Soreness, money, pleasures, people & poetry (6-17-08)
This will be a blog about... wait for it... soreness, money, pleasures, people and poetry. It will go in that order.
My football season ended a week ago. Thankfully I had been playing quarterback the last few weeks of the season which meant very little movement. Our team didn't have a good spring season but we ended well winning 2 of our last 3 games and playing very well in the one we lost. I've also been playing sand volleyball for the last month in a recreational league. Recreational league means the lowest level of competition. It's not highly competitive and people are just goofing around out there. However, that will also be over soon as I think there is only 1 or 2 weeks left of that season. All this will leave is softball on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. The past 4-5 years this would be a gaping hole that I'd have to pick up other sports to fill. I'd join a 3rd softball team, a soccer team, another volleyball team, a weekly street hockey thing or even start playing pickup basketball every once in a while but for the 1st time in my entire life I don't want to fill the void with more sports.
It's been over 6 months now since that fateful Friday where that lady hit me at the crosswalk. I'll never forget the impact that car made with my bones. I'll never forget how tranquil the sky looked as I stared upon it for those brief seconds I was on the hood of that car before I realized and felt what had happened to me after being ejected off that hood and shot like a sack of potatoes onto that street. I'll never forget how cold the wet street felt as I laid there wondering how bad I was hurt as I could hear the frightening reassurement of the siren that preceded the ambulance that would arrive rather quickly.
The truth is I've been done with physical therapy for almost 2 months now and my body while not what it was is in a lot better condition than it was in December and January where an aluminum crutch became my 2nd leg. But while I've rehabilitated myself physically through 12 weeks of hard work and sweat, I wonder if I can ever rehabilitate myself psychologically. My paranoia and fear are at all time levels when it comes to cars and the streets. I ride my bike a lot this time of year and I find myself using sidestreets and avoiding intersections where the heaviest traffic flows.
The paranoia and fear exist for many reasons. They exist because my mind can't shake the memory of the scariest moment of my life the way an annoying song gets stuck in your head. They exist because of the pain I feel in my legs that I never used to feel after a softball game. They exist because I wonder what kinds of pain and difficulty 5 years from now holds, what 10 years from now holds and beyond. Sure I've made it back but I'll never be where I once was. When I start getting happy that a sports season ends so I don't have to play anymore, something is definitely wrong. When a man who can't wait to go outside and play wants nothing more to sit this one out because he's afraid of getting hurt or getting hurt worse I'd say the wounds may have healed but the scars will never leave and that saddens me. Yes I will play the rest of my softball seasons and I will appreciate every moment I am out there competing with myself and working up a sweat, but it's just not the same as it used to be.
I have to be careful what I say I guess because of a pending lawsuit that has still not been settled on the matter but speaking of money, things are looking up in a big way. My bank account which has been all screwed up for a while may be completely functional and useable tomorrow. What this means is that I may get to do some online shopping again for the first time in a few months. Now I know I am a guy with muscles, a spectacular sports jersey collection and in need of a shave but dammit I love to shop online, there's so many great deals out there. If everything works out as planned maybe I'll let all of you know what fun and ridiculous things I get when I return to e-commerce.
Online shopping is one of many pleasures I enjoy. Despite the soreness running around outside and playing sports is another. Of course so is eating. This past weekend I rediscovered sherbet. I believe it was Friday. It was warm. I was running around a lot and sweating. I began to get thirsty but a Propel or Gatorade just wouldn't seem to cut it. So I dared to tip-toe my way to the ice cream section. We all know ice cream is evil, especially for those of us who fight a daily battle with weight. There were so many alluring choices. There was a banana split pint. There was Steven Colbert's Americone Dream. There was also the Sabres Top Shelf Sundae. I looked at my stash of cash. I had over $40 in my pocket I could buy THEM ALL!
Then something happened. In the quiet corner away from all the loud flavors and catchy names sat a small tub of something boring. It didn't have the bright lights or the fanfare of its' sexy cousins. It simply said "sherbet". I looked at it with a cocked head like a dog would look at you if you made a high pitched noise. There was something comfortable about the sherbet. There was something that felt right. There were also numbers, smaller numbers on the side of the container than those other delicious options. The calories were far lower, the fat grams, the carbs, all of it were far lower than the Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Daz and Perry's. I was sold on the sherbet and now it is one of my pleasures. Oh, sherbet your sweet refreshment and nutritional facts make me swoon. Oh, sherbet we will be renewing our friendship very soon.
