Spread

Just wait till Thanksgiving.

My therapist is a Packers fan. I can't decide whether this makes her unqualified to offer me advice, or if she's just the kind of nemesis I've been looking for.

Why does nobody gripe about the Zamboni monopoly?

I discovered the key to making people think you live an idyllic life. When they ask what you're doing tonight, just say, "I'm going to a hockey game with my dad." I swung by school tonight to pick up some things and had this exchange with a few different people. Each time, the person got weirdly dreamy, like it was the nicest way ever they could think of spending a Friday night. And I was happy to be going – to see my dad, to have plans, to see the game – but I hadn't considered my agenda to be particularly impressive. After all the "treasure these moments" responses and melancholy looks from the people on the hall, though, I guess it seemed a bigger deal. Part of me wanted to note that things were amiss in my life – my daughter too far away, too much work to imagine getting done, an inability to take care of my own yard – but I decided against arguing and made sure to enjoy myself.

And I did, although hockey isn't my favorite. The exciting thing can happen at any moment, without warning, so it's either all tension or no tension, depending on how much I'm paying attention. There's no storyline of driving down the field, or of being down 40-love. It feels chaotic. Though the game tonight ended in a shoot-out, which is just the part where it got good for me. Now that's a climactic moment.

The depth chart.

It's weird to watch a football game with only your matchup in mind and without really giving a hoot who wins. Tonight, the ideal game for me would be a field full of passes to the TE, followed by an INT for a touchdown, every possession. And then a quick three-and-out from the other team. It'd be really boring for the rest of you, but it would make me happy. Luckily, I can switch over to the Emmy's when things get tough.

How they laugh in the future.

I read somewhere that Blue Valentine is Say Anything ten years later. This is about the most depressing idea I've ever heard, though it makes sense – Diane Court isn't the kind of girl who will be able to live on romance alone for the rest of her life. But yeah, always six months late watching the Oscar movies. And I probably should have put it off even longer, because, man, Blue Valentine made me never want to have a boyfriend ever again.

But I do have a team, which is maybe better. Send the pretty little kittys some love before the 1:00 kickoffs. My opponent this week has four players in the Monday night games (while I'm in class! I hope I can concentrate on my students), which is just about going to kill me. Well, unless I'm already losing by then, in which case it's just going to prolong the depression.

Okay, okay, time to warm up. Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose.

My social media: not terribly social.

I'm ready to watch some preseason football, but my TV guide says FOX is airing the Atlanta/Jacksonville game tonight, rather than the Lions. Very disappointing. (This is more of a Facebook post, or a tweet, than a blog entry, I suppose. But I guess I prefer talking to a smaller group of people, my special handful of readers.)

Title nine.

I miss having fantasy football conversations on the hall at school. Tuesday mornings feel a little empty, suddenly, compared to the past, though the Achilles Heels are all the long way down the other wing if I want to make the trek (which I will, I'm sure). But there's a grad student, who's a student of sorts of mine, who knows I'm into it, and we don't really have a lot in common, so he tries. Which I appreciate. But even though he plays in his own FF league, he didn't know who Arian Foster was, and he referred to Chris Johnson as Chad and he asked me who Randy Moss played for. Which threw me into this moment of uncomfortableness worse than if we just didn't have anything to say at all. Because while I'm not into him, and I'm an old person compared to him, and he's my student, and I don't particularly worry about what he thinks of me – I am still a girl. And it felt all against nature to answer: "New England."

Maybe I'll let him talk more about college football next time, which seems to really be his thing, and which is something I know less than nothing about. (And to be clear, I don't really know that much about football proper either. I only know about the reality TV game show version of football. When you get fantasy points for a wildcat formation or a zone blitz, only then will I bother finding out what those things are.) I need us to at least be on good enough terms to get some work done.

In any case, PLK is now 0-1 and we face off against Team Sparky next week. Let the good times roll.

PLK ready to pounce.

I'm ready for fantasy football season to begin. The draft is done, and I'm following everybody on my roster who twitters (though I'm more happy to find out a given player does not, in fact, tweet at all). Already I'm worried about Justin Forsett, who spent his whole morning watching film and is now ready for a nap. Come on, dude.

