Hi readers– sometimes when I sit down to write a blog post, the words just flow effortlessly. Inspiration strikes, and I’m off to the races. The perfect photo or metaphor or theme appears, and voila! Blog mission accomplished.
Sad to say, not today.
Just so you know I have tried, here are some topics I thought about writing on for Sunday, but rejected:
- a compendium of bad stock photos depicting women playing sports (yeah, that didn’t go anywhere). I was inspired by the twitter hashtag #badstockphotosofmyjob, which is actually at least 2 years old, but hey, I just made it to the party…
2. A compendium of inspiring stock photos of women playing sports, reminding us 1) there was such a thing as women’s sports that spectators could watch, in person even; and 2) sports playing is something we might consider doing, too, albeit safely. I admit I’m sorely in need of motivation to leave my house more often. Inertia’s a tough one…
3. A review of one of the many feminist/sports/activity/self-care books on or near my bedside table, just waiting to be read and summarized by me, for you.
4. Another installment of “cockamamie and likely non-functional exercise devices sold over the internet.” I never tire of looking at them. My current fave (which I haven’t ordered yet) is shoe covers that fit over sneakers, facilitating dancing either on hard floors or carpet. This model purports to make pivots and turns much smoother. I’m sold.
5. A commentary on this article revealing how T. Rex wasn’t (as conventional paleontology would have it) a fast sprinting lone hunter. No. T. Rex was all about the energy conservation, so ambled along at a more leisurely pace. Perhaps there’s a lesson in that for us all. Or not. Which I why I didn’t pursue the topic further.
Instead of any of the above, I’m offering you a chance to do some passive cross training with gymnasts and parkour instructors. I have to say I enjoyed these. They are two YouTube videos in which male athletes in one field try to teach female athletes in another field, and the women kick ass. Then, when the tables are turned, the male athletes don’t do as well. Turns out, in this pair of videos everyone is incredibly talented and also pretty chill and good-natured. Okay, I might as well insert them here.
See you all next week, when I expect to be chock-full of inspiration and humor and fluency and sincerity. In writing, as in all things–
Hey readers– are you doing or reading or hearing or eating or seeing anything that’s got you excited or inspired or fired-up or out of the house or off the couch or out of bed before noon? I’d love to hear about it… 🙂
Actually the shoe covers help a little! I’m a swing dancer who’s been stuck in a carpeted apartment for lockdown, and I can confirm it’s easier to dance with any shoes (sneakers or my regular dance shoes) when I wear them on carpet. Still not ideal by any means — I don’t do swivels or spins on carpet to save my knees — but better. Plus the shoe covers make dancing in my kitchen pleasingly slippery (now if only my kitchen were bigger than a postage stamp and I didn’t have two flatmates who want to use it sometimes…).
The videos are fun! It really makes me notice how gendered gymnastics is, though. The gymnasts pointed out several times how certain skills were not things male gymnasts usually do. . . makes me wonder if we’ll see changes in that over time?