Childhood Revisited

I was born in Denver, Colorado, which automatically makes me a Broncos fan. During my first grade year, we began collecting baseball cards because they came with a stick of gum. You know the kind that turns old minutes after you begin chewing? But we loved it, and we kept buying it. The kids all decided we had better choose teams to love so we could trade cards with one another. Naturally I chose the Mets because they had the same colors as the Broncos. Turns out they had more in common than just colors....like long stretches of being losing teams. But I am not a fair-weather friend, and thus have maintained my love despite my teams being Jay Leno punchlines.

I finally got to see my team play, but unfortunately the game was against my other team, the Nats. (Loved likely for the similarity in name's length and sound, and losing streak.) I wore a vintage Mets hat and sat right behind the Nats' dugout. Every time I applauded the Mets I got the stinkeye from the surrounding fans. The Mets won 10-5 so you can imagine how well liked I was! The only way the game could have been more enjoyable would have been to catch one of the MANY pop flies. Guess it wasn't meant to be. Nor was eating delicious nachos....the chili proved too sturdy for the chips to survive the five-minute walk back to my seat. Boo.

And So the Fear Sets In

It's what I wanted, right? I've long said I wanted to be an actress, or have my own sitcom. Well here it is, the chance for which anyone wanting to write in Hollywood would give their front teeth, and I'm constantly trying to talk myself out of quitting before I get started. It's just fear. Fear of failing, fear of succeeding.

It's that quote by Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other
people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of
God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people
permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
—Marianne Williamson

Now if I can just remember this, daily.

Can you spell "restart?"

I know I'm not a professional skier, nor am I in anyway qualified from a cozy couch position three time zones away to say what should or should not happen on the slopes of Vancouver. But I think I know best in this case. During the first run of the Women's Giant Slalom, the fog was so thick I couldn't find the skier on the track on the television. They would cut to a different camera angle, and I knew there must be a competitor somewhere on my screen, but she may as well have been the golf ball in the blue sky of the Master's tournament. Even bright blue Julia Mancuso was indistinguishable. But instead of postponing the event, the officials decided to compress the run by pinching the lag time between skiers, forcing two skiers to be on the course at all times. I'm guessing they knew the possibility of a crash impacting the flow, and forcing the subsequent competitor to stop, but likely just crossed their fingers and hoped for the best.

Posting the best times at the check points, Lindsay Vonn was well on her way to a position in the top ten when she wiped out. Whether Mancuso was already on the course when Vonn wiped out or not, I do not know. If she was still in the starter gate, the officials did a poor job of pausing the action. Epic failure is more like it. If she was already on the mountain, it was barely. Nonetheless, she was stalled half way down by the safety yellow flag, forced to head back up and start again. Thirteen skiers later, and that much more damage to the course, she finished a dismal 18th in round one. And she cried as privately as she could. And I cried with her. The defending gold medalist, through no fault of her own, lost the physical and mental edge she was clearly demonstrating in her original first run, and in the end she lost the repeat top spot on the podium. Shame on you, Vancouver. Shame on you.

I Can Jump More Times Than You

Under the newest convoluted scoring system for Figure Skating, your overall performance doesn't matter as long as you get in the most landed jumps. Your arms can look lanky, sloppy, and flailing; your face can fail to disguise your move-to-move thought process; your artistry can be completely lacking, but as long as you throw in 7 triple jumps, most being in combinations, then you're clearly deserving of the gold medal. While some may argue it's an athletic sport, and the jumps are the athletic portion, I argue that it used to suffice to skate beautifully with a few tricks. Yes, the jumps are exciting, but Michelle was always more deserving of our adoration than Tara. Likewise, Sasha is more deserving than Rachel what's her name, this year's national champ.