I Suck, Then Suck It Up

Here's a quick summary of my performance in the Champaign Park District Labor Day weekend tennis tournament today:

1. I Suck. I Suck I Suck I Suck. I Suck I Suck I Suck. I Suck I Suck I Suck. I Suck I Suck I Suck.
2. I Don't Completely Suck.
3. I Suck It Up.
4. I Hurt All Over.

The good news is my rib/back injury seems to be healed. I played a total of about four hours of singles tennis today, and the only part of my body that doesn't hurt right now is my ribs/back area.

It has been exactly two weeks since I decided to take a hiatus from tennis, load up on drugs, and let my injury heal. I played one match on Thursday evening, but other than that, I hadn't played in two weeks. So I wasn't in the greatest shape when I took the court this morning.

My first match was against a guy who I'd played many times before. I'd never beat him, but I'd won the first set against him three times. He hadn't played much this summer, and I was playing 3-5 times a week before my injury, so I thought this might be my chance to get him.

It wasn't.

The first game we played lasted about 20 minutes because we kept going to deuce. But he pulled it out, and that seemed to open the floodgates of my suckitude. I don't really understand what happened, but he rolled over me, 6-1, 6-0. We played a relatively long time, because we had lots of long points and deuce games. But in the end, the score was the most lopsided one we'd ever had, by far. It was frustrating, demoralizing, and put me in a negative stupor that made me focus on everything that's wrong with my life.

An hour later I played in the "consolation finals", since there were only four guys in our bracket. This was at noon, under an unrelenting midday sun. I came out strong to a 4-1 lead and thought, "Alright, maybe I don't suck after all." But then my opponent started to figure some things out and took the next three games. We went back and forth, but I managed to squeak out a 7-5 victory in the first set. Feeling rejuvenated after taking the first set, I won the first two games of the second set.

Then I hit a brick wall. The sun, the heat, and the match I'd played earlier had all drained my energy. The sun was brutal and there was no where I could go to get away from it. It was like a heavy leaden blanket draped all around me. I stopped running to the ball, I stopped setting up my shots properly, I couldn't do anything but take half-assed swings at the ball.

Every once in a while I would get enough of a semi-burst of energy to win a point. But I lost four straight games and couldn't see any way that I could win the match. I was down 2-4, and I didn't really care anymore. I lived only for the few seconds when we would change sides and I could get a swallow of Gatorade. I needed a respite from the murderous sun, but there was no shade on the court. I might play two good points after the change-over, but then my throat and lips would dry up and all I could think about was getting to my Gatorade bottle again.

By some miracle I managed to suck it up and win two games to tie it at 4-4 in the second set. But when he won the next game to go up 5-4, I did something I've never done before. I threw a game. To win the set, I would have had to have won three games in a row, and I knew that I didn't have it in me. I decided I would rather just go to the third set, where we only play a 10-point tiebreaker. I might have it in me to win that. So I let him win the next game, and thus the set. I don't know if throwing the game was sleazy or "gamesmanship" or what, but I was dying out there and just wanted it to end.

In the tiebreaker, we alternated the first six points, so we were tied when we switched sides 3-3. I noticed some cramping in my legs as I tried to run for shots. He won four of the next five to take a 7-4 lead, and was still leading (7-5) when we switched sides again. I was so dead on my feet at this point that even walking over to the other side of the court was torture, so I dreaded the change-overs. I wondered how long I could push myself before I would pass out from sun stroke. I tied it up at 8-8, then he had match point at 9-8. He blew it, and we had yet another change-over at 9-9. He had three match points in the game: at 9-8, 10-9, and 11-10. But everytime I fought back to tie it up. Finally, at 12-11, I had match point. I was determined not to have to go through another change-over, so I had to win the next point. I served, came into the net, and smashed an overhead away from him to win the match, 7-5, 4-6, 1-0 (13-11).

After I hit the winning point, I fell onto my back and lay on the court. It was probably an obnoxious and melodramatic act, but I couldn't help myself. I got up, shook myself off, and shook my opponent's hand. He left the court immediately, but I sat there for about ten minutes trying to get up enough energy to walk over to the shade of the pavilion next to the courts. My Gatorade bottle was empty, and I was parched.

Somehow, I made it to the pavilion, and then to the car, and then home. Every muscle in my body screamed in pain. I took some painkillers, laid on the couch, and drank liquids. The tournament director called to say he forgot to give me my medal for winning the consolation finals. (Apparently three out of the four participants in this tournament get a medal.)

Now, I hurt all over. I loaded up on drugs, but they still couldn't relieve the mind-splitting headache that came on in the evening. I suppose it feels good to have won, but I still don't know how I did it. I certainly didn't enjoy the last two sets of tennis, even if I did win.

Midday summer tournament tennis is no fun.

