Sports and The Single Girl

Cameron Crazies, Little John Loonies, and Other Assorted Nuts

2009-03-05T03:42:00.001-08:00

If life is a spectator sport, then an invitation to a wedding is a ticket to a championship game. I've been to a lot of weddings in my lifetime and I've even played in seven games (ahem been an attendant at seven weddings). This happens when you're 30 years old, have 19 cousins, and oodles of friends of marriageable age.

Think about it. What other life event do they ask you to pick a side? Why do the attendants of the bride dress alike (or at least similarly) and why do the groomsmen dress alike?

Side note: I've always wondered about the concept of honorary bridesmaids. Are they like bench players? The picture in my head is of the bride looking at her bridesmaids halfway through the ceremony and saying " Time out! Mandy, Katrina is slouching. She needs a breather. You're up in her place. Katrina, you sit down and take a drink of water. Good game. We'll need you in the second half

Weddings even have officials and very specific rules and best of all, a concession stand for halftime. What else would a good sports fan need for the game besides beer, popcorn, and a foam finger? That's right….Drama. The wedding that I attended this past weekend delivered….Boy did it ever deliver.

I would like to preface this story by saying that my family is nuts. I'm well aware of this and love and accept them as they are, but they are indeed nuts. Well, this weekend, we added a walnut to our pecan tree.

Now this walnut may or may not be a very nice kind of nut, but she played a dirty game, skirted the rules and then acted like the injured party so much so that the pecans appeared at fault. We, pecans, are good at the championship game. We've been there before. We're used to going after the rebound and then dunking on the other end to swing the momentum our way, but this time we faced a defense and offense that we hadn't seen before and we lost. But now we know her game plan and next time, we will be ready.

Sports and Me

2009-02-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

I'm a girl. A normal girl. Mostly. I knit and write and cook and shop and worry about how my house is decorated and go to church and work and hang out with my friends. Just like millions of other single girls. I'm ordinary. I'm normal. I'm even a trifle dull.

Except one thing. I have an obsession.

Sports.

Not just one particular sport. Not just one particular team. Not just one particular athlete, but all sports. I love football, baseball, basketball, racing, swimming, tennis, golf, etc. I think I could even grow to love hockey, but I'm not just a normal girl. I'm a normal Southern girl and well, for us, ice is something that comes out of the freezer--not something we spend a lot of time worrying about getting around on in skates.

You see, I was raised by a coach and his wife – that is my daddy and my mama. My daddy a basketball coach for a small school in rural South Carolina. This means that I spent the bulk of my childhood at sporting events that my daddy was coaching or helping with or was participating in as an athlete. Apparently, the first gift that I ever gave my mama, for mother's day was a catcher's mitt. My less than athletic, but very competitive mama was playing catcher for the church softball team.

I don't remember life without sports. My daddy took me to my first minor league baseball game when I was just a year old. Seventeen years later, when my younger brother complained that my father was taking me instead of him to see the high school baseball team play in the playoffs, my father replied that he'd been taking me to baseball games longer than my brother had been alive.

But I don't just love sports because of the relationship with my father, I love sports for sports' sake. I love the hard hitting action of football, the strategy of basketball, the skill of baseball, the speed of track, the pinpoint accuracy of golf. I love everything about them.

I've spent weekends on the couch—watching whatever sporting event is on television. I read the sports page and sports websites. I discuss games with other sports lovers. In short, I live, sleep, and breathe sports. I'm obsessed.

As a stupid and a little naive young girl, I thought that this was a good thing—that it gave me something in common with boys. Wrong! Having this in common with boys is not a good thing. Trust me. A boy that says "Wow, you know more about sports than I do" is not apt to stay interested long unless you have other things in common. My aforementioned father who taught me the differences between a press, zone, and man defense and countless other sports things told me to fake it. To pretend to know less than I do.

Ha! I can't do that. It isn't in me.