On a side note, on Sunday I felt it was too soon to see sherbet again so I rekindled my love affair with giant Freezie Pops but that's a story for another blog.
While I was eating my giant blue raspberry freezie pop on Sunday a thought crossed my mind I haven't gone to the Allentown Art Festival yet. You see, I grew up on Hudson Street right around the corner from Days Park and Allen Street. I spent many hours at the festival year after year. I bought smoke bombs there, rubber bracelets, weird beads, foreign instruments and the occasional hot dog or Italian sausage from the friendly neighborhood vendor who parked his cart on one of the corners. Therein lies my problem with the festival. Many moons ago I used to feel it was a neighborhood thing. Vendors and performers of all shapes and sizes where there. A hot dog might cost $1.25 depending on which cart you ran into.
Then a strange thing happened. The independent food vendors and random street performers were booted from those corners. All the food stands started to look exactly the same. The configuration and the stands started to display a continuity that they lacked before. It started to look less like an art festival and more like the Erie County Fair or something. Now don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Country Fair. It's a great time but I liked the charming unpredictability, neighborhood feel and comfortable flow of how the festival was. When the Music is Art stage was booted from the festival and sent to the Fair 2-3 years ago that was the final straw for me. I love the festival, it was a huge part of my childhood and there are fond memories but it's not a must see for me anymore. In fact this is the 2nd time in the last 3 years that I didn't go where before that I might have gone almost 20 years straight. In the words of Robert Frost yet again, nothing gold can stay.
That leads me to poetry. Over the last few months I've written about a dozen poems. I tweak them all the time and I read them aloud to my monitor with feeling. I feel like I am close to being ready to read them in public sometime soon. For me there is certainly the fear of reciting my words in front of strangers and being judged but even more than that I am unnerved by the act of revealing myself to people I don't know. I've always been a very private and untrusting soul (unless you count some of these blogs) so for me to bear myself in the way a poet does is probably the last hurdle I have to leap. My poems are not terrible and they are no masterpieces either but they are mine. I'm hoping soon I will be able to share my words with some of you but unlike this blog, I'm hoping to be able to share them with you in person.
This will be a blog about... wait for it... soreness, money, pleasures, people and poetry. It will go in that order.
My football season ended a week ago. Thankfully I had been playing quarterback the last few weeks of the season which meant very little movement. Our team didn't have a good spring season but we ended well winning 2 of our last 3 games and playing very well in the one we lost. I've also been playing sand volleyball for the last month in a recreational league. Recreational league means the lowest level of competition. It's not highly competitive and people are just goofing around out there. However, that will also be over soon as I think there is only 1 or 2 weeks left of that season. All this will leave is softball on Friday nights and Sunday mornings. The past 4-5 years this would be a gaping hole that I'd have to pick up other sports to fill. I'd join a 3rd softball team, a soccer team, another volleyball team, a weekly street hockey thing or even start playing pickup basketball every once in a while but for the 1st time in my entire life I don't want to fill the void with more sports.
It's been over 6 months now since that fateful Friday where that lady hit me at the crosswalk. I'll never forget the impact that car made with my bones. I'll never forget how tranquil the sky looked as I stared upon it for those brief seconds I was on the hood of that car before I realized and felt what had happened to me after being ejected off that hood and shot like a sack of potatoes onto that street. I'll never forget how cold the wet street felt as I laid there wondering how bad I was hurt as I could hear the frightening reassurement of the siren that preceded the ambulance that would arrive rather quickly.
The truth is I've been done with physical therapy for almost 2 months now and my body while not what it was is in a lot better condition than it was in December and January where an aluminum crutch became my 2nd leg. But while I've rehabilitated myself physically through 12 weeks of hard work and sweat, I wonder if I can ever rehabilitate myself psychologically. My paranoia and fear are at all time levels when it comes to cars and the streets. I ride my bike a lot this time of year and I find myself using sidestreets and avoiding intersections where the heaviest traffic flows.
The paranoia and fear exist for many reasons. They exist because my mind can't shake the memory of the scariest moment of my life the way an annoying song gets stuck in your head. They exist because of the pain I feel in my legs that I never used to feel after a softball game. They exist because I wonder what kinds of pain and difficulty 5 years from now holds, what 10 years from now holds and beyond. Sure I've made it back but I'll never be where I once was. When I start getting happy that a sports season ends so I don't have to play anymore, something is definitely wrong. When a man who can't wait to go outside and play wants nothing more to sit this one out because he's afraid of getting hurt or getting hurt worse I'd say the wounds may have healed but the scars will never leave and that saddens me. Yes I will play the rest of my softball seasons and I will appreciate every moment I am out there competing with myself and working up a sweat, but it's just not the same as it used to be.
