Adventures in Skating
By Lauren Pincente

I hate children. Anyone has ever been to a skating rink after a long hiatus from skating would know exactly why. I hate kids that zoom past you, brushing up against you and almost knocking you to your feet. I hate kids that run on their skates and scream, “Look at me, Mom!” before they fall right in front of you and then cry when you almost crush them. Public skating at the local community centre after 10 years of being benched from the ice means having to deal with children like this. It only makes getting back on the ice all the more difficult.

Late last night, as I was sitting around my house bored, I got a message from my boyfriend asking me if I wanted to go to the local community centre arena and test out our skates for our big skating excursion on Sunday. Without much convincing (I believe the words “It’s only $3” were used), I obliged and made my way up to his place to pick up him and his new/old skates along with his mother’s white figure skates which I would be borrowing (K-Dawg’s were a bit rusty). About an hour after I had left, there I was, standing in his mom’s skates, preparing to step out onto the ice.

I was told that ice skating is like riding a bicycle because you never forget how to do it. Was Hertha ever wrong! Whenever you get back on a bike, the ability to ride, balance and direct comes back immediately. Skating, on the other hand, takes a bit more time. When the freshly sharpened blades hit the ice, I was more terrified then I ever remembered being while skating. Just standing on the ice, I felt ready to slip. Hertha took off, shooting out into the crowd with great power and little coordination (it’s the effort that matters!), leaving me all alone. For the first five minutes, as I tried to feel the ice out, I slowly glided about halfway down the rink. This is where the little kids came out of the woodwork.

Two little girls that I nicknamed “The Powder Puffs” were novice skaters. Bundled up like the big pink and purple marshmallows that they were, they were so packed into their snowsuits that they were running on their skates, falling in front of me on multiple occasions and laughing. Easy for them. Their parents probably had hockey pads stuffed inside their snowsuits. Me? I was wearing very thin yoga pants (stupid idea in retrospect). Along with them was the kid in the Lindros jersey who was an intermediate but was much too over-confident for his abilities. This kid was flying down the ice, thinking he was a great skater, but when it came to stopping or turning I realized he was like the Herth. The kid had no control over himself and obviously, no one was controlling him. I’m pretty sure he bought the farm a few times.

Then, there was the Russian family. Oh, that Russian family. By far the most advanced on the ice, the father sat in the penalty box, looking at his watch, timing his children. His daughters were in the centre of the ice doing, I swear, triple axels, while his sons were trying to skate around in the ice in less than a minute. When they were slacking, he’d yell at them. Did I mention this was leisure ice time?

So there I was on the ice with all levels of expertise, trying to get back in the game. Skating with all these types of kids not only reminded me of when I was a kid but made me feel really old. Not as old as the hockey dads skating the ice with their kids but old nonetheless. (One hockey dad, an excellent skater, just looked disappointed that he was watching his kid skate instead of playing in the NHL.) I needed to take breaks every so often by leaning up against the boards, I stopped anytime I spied kids in the plexi-glass reflection skating up behind me (I’m telling you, kids are psychos) and I nearly beat Hertha when he was trying to hold my hand, convinced he was going to pull me down (and also because he’s awkward on skates. I don’t understand how he didn’t face plant multiple times). After about an hour, I decided to bench myself and watch Hertha continue on.

As I was sitting on the benches, still laced up, I watched all the kids that just got onto the ice and zoomed off. At this point in the night, I was back to my old skating abilities—not too bad but not great. I realized how jealous I was of these kids that had the ability to completely relinquish control and were completely fearless on the ice. That was when I realized that skating really IS a metaphor for life (as stupid and overanalytical as that sounds)—there are kids who have no fear and just go out and do what they want to do and then there are kids like me, who waffle in between two ideas and eventually have to be forced to do something before they can be successful at it. Hertha told me I was overthinking when I told him this theory but it’s true. One girl from my elementary school was really good when we used to go to the arena for public skating. I remember her mom telling me, “It’s because she’s not afraid of falling. She just goes for it.” When I remembered that, I got angry at myself for being afraid of falling, so I got up, and went back out onto the ice.

For the last hour, I kept trying harder and harder until I got better. By the end of the night I was able to bend my knees and un-stiffen my body and I even managed to skate past a few psycho kids and crybabies without having to stop from a fear of being hit/hitting them. I never ended up doing triple axels with the Russian National Skate Team in the centre of the ice, but I was decent and slightly less awkward. I even managed to gain speed and probably would’ve gone further if I had any idea how to stop. The point is though that I finally got over the fear of falling and managed to relax and have fun. (Well, except for the part where I was yelling at Hertha for being reckless. He has a pretty face, I don’t want him to ruin it). After the two hours were up, I was pleased with my performance and realized that I was happy I attempted it but that I really would rather stick to sports played on land. I’m just glad that we went for the practice run last night so that this coming Sunday, my friends won’t have to see me skate like the stiff board I was when I started out.