Tim Does Politics

I only blog about politics when I want my older brother Dan to post a comment on my blog. He's an angry anti-war liberal into social justice and evidence that the mainstream media is failing to do its job. He would never write a 1,000-word blog entry on his latest tennis accomplishments or about taking drugs with his cat.

So like a child trying to get attention from their parents by engaging in their parents' hobbies, I will try to win my big brother's love by blogging about how awesome Barack Obama is.

A week ago, on a lonely Saturday night, I was surfing the web and found that I could get an Obama/Biden car magnet if I donated $25 to the campaign. I'd already given money to Obama during the primaries, but since I drive a Prius and the general election is heating up, I thought it was my duty to announce to other drivers who I support for president. My problem was that I didn't want to put a traditional bumper sticker on my car that would be there forever, like campaign herpes. ("Dukakis/Bentson '88!")

But a car magnet would be perfect! I could put it on during the election and then take it off after the election, returning the respect and dignity to my car that it deserves. So I signed up and donated some money.

Of course, I made the mistake of giving them one of my email addresses, 'cause I thought they might actually have useful info to send me every now and then. As Bush would say, I guess I "misunderestimated" the amount of mail a major political campaign would send out. Since last Saturday I have received messages from the following people, in this order: Joe Biden, Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Barack Obama (again), Jon Carson (National Field Director), Joe Biden (again), David Plouffe (Campaign Manager), Barack Obama (again), Joe Biden (again), Michelle Obama (again), and three messages from "Obama for America." If you're counting, that's 13 messages in a week.

I have not, however, received my car magnet yet.

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So I was watching Obama's speech the other night at the Democratic convention, and I got swept up in the excitement, along with a lot of other people. Here you have this historic candidate, with a pedigree and life experiences completely unlike any president in history of our country, after a historic primary, who represents hope and a drastic alternative to the current administration. I saw the diverse crowd and the enthusiasm in the stadium, and I thought, "How can the Republicans possibly respond to this?" What are they going to say? "Hey, we have another rich old white man running to serve the primary interests of other rich white men! It's worked the last 233 years, why not four more? Change: Let's wait a little more!" Woo-hoo!

Of course that's not what they're saying. The Republican strategy seems to be, "He's got no experience! He's just an empty shirt! Hope with no plan!" (Forget for a moment that their whole strategy is discrediting Obama instead of lifting up McCain.) We already heard a lot of these arguments during the primary, which I think is bogus. Look over the course of his life and tell me he's all flash and no substance. If any president over the past 50 years had no substance when he was elected, it was George W. Bush. He had a resume, but it was a list of failures. Obama has excelled at everything he's done. And look at his varied life experiences. It would be impossible to have done all he's done and not have learned a thing or two.

I had all of these thoughts before McCain announced his running mate. When I found out that he's selected a relatively obscure arch-conservative woman, at first I thought it was a master stroke. How can the Republicans respond to Obama's historic run? They'll use a woman as a running mate! But then I found out more about Palin, I realized this was another example of Republicans not "getting" affirmative action. No wonder they're so bad at it: They see it as selecting any minority, regardless of credentials. "Hey, you want a woman? We got a woman!!"

If you want to know more about Palin, here's an amusing video someone sent me:

Submission

I just mailed off something I wrote to This American Life, one of my favorite radio shows. David Sedaris got his start writing for them, so this is my first tentative attempt at trying to live the life of a literary rock star.

The piece I mailed off was something that I first wrote in 2000 about an experience I had in 1999. Inspired by an English teacher friend, who read something of mine and encouraged me to put my stuff out there, I dusted it off and revised it for the radio show. Then I sat on it for nine months while I dealt with other personal issues in my life.

I mailed it an hour and a half ago, but I haven't heard anything back from them yet. (Joke courtesy of my brother Dan, personal telephone call, one hour ago.) But I'm out there, ready for my first rejection letter!

Doped Up

I've spent a good portion of the past two days waiting for health care. In doctor's offices, at the pharmacy, at the vet.

But now I'm good and doped up, and the cat is stumbling around the apartment.

I hurt my ribs/back at Schreibefest two weeks ago. I blame my nine-year-old niece, who was my tubing partner and demanded to go fast, so fast that we bounced up and down on the tube about a hundred times, enough to pulverize my delicate thorax. It was fun, but afterwards I noticed my ribs hurt.

Since then I've played tennis five times, and each time my back hurts worse and my play suffers. I have no backhand, because turning my body from left to right causes excruciating pain. So after trying to heal my injury through denial, I'm taking a new track: modern medicine. The worst part of the healing process is not the pain, but the fact that I have to give up tennis for a week or two. This during the last part of my vacation, when I have so much free time, and the weather has been absolutely perfect lately. That's torture.