I have to be careful what I say I guess because of a pending lawsuit that has still not been settled on the matter but speaking of money, things are looking up in a big way. My bank account which has been all screwed up for a while may be completely functional and useable tomorrow. What this means is that I may get to do some online shopping again for the first time in a few months. Now I know I am a guy with muscles, a spectacular sports jersey collection and in need of a shave but dammit I love to shop online, there's so many great deals out there. If everything works out as planned maybe I'll let all of you know what fun and ridiculous things I get when I return to e-commerce.
Online shopping is one of many pleasures I enjoy. Despite the soreness running around outside and playing sports is another. Of course so is eating. This past weekend I rediscovered sherbet. I believe it was Friday. It was warm. I was running around a lot and sweating. I began to get thirsty but a Propel or Gatorade just wouldn't seem to cut it. So I dared to tip-toe my way to the ice cream section. We all know ice cream is evil, especially for those of us who fight a daily battle with weight. There were so many alluring choices. There was a banana split pint. There was Steven Colbert's Americone Dream. There was also the Sabres Top Shelf Sundae. I looked at my stash of cash. I had over $40 in my pocket I could buy THEM ALL!
Then something happened. In the quiet corner away from all the loud flavors and catchy names sat a small tub of something boring. It didn't have the bright lights or the fanfare of its' sexy cousins. It simply said "sherbet". I looked at it with a cocked head like a dog would look at you if you made a high pitched noise. There was something comfortable about the sherbet. There was something that felt right. There were also numbers, smaller numbers on the side of the container than those other delicious options. The calories were far lower, the fat grams, the carbs, all of it were far lower than the Ben & Jerry's, Haagen Daz and Perry's. I was sold on the sherbet and now it is one of my pleasures. Oh, sherbet your sweet refreshment and nutritional facts make me swoon. Oh, sherbet we will be renewing our friendship very soon.
On a side note, on Sunday I felt it was too soon to see sherbet again so I rekindled my love affair with giant Freezie Pops but that's a story for another blog.
While I was eating my giant blue raspberry freezie pop on Sunday a thought crossed my mind I haven't gone to the Allentown Art Festival yet. You see, I grew up on Hudson Street right around the corner from Days Park and Allen Street. I spent many hours at the festival year after year. I bought smoke bombs there, rubber bracelets, weird beads, foreign instruments and the occasional hot dog or Italian sausage from the friendly neighborhood vendor who parked his cart on one of the corners. Therein lies my problem with the festival. Many moons ago I used to feel it was a neighborhood thing. Vendors and performers of all shapes and sizes where there. A hot dog might cost $1.25 depending on which cart you ran into.
Then a strange thing happened. The independent food vendors and random street performers were booted from those corners. All the food stands started to look exactly the same. The configuration and the stands started to display a continuity that they lacked before. It started to look less like an art festival and more like the Erie County Fair or something. Now don't get me wrong, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the Country Fair. It's a great time but I liked the charming unpredictability, neighborhood feel and comfortable flow of how the festival was. When the Music is Art stage was booted from the festival and sent to the Fair 2-3 years ago that was the final straw for me. I love the festival, it was a huge part of my childhood and there are fond memories but it's not a must see for me anymore. In fact this is the 2nd time in the last 3 years that I didn't go where before that I might have gone almost 20 years straight. In the words of Robert Frost yet again, nothing gold can stay.
That leads me to poetry. Over the last few months I've written about a dozen poems. I tweak them all the time and I read them aloud to my monitor with feeling. I feel like I am close to being ready to read them in public sometime soon. For me there is certainly the fear of reciting my words in front of strangers and being judged but even more than that I am unnerved by the act of revealing myself to people I don't know. I've always been a very private and untrusting soul (unless you count some of these blogs) so for me to bear myself in the way a poet does is probably the last hurdle I have to leap. My poems are not terrible and they are no masterpieces either but they are mine. I'm hoping soon I will be able to share my words with some of you but unlike this blog, I'm hoping to be able to share them with you in person.
severus:
Luncha luncha!