Goal #2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes folks, you are going to hear about every single goal scored. I've even started numbering them for your convenience!
This time, our team got smart, and recruited some outsiders so that we could have subs. We're not bad, we just get tired, and then KILLED at the very end because of it. And also, Craig decided to come watch too...not that it made me nervous or anything
.
We got there about 20 minutes before start time, and this was a good sign: girls were starting to congregate, even black t-shirted girls I hadn't seen before. New players? YESSS!!! So now, we have a lazy defender, and a great goalie officially. Unofficially, we have a great forward/midfielder and a fiesty (but petite) defender. Not too shabby! Tracy couldn't make it because her son was having allergy issues, and Ellen didn't show up, probably because the game was super late. We could've used Tracy because she's good at making space.
The other team was in last place, but I think they wanted this win badly since we don't even have a team name...I guess they assumed we sucked. And we did for the first half, playing bunch ball, getting in our own team member's way. The other team was fast, and younger. I didn't get to start, but after watching the game unfold I prayed that it would get better (at least for Craig's sake..)
This one sub, Marci was really good. She definitely had skills, and more energy than most of the team. I imagine she was probably frustrated because most of us couldn't keep up with her on the attack. I hope she plays with us again. If Marci and Erika could both come out, that would be SUPER GOOD!! (Erika would kick butt in this league.)
I had a few good moments, like the breakaway which resulted in a goal. I couldn't believe it. Another goal? And did I just...BEAT a couple of girls en route to the other side of the field?? WOW! I was very excited (duh) and SO happy that Craig could see it. He's been coaching me in what I like to call soccer-in-10-minutes-a-day (or soccer-for-dummies), so everything he saw (minus the errors- those are mine!) was his good work.
Which means that I was totally useless in most of my other soccer games until now.
IloveitIloveitIloveit...
And yes..it's 5:46am, so it's time to go to step. Bye bye!
The Demise of Friends
It's a very strange thing how life and choices pull everyone apart in different directions. Friendships redefine themselves, it's always weird to find yourself so far ahead, but your friend is still in the same place where you first met. Except at this point, you're not so much friends anymore but acquaintances.
I think I'm tired.
I'm thinking of one friend in particular. I don't know what binded us together, but it was probably the love of Brooklyn, and not so much of grass and winged insects. When I think back, there are a good number of laughs, and many instances of proven loyalty. But there were other times too where I can distinctly remember being belittled. We were friends before boys played any real role in our lives. But when they did, it was all over. And that's when the problems started. The last eight years have been riddled with self inflicted problems in which intervention was futile.
She'd ask for advice. I'd give it, wearily knowing that she already knew what she was going to do, and of course it was never the sensible option. She says we're like family, but I've been a stranger ever since I left for college. She stayed in the same place.
I guess I feel guilty for not inquiring about all the "juicy details" when she announced to me that she was engaged. I think I might've hated her for it, because as history shows, it will mark the beginning of yet another dysfunctional relationship. Of course, in my heart of hearts, I hope it won't be a repeat, and I hope that this works, and that she is truly happy. But I can't shake this sinking feeling.
She's a good person with a heart of gold. Having low self esteem is a bitch.
Another shows me what my sister could turn into and it scares the living crap out of me.
Needy does not foster a good friendship either.
To my good friends who are often absentee but always sane, and in tune when I need you, THANK YOU!
My first GOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!
Blogger isn't working for me right now. It's either
the site, or this stupid Apple laptop that is
sometimes handy, but more of a novelty.
I don't know if I mentioned this already or not, but I
decided to play another round of indoor soccer, but
this time, registering independently to be randomly
put on a team in a women's league. Figured this might
be better than the co-ed version where women are
typically marginalized by testosterone brutes, and
plus, it might be a good place for me to learn a bit
more, and try out some new moves!
Last week was our first game. There were only seven
girls on the email, and you need six to play. I
anticipated that we'd be short because it's highly
unlikely that everyone will show up. And surprise
surprise, that was exactly the outcome. After I paid
my $80 (ouch), I instantly regretted it, and thought,
"Is there time to bail still?" One girl from the
other team was nice enough to come play with us so we
had 6. It was tough, and unfortunately, I was goalie,
but it was surprisingly fun, and the team as a whole
isn't bad, we're just lacking communication, and need
to get used to each other.
I set up Evite such that we could track attendance.
