Shorts of Intimidation

Listening to: Core - Stone Temple Pilots

Broke out my preferred summer playwear at Indoor Netball on Monday night, the first warm and muggy night of the season, in the form of the sleeveless T shirt and the trusty bandanna. The netball centers being large sheds with poor ventilation and no air conditioning can get more than a little toasty. Here is a representative pic from the summer before last of me practicing my steely eyed and calculating down court stare, with Fi doing the same behind me. NotKate probably took this, since clearly I didn't.
Of course, with the lack of sleeves, out come the arms, naturally a shade of pale white, now practically incandescent after a lack of exposure over the winter. And with the arms out, so are the tattoos. This makes me feel a little posey and self concious, but the bandanna keeps the sweat out of my eyes and the tank top makes a big difference in the melting stakes on a hot summer night. I tend to run pretty hot anyway, and never play in anything more than shorts and a T even in the middle of winter. Some people play in polypros and woolly hats on cold nights. I'd desolidify onto the floor if I tried that.

Still I'm sure some people are thinking 'POSER!'. Meh, at least I'm not wearing skins. I am wearing my intimidation shorts though in this pic:

I got them when I played a season of Superleague for the center a few summers ago. Superleague is like the serious grown up professional cousin of the social league games I normally play. Teams practice, have coaches, have uniforms (kinda like proper outdoor netball even). The overall skill level is a lot higher than the social grades (being that I played for the lowest grade team at the club, I'm not saying my own skill is a lot higher than the social grades, but you get my drift). Superleague players also play in the social leagues as well (and seem to be regarded as having some kind of mystical aura of super skill by the social players at times), so when I'm taking the court and I see someone wearing those shorts, I know they could be potentially a tougher opponent than the rest.

Hence the shorts of intimidation. I wear them if I am feeling confident and want to put some psyche on the opposition before the game starts. And often if I am wearing them I will play better, since I am like, reprazenting (YO!) and stuff.

Or if my regular black and yellow Canterbury harlequin rugby shorts are in the wash.

Check out the spectacular ACTION SHOT! Apologies for the graininess, these were shot at something crazy like ASA 1200, since using a zoom lens without a flash in a softly lit arena isn't conducive to sharpness at more rational exposure speeds.

Also note the player I am blocking is wearing cotton gloves to protect her fingernails. Which is fine, except for the fact you can't catch anything with them on. Another shot of this game shows the scoreboard, and we were stomping these guys, which figures. The power of the shorts of intimidation combined with wussy cotton gloves is not to be trifled with.