The title of this post has nothing to do with what’s going to be in the post. But Catch Hell Blues was my song today. Once I’m in the White Stripes mood, you can’t take me out of it. And that song is amazing. Don’t go looking for trouble if you’re not prepared to deal with the consequences.
And now that that’s out of the way…
Disclaimer: This post is going to be disjointed lily pads of nothing consequential. Even more fragmented/incoherent then usual. Several abrupt changes in topic. And there are a lot of sports-related sentiments in capital letters so if that kind of sports-related intensity doesn’t interest you, just skip this one. Or read up until “Selection Sunday…”
I’m basically turning into a mermaid. Or a piece of seaweed. And I love it. Big bodies of water and I were always meant to be together. I went to the beach again on Wednesday. I held a pufffed up puffer fish and saw some washed up jellies and a 100% intact dead crab. There was also a huge buoy that came in during a storm. It was at least 20 feet tall (but it’s hard to saw exactly how big it was since it was kind of on it’s side and I’m a bad guestimator of height) and like 7 feet wide at the floaty bottom. There were barnacles on it. The beach is my curiosity dream come true. I also laid in the sunshine obviously. My skin is changing. My hair is changing. I feel rough and salty and it’s awesome. The only downside is the fact that my freckles are emerging in full force and my hair is getting super light. At this rate, I’m going to be strawberry blonde by April and that sucks. I definitely prefer the darker red. #gingerproblems
Yes, I just hashtagged in a blog. Deal with it.
Laying on the beach just makes me want to be a housewife which is terrifying because not once have I ever thought that’s appealing before. But it’s so blissful that I want nothing other than to have zero responsibilities and hours of selfish free time to bask in the sun on the sand. And go shopping. I went to the Tanger Outlets in Foley today. Good God… the shopping down here is better too. Everything is magic. I could have definitely cleaned up at J. Crew and Ann Taylor and then bought half the stuff in every other store. I love spring. I WANT ALL THE DRESSES. I want to be a housewife so that my job can be to do laundry and look pretty. I’d get to dress up every day. And my husband would be rich so we’d have a boat and take it out every weekend and live happily ever after. And all the money we didn’t spend on the boat and clothes, we’d give to people who need it. I’d make sure we were a very philanthropic family.
There would probably be a lot of self-loathing by like month four of this. I’m not sure I could handle actually being a housewife (but I would love to be able to give money away like it was no big deal). I like to accomplish things. And not be dependent on anyone. I can buy my own damn boat someday. The good thing about nursing is that my income will be awesome enough to enable my clothing whims and my schedule will enable my beach whims. I fear for my self-control.
Today, however, my self-control was still intact and the only thing I bought at J. Crew was a pair of awesome light seafoam-ish green shorts. They spoke to my new mermaid self and I had to have them. I kind of needed them for practical reasons as well since it’s shorts weather in Mobile like 10 months a year.
Today I also got around to finishing Life of Pi and damn, did that twist ending suck or what?! I didn’t even know it was going to have a twist ending so I was totally caught off guard. And I take back what I said about how it makes me question my agnosticism. It actually reaffirmed it at the end. That’s all I can say without giving too much away and ruining your enjoyment of it if you haven’t read it yet and are going to in the future.
My new favorite food item for consumption day and night is celery with peanut butter and raisins. Your mom probably called it “ants on a log” when you were a kid. I’m trying to eat better since taking Diet Therapy pretty much proved that a bad diet is the downfall of all people. All kinds of diseases and conditions have a nutritional component. And I’m not even talking about the obesity/hypertension related ones. Even if you’re not hypertensive and/or obese and your calories per day are normal and you’re working out regularly, deficiencies in minerals and vitamins are pretty damn terrible by itself. You can come down with all kinds of conditions when your body doesn’t have what it needs. So now I’m making an effort to eat better. Before, I felt that as long as I wasn’t overweight and my hair wasn’t falling out and my skin wasn’t yellow, I was doing ok. Not the case. I had to do a diet analysis on myself and I was basically lacking in almost all vitamins and minerals and then we had to learn about all the ways a poor diet can increase your risk for EVERYTHING. I didn’t really have bad excesses of anything (not even saturated fat or sodium) but I was deficient in most things. It’s truly hard to eat well when you’re on a super limited income. But I’m trying. Hence the incorporation of celery and raisins, among other things, into my diet. Cheap and nutritionally instrumental. Raisins are kind of gross if you just eat them plain. Celery is too. But if you put them together with peanut butter, it’s BLISS IN YOUR MOUTH. The celery is crunchy, the raisins are chewy and add a subtle sweetness, and the peanut butter is smooth and peanut buttery.
