16 Days

Hello? Tap tap. Is this thing on?

Yeah – I’ve pretty much been MIA for way too long around here. Work has been so insane lately that after spending 15 or 26 hours attached to this computer, the last thing I want to do is be attached to it for even a minute more. And then the snowmageddon came and I was trapped in this house with my entire delightful and not at all annoying family and even if I wanted to update, I am surrounded by several not at all nosy people who are not at all looking over my shoulder.

OK, that is a total lie – first off – I don’t care how delightful these people actually are - being cooped up with them for 24 hours a day for an entire week can turn even the most delightful family into a bunch of rabid wolverines. Wolverines who won’t let you do a damned thing without asking you 11,000 questions, or climbing on you, or fighting with each other (I know – I said “each other” implying that I am not involved with the fighting, but I have two words for that: Friendly Fire), or – my personal favorite – looking over my shoulder to see what I am doing. In fact, there is one particular member of my delightful family who will go as far as to pretend to want tohug his mother in order to stick his nosy nose into her computer screen and see what she is reading and/or writing. But that particular member shall remain unnamed.

And now, as if I haven’t been sucking at blogging anyway, I am faced with the biggest obstacle of all to getting anydamnthing done – The Olympics. The Olympics make it impossible for me to do anything, except scour the television, internet, & newspapers for any Olympic-related thing I can find.

There is something about the Olympics that is absolutely irresistible to me – despite the fact that you would never see me watching any of this stuff any other time of year (or years, in this case). I’ve always been fascinated by the Olympics. As a kid, I imagined being there as an athlete. Now, I have the very different experience of seeing it though a parent’s eyes – I get choked up for every single athlete – I see their parent there and cry as if they were my own. I get excited and cheer for sports I have never even seen before – it doesn’t matter, I’m rooting for someone – anyone - everyone.

There’s something so basic about the Olympics – even in the very commercialized version we’re seeing these days. Once you look past the labels on the helmets and the seemingly ten-thousand Olympic-themed commercials, at the heart of the Olympics lies spirit and youth and hopes and dreams and despite being a competition between countries, you see friendship and camaraderie. Athletes supporting each other. Fans from all nations cheering for athletes from other – because they’re the “home” team; because they’re the underdog; because they’re just so damned amazing that they deserve nothing less.

So that’s what I’ll be doing for the next couple of weeks, watching sports I’d otherwise never watch. Not only watching, but cheering. And not only cheering, but giving a shit. And then it will be over and I’ll go back to hating ice skating and not knowing short track from long track and not really caring. Until the next Olympics rolls around and I’m hypnotized all over again.

Though I’ll admit, the magic hasn’t quite spread to ice dancing. You can keep that shit.

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