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For The Dudes: How To Not Get Laid

23 May

Chelsea wins, we gotta eat now.

This past Saturday was the UEFA Champions League Final, which for all the uninitiated is the Super Bowl of European club soccer.  The game was between an English Premiere League team, the Chelsea Football Club of London and the German Bundesliga team, Bayern Munich. Friends and regular readers know about my soccer love, so it should come as no surprise that I found myself in a packed sports bar at 10:45AM, Guinness in hand, making friends with an imposing gentleman named Matt who was wearing a Mastodon* tee shirt.

Matt and I did some bonding over the brilliant drama of soccer,  and within 10 minutes I found out he was 39 years old;  married (wife not a soccer fan, was out doing beauty treatments, which I endorsed having just done the same the week before); he played in college, somewhere in Ohio (?);  and he knew the entire staff at the bar. I’m very good at making friends. We claimed a respectable standing-room-only spot while I waited for my real-life friend to txt his arrival, putting Matt on notice he’d likely have to go out and retrieve him from the blight of the line. Matt was gracious and said not to worry, and yes, went out and got my friend when the txt came. We love Matt.

The three of us watched the game to much delight, reveled in the good natured and multi-culti crowd, drank several pints and Matt even quaffed a few shots of Cazadores all the while. We were also being well taken care of by a very hard working and patient waitress. She and I, being some of the few gals among the sausage fest, exchanged knowing glances every time she walked past us. We got each other.

After half time the crowd rejiggered and we ended up with two fellows in front of us that, while not totally invading our spot, were filling that luxurious extra 14 inches of breathing room we had before. They were not tall, so we could see right over them without issue. However, they could not get into the rhythm with our waitress and kept backing into me whenever she needed to pass, instead of letting her go behind them as was the more natural flow of the space. At some point, she was passing and looked at me as he backed into me with that knowing eye, and I gently put my hand on his mid back to stop him from stepping on me and to let her pass. The next time she came through she looked at me before her stride arrived, then at him, then back at me so I put my hand gently onto his mid back and said to him, “Head’s up, waitress coming through.” She nodded a thank you to me and passed on by with a giant tray of drinks.

The next thing I hear is the height challenged chap (wearing those foreshortening, baggy, saggy knicker-pants) say to me very tersely, “Don’t touch me!” punctuated with a shoulder jerk forward away from me and a bonus sneer.

Um, okay.

My real-life friend looks at me and my perplexed face and says, “Did he just say for you not to touch him? Wow. He’s got it all wrong.”

Right?!  (And then we giggled at his expense.)

I am just glad New Friend Matt did not witness that, because I am quite certain the cranky young man would have been dealing with a 6’2″ hella-buzzed menace instead of an attractive brunette having a great hair day with above average sports knowledge gently placing her hand on his back a few times.  I guess he just never experienced that before.

And probably never will again.

*Hat tip to brother for keeping me up on my metal.

Dear Sports, I Love You

3 Apr

From NYTimes "Kathy Martin (9) competing in the 3,000 meters in January at the Armory in Manhattan."

I am a sports fan.  Sure there are games too complicated even for me to devote the time to understanding (cricket? huh?), but for the most part, I love the very simple metaphor of the heroic journey every athlete and team member takes every time they put on their uniform, cross it to the center, stick the landing, return the volley, get barreled, sack the QB, cross the finish first, throw a strike, slam the dunk, dive no splash, deliver the knockout, dig that spike, dig down deeper when defeated and practice, practice, practice, practice and most of all believe.  Sport at its most basic forces a situation where the rules are set, the clocks are ticking, skill counts and winning is at stake.  These are of course symbolic wins and losses; it is not meant to be a life or death situation, but instead mimic the intensity of one by competition with others and the self.  (I cannot get lost in the topic of business or celebrity of sports today.  Go read a story about the entire NBA if you want that.)

The most compelling sports stories are those in which the athlete or team has overcome the incredible odds against them to achieve a personal best or an outright win.  The current story I am inspired by is Kathy Martin, a 60 year old masters runner, competing in track and field events and holding world records for her age bracket that are completely astonishing.  For a convalescing runner like me, there could not be a more delightful true athlete story than Kathy Martin’s.

Read it.  Then tell me sports don’t have heart.

(PS, if you don’t have a subscription to the NYTimes and you have used up your free articles on this the 3rd day of the month, email me.  I might still have a discount coupon code for you.  Get the Times people.  It’s good for your brain.)

Day 34: Long-ish Run, Feeling Better-ish

17 Jul

After using up all my adrenaline watching the Women’s World Cup Final (Team USA lost in a nail-biter to Japan on penalty kicks), I had to use my intended long run for comfort instead of celebration.    And long runs are not necessarily comforting, especially since it is the first “real” one of this training schedule I have concocted.    I had two fantastic 4.75 mile runs with Rocco earlier in the week, and I have actually done a stretch here and there as opposed to my usual zilcho, so I was actually looking forward to doing seven miles.

Here is what “happened,” with explanations and disclaimers after the pic.

Look for the little grey dots for the "pauses" and that's where I made up the .26!

Although the GPS does not lie, it also does not record when I pause the program, and so when I factor back in the paused distances, I did actually run an additional quarter mile, so my total was 6.0 miles.  Whew.  That means only a mile short of the day’s goal, and that is okay with me.  Also, when I paused, I was fumbling around trying to figure out my route, because after mile three I decided to change it up and run toward a path I’ve never been on and so, had to stop for directions so to speak.  That added several minutes on to my split times, so I am thinking I was more like 10:30 per minute.  (I had a slight hangover to contend with too, damn you tequila, yet so delicious.)