To have sex in the rain without complaining.

I don't usually post links here, but check out this article on English beauty. I realize it doesn't apply to me, being neither French nor British except in ancestry, but I feel like something similar could be said about girls from the UP, the Midwest – some place I *do* belong to. And plus, it's just wonderfully written (if a little much, at times (I forgive it)). I need to check out more by this guy.

Plus, happy Sunday. The PLK is up against Peter's Pency Goats, and today's the day he learns that Philly's D won't score 35 points every game. No sir.

Cin/Den is gonna be a *shootout*.

The PLK won our Week 1 matchup only because we played the team who scored the least points. It wasn't pretty, and I was ready to suck up the loss. (I had NE's kicker, and my opponent had their defense, so between the missed FG and a gazillion 2-pt conversion attempts, I almost couldn't watch the game.) But our win doesn't signal a good team, and there are some tough rosters in the league, so I'm wondering if this is the year I become lucky in something other than fantasy football. You know what they say, "Unlucky in picking a wide receiver, lucky in love." Don't they say that?

And let MJD be all better.

So yesterday I found a headscarf and made it in and out of Shopko without having to talk to anyone about my yellow blonde hair. I maneuvered to avoid the two people who might have made a quick trip difficult – Hover's mom and the guy who sold my mom my new garage door opener, who she took me back to the store to meet even though he is both married to another woman and clearly gay. So now my hair is chai latte, which is a darker and ashier blonde but still noticeably different. I'm on the fence about it. We'll see what my mom thinks when she comes up this afternoon. To distract people, I'm wearing red tennies.

But really, all I want to think about is the PLK. We've never ever had a Dallas player on our roster, but this year, it appears Tony Romo holds our threepeat dreams in his hands. Please let the man find a steady girlfriend who gets him to bed early.

Manly vs. Shepherd.

I stumbled on the World Championship of Darts quarterfinals this morning. Crazy TV. It just goes so fast; I can't keep up with who's kicking whose butt. They're playing 501, but it appears they can only score with doubles and triples? (One guy needed a 10, and he went for the double 5. You wouldn't do that unless you had to, right?) But they throw, throw, throw, in two seconds, and then next guy is right behind him ready to go. They played seven sets (legs?) in like five minutes. I don't know how the even have time to subtract.

Like right now, dude needs 161. That's T20, T17, Bull. But it would take me more than a second to figure it out.

I just love any sport, like poker, in which participants can be normal, pudgy people. In fact, from the participants this morning, you'd think a good-sized belly helps. Perhaps it gives them more solid footing?

All right. I'm heading down to see my niece. Expect pictures next time.

Wild card weekend.

I flew into Philly and we headed straight to Allentown, which is much bigger than I'd thought. It appears everybody who lost a factory job there has become a satellite dish installer, because every home has at least four of them. Mostly, what I saw was the inside of a strip mall sports bar, which was good because instead of sinking into a post-fantasy-football depression, I've joined a post-season league (go, Steve Breaston!). The best was watching a game where the home team was winning, which was new for me. I can only imagine the Vikings fans here at The Base. Were they calling out for Gus Frerotte?

No pleasure cruise.

The Pretty Little Kittys have clawed our way to the finals in both our fantasy football leagues (though Lil Sweet named my other team the Winded Dragons). Today is a big day. I'm making chili and watching the Steelers stats on my laptop while the Lions game is on the TV. My opponent in my main league has put all his eggs in the Saints' basket, so send some love to the hard-to-love Lions defense. In fact, send good vibes to all feline teams: my backfield has dropped dead one by one and I had to actually start the Bengals' Cedric Benson today. While you're at it, let's hope Larry Fitzgerald has seen snow before. Tell me he played college football in the north.

Ooh, I just looked it up and he's from Minnesota and went to college at Pittsburgh. He may still have some sense memory of playing in snowstorms. This keeps my hopes alive.

Best of luck to all your teams. Tell me how your seasons are turning out.

WWTD.

