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Sunday, February 06, 2005
Bowl, yes; Super, not so much I was going to start this post like this: At ten points down with two minutes left, I just want to say, before we lose, that I don't care if we lose.While I was waiting-waiting-waiting for my computer to get its act together, I heard J. yell "Touchdown!" downstairs; me: "Us?"—shortly thereafter realizing that if it hadn't been us, he'd have yelled something more along the lines of "Oh shit!" Anyway, I ran downstairs to watch the replay and the one-point kick, then came back upstairs, and planned to re-start the post like this: At three points down with 1:47 left, I just want to say, before we lose, that I care more if we lose by three points than by ten points, but I still don't care if we lose.But my browser and frippin' Blogger still weren't loading, so I went down to watch the rest of the game in solidarity with J. and the rest of Philadelphia, and was unable to post, before we lost, that I didn't care if we lost. And now it'll just look like I'm saying that retroactively to make myself feel better. But, really: I didn't care if we lost. We were in the Superbowl; and, now that we've gotten past the NFC Championship hex (I'm not going to call it a curse; it was only three years), the championship doesn't have to be the big hump of the season; the focus can be on winning the Superbowl, not getting to the Superbowl. (And even if we don't get to it for another 24 years—what the hell, we're still in the statistics.) Over the previous two weeks, I've been saying I didn't care if we lost, as long as we didn't lose embarrassingly. Lose by three points, ouch; lose by ten points, oh well; lose by thirty points...oh fuck. Tonight, watching the scores inch up, I decided it doesn't only matter what you lose by, but also what you lose with; in any football game, if you lose with at least 7 points, it's not too pathetic; at least you got a touchdown. If you lose by thirty points, but it's 37 to 7, it's less pathetic than if you lose by 10 points but it's 13 to 3...or by three points, if it's 3 to zero. When we were down 24 to 14, I was perfectly happy to shrug and finish my margarita. Two touchdowns in the Superbowl? Yeah, not bad at all. I almost wish we hadn't gotten that third touchdown...it raised the terrible spectre of hope. I was right, those past two weeks: losing by three...ouch. Still: at least we didn't lose big. At least we lost with points on the board. And at least our Superbowl won't be forever remembered as The One With The Breast. (Was anyone else hoping, when Paul McCartney took off his jacket, that he'd eventually take off his shirt too, just as a tongue-in-cheek nod to last year's halftime hullaballoo? Not that I want to see his late-middle-aged gray-haired chest, but it would have been funny.) Outside I hear the whup-a-whup-a-whup of the news helicopters, and a few sirens; I don't hear the shouts and the horns and the gunshots, though, and that's fine with me. Now, just another few days of media coverage, the requisite "it sucks, but there's always next year" fan interviews, the "you lost, but you won the championship" semi-parade, and I won't have to hear "Fly, Eagles, fly" till August. And as far as I know, the Sixers and the Phillies don't have obnoxious fight songs, and Temple and St. Joe's aren't going anywhere in the NCAA basketball championships, so it'll be safe to listen to the radio and watch the 6 o'clock news without earplugs again. Yeah, that doesn't suck. P.S. You know what does suck? Harvard sucks. P.P.S. There are many games, but there's only one Game. And the Super Bowl may be the Big game, but it isn't The Game. P.P.P.S. Actually, Yale lost The Game this year, too; but we pulled a hell of a prank on the Harvard fans, so I'm calling it at least a tie. And since they were the ones holding up the signs saying "WE SUCK," I'm gonna say they'll be remembered as the losers. [ at 11:03 PM • by Abby • permalink • ] Saturday, February 05, 2005 Weekly Wrapup I know "Weekly Wrapup" is the name of a meme (the alternate Friday Five, back when there was a Friday Five), but this is just me trying to wrap up my week, and I couldn't think of a more appropriate title.If I could do a screen capture of my TV, you'd see that my local NBC station has redesigned the NBC peacock logo to have an all-green tail and an eagle head. It's a good thing Ben Franklin didn't get his way on making the national bird the turkey, because then we'd have to be the Philadelphia Turkeys (of course it would be us; if Billy Penn hadn't named us first, we'd be Ben Franklinville), and it wouldn't sound nearly as good in the ads and the stadiums: "Go Turkeys!" "Fly, Turkeys, fly..." (Although after all the appallingly bad renditions of "Fly, Eagles, fly" I've heard this week, a flightless mascot would be a welcome change.) One of the reasons I've been so depressed this week (other than PMS, a frickin' week early): all the denial I've been in since election day had a hard time standing up against Inauguration Day in January, and has collapsed under the pressure of this week's State of the Union address. Yes, everything I've been pretending didn't happen or wouldn't happen is, in fact, happening, and it's on all the networks in prime time. Crap. Give me a wine bottle or a razor blade, I need to get away from it all... Last night, insomnaic, trying to avoid news reports on the State of the Union, heard myself thinking "I don't want to live in this world anymore"—then, before anyone could call the men with the white jackets, clarified: the emphasis isn't on "I don't want to live"; it's "I don't want to live in this world." The one where everyone hates us and we hate each other and our president can't frippin' form a complete sentence. (I will readily admit that I didn't like Clinton, but at least the guy could get a subject, verb and object in the correct order without mispronouncing or creating any new words along the way.) Fortunately, it turns out that my insomnia, irritability, and general bad mood over the past few days are mainly due to my period coming a week earlier than I expected...or, if they aren't, I'm going to say they are, because it's a good excuse. (If I've got to have the inconvenience and the cramps a week early, I may as well take the excuse along with them.) And the work week is finally over, thank God, and the project that was due on Monday, and then due on Wednesday, still isn't finished, so the deadline pressure is gone until next Monday...once things are overdue, due dates become considerably more relaxed; "if it was supposed to be done last week and it's not done now, will it really kill you if it's not done till next week? Didn't think so. Pass the vodka." Well, not vodka. My office is next door to a bar, and as I've previously mentioned, you can tell the weekend is near by all the beer trucks pulling up on Friday afternoon; and this week, I've determined, you can tell what kind of a weekend it's going to be by how many, and how big, and of what brand, the beer trucks are. (That sentence doesn't totally scan, but pretend it does.) This week, you couldn't not tell there was a local team playing in a national championship on Sunday: yesterday came the Coors and the Miller trucks, this afternoon the Guinness truck, and just as I was leaving the office this evening, the Budweiser truck. Big-ass panel trucks, the kind the entire first floor of my house could fit into, although not 18-wheeler big; the biggest truck you can fit down a numbered Philadelphia street, though, I bet. Alas, I didn't get any of that beer...I did take care of an entire bottle of Rosemont grenache/shiraz tonight, though, and ordered a pizza from my neighborhood Best-of-Philly restaurant (if you live in any self-respecting part of South Philly you're never more than a block away from at least one "top ten best pizza" place; I've got one half a block south, and another a block and a half north and half a block west, which is just too far away to bother with). I'd better wrap up this wrapup; it's technically Saturday, and I've got an incumbent hangover to fend off. (Lots of water, vitamin B, and then some more water.) I'll have something to say, probably, about the football game on Sunday that you've probably heard about...honestly, I don't care if we win, I just hope we don't lose embarrassingly. Lost by three, ouch; lose by ten, okay; lose by thirty...oh fuck. But even if we lose by thirty, at least we'll have lost the big game. Who remembers the scores?—as long as you can say "we were in Super Bowl Whatever-the-heck," you're okay. So. Water, vitamins, sleep. I can handle that. Good night... [ at 12:14 AM • by Abby • permalink • ] |
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