I stared down at my worn rented skates on the garish carpet, wondering if I could remember how to do this at all. For her birthday my friend Therese had decided to have a roller-skating party at World on Wheels, a skating rink tucked into a sketchy stretch of La Brea. On Sunday afternoon, the place was crowded with teenagers, most of them sporting their own skates. The first hurtle was the sloped carpeted path down to the rink, which suddenly seemed impossibly steep.

"Ready?" I asked Therese and her husband Jon. None of us looked very ready. I clutched the bar running along the side of the wall and slowly rolled down to the rink.

Things I can do on roller skates:

1. remain mostly upright
2. go around in circles
3. stop by holding my arms out in front of me and slamming with moderate force into a carpeted wall

Things I cannot do on roller skates:

1. everything else, although I was once briefly involved with a roller derby team, the main draw being the awesome pseudonym I came up with
1a) Babe Ruthless, if you're wondering
1b) my middle name is Ruth

There is always that horrible initial moment on the roller rink, when I'm not sure if I've forgotten everything I've ever known about skating and I have visions of my limbs going in all different directions, my head hitting the slick floor and the rink referees having the escort me away in shame. Does everyone have it?

Not teenagers who frequent World on Wheels on Sunday afternoons, I bet. They skimmed over the faded yellow floor like birds flying low across a lake. While I skated my circles, they weaved and dipped, shoulders bouncing to the hip-hop the DJ was blasting. I watched their feet, trying to improve my technique, admiring the skates made from Chuck Taylors, from shiny wing-tips. I looked up and noticed a family of Orthodox Jews in the skating crowd, particularly the gawky teenage son who, graceless yet tireless, circled around and around.

Can I tell you something? Roller skating alongside Orthodox Jews and black teens dressed in their Sunday skating best has to be the best way to get over your life-in-LA-will-never-be-as-fun-and-different-as-Japan funk. Especially when you see the guy wearing blue argyle knee-high socks. Especially when you see the mom/referee doing splits on her skates, then kicking a kid off the rink with just a single, sassy look.

So yeah, I haven't been doing much more than skating in circles these two months, testing my footing on this slippery floor, mostly too dazed to even look around. But in those moments when I've found my rhythm -- when my legs and my breath and the rushing crowd around around me all fall into sync -- I watch and I listen and I remember why I'm here. And it's good.