Tyra Banks is full of modeling advice, such as smiling with your eyes, that seems to me impossible to put into practice. (I've tried it, my eyes just get wider and I don't come across as particularly smiley.) But week one of this, the eleventh season, she told the girls something that seemed quite practical. You've got to model the opposite of what you're wearing, she said. The girl she was talking to had been styled in a shiny tight red dress, and Tyra noted that her pose had been too shiny tight red as well. She should have posed as if she were wearing jeans and work boots, Tyra told her. It takes away the obvious.

I found this so useful that I told it to my fiction writers. If their story's situation is big, perhaps their language should be quiet, or if their character is a kook then their writing should be particularly sane. Because right now what they write is either melodramatic or boring, and they need to take away the obvious. It's gotten to the point that now I just say, "Like Tyra says…" and they get all huffy. Which I don't care. They need to be more aware of themselves. Tyra would send them all home to pose in front of the mirror for a while. To practice, and to become perhaps a little conscious of what they're doing.

(PLK faces an impromptu bye week already, with the delay of the Texans/Ravens game until November. There go our receivers. We need to do a bit of scrambling.)

Kickoff!

The games are beginning. Send love to Big Ben for me. (And tell me about your teams.)

Count the rings.

Those Chinese gymnast girls are totally not 16 yet. But how can you really test for that?

I’ve never ever read a book about a hat.

Oh dear. We've already started to talk about football around here. And there's some game on TV now, though only in the background, if only to get me used to the sound of Al Michaels' voice again. Our draft won't be for a few more weeks, but those of you who might already be thinking about your own teams, tell me, in the words of the Habs, who do you like?

Super Bowl 1988

I don't usually post personal pictures here, but it's not often I have photographic evidence of what I was doing almost exactly twenty years ago. I wonder if we were rooting for Denver or Washington.

I really don't know what's going on with my hair there. I know my 17-year-old self owned a curling iron, but it appears it may have been hiding behind the Sun-In and my spray bottle of peroxide and lemon juice.

Playoffs.

Now that I've been crowned queen of fantasy football, and will reign for the entire next year, I'll let you in on a secret. I can't tell the NY Giants and the Washington Redskins apart. Well, I can, but like I can choose between "who's" and "whose" only after a quick check of the "who is" in my head. I have to do a scan of associations: Eli, Tiki, Plaxico, all of the Habs running backs, on the one side. I guess it's the Redskins who really remain blank in my head. Last year, I had Marc Brunell to attach to them (along with all of Bill Simmons' great criticisms of him), but this year, all I've had is that guy who got shot. Which leads me on a quick detour past the Bengals, of course.

There are plenty of teams I know even less about – Carolina, Houston – but I don't care. I just feel like I should get a sense of the Redskins now, before Tom Cruise turns them all into Scientologists. Don't laugh. Kitna's already doing God's work in Detroit. You think Super Bowl advertising is expensive now. Just wait till it becomes a matter of our souls.

We have a guest.

Note: These are not the words of the author of Spread. Let me explain. Three weeks ago I made a friendly wager with Sweet to the extent that a certain, talented, up-and-coming NFL running back (Ryan Grant) would outperform a certain 2006 League MVP (LDT), in total fantasy points through weeks 13-15. Yeah, I lost this bet. And having drawn from the soon to be trademarked Can of Wagers, the consequence of said bet was to be words, a post, herein. So apologies to those expecting Sweet words. No, really, I'm sorry. As writing this has given me a whole new appreciation of our author. There's an exchange in the preview to Juno that comes to mind. The one character says to the other, "You're so cool, without even trying." And the other says, with heartbreaking sincerity, "No, I try *really* hard."

On with the quasi-post…

Honestly, I'd Rather Be Watching The Office

Every Thursday I keep checking. Every Thursday I find myself involuntarily scrolling through the short list of My Favorites. Spread, Duotrope, FF today, NBC Video Rewind. Then I close my eyes and click. For the last month or so, I've been setting myself up for disappointment. It was a good thing while it lasted. I don't watch the television, and while I vaguely knew of the writers' strike, I never bothered to find out what it was all about. I naively assumed their grievances would be similar to the teachers' union--health care co-pays, pensions and smaller class sizes. Of course, ironically, one of the sticking points is precisely someone like me watching The Office online. They deservedly want their cut of Target selling me on their new fall fashion line.

