Sports Afield

It's snowing again. We are predicted to get 10-12" with the chance of a blizzard tonight. Skies are close down to the ground, claustrophobic, and a solid granite grey. The snowflakes are big huge fluffy fat boys raining down. It took me about ten minutes to remove the snow from my car. The drive in to the college sucked, and I nearly took a spill on the sidewalk.

I could not be happier.

Winter really is my time of the year. The darker and gloomier and colder it gets, the perkier I am. I suppose if it ever got down to Absolute Zero, you'd find a huge shit-eating grin on my frozen mug. 

Winter is when I thrive. I know it is sick and perverse. I know it is barbarous. I can only chalk it up to my loony Scandi-hoovian ancestors, the ones who, as the glaciers retreated, were pioneering a mere foot or two behind the receding ice. The ones who complained a lot died off. The ones who enjoyed it not only survived, but thrived.

It is a pity I live in flat land. I'd love to go skiing right now. Haven't skied in a good 20 years and I know I'd break my ass somehow, but I desperately want to do it.

Speaking of which, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm not a sports fan. I really don't like sports all that much. Some would say that's un-American, and not very healthy.

Oh, I watch sports. Occasionally. Briefly. But I've never gotten into the glued-to-the-tube sitting in the La-Z-Boy with a Stadium Buddy catheter wrap on my penis to avoid bathroom breaks. I'm just not that into watching them. If you want me to take a nap, put some sports on the TV.

I can, like a lot of American guys, bluff my way through a conversation about sports. There is, because of just the usual media inundation, a minimum of absorption about what's going on in the sports world. But I can't get passionate about it. 

It took me quite some time to realize that it was OK not to excel at a sport and yet still enjoy playing it. I blame the media for this. And since most people actually suck at playing sports, I am several steps ahead, since I 1) have always been in good shape, 2) have always been naturally athletic, 3) know, not wishing to brag, that I possess a not inconsiderable degree of physical courage, and therefore am unafraid of injuries, 4) am, knock on wood, pretty much immune to major injury, and 5) once I warm up, am actually not half bad at sports and enjoy the feeling immensely.

It turns out, even for my age, for example, that I can throw a football as well pro quarterbacks, at least in terms of distance. Oh, you want the ball aimed at something? That's a different story. Same with golf. How far do you want that ball to go? Oh, you want me to put it on the fairway?

Same with tennis. I can get that little fuzzy ball moving at about the speed of sound. Oh, you want it to be in bounds? Baseball. Over the plate? Basketball? Throwing the ball the length of the court doesn't count for anything? It has to go though that hoop?

And I love hurtling my body through space and colliding it into things. It's a great sensation. It's probably why I loved playing football. I know it's why I love to ski. I think I actually spend more time wiping out than I do going downhill. 

So, come to think of it, I guess I do like sports. But playing. Not watching.

That's probably not very American. 

But I guess its healthy.