You see, I see life through the lens of sports. Dating, Work, Relationships, etc…I've learned a lot about resiliency, success, failure, strength, anger, stupidity, intelligence, agility, impossibility, and possibility from watching sports. My world is framed by sports. You don't win every time that you take the field. Losing streaks don't last forever. A good game plan increases your chance of success. I know this and so much more because of sports.

So that is what this blog is going to be about. It is what my previous posts have been about. My life and the life of those around me….viewed through the lens of sports. I hope that you enjoy it.

What if the Glass Slipper doesn’t fit?

2009-02-04T19:56:00.001-08:00

"Wait, Wait." The young servant girl runs down the stairs calling for the grand duke. "I'm here. I want a turn. Let me try on the slipper please."

The duke turns from the door and looks her up and down as reaches the bottom of the stairs. "You'll do." He says and he reaches in his pocket for the slipper. The girl sits and extends an unshod foot. The duke pulls out the slipper and tries to wedge it onto her foot. It doesn't quite fit…..

This is what happened to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday. They were almost the Cinderella story. They were the underdog. They were the team that was absolutely not supposed to reach the biggest sporting event of the year, The Super Bowl. While they put up a valiant effort and made a remarkable fourth quarter come back, the still lost. And losing sucks….

Believe me, I know.

Saying that I'm a competitive girl is like saying the Mona Lisa is a masterpiece. It is something that goes without saying. I absolutely, positively loathe losing. I'm not exactly a bad loser. I don't spend my time crying or pitching a temper tantrum instead….I seethe. That's right, I churn, boil, foam, bubble with regret and recriminations. That is what I'm doing now.

If I'm going to lose, I like to know why I lose. What did I do to cause myself to lose? Was it the other team was better than me? The athlete and gamesman in me say that if I know why I lost, I can do better next time. That athlete and that gamesman are going crazy now that I'm in the Friend Zone. I must know what caused this state of affairs…and guess what I'm never going to find out so now I must do the hardest thing that one can do in sports after a bad game.

I must put it out of my mind. That's right. Put it out of my mind and move on to the next game.

Yuck.

Who wants to do that?

Kurt Warner doesn't want to do that. Larry Fitzgerald doesn't want to do that. Anquan Boldin doesn't want to do that. I imagine that none of the rest of the Arizona team wants to do that either. They lost the Super Bowl. They lost the biggest game of the year. They lost the biggest game in that poor, poor franchise's tangled and tumbled history. Yet, as athletes, they know the only game that matters is the next game….even if the next game is in eight months.

So, I think that it is up to me to follow that example. I'll spend the next few months training and slimming down and trying to make myself into a pre-season favorite and the next time that the cannon goes off and the ball is kicked into the air, I'll be ready to go.

Getting Upset

2009-02-04T19:54:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, there lived a spoiled young prince who liked to play with a golden ball. One day, the prince was playing with the ball when it dropped into a well …..Hmmm ….Something is wrong about this story.

Blog readers, I have bad news. I think it is safe to say that my game is over and I've been officially relegated to the friend zone. I don't really like being here, but I suppose that I'll get over it….eventually. I'm a little annoyed that the boy person decided to run out the clock because I was hoping to pull an upset, but I think that all hope is lost even on that front.

Football and sports novices may assume that an upset is something that gets turned over or what happens when a man does something to annoy a woman. (Something that occurs pretty often enough from what I've observed.) But no….an upset is different than that. An upset is when a team that isn't expected to win, wins.

An upset is Lyle Lovett marrying Julia Roberts. An upset is Beauty and the Beast. An upset is the story of the Frog Prince.

Does anyone notice anything interesting about my list? Come on, ladies and gents you can do it. You can tell me what those three things have in common.

A beautiful woman falls for a man that is less than attractive.

Seriously, have you guys ever wondered why there isn't a story called The Frog Princess or The Ugly Stepsister and The Prince? Perhaps I'm the only one.

But, I digress. I was hoping to be the 2007 New York Giants. I was hoping to be the 10-6 wild-card team that came into the 2008 Super Bowl and beat the 16-0 team with less than a minute left on the clock. It was the upset of the century. Clearly, since I am in the friend zone, I am not the 2007 Giants.