So, Leno and Conan are crossing the line, claiming, like Jean Valjean, that the innocent lives of their employees depend on them. Apparently, sometimes it's OK to be bourgeois. Which makes me think, or realize, they're not really writers. More like actor/producers. O'Brien has come out saying he "expected the show would be able to withstand the absence of the writers who normally provide jokes and scripts." Which at the very least will be interesting to see, as minus the "jokes and scripts" (i.e. the opening monologue and "skits") what's left, other than the interviews and the band guy? I look forward to Paul Schaffer rocking out a twenty minute solo and Leno being reduced to asking his guests, "So what did you do today?"

Of course reality shows have been unaffected. Just last night Tila Tequila found her true, heterosexual love. Although, they're also part of the problem in that the WGA wants to incorporate reality TV writers, clearly begging the question, did they really have a writer for this? To say according to the script, in the end, you pick the boy?

PS: Your author also kicked my ass in Fantasy Football. Lesson Learned: Mess with the cats and you get the claws.

PPS: Sparky, after your post, I wrote Sweet, it finally dawning on me: "Hey. Why are *you* the Brain?"

Hats vs. cats.

The PLK have advanced to the finals, and we're up against our favorite and ultimate rivals this weekend. The matchup – which lasts a glorious five days really, the Haberdashers having played a kicker in Thursday's game and both of us involved in Monday Night Football – continues in earnest tomorrow. Tonight's torture pitted our Bengals receivers against each other, both coming out of the game uninspiringly even, so Sunday matters. In care of us, send love to Arizona. He may be old and falling apart, but we just need Warner to live through the game.

I’m getting the Ocho Cinco tattoo after all.

I didn't want to retract my I-hate-fantasy-football post until I made sure Jeff Reed didn't score 34 points last night. Guess I over-cursed the whole game in my attempts to keep his foot off the ball. Sorry, Steelers. But the PLK is back on board. Now we're just wishing the Habs coach could come out next weekend and we could do some scouting together on our bye week.

Memento time.

I hate fantasy football. I'm saying this from the vantage point of the Detroit/Green Bay Thanksgiving halftime, and I cannot even imagine signing up for this torture again next year. Did I say this last year too? Maybe not, but last year, until I lost McNabb, I was ahead, and by the time I started to slip in the rankings I was in the middle of my three-week tornado of a romance that just about coincided with the playoffs. So I didn't care that I was playing Harrington then or that Colston would take entire quarters off, because there was kissing and movie dates and stuff. I didn't cry about anybody throwing interceptions, I'm pretty sure.

Plus, there's that horrible truth about time healing wounds. I'm sure many many women vow to stop at one baby in the minutes and weeks after giving birth. But the memory fades, thank goodness, and they do it over and over. On a smaller scale it happens to me every week: Sunday is miserable (no matter if I win or lose), and then over the week I get more and more excited and Sunday morning I am at the height of my optimism. By 1:30, I've remembered how much I hate this game.

But I'm going to get a tattoo to remind myself for good.

The results show.

Well played, everyone. I need to host quizzes more often, if they inspire this level of participation. The answer is indeed the Miami Dolphins, because the dolphin on the helmet is also is wearing a helmet. (Secondary reason: because their mascot is a dolphin, and everybody knows dolphins only play water polo.) Luckily, the dolphin's helmet does not also have a dolphin wearing a helmet on it, as if they were trying to be the Quaker Oats packaging: a guy eating oatmeal from a box picturing a guy eating oatmeal from a box picturing a guy… Or the cocoa lady to the left. Such mise en abyme shenanigans don't belong on people's heads unless you're trying to hypnotize them. 

The dolphin's helmet has a crisp, clean M on it, which might have been a good idea for Miami. Or they could change their name to the unicorns and have some cool 3D horn hologram on the front. That'd be super awesome and distract everybody on the other side of the line.

A Sunday quiz.

Which NFL team has the dumbest helmet? There is only one correct answer. Guesses in the comments.

