Wow, with a headline like that, I hope this entry can live up to it…
The ankle is coming along, ok – I went and got it x-rayed on the 20th, and nothing was broken. I have a grade 2 sprain, and am now going to physical therapy for it. I basically paid $225 to be told it needs some time and exercise. This is why I hate getting minor stuff checked out. They also told me that they wanted me to come back in a month and get looked at. I asked if it was going to cost the same, and they said yes. I said I’d be in touch. I think it’s pretty clear that I won’t be going back in. The therapist guy was slightly more effective – he yanked on my ankle, twisted it around, made me do these ankle exercises, and gave me stuff to work on at home. He wanted me to come in twice a week, but I plea bargained down to once a week. I have a feeling that he’ll be helpful up until a point, and then I can pretty much do everything that he was going to do, anyways. These home exercises are a bitch, though. I never thought standing on my bad ankle while perched on 2 cushions and holding my balance would be so damn tough. It doesn’t help that the paper told me to try closing my eyes, though. I do it blind since I figure if I’m going to do it, I may as well go all out.
Soccer camp is done with – it was fun, and not all that intensive. I actually feel bad since I think I didn’t teach them as much as I did last year. I figured on having more time with them than I did, so I skipped over a few key parts, like break-aways and fighting through traffic on crossed shots. Oh well. I also got paid more than I asked for, and all my meals were free. I rode down with Amy, as my car was (still is) not up to a long-distance trip. There were 4 girls in the bvack of her mini-van, so I rode shotgun. I was at the mercy of her musical tastes, and I was unfortunate enough to realize that she liked to sing along. The best cd’s I could find in her collection were Lynyrd Skynyrd, Eddie Money’s Greatest Hits, and Three Doors Down. Since it was a 2 and a half hour drive one-way, I heard all 3 of them. Repeatedly.
The week was nice, as I got to know a few of the seniors that I never really talked to before. I also got a few more insights into Amy’s personality. I realize now that she really doesn’t consider her players’ feelings or concerns. It was apparent throughout the last few years, but an incident kind of hammered it home. We stopped for food (and coffee – Amy is a BIG TIME Starbucks addict) and Amy asked me if Wendy’s was cool. I didn’t mind, so she drove towards the Wendy’s. I figured I’d at least be polite, so I turned to the 4 human beings in the back and asked, “Is Wendy’s ok with you guys?” I got a few mixed responses, but nobody seemed real upset….they weren’t enthusiastic, either. As I turned back around, Amy leaned over and muttered, “See – that’s why you just don’t even ask them.” I don’t know – it just never occurred to me to decide for other people where they could and couldn’t spend their own money.
The week went by, and I decided I was going to have a good time. I took as many oppurtunities as I could to get my digs in. For example, the coaches were sitting at a seperate table while out to dinner, to discuss various “fun” awards we could hand out. Earlier in the week, Amy called our attention to her and a girl from the other school named Taylor. It seemed that Taylor bore an uncanny resemblance to Amy, and Amy got a kick out of calling her her long-lost daughter. Taylor took it in stride, to her credit. This was brought up at the table, as they wanted to somehow recognize this and give her something, but they didn’t know what to call it. Luckily, I had an answer ready for them. I said, “How about – the Unfortunate Coincidence Award?” Her brother thought it was hilarious, while Amy pretended to be flabbergasted. Too bad Amy’s brother ran out of free stuff, since I would have loved to hear him announce it.
I actually tried playing a bit, and was somewhat successful. Earlier in the week, I was horrible since I couldn’t really run or kick. I tried playing some 5 v 5 games a day later, and found that I could move a bit better. I tried making 2 seperate runs on the goal and my freshman pride and joy stopped my both times. She’s been a player of mine for the last 2 years, and she’s now moving on to the JV squad. I fear for her a bit under Amy, but she’ll be ok. She’s really turned into a good goalie, so while I hate that she stops me a bit more frequently now, I’m also thrilled. Not only did she stop me this time, but she actually knocked me on my ass. I let the ball get too far away from me (I have NO finesse while my ankle is borked) and paid the price when she got to it before me. I flew over her and landed on my side. My initial thought while falling was, “Oh crap – my ankle is fucked.” Thing was, I landed, sorted things out, and realized I was fine. I think I need to thank her for that – I needed to get knocked down maybe in order to quit babying my ankle as much as I was. The next 5v5 game was vs Amy’s team, and I finally started being able to run (80%) and score. I put 3 goals in myself, and set up 2 others. I also drilled Amy in the ass when she wouldn’t move out of the way of my shot. I guess playing against her just inspires me.