Hmmm….Considering that there is no story called the Frog Princess or The Ugly Stepsister and The Prince, perhaps I should shoot for being the heavy favorite instead????

Throwing a Hail Mary Pass

2009-02-04T19:53:00.001-08:00

Welcome Sports Fans to the island of romantic hopelessness. You will be happy to learn that this blogger is not the only resident on that island. That's right. There are others here waiting for the Valentine's Day fairy to pick us up and put us in his sleigh and take us to…..Wait….wrong story.

Seriously, with my recent relocation to the friend zone instead of the end zone, I have had the opportunity to observe a friend of mine in romantic distress and on Friday, she threw what could only be called a Hail Mary pass. For those of you that are uninitiated in the world of football, a Hail Mary pass is a pass that is thrown near the end of the game that doesn't have a prayer of being caught, but if it is caught, it will win the game for the team that is on offense. The key word here is if.

Capital I. Capital F. IF……

A Hail Mary is a desperation play and my friend viewed herself as desperate. I don't think she was. In fact, had I been in her shoes, I would have gone for the field goal and tried for overtime.

But not my friend.

My friend went for the win. My friend went for the big time score. My friend sent the object of her possibly unrequited affection an email that could very well scare the life out of him.

When she told us about the email on Friday, I nearly fainted. You see, my friend is not the Hail Mary type of girl. My friend runs a very sensible offense usually, a mix of running plays and short passes. She relies on her good looks and bubbly personality to get her results. In the past, that offense has worked well. Maybe a little too well in some cases.

Through the first three quarters of my friend's game, the object of her affection was winning, but she'd turned things around and was beginning to make progress and there was a lot of time left on the clock. Granted it would be really easy for him to burn up the clock if the ball went back into his hands. So my friend went for the big play and sent the email that may scare him or it may not.

As of the writing of this blog, I do not know how my friend's game turned out, but I would like to steal from the Bud Light commercials and say….

Here's to you brave email sending girl who has been receiving mixed messages…… I hope your receiver catches the pass in the end zone.

The Friend Zone

2009-02-04T19:52:00.001-08:00

Attention riders on the monorail of love. The next stop on our excursion is The Friend Zone.

Yes, gentle blog readers, I have entered the dreaded Friend Zone. This is not to be confused with the end zone where people go when they score (so to speak). The Friend Zone is where people go when they don’t score. The Friend Zone is a place that you do not want to be. The Friend Zone is where unrequited affection meets friendship.

You see, I’m intimately familiar with the Friend Zone. I have spent interminable years there, but that is another story for another day. Suffice it to say that I gave up the Friend Zone a few years ago when I gave up dating.

I was content with my no-man’s land of a life and I thought everything was going swimmingly. Then, I met my “distraction.” That’s right. I’m talking about the same “distraction” from last week. At the time I wrote the last blog, I thought that things were going well…that I was moving the ball slowly to the end zone.

I thought that at the very least, I’d crossed the 50 yard line and was in the opponent’s territory . I was expecting a cursory defense, but apparently I was wrong.

First and 10.

There were signs. You know the ones I mean. I suggest seeing him again and he sort of shies away from committing himself. “I’m going to watch the football game next Saturday” he says. He knows that I like football. He says hello on his own later in the week, but it’s the friendly, non-personal type of hello. I was about to listen to the Clemson basketball game and told him as much so I was ok with the conversation ending a little early, but still a little confused.

The running back is hit behind the line of scrimmage.

Second and 13

Next night, I see him online and I say hello. We talk a little while about more generic stuff. He’s online paying his taxes. I give broad hints about the weekend, but nothing. Then, he says he’s going to bed. It is barely 10pm.

Incomplete pass.

Third down and 13 yards to go.