[And no fair you answering, Mixel Pixel or Shakey Bones or Letting Up Despite Great Faults, or whoever you are today. You can answer something else, like why is there bass fishing on TV.]

The PLK climbs to 6-2.

Some weekends are so tough, fantasy-football-wise, I can't even watch. A couple of Sunday nights ago, I couldn't bear to have Tony Romo on my TV, every pass incrementing the points against me. But I was still in the mood, so I switched to Invincible, the movie in which regular guy Marky Mark tries out for and makes the '76 Philadelphia Eagles. I'm all about sports movies and underdog movies and Marky Mark. But the guy played special teams. And not in any sort of Devon Hester way that changed the game. He was one of a line of people running to tackle the guy with the ball. Sometimes he didn't, once he did. It even caused a turnover. But still, what a yawner. I don't care what the real story was; they should have written him as a quarterback.

We Are Marshall is next on my list, but I'm saving it for a night I'm really ready to cry.

Bring it.

The Pretty Little Kitties face
expansion team Midwest Tar Britches
this Sunday. This game's special, so
we're considering wearing our own
throwback uniforms.

The colors slip into the sky.

Today is a weird football day: no Lions, no Steelers. But I'll gather up exams I need to grade and head over to my own personal Cheers to keep an eye on games like Houston, Arizona (my D, vs. Testaverde), Cincinnati. I could "watch" these games (or their stats, at any rate) online, but my horoscope said I was going to meet somebody on Thursday. (Ok, so I'm a few days late, but I haven't really been out of the house since then). Though last week, the 75-year-old I sat next to told me his name was Paul Specker. Slur those words together, and you too might assume he was trying to be funny, or flirting. Maybe he was the guy I was supposed to meet, five days early. Maybe that's the best come-on I've got coming.

But in better news: in the back of a drawer I practically forgot about, I found The Sad Tape. Betty and I had a mix Happy Tape too, when we were roommates on the sixth floor of Shiple in college, full of who knows -- Dream Warriors and Deee-Lite and Technotronic. Thankfully, in many ways I have not advanced much since 1991 (I still tape TV shows on my VCR), so my car has a cassette player, and I got to listen to Tracy Chapman and Edie Brickell and REM as I ran errands yesterday. Still had the same effect though, Betty, as back then. I might have thought I was ready for it to make me cry, but The Sad Tape made me happy. I can't wait to hear what's on the flip side.

Postgame.

I was reluctant to write about football until the Monday night game was over. I was ahead by 30 pts, and my opponent only had Philly's D plus Chris Cooley, so I felt fairly safe, but you just do not know. Especially after Sunday's New England/San Diego game. I was all set to settle back and watch LT and the Charger defense. But that first drive looked so easy for Brady and everybody, and it was such a quick score – I knew I'd only be torturing myself. Thank you, Chad Johnson, for the cushion. The PLK is 2-0.

But I'm really writing about my new crush John Kitna. Even with a concussion, and only playing the first quarter, part of the fourth, and overtime, he scored as many points as Ben Roethlisberger. So not a ton, but he looked good. But when he was pulled out I thought, no, week two is far too early for my team to implode. Especially with Andre Johnson getting hurt, which puts a damper on my confidence in my backup QB. But in case Kitna's not all there in the head, I also picked up Grossman. Sure, his own coaches have called him a mental midget, but I've got tarot cards and fortune cookies and one of those rocks on a chain you dangle over pregnant women's bellies. We'll divine just the right week to start him.

Bad weekend for birds?

Have you ever tried to sweep up feathers? It's an impossible task. They catch the small breeze and circle inches off the floor, clearly repelled by the broom's bristles. Just sad sad work, and I've had to do it twice in the past three days.

But my other kitties – the PLK – were good this weekend. Kitna came through for me, and we were ahead by so much that I didn't even stay up to watch the Ravens or the Cardinals lose last night.

Drafted.

The Pretty Little Kitties have a roster again. Leave out some milk for us this coming weekend because we're taking on Errol Flynn. If there's anything less scary to kitties than tights and a skinny skinny sword, we haven't met it.