New home: A poem of sorts
The dishwasher is training for a marathon,
Boston if the electric kettle has anything to do with it.
The TV stops and goes at my command.
Couches and desks fill up empty spaces.
There's a cat who adores me when I open a can
I climb out of the ground to greet the day
and shower beneath foot falls.
It takes six keys to enter, but only one to leave.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
I'm not a blogaholic
It’s been 21 days since I last posted.
That sentence makes me sound like I want to join a support group. I have notes in the back of the “Iceland Review” all laid out for a chronological trip review, but I’m not ready yet to review it. Instead, I’m caught up in Saturday’s Ultimate games.
I’ve resolved to make my weekend Ultimate games take a backseat to my other fitness goals. That means I’m not going to skip a workout on Friday just because I have a game on Saturday. It means I still want to find time to run or even race and play. In theory, I believe this to be good well-rounded life-balancing policy. In practice, I am already finding this to be a painful way to exist.
On Saturday, we had a double-header and something like 3 subs. I found myself in the games more than I wanted to be, largely because I worked out on Friday and I was still sore. The first game was a lazily-defended, deep-cut slug fest. I was happy to be one of the deep cutters, less happy that I keep getting burnt on the defensive end. We can blame my sore legs, but it’s starting to feel like 50/50 discs go to the other guy 70% of the time. It’s the ones where I’ve got a step that I’m getting. In the first game, I often had a step. I need to figure out how to get back in the mix more often, even as I am getting out-jumped.
Other things to think about:
-Maybe if I’m going to show up sore, I shouldn’t be quite so zealous when it comes to getting down the field on defense on the pull. There were some great pulls though, and I like when hustle defense leads to a Callahan.
-I can do better dictating on offense and defense. I’m being too passive when my man is close on almost everything except for my force side cuts.
-Either the team needs to recognize our personality or I do. We’re going to have a tough time out-muscling other teams, so we have to play smarter and move the disc better. We looked pretty recreational with our clogging and inefficient use of players on the field.
We lost the first game 16-15. I had to watch the disc zip by me too fast and far to be the game-winning score and then watch my man jump up and grab number 16 for his team. The second game was a rainy mess and I didn’t have much fight and neither did the team. It was a bit rough.
It’s been 21 days since I last posted.
That sentence makes me sound like I want to join a support group. I have notes in the back of the “Iceland Review” all laid out for a chronological trip review, but I’m not ready yet to review it. Instead, I’m caught up in Saturday’s Ultimate games.
I’ve resolved to make my weekend Ultimate games take a backseat to my other fitness goals. That means I’m not going to skip a workout on Friday just because I have a game on Saturday. It means I still want to find time to run or even race and play. In theory, I believe this to be good well-rounded life-balancing policy. In practice, I am already finding this to be a painful way to exist.
On Saturday, we had a double-header and something like 3 subs. I found myself in the games more than I wanted to be, largely because I worked out on Friday and I was still sore. The first game was a lazily-defended, deep-cut slug fest. I was happy to be one of the deep cutters, less happy that I keep getting burnt on the defensive end. We can blame my sore legs, but it’s starting to feel like 50/50 discs go to the other guy 70% of the time. It’s the ones where I’ve got a step that I’m getting. In the first game, I often had a step. I need to figure out how to get back in the mix more often, even as I am getting out-jumped.
Other things to think about:
-Maybe if I’m going to show up sore, I shouldn’t be quite so zealous when it comes to getting down the field on defense on the pull. There were some great pulls though, and I like when hustle defense leads to a Callahan.
-I can do better dictating on offense and defense. I’m being too passive when my man is close on almost everything except for my force side cuts.
-Either the team needs to recognize our personality or I do. We’re going to have a tough time out-muscling other teams, so we have to play smarter and move the disc better. We looked pretty recreational with our clogging and inefficient use of players on the field.
We lost the first game 16-15. I had to watch the disc zip by me too fast and far to be the game-winning score and then watch my man jump up and grab number 16 for his team. The second game was a rainy mess and I didn’t have much fight and neither did the team. It was a bit rough.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Me and my trophy: A story that contains children
Long ago, before the month of August, which was an especially long month in some senses and an especially short one in others, I was part of a plaid-wearing, flag-waving team of beach blokes that managed to win a division in that beach Ultimate tournament of Wildwood, New Jersey. I recounted much of that adventure somewhere down there. Scroll down and I'm quite certain it can be located. This victory was particularly sweet as it had come after a number of years of losing. Those tales are also recounted in the archives. It's never the winning or the losing that really matter, but sometimes they do matter. Sometimes they matter enough to warrant a golden cup. This was one of those times. On that fateful day, I held the cup and drank from the cup and then I said farewell to the cup.