The alarm bells are going off in full force at this point. I don’t hear from him for two days and then, I’m watching the football game on Saturday and I see that he’s on myspace so I send him some nonsensical comment about the game. (Yes, I know, I’m escorting myself to the friend zone with that one, but I had to do something. Let’s call it a trick play.) We talk back and forth and eventually, I ask him if he wants to come over tomorrow. “I’m cooking.” I say. He says “No, he has to work.” We talk a little while longer, but there is no mention of seeing each other again. I go hang out with a friend and then send him a teasing message later about something he’d talked about earlier. He responds with what I hope was a good sense of humor.

Screen pass for a gain of 10 yards.

Fourth and 3 yards to go.

So, I guess I’m punting to him at this point. If he’d given me any hint that he was interested, I’d try a trick play and go for it, but his defense has been stout so I’m not even going to try. It seems that putting the ball in his hands is the only option. He can decide if he wants to go to the end zone or the Friend Zone.

But, unfortunately for me…..the signs are pointing to the Friend Zone.

Distractions

2009-02-04T19:50:00.001-08:00

I’m going to blog about distractions today. Specifically, a 5’11, brown-haired, brown-eyed, extremely cute, makes-me-feel-petite, boy-shaped distraction. This particular distraction is draining all my creative juices into the pool of rampant speculation about what he thinks about me.

This is EXTREMELY different to a girl that has successfully avoided “distractions” for four years.

I’m a romance writer….you would think that a romance writer would believe in romance and happily ever after. You would be wrong. See, I believe in love and lust and affection and compassion and all those other things that come with relationships. I just don’t believe that it happens the way that it happens in a romance novel and well, that is healthy. Romance novels sell fantasy. They sell a world that doesn’t exist. They sell hope that Prince Charming is going to sweep you off your feet and save you. Listen to me right now, you have to save yourself. Years of living and observation have proved this to be true. Hard times happen. Marriages and relationships break up. People die. That is reality and that reality makes the fantasy just that much more valuable to us as writers and as readers.

Happily ever after is relative. I’ve always figured that my happily ever after involved me and my gay best friend and an RV travelling across the country in our old age.

Travelling in an RV still might be my future, but the waters begin to be muddied when you date and dating was something that I’d all but stopped doing. After a series of bad first dates, I stepped off the dating train four years ago with no regrets.

Then, it happened as it always happens. A friend says “I have someone that you should meet.” You reluctantly agree. At least, I did and I was pleasantly surprised to see that he had more going for him than his personality if you know what I mean. It took a little while, but eventually he asked me out and I agreed.

That was my first mistake.

You see, for me, dating is like a roller coaster. You get on the ride and it starts moving, climbing the hill, slowly. You start looking over the side, anywhere but in front of you, where you can see the summit of the hill looming. You start having regrets and thinking if you could get off of this roller coaster, you would. You get to the top of the hill and then WHOOSH and a thrill runs through you, but each time you crest a hill or get ready to turn upside down, you have moments of doubt and insecurity.

That is what dating is to me and it is very, very distracting. The time that I would normally spend on my characters and plot have been spent in moments of doubt and insecurity. Does he like me back? He said I was interesting. What does that mean? He’s not talking to me as much as he was last week. Then, I hang out with him, we talk, cuddle, and kiss and the thrill starts again.

I know, I know. I am crazy, but I like roller coasters in the same way that I like romance novels. The roller coaster is the romance novel. It is the fantasy. It is the chance that something good could happen. It is the chance that you could fall off the coaster and die. The major difference between the roller coaster and the romance novel is that in a romance novel, you know that the main characters are going to get a happily ever after. But even with a roller coaster, you know that the ride will end happily, with the riders getting off safely and going to buy their commemorative photos.

With this particular roller coaster, I don’t know when or if this ride is going to end, but for now, I’m having a good time. I don’t know if this will change my vision of happily ever after or if this is just a bump in the road. I do know that this time with my “distraction” has reminded how much I like riding the roller coaster and made me think that even if I don’t stay on this particular ride, I might try another one later.

Now, if only I could figure out how to balance my “distraction” and my writing.