I <3 Taranna!
By Lauren Pincente

I love Toronto. When living in a city, it tends to lose its novelty for some people (well, except for Parisians). But for me, this city will always be number one in my heart, no matter where I go or live. And I've been around the block *wink, wink*.

Tonight I went out for sushi in Little Italy with my friend, Fox. That sentence pretty much summarizes why I love this city. The people are unique and exciting, you can get anything, anytime, and there's always something new and unexpected to be discovered whether it's a music scene, a restaurant or a clothing shop. Fox is a cool guy with an artsy vibe to him; like me, he is a major film buff. He's always on the prowl for the next indie band, he cracks the funniest jokes and he does a mean gay impression (not MEAN mean but MEAN awesome). In short, Fox is the man. Tonight we decided, before his 10:30 shift at the hotel where he works as a security guard, that we would go out for "the best sushi in town" (according to him). I first tried sushi in about 2003 when I first moved into the city because it seemed the hip thing to do. Of course, being that weak sushi with the horribly dry salmon from the grocery store, I enjoyed it but never all that much. I took the subway to Bathurst and Bloor even though it's walking distance, really, and met up with Fox (or FHN as I sometimes call him) at the corner of Ulster and Bathurst. That short distance from the subway station prompted a very interesting conversation upon meeting with FHN.

While I was walking, I noticed some very strange things. First, there was a small Honest Ed's sidedoor sign that read, "Honest Ed has only one thing to say and he can't think of it right now". Peculiar. Next, it was a sign outside the Midas station boasting, "MONROE SHOCKS AND STRUTS". It was obviously for car parts but all I could think was that it sounded like a tabloid headline about Marilyn Monroe. I laughed. People in the car stopped at the red light beside me saw. I was embarrassed. Most importantly was the short bald man who, in a high-pitched squeal, yelled, "HIIIIIIIIII!" as I passed him (he must've been “shocked” by my “strut”). When I turned to look at him, he was walking along as if nothing happened. Next on my walk to Ulster and Bathurst was a pair of women's boots and handbag, laid out on a sidewalk, as if a woman had melted into the concrete. Maybe it's just this one area but all incidents were really strange and scary funny.

As soon as I saw FHN running down the street, I got really excited (he had gotten really into a video game and was a bit late. Too many throats to slice and men to murder, he said). FHN can make anything funny so I shared with him my adventures. I always seem to have adventures when walking the streets of Toronto and this was no exception. He laughed at my stories and we agreed that in Toronto, no matter where you are in the city, you tend to meet stock characters that seem to be right out of an over-acted Mirvish musical. It is all part of the quirky ambiance of Toronto. While we were discussing the random eccentricities encountered on a daily basis (believe me, DAILY; friends are always interested in the stories about strange homeless men that I tell), he shared with me an anecdote of his own.

This past summer, his roommates, Ian and Stefan, traveled to New York City and met a man in an old, rundown bar. The man was a wildly strange, 40-something rocker with a three-prong Mohawk and crazy stories about his artist life. He invited the boys up to his apartment, just upstairs of the bar, to show them around.

When Ian and Stefan walked into the apartment, the guy’s “art” was merely newspaper cut-outs plastered all over his walls. His free-standing structural idea of art was a fork stabbed into a block of wood. The guys, obviously realizing Mr. Mohawk was a bit off his rocker, decided to leave. As they were leaving, they inquired what his name was. He introduced himself as “Level Seven”; he had "given up" his real name years ago.

This is another reason I love Toronto. We have some real weirdos in this city but I don’t know if I have or ever will met a guy like Level Seven (can we face the facts here? Level Seven is scary weird. New York City weird is obviously a lot more frightening than Toronto weird; I think the Big Apple attracts far worse because it’s so well-known). Level Seven is the kind of person that could completely turn you off to your neighbourhood in general. Level Seven is a real character, in every sense of the word: even after meeting him in public, you actually could not believe he exists. As much as I would LOVE to meet Level Seven (I think it would be an interesting rendez-vous), not having him living in my community makes me love Toronto all that much more.

Needless to say, the night was a success. Fox and I ate at Ichiban Sushi, my first real outing in a sushi restaurant, and I fell in love with the Spider rolls (the deep-fried crab adds a great crunch) and the Spicy Tuna roll (love that orange sauce!). Afterwards, like pretentious Torontonians, we grabbed some Starbucks drinks and walked through the Annex. When we arrived at his home on Euclid Ave., he told me a ghost story about the park across the street. (A nun died in the church beside the park and she cared for the gardens. Legend has it that at night, you can hear the swingset creaking as if someone’s swinging on it when there is no one around.) With that, I bid adieu to Fox and walked to the subway station, a little tainted by the ghost story but enjoying the city. It was a real Toronto night, the kind that can boost my spirits no matter how down I get in life, and to top it off, it ended in true Torontonian fashion: on the subway ride home, I was stuck next to the crazy man who was telling his friend that he was being charged with battery and assault. I love this city!