“Yikes, Holla. That’s a bruise.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Have you taken a picture of it yet?”

“No.”

“You need to. And put it on the Internet and tell people to come to the bout.”

“Okay.”

Right now I’m staring at my uniform which is hanging from the doorway to my kitchen. My gear is by my side, brand new helmet already scratched in the places where it saved me from harm. And I’m stoked.

About six weeks ago I was really nervous about this game. I didn’t feel ready, I didn’t think I’d improved enough from the last tryout or even the last bout to be up for public scrutiny again. Today, when I would have thought I’d be a mess (because I sure was last time. Such a mess!) instead of pacing and peeing every ten minutes and then writing a poem like I fancy myself some kind of Maya Angelou of the track, I’m excited. I trained really hard for this bout. Last time I was mostly worried about falling down (which I did, like, the entire time) and not being the worst one. That was my goal: don’t be the worst one out there. And I was probably only the worst one out there less than half the time, so that was something.

These days Fresh Meat is filled with some seriously skilled girls (you have to try out to get into Fresh Meat now, so the new girls that come in… well, let’s just say this ain’t their first rodeo at all), so instead of having to spend most of our time covering the basics of how to move up and down the track, we’ve been able to focus on how to play the game. We spent weeks on strategy, skills, and oh-kill-me-now endurance.

“But Holla, you’re going to get hit on that bruise on Saturday. That’s where they’re aiming!”

“I know.”

“What are you going to do when you get hit?”

“I’m going to scream.”

I don’t know who’s going to win (at our Official Scrimmage the score was tied more often than someone was ahead by a point or five), and I have friends on both teams, so I’m just excited to get to play a bout with the lights and the crowd and it’s going to be awesome when we totally win. But Jesus yikes, I cannot believe that I have to wear silver hot pants.

Do you live far away and can’t make it to the Doll Factory this weekend? Turns out you don’t have to miss all the fun. They’re going to be streaming the game right here. And yes, I spent a good ten minutes debating whether or not I wanted all y’all to be able to see me, but the truth is I’ll do anything to help my league.

Okay, if I write any more words I’ll end up writing about how sad I am about Michael Jackson so I’m just going to stop now bye.