Sunday is Selection Sunday. March Madness > Christmas. College basketball is truly my favorite sport to watch. I might have previously said that soccer was but if I did, I’m telling you now that it was a lie. 7 years ago, when I gave my dad the list of colleges I applied to, he was like “All of these schools have good basketball programs.” Yep. Hell yes they did because that was super important to my 17 year old self. My love for college basketball is deeper than the Mariana Trench. Yesterday, I reevaluated my antenna set-up to make sure that nothing would inhibit my ability to enjoy the games during those brief hours when I’m not in class or psych clinical. And now that Pitt is most likely going to be playing in the NIT (I know… what?!?), I can enjoy the Madness like I used to and not be stressed out about it. I’m not saying I’m happy that Pitt isn’t going to be in the NCAA Tournament. But it’s nice that I know they can’t outright disappoint me again like they do every year. They’re always ranked relatively high. And always lose really early. Their level of underperformance in the tournament has to be some kind of record. Like if you figured out the average ratio of seed position versus round the team lost in, Pitt would be #1. By far. No other team would even be close. This year, since their whole season has been OUTRAGEOUSLY DISAPPOINTING, I can’t even care anymore and I have a new peace about March Madness. I guess I’ll go back to rooting for UNC like I used to. No, I’m not a bandwagon fan. In my first basketball league way way way back in the day when I was particularly susceptible to influence (as all children are), all the teams were named after good college teams. And I was on the Tar Heels. It stuck with me and I started rooting for them in real life. And then got out of control in high school. I had a UNC comforter. Don’t judge. It’s taken me many years to be able to publicly admit that.
Anyway, the amazing thing about college basketball is that anything can happen. Underdogs take down infallible teams all the time. And in terms of even making it to the tournament, no team is ever really guaranteed that at the beginning of the season. Look at Pitt this year. They’re ALWAYS “good” but didn’t make it this time. Better example: in 201o, the defending champs (North Carolina) didn’t even make it. Granted, that actually really makes a lot of sense because they lost all the experienced starters that helped them win the year before but still… UNC almost always has a good team. When they’re in the NIT, it’s always a “what?!” kind of feeling.
And buzzer beaters are absolutely without a doubt the #1 best thing about sports. Fuck grand slams at the bottom of the ninth and completed Hail Marys and all that other epic sports stuff. To see a last ditch three pointer go in at the last second gives you a feeling that no other sports moment can. The energy is different. I can’t explain it. I guess at first you’re happy that he got the shot off then you’re in agonizing anticipation after the release when you watch it in the air and then you see it go in and then YOUR SOUL SCREAMS WITH JOY. Or in the opposite circumstance you’re like “Oh, SHIT… he got the shot off” then agonizing anticipation when it’s in the air then you feel VIOLENT PAIN when it goes in. I fall off my couch from happiness and pain at least 20 times during the tournament. I collapse on the floor at least 5 times.
I feel like there’s more heartbreak in the NCAA Tournament than most sports have. Penn State losing to Temple last year will always be one of the more tragically painful sports-related moments of my life. It was a team of five seniors, one of them being Talor Battle who is one of the absolute best players PSU has ever had. And because of these factors, Penn State made the tournament for the first time in who knows how long. It just felt like it was meant to be and I was so pumped for the tournament. And then Jeff Brooks got hurt during the Temple game and everything changed. I can still physically sense the sinking feeling I had in my stomach in that moment when he got hurt. And when that Temple guy sank the shot at the end, I lost my will to live. This game falls into the “last second shot –> violent pain” category. It was especially hard because Battle had just unbelievably tied it up seconds before that which had made me feel nothing but elation. These moments are obviously burned into my brain forever. College basketball makes you flip emotions just as fast as the teams switch possession.
emotional rollercoaster (noun): Liz’s internal state during every NCAA Tournament game
And now Penn State fans and those five seniors and their coaches forever have to live with the “what if?” of Brooks’ injury. Ugh. Sports.
The NBA is never this epic. I’m not sure why I hate watching NBA games if I love college basketball so much because it’s technically the same sport. I think because they have less chaos moments because the players are professionals and therefore better. I love the chaos of college basketball. It’s fast paced too so you’re basically super into it the whole time. I remember regular season games in the Zoo when we didn’t sit down for even a second when the clock was running.
One last thing about basketball… what the hell is up with Baylor’s uniforms? BLECK. I went out to lunch with some people yesterday and the game was on and now I want Baylor to lose just because their uniforms are obnoxious.
And now on to soccer briefly. Messi scored FIVE GOALS IN ONE GAME on Wednesday. Outrageous. He’s now the first player to score five goals in one game in the Champions League. Here they are. Watch them.
How is Messi so good? It’s magic. I feel bewitched every time I see him play.
And now onto hockey. Sidney Crosby HAS BEEN CLEARED FOR CONTACT. But I’m not getting my hopes up. There’s been a lot of that in the last year and the hopes were always crushed by some new circumstance. Until he’s back playing regularly in games, I can’t relax.
In Between A Rock And The Back Wall 