It is difficult to share a single trophy among a whole team, but I wanted my day with the cup. I had grand plans. The cup and I would sing and dance together. We would frolic in that way that only victors can frolic. This would be beautiful and glorious and it began to seem as if it would never happen.
Saturday, the cup and I were reunited. I grabbed the golden chalice and took a short victory lap around the picnic area. It was as golden and as heavy as I remembered. I gazed at my golden reflection and my beard shined just a little brighter. First, I held my cup with my left hand. Then, I held it with my right. I decided to toss the frisbee with my fellow picnic people, but rather than relinquish my grasp, I carried the cup with us. When one hand grew weary, I switched to the other. This led to an especially interesting game of catch as my fellow picnic people also switched to throwing with their off-hands. Passers-by must have thought we were rather talented at catching the disc to be throwing so poorly. I'm sure they also thought that I looked like a champion.
They were right.
The difficulty of being a champion is that others seek to knock champions off their high horses. Fortunately, my horse is vertically challenged. I don't have a horse, but the trophy did attract the attention of a young boy. He wanted to hold the cup. I was still uninterested in releasing it. The last time I let it go, I did not see it for more than a month. The boy was persistent, but I held my ground and my cup.
The boy attacked. At first I danced away from his advances, sometimes darting away in a sprint, other times with a juke move, but the boy pressed on. He climbed me. He strangled me. He hit me. He grabbed my shoulders and rocked me back and forth. I tried to discourage him by spinning and by holding the cup ever higher. This back and forth, this dance of strength and wits with a young boy went on for quite some time, maybe even an hour. Somemtimes, he would ask nicely or get his even smaller brother to ask for the trophy. Other times, he would come at me ferociously. He'd sneak up and jump on me or run by and make a grab at the gold. He would walk away, run a race, throw a disc, look distracted and then attack again. He'd climb my back again and I'd hold the trophy above my head and try to spin him away.
"What strange champion is this?" park-goers must have pondered. "He holds a trophy high and spins with a boy on his back." Perplexed, they must have wished to be champions themselves.
I just wished this kid's parents would show up before one of us got injured.
Long ago, before the month of August, which was an especially long month in some senses and an especially short one in others, I was part of a plaid-wearing, flag-waving team of beach blokes that managed to win a division in that beach Ultimate tournament of Wildwood, New Jersey. I recounted much of that adventure somewhere down there. Scroll down and I'm quite certain it can be located. This victory was particularly sweet as it had come after a number of years of losing. Those tales are also recounted in the archives. It's never the winning or the losing that really matter, but sometimes they do matter. Sometimes they matter enough to warrant a golden cup. This was one of those times. On that fateful day, I held the cup and drank from the cup and then I said farewell to the cup.
It is difficult to share a single trophy among a whole team, but I wanted my day with the cup. I had grand plans. The cup and I would sing and dance together. We would frolic in that way that only victors can frolic. This would be beautiful and glorious and it began to seem as if it would never happen.
Saturday, the cup and I were reunited. I grabbed the golden chalice and took a short victory lap around the picnic area. It was as golden and as heavy as I remembered. I gazed at my golden reflection and my beard shined just a little brighter. First, I held my cup with my left hand. Then, I held it with my right. I decided to toss the frisbee with my fellow picnic people, but rather than relinquish my grasp, I carried the cup with us. When one hand grew weary, I switched to the other. This led to an especially interesting game of catch as my fellow picnic people also switched to throwing with their off-hands. Passers-by must have thought we were rather talented at catching the disc to be throwing so poorly. I'm sure they also thought that I looked like a champion.
They were right.
The difficulty of being a champion is that others seek to knock champions off their high horses. Fortunately, my horse is vertically challenged. I don't have a horse, but the trophy did attract the attention of a young boy. He wanted to hold the cup. I was still uninterested in releasing it. The last time I let it go, I did not see it for more than a month. The boy was persistent, but I held my ground and my cup.
The boy attacked. At first I danced away from his advances, sometimes darting away in a sprint, other times with a juke move, but the boy pressed on. He climbed me. He strangled me. He hit me. He grabbed my shoulders and rocked me back and forth. I tried to discourage him by spinning and by holding the cup ever higher. This back and forth, this dance of strength and wits with a young boy went on for quite some time, maybe even an hour. Somemtimes, he would ask nicely or get his even smaller brother to ask for the trophy. Other times, he would come at me ferociously. He'd sneak up and jump on me or run by and make a grab at the gold. He would walk away, run a race, throw a disc, look distracted and then attack again. He'd climb my back again and I'd hold the trophy above my head and try to spin him away.
"What strange champion is this?" park-goers must have pondered. "He holds a trophy high and spins with a boy on his back." Perplexed, they must have wished to be champions themselves.
I just wished this kid's parents would show up before one of us got injured.
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