Ever since this arthritis thing started I’ve had troubles sleeping. Last night was no exception. I was up at 6am for no reason whatsoever. I got a few things done, went grocery shopping early enough that 99% of the people at the store were wearing northface goretex vests and shopping in the organic section (Ok fine I was shopping there too. But no vest!). I was really grouchy from not getting enough sleep and the arthritis pain wasn’t helping much. It seemed a little worse. I’m overdue on a shot of Humira, but I’m holding out for awhile as the long term side effects scare me so much. Anyways around noon Bernie, Dean and Carleigh showed up. We went to Willville. We started on the remodeled bank in the middle. There was construction going on at the top so you couldn’t do tricks into it like normal. We warmed up by dropping in then doing some dorking around. I did a little front board pose pulled up onto the ledge to fakie then a little halfcab pivot off that felt really fun. I haven’t been able to skate much so little things like that make my day. Dean manualled it sideways which looked fun. Carleigh risked some foot pain for ollies onto the ledge. Bernie ripped it with manual up to fakie manual down through the kink. Dean and I got no complys on it. Bernie did front 180 up, f/s halfcab flip on the bank. I got a kickflip to fakie which took awhile and kinda started bumming me out that kickflips are that hard for me right now. Then we went to the front area. Carleigh did all of her flatground tricks. Dean filmed Bernie attempt a tech ender ender and I straight sucked it up. I did have a fun run where I ollied kinda high for me into the bank then ollied a little snowpile at full speed on the roll away. Then I tried a treflip (yes, stoked that I tried it, but ..) and somehow got away without breaking my ankle. I landed so bad. It took me down and reminded me that I have no idea how long it’ll be before I can skate 100%. Then I went for what I thought should be really easy. Front 180 up then fakie bigspin into the bank. 200 tries later I landed the worst 180 and fakie bigspin imaginable. I should just be stoked to be outside skating in nice weather, but I was bummed. Really bummed.

Then we went to this bank spot which none of us except Dean have been to before. It’s steeper and scarier than it looks. Actually, I was feeling more sketched than normal as the walk down through the rocks kinda scared me. I guess that’s a sign that the arthritis is still alive and kicking. Ugh. Dean nailed a good f/s ollie early on then took all of these awesome photos.

Bernie did some ridiculously smooth front tails. Some people can make the “basics” look amazing. Carleigh stepped it up too. She got a couple of front tails too sliding them for a minute. It was tight. We’re saving the photo for nullozine.

Me, I survived. There was a couple bails I really could have died on. My reaction time is so slow these days and I could barely run/push fast enough to get to the top of this bank. Ugh. I gave up on grind tricks and did a few stall tricks. Back feeble, back pivot, blunt to axle, front slash. Thanks for the photos Dean. You’re the man.

I went home and hit the Pabst. Not sure why I’m so bummed about my skating. I should be more patient considering I could barely walk a month ago. But I can’t help it. Not being able to kickflip on command really bums me out. Sorry the last couple entries have been so negative.

Had an hour to spare and my legs were sore so I went out to skate Rampy. The first half of the session was so bad I couldn’t land anything. There was lots going against me. New setup, arthritis was pretty achy, still sore from the long day of skating two days prior. But it was bad. Eventually I did a couple things I felt better about. A line of back 50, back feeble, axle stall front smith. Oh man that’s it? I suck. I did a few front disasters to and tried to turn them into sugarcanes or whatever. But yeah, I suck at skateboarding.