I'd hate to show up for a 10:30pm game on a Monday
night and be the only one there because it's late. I
recruited Tracy from coed. She's the wife of the guy
who organizes our Saturday outdoor league. This time,
we had exactly enough. The team we were playing
against were older, but I saw that they recruited some
girls from the very best team who aren't even in our
recreational league. This pissed me off.
We started off short b/c Ellen arrived late. After 10
minutes, I was ready to burst a lung, and solicited
one of the other team's 3 subs to come over to help.
She did, but only until Ellen showed up. During the
first half, they killed us. I think we were down, 0
to 5. Kind of depressing. I don't know what changed
during the second half, but I noticed that there were
fundamental things that were wrong, like players not
making space for other players, and bunch ball. I was
tired, so I stayed back on defense, but I couldn't
take it anymore because the girls were bunching up in
the corners and the angles were too wide for them to
score successfully. I ran up the middle and took a
shot when the ball got passed. It doesn't matter what
happens, as long as you try for it. We ended up
scoring several goals when we picked up the rebounds!
It was good! Tracy did very well too both on defense
and offense. Later, I find out that she's never
played offense before!
Tracy and I rotate out of defense into offense, and
things start making a bit more sense. She says,
"You're going to score tonight, definitely! You keep
taking all these shots, and they're really close!"
(Close, but not good enough...grr) More time passes,
and we are keeping possession of the ball, despite
being exhausted and having no subs. I hear someone on
the other team mutter to their teammate, "Whoa, these
girls are actually good.."
Us? Hahahaha.... But it's cool if they think so.
We have possession, and they're toying with it now.
Why won't anyone try for a shot? Are they waiting for
the perfect angle? It isn't going to happen. And why
is there nobody in the middle? Tracy is fighting for
the ball on the left side, two on one and she's pinned
in. I run up the middle from defense and she passes
the ball slightly in front of me in the center and oh
crap, there's two girls closing in on me but MMMPH!
And somehow, the ball takes off and arcs straight into
the upper left hand corner. The game is tied!!! Oh
my god, did I just...How?...Me?....MY FIRST GOAL
EVER!!! I'm smiling a thousand watt smile, high-five
Tracy on the way back to our half, and definitely
beaming like the village idiot.
It was a good goal. Like on TV. Not a cheap, lazy,
rolling-on-the-ground goal, but GOOD! A
Craig-would-be-proud goal! Too bad he wasn't there to
see it. Tracy also got a goal that game too. It was
definitely fun!
In the last five minutes, we ran out of steam, and
couldn't get back in time on defense, so poor Emily
had to fend for herself in the goal. I felt bad, but
these legs were NOT moving.
I got to use a few tricks that Craig taught me. Next
week will be interesting...
My Big Accomplishment
My big accomplishment today is buying planters from Home Depot in an attempt to make the house more appealing. Actually, no, let's start over. Getting to the community center early this morning to make up a missed step class was the first accomplishment. Now, I only have 4 missed classes to make up. I let the instructor know that I'm doing a make-up, but she doesn't really care because we have the entire gym to ourselves and it's more than enough space. And then she says, "Oh, actually this isn't a step class. It was misprinted in the brochure. But don't worry, everything's on the floor."
And then, she turned on the fake techno exercise music and we Riverdanced for 40 minutes. I was about to die. I'm pretty flat footed, so being up on my toes for that amount of time was difficult. And I must note that this aerobics instructor WAS NOT FAT!
After that, it was around 10am, and I headed over to Home Depot thinking it was still kind of early. When I got to the parking lot, you would've thought a caravan of homeowners-of-America decided to camp out overnight waiting for the orange gates to open. What the hell? And then I remembered. Suburbia. House. Going to Home Depot is just one of the routine weekend chores that you do. It made me feel old.
In the interim, Craig was home cleaning off his computer desk so we could cart it to the dumpster. It was gigantic, and probably could've been a stand-in for an evil command center. But only the kind you can buy from Walmart. We picked up another smaller corner unit from craigslist (Where else?) and carefully extracted it from the cat people's house.
Cats like to keep themselves clean. It's convenient that they use a litter box, and if you have automatic food and water dispensers, you don't have to do anything. And all of these good factors appeal to very lazy people. So at the very least, please clean the litter box, deoderize porous household surfaces, and vacuum often. If you don't, you'll have the dreaded cat-smell in your house. And you don't want people talking about you as the cat-person with the cat-house, do you?
Craig is managing the car situation. Managing, you wonder? Yes. Managing. Because we really do not need five cars for two people. But, while we have them, we're going to have some fun with them!