We did 2 practices a day for about 2-3 hours each, and due to my pasty nature, I got sunburned badly. We’re talking blistering. For one evening, I had to bring kleenex to the Ponderosa, so that I could wipe away the yellow liquid that would randomly drip down from my forehead. Lovely, huh? Forget sublock – I needed an umbrella. Besides soccer, we’d have several activities throughout the week to keep us busy. One day, we went hiking through a trail in this park to visit a waterfall. Another time, we went to this place that had go-karts and mini-golf. I think Amy was a little unhappy with how the players would sometimes try to include me. One of the captains asked me if I wanted to play them at mini-golf after we ate, so I said sure. She then later said while we were getting our pizza that I could sit with them at their table. Amy piped in, “Or he could sit at the coach’s table.” There was an awkward silence after that, so I figured I’d just hurry up and eat with the coaches, as it would look bad if I didn’t. Amy later in the week confessed that she had this unnatural fear of feeling left out, while discussing playing soccer, so that helped make sense of her actions/words in other situations. She just can’t handle that her players like her less than me, or might include me in things that she’s not a part of. Anyways, I also went go-karting and managed to t-bone some little bastard that tried to cut me off. I don’t care if you’re 12 – trying to put me into the near rail will get your ass run over. Later in the week, the senior girls were allowed to stay up late and enjoy the hotel’s pool. Amy, her brother, and one of the assistant coaches from Matt’s team were gonig to chaperone. I was asked by the same senior if I was coming down, too. I think I made the right choice and turned it down. I have a feeling that since I’m a younger guy, my actions are monitored a little closer than every other coach, and Amy already hates how I get along with the team. If I was to swim with them? Yeah…not a good idea.
Being younger, yet not close to highschool age makes for a weird experience. I still feel young and immature, yet I know I also have to provide a good example. I can’t really identify with the other coaches, as they’re either too much older or more religious than I am, so I feel caught in the middle. I’d feel more comfortable talking to some of the players, but that doesn’t look right, so I mainly found myself sitting near the front of the bus without talking to anyone. One of the girls, Liz, is kind of like me. She’s a senior and I’ve nicknamed her “the Little Ball of Hate.” She’s barely 5 feet tall, and we have the same approach during games. We both get a chip on our shoulders, play as hard as possible, and talking to either one of us when we get yanked early or feel like we screwed up is a mistake. We even found out that we both listen to the same songs before games to get in a pissy mood so that we can play with an edge. This revelation scared the hell out of Amy, as she knows full well that playing against me isn’t fun. Before our games when I’d play her team, I’d grunt hello, and proceed to do everything I could to make them pay. The fact that I’ve knocked her down repeatedly in games was brought up a lot over the week – especially the one where I thought she wasn’t getting back up. During one of the evening meetings, the assistant coach (Laura) for Matt’s team recounted a story of how anger can be your enemy in life and on the field. She told a story about how she once played a game against this really dirty player who would grab her, trip her, talk smack, and do everything possible to impede her efforts without once getting caught or penalized. She said she finally snapped, and found an oppurtunity late in the game to completely level this chick. She didn’t get back up for a while, and left the game. While Laura was recounting this story while almost choking back tears of remorse, I turned my head and saw Liz was looking straight at me with an evil smirk on her face. We both knew that we had the same thought running through our heads – “serves the bitch right!” I think the moral of the story was lost on both of us that night.
