Pain

Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.
Lance Armstrong

All my body parts hurt right now. All week I've been working out at the gym with fellow players. We've been lifting, doing cardio, working on form and speed, and I hurt. Who knew rolling over to turn on the lamp would become an all-encompassing challenge akin to climbing Mt. Everest? When did my body get old? Oh, there are perks to all this lifting of weight and climbing of stairs on the climber-my muscles are growing, my belly is shrinking...but could you please pass me the Icy Hot and ibuprofen?

My favorite part of working out at the gym these past weeks has been comparing the various 24 Hour Fitness clubs. Each club has a very specific clientele as dictated by the surrounding neighborhood. The club on Andresen seems to be where the European mafia work on their muscles and unemployed regular Joe's pound out a rhythm on the treadmill. The Tech Center club is more Stepford Wives and football teens. Everyone there is a size 2 or smaller and has no problem staring with their mouths open when anyone over a size 10 walks through. You should see them gape at Big Country, or freak out when myself or Wheels walks into the locker room. And the parking lot is filled with Lexus, Mercedes and BMW cars. The Mall 205 club is the most comfortable. Everyone there is normal sized, interested in their own workout and friendly about re-racking weights and taking turns. Even though it's crammed into the corner of a dying mall, it's still a good place to work out.

Today we ran into a group of previously NFL and Pac-10 players. They were in the gym playing basketball and we were working on getting off the line low and fast. Apparently they saw Wheels learning to run routes and make cuts and took pity on her. A couple of them came over to talk to us and the NFL player (I didn't get his name) came over and gave her some great pointers! That was awesome!! Thanks guys!

It has begun!

The Portland Fighting Fillies are out of the starting gate and off to the races! Yeah, it sounds corny, but corny can be fun too! The board members are set, the logo has been reworked, the web site is up and running-things are moving along swimmingly right now. People are excited and energized. We will have bumps in the road, we will have goals to meet, but what is life if it isn't a challenge?

Practice this weekend was a learning experience. The coaches are adjusting to the difference between coaching high school boys and coaching grown women. It can be a bit like herding cats at times. Pretty cats, who have wonderful ideas and lots of energy, but haven't quite learned how to fight in the alley yet. Most of us don't have the base of football experience that even high school boys would have. Some haven't even watched football on TV. Starting with the building blocks of football will be important.

Women learn differently than men. men are very linear. You can tell a guy, "Hey, you carry the ball through that gap" and that's what he'll do and not even question the rest. Women think structurally. We want to know how each part interacts with the others. Women want to know how the gap got it's name, what the person on the end is doing, where the person in motion is going, why the snap count includes the color blue, and if turf shoes would be better than molded cleats. We like to know everything that's going on while we are getting our personal role in order. And amazingly, women can tell you exactly who screwed up later if the play went wrong. :)

All this growth and learning is going to be good for us as a team. We are all rookies together and that will bring us closer. Go Fillies!!

Where the Wild Things Are

"Where the Wild Things Are" was my favorite book when I was growing up. I envied Max for his super cool Wild Thing outfit. When my inner wild thing wreaked havoc I was sent to my room too-and I escaped into imagination and far away places as well. Maurice Sendak created the perfect fantasy world of monsters and adventure. And then Max returned home safe and sound.

But the movie, "Where the Wild Things Are" was not about that childhood escape into a friendly fantasy land. The movie was a vehicle for adult writers and producers to make peace with whatever demons they struggled with as a child. The only resemblance of the movie to the book was the creation of the monsters. I loved how they brought the monsters to life. I loved the names and the personalities, but I hated the crappy adult conflict they injected into the movie. This is not a kid's movie. It was not made for kids and it wouldn't make any sense to kids. The best thing about this movie was the soundtrack.

Okay, why the movie review? Well, I've been totally excited about the movie since seeing the first promo poster for it. I still have my original copy of the book, I have the t-shirt, I even have some of the stuffed animals. Maurice Sendak's book was genius. I related to Max. Whenever my wild side comes out I try to do it with the same reckless abandon as Max and the Wild Things. I expected the movie to reinforce how important occasional wildness can be. The movie made wildness seem wrong, childish and utterly immature. The movie seemed to cheat the book out of it's magic. I think that's crap. No more Spike Jonze for me!!

And this completes my diatribe on Where the Wild Things are.

The Strangeness

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."

Decisions are powerful things. Some take so little thought. I mean, I'm pretty sure I only engaged one brain cell when I decided what shirt to wear this morning. Some take up many many brain cells and have far-reaching consequences that were never considered during the initial decision-making process. My decision to switch from the Portland Shockwave to the Portland Fighting Fillies has certainly been one of the many brain-celled moments of my life. It is proving to have been a good decision. I am certainly happier with the new team. My fun meter maxes out at every practice. I'm meeting cool new people that I enjoy playing with.
But, like every decision, there have been consequences. Friendship always seemed a fragile, gossamer, thing to me. It's intricacies seemed to be an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a puzzle sometimes. I had it wrong. Good friendships are strong and stand the tests of time and change. Life just seems to present you with situations that naturally illuminate your friendships so you know who you can rely on. This change of teams has provided such illumination. My good friends are happy that I'm happy playing a game that makes me happy. They don't care who I'm playing for. And I love them for that.
I will miss the Shockwave. I will miss being at events, anchoring fundraisers, and recruiting anyone that looked like they could play football. It hurts that it seems no one will miss me. I feel expendable. No one reached out and tried to talk me out of it. No one tried to keep me with the Shockwave. No one tried to sway my decision at all. After 8 years of being at just about every damn thing, 8 years of recruiting, practicing, sweating, working to help build the Shockwave, 8 years of playing in hot games and cold games in the trenches alongside other players I trusted, and no one reached out to ask me to stay. So, I'm pretty sure I made the right decision. And I'm glad to accept the consquences of my decisions. (Note:ownership did ask me why I'm leaving).
Thank you, my friends, for your support. I am so thankful for each and every one of you. And new friends, I'm excited to forge strong, lasting bonds.

