East Capitol and the Washington Monument

I spent my day wandering DC like a lost tourist. It was a good way to spend an unpaid Friday. For years, I have meant to make a return to the monument with the multi-colored bricks. My intentions were waylaid, not by lack of funds or civil war like the builders, but by the desire to avoid a line and the proximity factor. I'm developing a theory that the closer one lives to a popular destination the harder it is to attend. "There's always tomorrow," becomes a mantra as strong as any voodoo curse or force field.

In Isaiah's Feather style, I finally made tomorrow today. I joined the ticket line later than I would have liked and was rewarded with a ticket three hours from that moment. I went on a long walk in search of an eyebrow window, the future, and some digital pictures. I found two of the three, snapping shots of row houses and Volkswagens along East Capitol street as the minutes ticked by. I discovered a musty book store, a diner with an American name run by Vietnamese women, but not an eyebrow window.

With the future just 30 minutes away, I dodged school groups and eager teens snapping photos to take a quick look at the Lincoln exhibit at the Smithsonian. The top hat was in disrepair, the replica bed clothes were not picture-worthy, sorry teen girls, and I was rushing, but I still had time to stop and take in a series of Lincoln portraits. The first thing I noticed was Lincoln's strong jaw line. He was better looking than legend tells. His beard wasn't as ubiquitous either. The series conveyed the toll that presidency and a civil war had taken on the man. I considered it for a moment with a stroke of my own beard before heading off to the Washington Monument stairs.

The stairs of the monument closed years ago, now the only way up is by park service escorted elevator. The elevator is the size of my bedroom and metallic. It seems completely out of place as does most of the interior of this 555-foot structure. Masons on the outside, St. Louis Arch-builders on the inside. The incongruity is off-putting, but the real disappointment was in he realization that 555 feet isn't that high up. Sure this was the tallest structure going in the mid to late 1800s, but an airplane flying in to Reagan provides a better view and it includes the Washington Monument. Fly in to town and get the same view with less security. Check it off the list.

Beard News

The pros:
I’m now finding beard hairs up to 3.5 inches long. I measured. I can fold
my beard up into my face and touch my nose. I adore my shadow; my head
looks so elongated, like there’s a little Lincoln hidden in there. I
haven’t noticed anyone staring at me on the street, but I do get
noticed. Ultimate players really dig the beard. This is just another
reason that I like Ultimate players.

The cons:
I can’t eat anything without getting it in my beard. Couscous is my
favorite food to pick out because it is very satisfying to pull little
food pellets out. Syrup, ice cream, and anything similar are not so fun.
I can’t fight the syrup at all. It’s an instant mess. It makes me feel
three years old. People are constantly telling me that I have food in
my beard at mealtime. I always have a napkin ready to go, but sometimes
even a quick draw with the quicker-picker-upper isn’t quick enough.

The jokes:
I went to a meeting the other day with a coworker that I haven’t seen in
months. After she realized who I was, she said, “Has it been that long?”
Another coworker answered for me, “He’s been stranded on a deserted
island- Castaway style.”

The spreading world-wide acceptance of facial hair:
This clip from the Buenos Aires Film Festival is awesome. Thanks, Alan.

Wedding receptions are fun

I thought it was just the dancing that made me enjoy wedding receptions so much, but after this weekend I'd like to revise my theory. I like wedding dancing because it takes place in this bubble of love, conversation, and reminiscing. English teachers and grandmothers and nieces, nephews, and best friends all get together and celebrate with some food or drink. This combination of people with past seems to put the crowd in a pretty good mood. I want to figure out how to throw dance parties with that same vibe. Inviting English teachers and digging out some old photo albums might be good first steps.

One part of the experience that I will leave out of my dance party is the garter toss. When it came time at this wedding, I must have been the last single guy still around. The groom held the garter up in the air and looked around. Reluctantly, I raised my hand and he tossed it in my general direction. There wasn't much I could do. This couple had eschewed many of the traditional reception festivities and yet the bouquet and garter still came out. And so, I snagged another this weekend. I think that puts me up to three. I apologize to anyone whom I'm holding back. I can toss the garter in your direction if you are worried about the order of these things. I don't want to slow anyone down, especially not if I get invited to the reception for dancing.