It will be kind of sad to see them go. It's rare to have so many of these vintage Preludes in one place at the same time.
Oh, and just so you know, this is the first weekend we've had an over a month that did not involve travel or some other kind of unpleasant obligation. Sleeping in is divine. Not having to be anywhere or do anything? Even better! I've cancelled all of our weekend plans for the next month because I just cannot take it anymore. Unfortunately, I will have to go out to Denver again which prevents us from participating in Bike NY, but maybe we can do it next year. (The truth is that it's OK that we don't go. I don't think I've been on my bike yet this season.)
Oh, and a bigger unfortunate news nugget is that funding for the contract I'm on got cancelled, so I will need to have another one lined up by September or even possibly another jobby-job-job if things don't go well with my current company. Personally, I think it's a shame that we're not moving forward. There were severe growing pains to get us to this point, but hey, if the gov't wants to waste tax payer's money like that, then whatever. I'm hoping that whatever comes next is a good opportunity. And if not, it'll be a catalyst for getting out of this line of work, that's for sure.
Note to self: Chili dog + soccer = not good idea.
Superwoman
I regret to inform you all that on this day, I am officially overextended, so if you are in need of me, or something I can do for you, please take a number and have a seat.
If you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all.
That's what my mother always says. So it took every ounce of energy to keep quiet today at work. Do you ever feel like you're trapped in a traveling band of idiots? My favorite commercials nowadays are the ones with the sane, normal corporate peon giving a panel of monkeys a presentation on the state of the world.
Of course, it doesn't help to be overtired, emotional, and overwhelemed either.
I managed to spring out of bed at 5:25am and had my step assembled and ready to go at the community center at 5:58am. Class starts promptly at 6am with the sort of chubby but very nice instructor yelling, "HOW ARE YOU ALL DOING THIS MORNING?"
Lady, it's fucking 6am and I'm here. Isn't that good enough?
She starts off with basic stuff, and builds it into a routine which can be quite challenging. She's good like that. I like creativity. Except, she likes to turn a lot, and well, it gets quite confusing and frustrating when you're always facing the wrong direction.
Today I was ready to hang it up. Really. Just wanted to say, forget this whole thing, and scratch step off the list. But it was my fault for missing classes and not getting the basic instruction in the first place, so I couldn't blame her, or the class in general. Dammit. At this point, I'm frustrated and ready to cry. Then, I get mad again for allowing myself to get annoyed over something so stupid. It's 6:30am. DO SOMETHING.
So I stop watching her and start listening. I do the stuff that I know how to do, and when it gets unfamiliar, I make up stuff in between on the beat. Yes, I probably look like a giant idiot. The others in the class probably think I'm learning disability or something. But that's OK. At least I'm providing the function of allowing them to feel better about themselves by making it blatantly obvious that they're able to nail something that I cannot. Everybody needs a role, right?
Class ends, and I make my way to the pool. The nice thing about swimming is that you usually can't hear anything except what's in your head. At 7am, I can tell you it's not a whole lot. Made it across the pool in three breaths. It feels faster that way for some reason. Concentrating on the stroke probably helps, because turning my head constantly breaks my focus. It's getting better though, so I'm glad.
I get to work and the talk of the town is what-I-gave-up-for-Lent. One guy gave up soda, so he's drinking Orangina instead. Go figure. Another guy gave up sweets, but it's OK to eat Raisin Bran where each raisin is rolled in sugar. I'm not particularly religious or anything. I jokingly offer that I gave up food for Hawaii, but they didn't seem to appreciate that one.
Jess's big day
I'm reminded just how weird it is to be dating half of an identical twin set each time we go back to Atlanta. Most of the time, I forget that Craig has a brother, let alone an IDENTICAL one. See?
The week started crazy for me, first having to be in Denver in the beginning, then Atlanta in the end for a 3-day wedding celebration. His sister was getting married, and it's a big deal since there's only one girl out of the siblings. Their relatives were flying in from all over. I packed my small suitcase with only nice clothes since I knew I'd be seen, but it didn't occur to me that it would be his family the entire weekend! Kara dropped us off, and we had twenty minutes to spare before our flight boarded. We got there on time, picked up the rental car from a rental equivalent of Eastern Motors (motors) which is a super ghetto and shady venue in case you didn't know, and were on our way to Alex's house. She graciously hosted us for the three days we were there.