On the asthma front, I am no longer in denial of needing the daily medication and have noticed my breath stays calmer longer throughout a run.  Fitness will still help me, so mileage is on the rise until the week before to get stronger.

The two earlier runs this week resulted in a creative breakthrough  too.  Am excitedly drafting a new project and will share soon!

Soccer Joy: I’m Tired Just Watching

17 Jun

My monitor at work, 1st half Brazil v. North Korea. Poor composition blamed on fatigue.

My enjoyment of reading “Fever Pitch” is tempered only by the moments I kick myself for not having read it sooner.  But then again, I truly believe that art, music and literature arrive in our lives at the exact moment we are meant to have it.  This is true too for the times that we are exposed to art/music/lit and we simply don’t get it.  It lays the foundation for an epiphany to come.  And so, all the soccer joy I have had in my life was actually preparing me for my absolute worship of Nick Hornby’s memoir of his “obsession.”  (Yes, I did just also compare soccer to art, music and literature.  Hope you caught that.)  I think I will just start re-reading it when I finish, I can’t get enough.

I am currently exhausted, mostly from sleep deprivation trying to get up extra early to watch World Cup matches, and not going to bed earlier to compensate, mainly because I am stubborn.  Then there are the wild adrenaline spikes while watching games through the morning, whether stifled in my cube or over at the sports bar across the street.  At least there it is okay to shout and commiserate audibly.  This constant reversal of energies is quite tiresome.  Due to this soccer-zombie existence to which I have succumbed, I have been too stupid to write sooner, and honestly forgot that I also had to devote two nights this week to the Laker-Celtic finals, which mercifully end tonight, Laker domination is expected.  There has not been this much ESPN on my TV since I was married!

Must try to sleep to write more soccer joy…

Soccer Joy: A Whole Month of World Cup!

6 Jun

Ferry Reading: Getting ready for World Cup by immersing in all things soccer, 'scuse me, football related.

I am a terrible soccer player. That did not stop me however, from being on the girls’ team in high school, first JV, then Varsity, but should also be noted that age 15 not 5 is when I first really kicked a soccer ball with the intention of being part of a team. Once on my high school team, I went to all the practices, worked my butt off, ran stadium stairs, and only got limited game playing time. I am a very fast runner and am tall and athletic looking, so I guess the coach maybe thought that I should be a midfielder, going back and forth between offense and defense, but let’s be honest, it’s mostly an offensive position. I think if all had gone according to his plan I would have been arcing perfect crosses to the forwards who would heroically blast goals in the back upper corner of the net to the hollering cheers of our fans. Well, no. That did not happen. Not on passes from me anyhow.

In hindsight, where they should have put me and let me actually build some skills and confidence, is on defense. My sprinting would have been put to good use going after some speedy winger, or running down an errant but dangerous boot from the far side. Not to mention, I am tenaciously annoying and aggressive when someone else has a ball I want. Also, I’m not afraid to put a little body into it. But, no. I was shoved into the midfield where I withered from fear that I’d have to get my passes to the right spots and was tentative and not so effective and uttered the dreaded, meek, “I’m sorry!” across the field a lot. I felt a little better playing co-ed indoor during the winter; it was faster and all around more wild which meant if my pass went awry, it got noticed way less. My freshman year of college, I spent a semester of PE playing soccer with another co-ed group, and we had some good clean fun with a great coach. I loved that class, and might have been the only “A” I earned that semester. In the summers home from college, and actually right after college, I was talked into joining some local adult leagues by a good friend who was an excellent and collegiate player. At least as an official adult I could then honestly articulate my lack of skills to the prospective team, giving them fair warning of my inconsistent passing so that I’d be absolved prior to any game-losing mistakes I might think I had caused. I also learned to stop the on-field apologies and there was beer after.

Where I am not terrible when it comes to soccer, is my complete and total joy with the entire experience of the game. And it is funny to me, because I am not an obsessive about it, in fact, I always consider myself an awestruck rookie, which is maybe part of the reason I am so present in each facet of my soccer experiences both as an adolescent player and as a grown woman. I don’t know the esoteric facts about the English League system and its levels, but it fascinates me and could spend hours asking endless questions to one who does; I didn’t realize until recently that Italians are known to cheat (!) and somehow that is okay and expected; I love that women’s soccer in the US is just, if not at times as bad ass as the men’s; I am guilty of only knowing the most famous of world players and yes, oogling over David Beckham, but am always willing and ready to be educated on the unknowns; I am concerned by old school hooligans and past Colombian soccer-related assassinations; I love that everyone around the world has likely had a kick-about at some point in their lives and that we all are bonded by that; I have been in stadiums and bars and house parties for games and had as much fun watching the fans as the players. All of these things about the experience of the game transports me to a happiness that I could only compare to how I feel when I am out in nature or the few times I have been in love or when laughter is so intense you feel as if you might pass out from glee and lack of oxygen or flying dreams.

So now, the World Cup is back and I am in full-on soccer awe. I am constantly reading articles and blogs, clicking down rabbit holes of websites and wikis all about the tournament and players and team histories, trying to make sure I have figured out the correct start times for games and put into my Outlook, and now, preparing my bracket! What has me the most tickled though is reading Nick Hornby’s “Fever Pitch” for the first time. I am having that joy sharing his experience of the game (although he’d describe as mostly fraught and serious not joyful, because he is an obsessive) as yet another reason to believe for certain that happiness is real.

I have some soccer joy to share. I will post some of the stories during the World Cup.

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