Stop thinking
I miss my hour. I have a headache. My ankle hurts so much that it's overshadowing the rest of my pains. Today was a good day. I didn't mean to play Ultimate. I wore the going-out-spectacles. I didn't pack my cleats or my ankle brace or a red jersey. Yes, I wore shorts and a white jersey, but those other items are pretty essential, I thought.

P had some extra cleats. B taped my ankle. I raided my running shoes and made some in-soles. We went white. I tried to keep my glasses on my face. Somewhere deep inside I wanted to play, of course. I wouldn't have done it if today had been a strictly college tournament, but the snow melt had turned Huck into Muck and so 8 teams met to play and one of those 8 was a local club team. All bets were off and CUA only had 7 active players. I made 8. That's kind of how this whole thing began 6 years ago.

First, we faced SUNY-Buffalo. We were playing well out of the HO stack, the hucks were working thanks to some pretty big throws from AJ and we found a groove. J was scoring all over the place. Turnovers were fairly scarce and despite our lack of subs, we started to pull away and we never looked back taking the game 13-5. Personally, I was struggling on my ankle, feeling slow, and feeling the lack of subs, but I did get one big guy to bite on a couple of fakes so that I could pull in a deep one. My mind is pretty fuzzy on a lot of other details, but everybody was working well together and having a good time. We won 13-5.

Next, we faced the local club team WireTap. Even with numbers, we would have been overmatched. JA gave a great speech about getting points and we set a goal to get 5-10 on this team. Talk about a blur, the details really get fuzzy for me in this game. I think they scored first and then we scored. Everybody continued to work well together. AJ kept hucking. JA was working well in the middle. B and P were doing good handler work, J was slicing through the zone and everybody was running as much as they could. K got a cleat stepping on his hand which put us down to no subs, but we kept fighting. Turnovers for our team were few and far between. I seemed to be about the biggest mess on the field. AJ threw a huge hammer/blade that just missed the outstretched fingers of my defender and then came screaming down into my chest. I couldn't hold on. JA kept throwing one more fake than I thought he was going to and I ended up throwing it away. Then in a series that baffles me almost as much as my sticky fingers, I couldn't get P to make a move on the dump, so I turned to B. He got open and I lofted the disc away from him and into his defender. To top that off, I laid out into the feet of the guy who scored on the next throw. Not sweet. Still, despite some miscues on my part, we had the early lead. We were up about 6-3 before squeaking to half at 7-6. We kept fighting, a few points seemed to last forever. WireTap did a poor job of running us to death (age no doubt played a factor) and instead decided to play into our hands for the most part. Unfortunately, our hands couldn't quite grasp victory and we lost 10-11. I know that this was the beginning of their season and that they took us lightly, but this mattered to us.

We were supposed to play 3 more games, but cramps, hands, ankles, and more left us too spent to continue. The lessons to learn: we can get in there and battle with good teams. We can do the little things right, stay close on D, turn it over less, and we can mix it up with some good teams. That's a good lesson if we can cling to it.

What a pleasure to take the field with those guys, several who I've been around for 4 years now. Yeah, Habit, yeah.

Thinking about Ultimate
I'm having a quiet day full of thoughts and many are swirling about the game of Ultimate and my involvement in it. Some of that is brought on by a sore ankle and some of that is ripped right from the start of the day. As my alarm was beeping at me, I was screaming at my team to go for the disc. My dream screams were pleas to have the urgency and aggression to fight for a floating disc. If the disc hasn't hit the ground yet, there's still a chance. It's not a ball, it's hanging in the air, ripe for the taking. There are many things I don't know how to teach, today it's felt like most things, but one I've struggled with on both a small scale and on a large scale is that sense of urgency.

The goal, the test, Sectionals is less than a month away for the team. Our practice attendance has remained low and now we're having trouble drawing adequate numbers for tournaments. These are obviously big problems that need to be addressed, but I'm realizing that they are next year's problems. This is the hand we've got, regardless of the hand we wanted. There aren't enough weeks left to implement big changes or find other players, we have to work within this framework. We'll hope that our injured come back quickly, but we need to face the facts.