I made an appointment to see a doctor, and after waiting an hour and a half, got some good advice and a prescription for a muscle relaxant. I don't care about the pain, I just want to heal as quickly as possible. There's a tennis tournament over Labor Day that I really want to play in. Then I had to get a blood test (unrelated to the injury) and had to wait about an hour for that. When I swung by the pharmacy to pick up my muscle relaxant, a little after 6:30 pm, they didn't have my prescription ready. They said it would be 15-20 minutes. So I left, ran an errand, and came back 15 minutes later. Sorry, they still hadn't started on my prescription yet because there was a problem with my account (I wasn't in their system.) They had tried to page me but I wasn't there. So this time I waited in-house for them to finish, which took an additional half hour. By the time I finally got my drugs, I was starving and frustrated and just wanted to go home and take drugs.

The muscle relaxant really knocks me out, so I can't really go anywhere while I'm on it. Luckily, these are the last two days of my vacation and I have most of my errands done. So I can take two days to drug up and let my back heal. My last errand was to take my cat, Hermione, to the vet this morning:

This is what she looks like when she's alert. But lately she's been giving the vet fits during her annual checkup. She howls, spits, hisses bites, claws, and poops in her carrier. It's no fun for any of us, and so this time we decided to give her some tranquilizers before her checkup.

I was surprised how easy it was to slip the pill into her mouth and get her to swallow it. By the time I drove her in to the vet, she was grouchy but subdued. I could even see the medicine taking effect, as her eyes glazed over. We had to wait half an hour at the vet, where all she could muster was a weak growl when I tried to pet her. She woke the hell up, though, when the vet opened up her cat carrier. It was just as bad as before: screaming, cursing, lashing out, pooping. It's embarrassing. I always wonder if they blame the owner when something like this happens. Did I not raise her right? Am I a bad kittydaddy?

After I got her home, cleaned the poop out of her tail, wiped off the carrier, and put the poop-stained towels from the carrier in the washing machine, I was ready for some drugs of my own. I took my muscle relaxant and will now veg out for the next two days, watching TV and movies and playing online until I get too dizzy, which is happening as I type. Fun! (If you notice any typos in this post, it's from the drugs. Really.)

Meanwhile, Hermy is stumbling around the house like a drunken sailor. She changes her perch every three minutes, and keeps missing when she tries to jump up on things. It's hilarious.

This is her, eyes glazed over, trying to hang out at my feet. She'll sleep it off, and be ready for more mischief soon.

Happy Anniversary

Yesterday was the first anniversary of when I bought my beautiful Prius, Smuggy.


We've been through a lot in the past year: the honeymoon phase, characterized by that new car smell and 46 MPG; the long, dark, windy winter months where we were lucky to break 40 MPG; two license plate crises; spring road trips where we averaged over 50 MPG; and now the old familiar love that comes from knowing how to push all of your lover's buttons.



To celebrate our anniversary, I bought Smuggy a new set of windshield wipers yesterday. It's the car equivalent of buying your girlfriend a new necklace. Then this morning I took Smuggy to a carwash and sprung for the deluxe premium service.

Nothing's too good for my sweet ride.

Family! Family! Family!

I spent this past weekend with my family. Twenty-four of us (13 adults and 11 children) swarmed around a very large house and yard that now belongs to my sister to celebrate the 12th annual Schreiberfest.


The house that hosted this year's reunion, in Fort Wayne, IN, was designed and built by my father 30 years ago. Our family lived there for five years in the late 70's/early 80's, and then sold it when our dad got a new job in North Carolina. The house had been out of our family for 26 years until my sister bought it this spring.

So of course we had to have Schreiberfest here, in the house where all my siblings went to high school and where I lived from first to sixth grade.


The back yard is still huge, but the previous owners added a pool and my sister put a trampoline in the corner.

We hung out on the back porch,

played in the pool,

listened to nostalgic records from the 70s & 80s,

played a bean-bag tossing game called "cornhole" and then made crude jokes about our cornholes,

and took the five dogs in attendance on group walks:

We also had dinner in the formal dining room (while the kids ate in the kitchen),


sat around the family room and told family stories that we'd all heard 20 times before,

drank beer,

and made custom t-shirts for the kids:

My only priority all weekend was to challenge my oldest brother to a tennis match. We were all ready to go Friday morning, but the courts were locked and my sister couldn't remember the combination.


While they fumbled with the lock, I grumbled impatiently.


But eventually we figured out how to get in and I got to show off my color-coordinated Rafa outfit and matching tennis skillz:


I was up 5-4 in the first set, but then he put his older brother hex on me and won eight games in a row. He beat me 7-5, 6-1.

The activity that we do the most at Schreiberfest, though, is taking pictures. We take them, show them to each other, and even take pictures of us looking at pictures,


or pictures of us taking pictures


while we shape the kids into poses

or pose ourselves:


My family rocks.