  ITEM ONE: First and foremost, happy birthday to Jamie, because I will, inevitably, forget to call you and tell you on Wednesday. I always do. But then, you forget my birthday every year, too, so it's just tradition at this point, isn't it. ITEM TWO: The track season is off and running (see that...a pun. Lame, but no less a pun. ) We even had a meet already.
Okay, it was a half-ass indoor meet at the dome (which, by the way, remind me to talk to the AD so he never schedules that three hour trip with a bus-full of 14-18 year olds ever again), and we had only had about 6 days of practice. Our next meet isn't until the second week of April, so we have a little hiatus, which is needed. We have a lot of girls who are out for track just to have something to do in the fall. Some of them aren't too bad. Some of them clearly would rather be eating bon bons in front of the television. And some of them have a lot of talent, but have no clue what to do with it and no encouragement from anyone to even realize the talent.
Those are the ones that I'm working most intensely with this early-season. Because those are the ones that need the most help, but will also be the ones to benefit the most from learning that they are good at something. I have to admit that I'm working them harder than they probably have ever been worked in their lives, and some are on the verge of quitting, but those are the ones that don't really want to be there anyway, so if they go, I'm okay with it. The head coach might not be, but that's the difference between the two of us. Speaking of the head coach, as I mentioned previously, she is the mother of one of the athletes. This girl is crazy talented, and her mother knows it.
And her mother gives her breaks and lets her do whatever she wants to do during practice, which has included standing around telling others how to do things, standing around timing every one else, and telling me that I don't deserve this job because I'm a bitch. You all know how well that went over, don't you? She's dreading next week, when dear old mom won't be there. Because she's running her ass off, and I'm running with her to make damn sure she does it. That's another difference between the head coach and I. I can run. I was/am a runner.
She never has been and never will be a runner. She doesn't know jack about the sport, let alone how to train a distance runner. Not to mention that she has no clue how to put the girls on a weight lifting program that will not bulk them up (have you ever seen a distance runner that could also play linebacker? Me either). I'm already okay with the fact that, at the most, we will have no more than 2 state qualifiers this year. Because I have a lot of damage to undo to what the non-qualified head coach has already done in the past 5 seasons.
We've got to basically change the body composition of some of these girls, and that's not at all easy. At least I've got the trust of most of them (which was really quite easy to come by--all I had to do was run with them so they understood that I didn't just read this shit out of a book and instead apply it in my own life). The sprinters are okay with me because someone (I don't know who, but I'm guessing it was my cousin) filled them in on my sprinting resume. All it really takes to make a decent team is some trust and some talent, and we've got both, but we've got to fix some stuff first to make the talent shine. ITEM THREE: My brother and sister in law were home last weekend. I'd really just as soon they never come home again.
All my brother did was spend the entire weekend telling me how dumb I am and how I'm always wrong and how I don't know anything. And then, of course, there's the inevitable fight about our sister, which leads to him reminding me just how much that was my fault and then of course he punches me. Which, like I said, is standard. Of course, this time he punched me in the knee, so it hurt more than usual. My sister in law doesn't ever know what to do or say during these interactions, and if she did say anything, he'd yell at her. My mother is never around for them, not that she'd defend me.
My dad is, well, my dad so he doesn't care enough to be in the same room with any of us. And I can't punch him back, because then I get in trouble, and it's just too much hassle to defend myself against him. Why deal with another lifetime's wrath of my family's bad side instead of just dealing with my asshole brother for a weekend? This is why I hate my family so often. When you have to make that choice, you know something is seriously fucked up. ITEM FOUR: A little March Madness discussion.
My brackets are totally fucked up. Yes, on a few of them I did pick UNI to upset Georgia Tech. I had to. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself had I not and they actually pulled it out. Of course, all of my brackets, save one, still have a shot at the final game (barring a loss by Oklahoma State as we speak [edit: they won on a last second three--WOOOOO!]). And you know that Kansas is going to go to the finals this year, just because for the first time in 4 years I didn't pick them to win the whole shebang, so they're going to do it to spite me.
That's how it works, really. Stanford's loss wasn't a shock to me. Michigan State's was. Kentucky's was. Gonzaga's was. Mississippi State's was.
Those all hurt. Gonzaga less so, but still it hurt. ITEM FIVE: How much was that UNI v Georgia Tech game a heartbreaker. Down by 17 in the first half and battling back to take the lead toward the end of the second? Giving the last shot (where we need a three) to the best three-point shooter on the team (Ben Jacobson), and having it go long by just a smidge? Oh the humanity!
They came so damned close to playing cinderella that the glass slipper was in the shoppe being fitted for the panther paw. And the way Georgia Tech has been winning (by 4 or fewer points) since then, I would like to say that we could have played with any of the teams left in that bracket. How sweet would that game yesterday have been with UNI instead of Georgia Tech. The battle for the elite eight slipper between Nevada and UNI? UGH! So close.