There were also times during the week where I had to go against my nature and keep my mouth shut. The night we were in Ponderosa I took the opporunity to wear my Steelers jersey. I figured we were in Redskin/Ravens territory, so why not represent the hood – know what I mean? West side! (western PA) As I’m getting ice cream from the dessert bar, i heard one of the girls (thought she was older, but apparently was only 16) say, “Steelers suck!” I turned around, and she continued, “I said – Steelers suck!”
I asked, “Well, what are you – a Ravens fan?”
“No, Redskins baby!”
“Well if the Steelers suck, at least we pay less money to suck as much as your team sucks!”
“Yeah, well…Steelers still suck!”
I countered with, “You suck.”
She replied, “…Don’t tell my dad.”
… Wow. Wasn’t expecting that from the 16 yr. old girl attending a private religious school. I bit my tongue, turned around, and laughed while shaking my head. With a reply that awesome, i hated having to censor myself, but there was no way I was touching that one.
Being at this camp all week, I found myself unable to play online poker. I finally decided to get my fix, so I asked the one captain if she played hold’em, and that she should find a few people that would play. I brought a deck of cards with me, so the only question was whether we could find something to suffice as poker chips. I finally decided on raiding the machine that spit out handfuls on candy for a quarter. We pooled our cash together and loaded up on candy. We decided that Reese’s Pieces and Runts would be worth 1, and Hot Tamales were worth 5. We gave everyone about 130 chips, and proceeded to play. While I stressed that we find girls that knew how to play, it was kind of rough. I kept having to remind them about the blinds, and how the betting/calling/checking worked. The one thing that was unique, was that we never had to raise the blinds. I was content to keep chipping away at them, and the “chips” were taken out of play as the players got hungry. Normally, you increase blinds to eventually force a winner, but hunger was a significant factor in this game. It turned out that we had to quit before anyone won, but it wasn’t really worth continuing.
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When I got back home, I got a call on my cell from Tommy. It seems that Loki was hit by a car while I was gone. After hearing his explanation and inspecting my room, I found out what really happened:
Seems that Devilspawn decided that he should raid my room while I was gone and steal all of the fireworks I had hidden away. He also decided to eat my food while he was at it. He and the neighbor kid proceeded to set them off while letting Loki run around free. Apparently, dogs are scared of loud, bright things (who knew?) and he took off. The might have even tossed a few firecrackers near him, but that’s just a guess. Loki ran into the road, and into an oncoming car. He survived with a concussion, bandaged leg, and a bloodshot eye. That night, Tommy was trashed and mumbled something to me about how he was leaving for Niagara Falls the next morning and that I had to “do loki’s stuff.” Basically, I had to figure out how to feed Loki 2 different pills and apply cream to his eyeball. Needless to say, I wasn’t real happy about ANY of this, but so far Loki’s been a trooper. He’s running around a bit, and although his appetite still isn’t great, he’s starting to eat more. I didn’t run into DS again after that, and he’s now back home in Nashville. I don’t know what I would have done or said to him, had I gotten a chance. The night before he went to Niagara Falls with my uncles (I wasn’t invited, of course) he decided to toilet paper my mom’s house, and then knock on her door afterwards at around 1am. She was understandably upset, as she thought it was a robber or something. She also packs heat, so this kid isn’t too bright. She was under the impression that DS’s dad (Steve) helped him do this, so she lashed out at him on the phone. Toilet papering can be fun if you know the target can take a joke. He didn’t pick his target well…
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The last little anecdote I’ll leave you with was what I witnessed while out in the garage, tending to Loki. The garage has these sheets of styrofoam insulation on the ceiling, but there’s a gap in this one, unfinished section. There are a few creatures that live up there, and I regularly see mice running around on the ground. I heard frantic scampering one night, and paused to watch the area I thought the sound was coming from. The scampering got closer and closer to the hole, when all of a sudden – this suicidal mouse goes leaping out of the hole and landed with a splat way down below. Maybe you had to be there, but I was doubled over laughing for at least a minute. Thought I’d share.
Hip-deep in Shallow Tenacity 