This is going to sound stupid, but I had a small epiphany this evening: I am a transition skater. It’s sort of hard to convey just what this means – it’s as if you’ve been trying to draw squares with your weak hand for years, then suddenly switch hands and make perfect circles instead, or maybe you’ve been eating melon and suddenly discovered cantaloupe, or better yet mango, or perhaps you thought PCs were pretty alright until you tried a Mac (not that I have one – yet).

This is how it happened: I went skateboarding at the Glendale Verdugo park, one of the best in southern California, but pretty quiet now that the Santa Clarita megapark is open. I had tried to go on Sunday, but was stymied by the need for a helmet and pads (or long sleeves). So I went back, this time in a hoodie and helmet, and started rolling.

At first, everything looked huge. I’m six feet tall, and the idea of getting on top of six-foot-tall quarterpipes looks enormous. And those are the low ones – the clover pool has an eleven-foot oververt! Also, it was the first time I’d hit a snake run, which is a twisty series of varied quarters and basins designed so that you can work up a flow, like surfing a wave I guess. For the first hour or so I was pretty lame – timid at getting up high on things and not finding any lines.

Then one began to click – drop in on the bank, high backside kickturn on a quarter, low and tight frontside carve on a small pocket to…nothing. Then another line developed – ollie into the bank, backside slash, kickturn on the bank, frontside kickturn to enter the snake run or pop out over the quarterpipe. Flow. Working with the design, not against it.

Then I dropped in on the clover pool. Shallow end shoot into deep end carve low into the pocket and high out and – there it was, right then: a weightless feeling, wheels nearly coming off the concrete, wind in the face and under you – zoom. Can’t stop a huge smile as I fly back towards the big oververt pocket, which I still am a long way from “getting” but still – I felt like a kid again. This is all in contrast to skating street – the repetition, the stop and start, the slammed shins – it feels like work. I still like it, and I want to check out this new little spot downtown in Lafayette park, but I think I rediscovered the skating bug in a big fat concrete clover pool.

It was a good night to be there as a spectator, as well. The locals were ripping and everyone was cool. And then, whaddayaknow, professional skater Chad Fernandez drops by and just starts killing it. All kinds of flip tricks, lip tricks, airs, spins – just having a grand old time while the kids and I stood aside gaping. It made everyone want to go faster, push higher, skate better.

And the thing is, I really needed this tonight. It’s been a weird day, a weird few days – not bad but just kind of shiftless. I have two informational interviews set up with some interesting and connected people, I worked some more on some cover letters and my resume and thought about college a bit. That seems like a million years ago and it may as well be. But look at it this way – I haven’t had a written post in forever, and this made me want to write. I like that realization.

Today I went skateboarding for the first time this season. I had taken out the board once before to go pay a bill at the post office, but this was the first day of attempting to do any tricks. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – skateboarding is one of those things that requires daily practice, like learning a foreign language – but that doesn’t mean it was very good either.

Budapest is not a great city for skateboarding. I’ve asked at skateshops where people go, and I usually get a laugh, followed by the answer “to other cities.” Most of the buildings are old, the streets are rough and cracked, and there is a distinct lack of easily-grindable surfaces such as marble ledges, as those kinds of materials usually go along with contemporary-style architecture. There is one “skatepark”, but the ramps are in terrible condition, largely due to abuse by BMX bike riders (when a skateboard[er] bails, its just a piece of wood and maybe flesh hitting the obstacles; when it’s a biker there’s a heavy, metal object with spiky appendages that can puncture the wood or warp metal transitions). There is actually a miniramp quite close to where I live, but it’s a bit further in the “hood” and is usually covered with gypsy kids, so if I go there I spend more time telling them I can’t speak Hungarian and then letting them try my board than actually skating. The best spot in the city is in the middle of the downtown square, where there are a large series of interesting wedges (public art?) made of a great material and with good transitions. Unfortunately, this is also the biggest bust – I’ve rarely seen skaters there for more than a few minutes before being shoed away by municipal employees or the police. It being the first day of the season, and with a mind to the fact that I would be embarrassingly rusty, I went to a spot across the Petőfi Bridge that sits in a sort of public meeting area under a Communist-era building adorned with the Konica Minolta logo. The area is generally used by students, and skating there on a weekend day can be derailed due to the amount of broken glass left about from the previous night’s partiers. While today was no exception, I kicked aside what I could and made mental notes of where NOT to fall.

I spent about an hour trying to land a few of some of the few things that I can do: frontside 50-50s, kickflips, nollie backside 180s, nollie frontside shuvits, half-cab kickflips, fakie heelflip. I think I landed just one kickflip, in countless tries. Skateboarding has got to be one of the most amazing sports – even at the professional level, riders have to try a trick many times before they land it. This can be frustrating to no end, but the rush and satisfaction you get from landing it after so many tries is unbelieveable, and keeps you going. Hopefully I’ll get back up some skills and make it to that downtown spot before August.

Skateboarding in traffic I normally get honked at. Comes with the “image” and is usually associated with an extended middle digit and some wise and helpful words of advice. Today was different, as instead of an SUV-driving nimwit with “size-matters” issues, I got flagged down by a couple of hotties in a Red Bull VW Bug (new school, unfortunately), from whom I received said artificial stimulant free of charge. I guess being a lawbreaker has its perks after all. Oh, and speaking of the nouveau-Gatorade, my sister and co will be performing in a NYC gig starting Thursday sponsored by the Taureau Rouge; also in attendance will be Trinity Hip Hop Fest co-conspirator Ben Herson.

Pics from the Freemans trip (and corresponding blog post) coming soon.