Love this team

Coming together is a beginning.
Keeping together is progress.
Working together is success.
- Henry Ford

We've only had a handful of practices, but I already love this team. We have great energy, we have awesome personalities and we are already driving toward a common goal. Practices are a swirl of constant movement and learning. The purple is already coursing through our veins. I see great things for this team from the get-go. We have a long road ahead of us, but we've already taken the first steps together.

Rain Thunder Rain

Yes Yes Yes!!! I love a good thunderstorm-always have. It's good to see the rain for so many reasons.
1. I talked my friend out of going camping yesterday and it proceeded to be sunny all day. I am now validated.
2. Everything here looks so brown and bedraggled-we could use some green before it goes to brown and dead.
3. I love listening to the transplants from California complain about the rain. I mean, we've kept is such a big secret, you know?
4. Football in the rain is AWESOME! (Okay, for the first hour it's awesome-then it's just wet).
5. The cleaning fairy ALWAYS comes when it's raining outside.
6. What could be cooler than having friends over for hot totties and board game night while it's raining outside and a fire is burning in the fireplace?

And this completes my ode to the rain.

PS. The dog does not love the thunder as much as I do and I will need to pry him from my leg if I am to get any power cleaning done. Any dog-remover tips will be welcome.

The new Benny Hill workout

"After scolding one's cat one looks into its face and is seized by the ugly suspicion that it understood every word. And has filed it for reference."- Charlotte Gray

I have a new workout routine. Apparently I have more than one pet that likes to escape and then run me all over the yard as I chase it. I'm not sure who this is more entertaining for-the pet? My elderly neighbor in the next yard over? The dog, who looks wisely bemused at my antics as I make a mad dash and scramble to head off the errant beast. Or maybe my partner thinks it's quite the hoot as I flap and fly and swear my way all over the yard chasing a stray chicken or her damn sneaky cat. Either way, it's a hell of a workout, and if I could just cue the Benny Hill music in the background it would feel just right.

A couple of days ago it was Estelle, the red chicken, flapping and squawking and pooping all over the place before I caught her. This evening it was Isabella the Evil. She squirted out the door with the dog before I could get my foot in her way. She zigged, she zagged, she was lightning, she was smoke. And then she realized she was outside and froze like she'd seen a dog (a real dog-not wimpy old Calvin whom she controls with her mind games). And I placed her, ever-so-gently, back in the house. Okay, I threw her, but in a way that she could land in a healthy manner. :)

The good part is, I corner well. I change directions in a hurry. I stayed upright in the face of peril (peril being the dog poop mines planted in the back yard). Perhaps I should try out for running back-or maybe the Queer in our next game of Smear the Queer. Either way, I would like to thank Isabella and Estelle for the unplanned trips to the backyard gym. Well done ladies!

Estelle as a teenager.

Isabella the Evil in appropriate attire.

Insomnia

Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)

Here I sit at Oh-butt thirty in the morning contemplating my life with a side of football. Why can't I sleep? Like so many insomniacs, I have a lot on my mind. Unemployment is a stress factor that has been compounded by the ballooning jobless numbers in my state. Last night at dark o'clock I saw a posting for a K-Mart job (a freaking K-Mart job!!) that went online at midnight. I saw the posting at 1:30am. Out of either gross curiosity or just plain desperation, I applied. I finished my application at 2:00 am, but I could not schedule an interview time because all 400 slots from now until December were already taken! 400 applicants in the middle of the night!!! Luckily, it looks like K-Mart is not in my future.

The other factor that is keeping me from the loveliness of deep, sound, normal sleep is football. For the past eight years I have been devoted to the one and only Portland women's team-the Shockwave. Now, there is a new team in town. I admit it, I was the first to see the craigslist ad inviting people to try out. At first I was outraged-how dare another team come compete for our hard-earned players and sponsors! So I wrote a fired up e-mail to my teammates hoping to get some fired up e-mails back. All I got was radio silence and one lone e-mail. So I did some assessing/soulsearching. (When soulsearching it's best to bring along a mental broom to clear out the memory cobwebs). My soul told me I wasn't having fun playing football anymore. I haven't been having fun playing football for some time now.

This realization shocked me. Not only was I about to leave a team that I had been devoted to for 8 years (my longest relationship) but I had been okay with just hanging in there and not having fun. Where's the fun in that? So, I left the Shockwave and am now a Fighting Filly. But why is this keeping me up in the middle of the night? Because I'm loyal. Because the Shockwave ownership took it personally. Because we have a million things to do to get the Fillies going strong and my mind is racing in overdrive because I get to be a part of it. My mind just won't shut down-and I secretly love it!

This blog is going to be about life and about football. For the last 8 years, football and life have been tied up all together for me. This is my chance to separate them, but at the same time, be a part of the beginning of something great. I need to find a job. I need to help out this new team. I need to avoid H1N1. I need to get in shape. All aspects of life plus football. Welcome to my journey. Enjoy the ride.