at 2pm, but opened the next day at 10am.  Okay, not a huge problem.  The next day was another day off, and we would just return to Clarissa Steeger after breakfast.

Day two.  After breakfast Charlene and I acquired two more skaters, Michael and AJ, and together we set off to Clarissa Steeger with four small bags of dirty laundry. Again, fifteen minute walk to strange looking laundry mat.  This time the door was open.  We walked in only to find a group of Germans washing restaurant linens in some kind of big washing machine.  They looked at the four of us questioning and after a quick game of charades pointed us in the direction of a laundry mat.

Because we were embarrassed, we just nodded, said thank you, and walked off into the direction we were pointed.  Of course after only a few blocks down the road we assessed that none of us had a clue as to where we were heading, where we needed to go, or if in fact the Germans washing the restaurant linens had pointed us towards a laundry mat.

This is when we decided that postmen and grocery clerks were our “go to” for information.  Each person we saw delivering mail (oddly we did see two in the course of three blocks,) we would ask  “do.. .you...know...where...a....laundry. ...mat.....uh....waschsalon....is?” because you know, when you ask a question in English s l o w l y, it magically turns into German.  

When that didn’t work, AJ--who is actually an actor in LA when not on tour--went into the grocery store and acted out “washing clothes” to the clerk, which looked more like “I am really itchy,” but he must have done something right because the clerk tried to sell him some laundry detergent.

Since laundry detergent wouldn’t solve all our problems, we decided to consult the hotel print-out.  The first laundry mat listed was a bust, but the second one would have to exist, right?  So we began asking for directions to “Klarastrasse,” where the second laundry mat was located.

Of course finding the street was nothing short of difficult.  We walked pass it at least once and at some point figured out we had made almost a complete circle from where we started (the Ypsilon Best Western.)

Finally finally finally we found Klarastrasse with the help of an English speaking German woman who recognized four foreign faces in distress.  We followed Klarastasse to the address listed on our trusty hotel print-out.

It was a dry-cleaner.

So, we were getting warmer.

We asked where the $#%^ a laundry mat was (but in a much nicer, more charade-like way) and got directions to a whole new place.  A location not listed on our hotel print-out, which at this point felt like a really good sign.

We walked and walked and looked and walked...and then, we saw it.

“30,40, 60” laundry mat!  There was even a painting of a laundry basket on the window.

Charlene, AJ, Michael, and I ran across the street (in the snow!) Ran across the street and right up to the glass door.  

Only to see...

two repair men pulling the washing machines out of the wall. 

The laundry mat would be closed for two days for repairs.

WHAT?!  This was the one true laundry mat we came across in our hour and a half scavenger hunt.  How could it be closed?!

After we surrendered to the laundry gods (for what, we do not know) falling into a heap of tears and dirty snow, we walked with heads hanging to find a cab back to the hotel.  We had no idea where we were at this point, but knew laundry was not a possibility.

At the intersection I decided to part with the group to find an internet “surfstick.”  Internet is another small thing that proves incredibly difficult on tour.  So, the remaining three said they would take my bag of dirty clothes back to the hotel for me.

On my walk to the O2 store my phone rang.  It was Michael saying they just told the cab driver to take them to a laundry mat, so they had no idea where they were going, but they would wash my clothes for me.

So, yes.  Essen was my easiest laundry day on tour so far.  

Thanks guys.