I've spent my day trying to figure out what the facts are. I think they are first that we need to admit that we could have been better and then put that behind us. Not enough people on the team did the work to really raise the level of play and we've had some bad luck, but what can we do now? I believe we can still do plenty. I believe this team is better than last year's team. There are more people I trust to have the discs in their hands. There are more players when they show up. Attendance is not a new problem. The only thing this team lacks compared to last year is that monstrous defensive closer; a painful thing to miss for sure, but if we'd play to our strengths it wouldn't be so detrimental. Again, I'm asking what can we do? We have to come together as a team and support one another instead of tearing people down. We've got to be engaged in the game- knowing the force, being ready to catch discs, being aware. Maybe I should be able to teach these things, but I don't know how so I just have to ask everyone to wake up and be ready, even when they are tired. Maybe morning practices taught some of that.

I also have some question of what to do during the next three weeks. On that front, I think I'd like to focus on one skill per practice, drill on it and then play. Ultimate should still be about play. It's fun and it's important to remember that. It's also fun to be better and improve. During some unscientific thought, I figured that if every person had one less turnover that could potentially result in three more scores. Three more scores could very well be the difference between losing 10-13 and winning 13-10. Nobody needs to win the game on the next throw, they just need to complete the next throw. They need to be there on defense to cause problems. Big things can still get done in the next three weeks, but the urgency has to be there and heads have to be in it. And I have to do more than write about it.

Snow day

I stood at the end of the driveway in three inches of snow. The government didn't close, so neither did my workplace. Large flakes floated down from the sky. I stood and watched them fall. The earth had that silent bright white magic of a snowstorm. I pulled out my phone, I can do that now, as I stood in the glistening silence. I dialed work and declared my own snow day. I've debated the merits of my decision between shoveling the driveway, sledding, and making snow ice cream. My grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup lunch go in the plus column. The people without jobs, my responsibility to my employer weigh on the con side. It's almost over now, this snow day. I need to be over it too. I made my decision. I enjoyed the snow. I need be fine with the rest of it. Maybe another bowl of snow ice cream would help.

Such an imperfect weekend. So lovely

My body hasn't really felt the same since that doubleheader in January. I've worked hard to try to get myself back in place, but I'm not there and Winter League Tournament time had rolled around to meet me. Our first game was cancelled. Our numbers were high and we managed to roll through the new first game. I played a few points and felt ok. I felt like a contributor and that was the best I could be. Fortunately, we had lots of male subs and we went on to victory. The second game was against that team that took us down by universe point the last time I was feeling good. That defeat still hurt and I made that clear to my teammates. We got off to a quick start and were up by a few points, before the game became 6-5. I was contributing where I could and then took a step in the wrong direction and went down with a twisted ankle. The team marched on and took the game with a commanding finish. It was a good feeling everywhere except in my ankle. There were a number of shining moments, but none more than the dominance of SM. She was a game changer. She's always been fast and relentless, but yesterday I think Team Schaefer finally saw her for the Ultimate player that we all knew she could be. No one could cover her deep. I think she scored a dozen if she scored one. She made great grabs stretched out up in the air and great grabs reaching out. The other team starting giving her a 10-yard cushion, so the offense ran through her in cut almost every time. After that, she probably still went on to score a few. It was awesome.

My day wasn't done as I went from Burrito Brothers to the local tavern after icing my ankle. I heard a Monkees cover band which is as fun as it sounds and then saw a Rock-a-billy show. At the urging of one member of our group, I did get up and dance which did nothing for my ankle. It didn't take but a few steps for me to realize that the group member urging us to dance wasn't just a dance enthusiast, she was one heckuva dancer. Her Keds were flying all over the place to the Rock-a-billy beat. She brought guys to their feet so they could dance with her. It was splendid. I could only last two songs before my ankle cried out, but I think she could have danced the floor off.

Today should have been semi-finals and finals, but thanks to weather it has turned into brunch and a movie. My ankle thanks Mother Nature.