SO SO close! ITEM SIX: My grandma is having some health issues as of late. A few weeks ago she was complaining about intense shoulder pain. She assumed it was from her tendinitis surgery a long while ago (ten, maybe fifteen years ago), but it was so bad that she decided to head for the doctor to get it checked. Well, the doctor said that it was probably from that, but they wanted her to have a stress test, just in case. It is her left shoulder, afterall.
Well, about ten days ago, she did the stress test, and the results alarmed (mildy) the doctors, so she has to see a cardiologist on Monday. She's so rediculously nervous that she doesn't sleep and doesn't eat and just doesn't function properly. She's sure it's going to be the worst news ever. What she fails to recognize is that if it was a matter of life and death, they would have had her meet with a cardiologist immediately, instead of ten days later. But she's freaking out anyway, and in her freaking out, she's just making her blood pressure go up, which is completely unhealthy for her. Hopefully everything turns out alright on Monday, and I'm fairly sure it will, but if it doesn't, you probably won't hear much from me for a while.
ITEM SEVEN: Here's something new and annoying now that mom doesn't see me as the devil incarnate anymore. If I'm sitting doing whatever I'm doing at the moment, and not looking like the happiest person on the fucking planet, she demands to know what's wrong and then tells me to smile. What if I don't feel like smiling? What if nothing is wrong? What if I just feel like sitting and reading the newspaper or watching television without putting on a faux happy face just to make her feel better? It's not my job to appear pleasant at all times.
It's not even my job to pretend that I am not annoyed when I am. It's also not my job to smile every time she talks to me so she doesn't think something is pissing me off. No, when I have a long day at work and get home and sit down, I don't have to be the mary sunshine she wants me to be. I've never been that person, and I never will be that person. Mary sunshine is someone I've never been. Mary sunshine is someone who clearly has mental problems, because no one is that happy all the time.
And, just in case it's not obvious, I don't do faux feelings. If I'm happy, you'll know it. If I'm not, you'll know that, too. Thing is, if I'm not, don't ask me why, either. If I want to tell you, I will. I usually don't want to, and the more I'm asked about it, the more angry I get about it, so leave it the hell alone, okay!
ITEM EIGHT: Okay, let's just revisit that brother and sister-in-law visit I was blathering about earlier. Do you know what kinds of shit I had to do to make the place presentable for them? I had to scrub the house top to bottom, give up my bed, and give up my basement oasis. This normally would not bother me. Normally. So why does it bother me now?
Well, I live here now. Not to mention that when I didn't live here, my parents didn't bother to even make sure there were any clean dishes in the house, let alone clean the bathroom or kitchen floors. This house is a disaster area on most days. I wouldn't invite people over here because it's embarassing. BUT, I'm at work from about 8am to 8pm Monday through Friday (and occasionally half the day on Saturday), so I don't have a damned bit of time or energy to devote to cleaning my mother's house when my mother is here all day long every day. I came home on Friday and she was still in her bathrobe--she didn't "feel like doing anything" yesterday.
And apparently everything includes close a fucking cupboard door. Or put the cereal back in the cereal cupboard. Or put the milk back in the fridge. But my point is that I shouldn't have to clean her house to make room for her son to come home and abuse me. And I certainly shouldn't have to sleep on the fouton (sp? ) when the bed in my room actually belongs to me and was purchased by me.
Not to mention that when I want to get up in the morning and run, my clothes are all in that room, and my clothes when I get out of the shower are all in that room. And my oasis in the basement is mine. I don't want other people in there moving things around and disrupting my...well, I don't know, but they're disrupting it, damnit. My brother actually ripped the remote out of my hand while sitting on my couch and turned my vcr off and then turned the channel on my television to something that looked a goddamned lot like fishing. No. Just no.
I fucking hate that. I hate not having the remote in my hand and not being in complete control of my watching ability. And I hate it even more that I go to the basement so that I can have that control because my mother's taste in television is summed up in four words: Law & Order and Home & Garden. So that's my tv down there. And my remote. And my couch.
And my pillows. And my blankets. And my VCR. And my DVD player. And my lamps. And my rugs.
And mine! And my fucking brother takes it over like he fucking owns the place. Oh, and before you ask why I didn't sleep on my couch in my basement? My brother was sleeping there because it was "too hot" in my bedroom upstairs. So my sister in law slept in my bed. My brother slept on my couch.
I slept in the computer room on the hard, too-short fouton with a sheet and a throw pillow. In my own fucking place of residence. Yeah, so that's all I have to rant about at the moment. Seems like a lot, I know, but It's a couple of week's worth of stuff. And in my life? A couple of weeks can be a small lifetime. 