The next day, Craig got up and left for what he thought was a pre-Wedding reunion with some west coast family members, but in actuality turned out to be a communist labor camp at his Dad's house. Alex and I went real estate prospecting in Conyers and were promptly disappointed as we were surrounded by confederate flag waving toothless hillbillies. There was a cheap carwash nearby, so we did a quick drive through (stupid WHITE cars...) and as they were hand drying Alex's car, I pointed out that the guy on her side had no teeth. For real. Made it back in time for the rehearsal dinner which I didn't think I was invited to initially since I'm not part of the wedding party, but it was for out of towners too. That's where I met everybody. I saw Jess first in an Ann Taylor dress. I remember that dress because it was my first choice to wear to the wedding. I emailed the link to Craig to get his opinion ("It looks like a tablecloth."), which he now denies ever saying. (I went with a silk Banana Republic floral dress instead.) Then I saw Craig's dad, and a bunch of other people. We went upstairs and stayed in the hallway to meet and greet people. The out of towner relative were greeting and catching up with one another. Craig had to run an errand. As he leaves, Derek comes up to say hello to people. One relative with a camera insists that we get together to take a picture since obviously we're dating. So we're still standing like, 5 feet apart from each other and waddle in to make it 3 feet, then a respectful 12 inches. (That's all they're gonna get.) Derek sighs, "It's not even worth explaining." Smile. Click.
They had reserved a room at Maggiano's where we were served a fabulous three course meal. Even the mafioso italian side of the family would be impressed! It was a nice dinner until Jess and Roger got heckled into telling everyone how they met and their lovestory. Then the heckling roast began!
After the dinner, we stopped by Derek's place to hang out for a while. They have this one cousin who looks a lot like them, it's totally weird. I guess the probability of having similar looking relatives is higher when you are coming from a purely caucasian family. The roommates (high school/college friends) were nowhere to be found. We made our way back to Alex's pretty late. She was already asleep.
Overnight, it poured. You could hear the drops pounding on the siding. Ping. Ping. PLOP. Well, isn't it GREAT that this is an outdoor wedding?? We had volunteered the night before to help with the set up, not fully knowing what that meant. When we arrived at the chateau after a nice shower (and no breakfast), we were confronted by a puddle ridden patio and a huge tarp with all the tables and chairs stacked beneath it. Oh. This is what you mean by set up. After a couple of hours of manual labor, we were drenched with puddle splash and sweat. It's only April and it's already friggin hot in Atlanta. It was slowly starting to come together.
The venue was beautiful. I don't have any pictures of the interior of the house (think: museum, old money), but the exterior and the well manicured grounds were extraordinary. If nothing else, at least Jess and Roger will have amazing photos.
It was nice to be there to see Jess and Roger's wedding. They truly have something real and meaningful. It just makes sense seeing them together, and I couldn't imagine it any other way. They're both quirky, yet complimentary. I remember I was pretty scared to meet them the first time because a sister's criticism is second only to the mother's, though equally harsh. It wasn't weird to hang out with them. It wasn't weird to be the brother's girlfriend. And it was kind of fun, actually! We've seen them several times in between, and stayed with them a couple of times when we visit and it's nice. It's kind of weird to think of them as wife and husband now, because in my head it's just...Jess and Roger, a statement of fact.
And Stephanie was very sweet too. She should get a gold medal for bridesmaiding. I've heard a lot about her and seen plenty of pictures since she's Jess's best friend. You could tell she really cared about Jess and that they had a sisterly connection.
It's nice to be truly happy for someone.
Come to think of it, I think I am fake-happy for people most of the time. (During that time of fake-smile-and-nod, I'm really thinking, "You idiot.")
And of course, like any normal female, I thought about my own situation. Wouldn't it be fun to throw a big wedding party and have everyone partake in this special day? Tons of fun! And footing the bill? Not so fun. Before I wax too philosophical, I guess the question is: Do you feel the need to share your special day with friends and family, or is it sufficient to keep it between the two people involved? Of course, this explodes into a big political debate involving a prolific guest list, hurt feelings, and managing expectations. I've been told several times that the wedding isn't really for the bride as it is for her mother.
I once told my mother that I wanted to elope so I didn't have to deal with the work/stress/politics of a wedding. Kind of an all or nothing deal. As she was driving, I could see the corners of her mouth straighten into a perfectly thin line. Yeah, so that didn't go very well. Scratch that. I'm partial to the idea of a destination wedding because chances are, people are going to have to travel, so why not go somewhere fun and interesting?
I'm getting ahead of myself.
I can't even focus enough to pack my gym back the night before, let alone stay awake past 10:30pm. Entering delirium, so ta-ta for now.
