Last November I saw a TV ad for the National Figure Skating Championships being held in Greensboro, NC in January. Being highly susceptible to advertising and sequins, I bought a ticket to the Skating Spectacular. That’s the exhibition held after the competition where the skaters get to have fun and dance to music with lyrics. I drive an hour to Greensboro all the time to see my headache doctor, so it was no big deal. And I already knew where to pick up a Cheerwine slushie on the way out of town.

I got my ticket early, so I scored awesome seats in the second row, right behind an Alka-Seltzer Plus ad. (That’s not why this photo looks like it’s from Picasso’s blue period. That was just the low lighting.) The lady sitting next to me thought they were horrible seats and started to complain about how the stadium sucked and her hotel was too far away, whah, whah, whah. This made me realize that your attitude affects 90% of how you perceive life. I thought [...]

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Monday night I didn’t sleep that well, and Tuesday I felt nauseated and anxious for part of the day. Why? Because of a basketball game.

Yes, a basketball game.

I am not a sports fan. I went to the University of Kentucky for a few years, which has (had?) a well-regarded basketball program. I worked one-on-one with a student during one of the psychology labs, yet I had no idea he played basketball until the teacher asked about his jump shot halfway through the year. During our project, I had been more concerned with his note-taking skills than with his ability to toss wadded up paper into the trash basket. I can’t even remember the guy’s name.

So, me = not a sports fan. Yet, at this moment I can name at least six of the Butler Bulldogs’ basketball players. (Hayward, Howard, Mack, Jukes, Nored, and Veasley.) For those of you who, like my normal self, don’t care about sports, let me explain. Every year there is a national tournament in America between the top 64 college [...]

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The one-way street in front of the parking garage did not head the one way I wanted to go, so I had to loop around New York Street to try again, when suddenly I found myself in the middle of a triathlon. I always run into unexpected events downtown.

As I sped alongside the bikers, I had an urge to speed up and try to beat them, as if I was competing. However, the increased police presence kept my speedometer safely under the speed limit.

I yelled, “Yeah! Go!” to the competitors, even though they couldn’t hear me from inside my air-conditioned car. Ever since I participated in the Indy 500 Mini-Marathon, I have a lot of respect for people who train and compete in long-distance events. I’ve been rolling around the idea of competing in a triathlon myself, however I don’t know how to swim and I don’t own a working bike, so I would only be able to run. Then I wouldn’t so much be competing in a triathlon as a monathlon. We could hold [...]

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I have joked that I used to spend all day on the couch, but that was an exaggeration. I actually split the time between my couch and my computer chair and I occasionally got up to go the fridge. But Sunday I literally did lay on the couch all day next to Mr. Food Poisoning and a 4 gallon blue bucket and you know what? Sitting in one place all day makes you really sore. My body ached more at the end of the day than it ever has after weight-lifting. Of course, that might have been related to me slipping on black ice outside the laundry room on Saturday because I didn’t know I needed to wear Yaktrax to wash my panties. I spent all Sunday crammed up on a loveseat slightly too small for my full length, watching Kiki’s Delivery Service twice because if I got up to change the DVD, my brain would start sending the message “Barf! Barf!” to my stomach. The only redeeming element of the day came at 9:00pm [...]

• Continue reading "American Gladiators is back: Spandex, trash talk and a lake of fire!"

Hey everybody, NBC is bringing American Gladiators back to television! You’ve got until October 1 to submit your application. I spent several summers of my childhood watching reruns of American Gladiators on the USA cable network between airings of My Two Dads, The Facts of Life and Just the Ten of Us. Each show featured two male and two female competitors who would face off against the “gladiators” in several trials of strength, agility and balance. Unlike the Roman gladiator games, there were no tigers or pointy spears, but there were huge Q-tips.

When they weren’t working out or abusing performance enhancing drugs, gladiators had part-time jobs performing inner-ear hygiene on giants. They also used the big Q-Tips in the “Joust” competition where competitors stood on two raised platforms and tried to knock each other onto the mats below. I doubt I would do very well in that game because I was the girl who was terrified to jump out of the back of the school bus during emergency evacuation drills. If I were to find [...]

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