it's game point and you're down by 20
this is not a drill. though it can be, and that's good
Part of the warm-up for the club volleyball team I coach is a core exercise called “inchworms,” where you start in a position similar to downward-facing dog, walk your hands as far forward as you can, leave your hands where they are, then walk your feet as far forward/as close to your hands as possible, relative to your personal flexibility, while keeping your legs straight. The team has to do these inchworms from one sideline to the other going forward, and then return, going backward.
I’m not sure anyone likes the inchworms. They’re difficult, and because it’s tempting to break form (bend your knees, point your hands to the side, develop a sudden urge to tuck in your shirt, etc.) I watch and correct their movements. Many of them try to bail early, so as they approach the final sideline, I shout, THIS IS WHERE WINNING HAPPENS.
After a few weeks of this ritual, a player asked, “Is the point of this to make us suffer? It feels like it’s game point and you’re down by 20.”
I ended up talking with the group about her question, because, despite the team’s near-constant efforts to skip this part of warm-up, the inchworms are not just an exercise in misery. They serve three kinds of purposes:
Physical: work on flexibility through motion rather than static stretching
Evangelical: improve core strength differently, and, in my opinion, more effectively than sit-ups and their ilk. I played a whole season of college volleyball with a strained abdominal muscle and only stopped re-tearing my ab when I a) eased up for a while, b) started doing inchworms regularly, and c) began practicing yoga.* The most fervent disciples are converts, after all.
Philosophical: Sports are, ideally, a space to develop resilience on purpose but without trauma. In other parts of life, challenges arise whether you have trained for them or not. You figure it out because you must—whereas a well-run practice allows athletes to work through difficulty in a relatively safe context (this might not apply to football, wrestling/MMA, gymnastics, or cheerleading, but none of those are my domain.)
*I am not a trainer—no kinesiology or exercise science certs over here. I’m just a person who has played enough sports and attended enough physical therapy to have thoughts. I used to have a pretty disordered relationship to both food and exercise; the underlying intense insecurity produced a lot of forcible advice-giving. Even though my beliefs and behaviors have changed considerably since then, it turns out intuitive eating cannot undo a self-righteous streak. I still want to know things, be right, and tell people the things I know. Who becomes a coach if they don’t think they have useful information to share?
a “2024 energy” collage I made ft. crepe paper, a friend’s stickers, the metallic remains of an Athleta bag, a Loveland Foundation post card, and a photo from a magazine I found on the street about an African film festival that took place in Brazil
This is the year of 12 newsletters, or one Bombazine per month. Let’s goooooo.
I decided to enable “elective writer-support stipends,” otherwise known as paid subscriptions. This is not a paywall; you can still read, regardless of subscription status; rather, it’s an opportunity for readers to fortify my writing career in the context of capitalism.
Paid subscriptions are $5 per month or $30 per year; the “Founding Member” designation is for people who wish to patronize Bombazine at a higher level—$75 per year suggested, but you can put in your own amount.
There will not (yet?) be extra content for paid subscribers other than a handwritten card expressing my gratitude, if you are willing to share a physical mailing address.
Lastly, after this edition, Bombazine will no longer include art or photographs that are not created by me or my friends, available in the creative commons, or used with direct permission. Although I hope to bolster fellow artists by including images of their work and enjoy assembling these little series of art, I’m ambivalent, or at least unsure, about whether I would hence be earning money from other people’s work without compensating them.
The Scholar appears, standing on a blasted field over the ruins of an ivory tower, to those who seek liberation through knowledge […] one hand points towards truth, one hand holds a quill. Her tool suggests the fragility of knowledge, but her well-muscled arm demonstrates its power.
The Scholar is a warning that even as quests for truth may free you, structures of knowledge will harm you. She calls you to abandon disciplinary imaginations, knowledge-making built on the backs of those most vulnerable in, and outside, the academy, and to see with new eyes, build with new hands. When the Scholar appears, know that you are on the right path but must abandon old ways. Your query’s roots are deeper than imagined.
-Sueyeun Juliette Lee via the Asian American Literary Review second edition tarot deck
collage by Nina Bhattacharya, a multi-hyphenate whom I admire from afar
What’s going on with NYC compost? It’s complicated. This article about the debacle was helpful. In short: the city expanded a Staten Island facility so that it can turn food waste into compost faster—supposedly a 2000% increase—by using aerated static piles (good news!) The city curbside program was delayed but is now slated to reach the whole city in October 2024. As opposed to community drop-off, which nearly always yields compost for fertilizing and maintaining soil, a lot of the material collected by these curbside programs gets transported to a biogas plant in Brooklyn that wasn’t working properly, meaning that they were burning tons of food waste for months without even using the gas! Apparently the plant is running properly again. The city also reduced or cut several community programs, such as comprehensive free Master Composter training. About 20 people ended up losing their jobs (bad news). It seems 2024 will be a historic year for this issue.
Update on the bike visor, mentioned in the last edition: it fell off. But I’ll re-attach it, never fear, perhaps this time also using Sugru, a glue that’s moldable like play-doh when you apply it and then dries flexible.
It turns out that storing an opened tube of Shoe Goo in the freezer (probably also in a Ziploc) keeps it from drying out so fast. [For the uninitiated, Shoe Goo is a powerful adhesive for gluing peeling soles/heels/toe bits back into place.]
We have an anti-fatigue mat made from athletic-shoe scraps in the kitchen, and after two months and one bathtub scrubbing (it’s not New York apartment living if you aren’t missing a hose bibb), I think I love this mat. Standing mats are pretty sweet in general, but this one is low-VOC, supposedly recyclable (seems easier said than done, but I’ll concede that it’s likely more recyclable than typical mats made from virgin petro-chemicals) and produced in a solar-powered factory. (Nope, I’m not sponsored—somebody pitch me to ‘em.)
I cleaned my silicone menstrual cup by soaking it in hydrogen peroxide, and it removed staining that boiling was doing nothing for. My instinct is that it would be unwise to use hydrogen peroxide frequently, but once in a while seems alright (or once an era—I’ve had the cup for seven years, which is well past the cup’s lifespan, according to the instructions, but as you may remember, I don’t give up on my possessions easily.)
A friend introduced me to Leena Norms, who makes videos about books, positive panic in the face of climate change, and developing apocalypse-friendly skills and habits, such as sewing or eating less meat. I really enjoyed this fashion forecast about what she calls “OZCORE,” a clothes trend she hopes to usher into being for outfits inspired by the aesthetic of Wicked, given the movie coming out later this year. She conceives of a way for a trend to be sustainable—it’s creative, if not quietly audacious.
the Christmas tree was still up, so it became a Valentine’s tree. Note the hearts made from candy canes. For some delightful aesthetic gestures toward Valentine’s Day as an epistolary holiday, browse this “Secret Admirer Chic” board assembled by bespoke party planner Johanna Lee and me.
A final joyful find for you: the dancing is phenomenal and the vibe unparalleled in the music video for Janelle Monae’s song “Float.”
At our most recent tournament, my aforementioned volleyball team actually experienced a game point where we were down by 20. It was surreal. But I can now say for certain that finishing inchworms does not feel like that situation, because during that game our team gave up. Whereas, in the brief crucible of core work, they persist. Begrudgingly, but hey. That’s where winning happens.
In solidarity,
Abby