sports

I Hate You, But Not Enough to Really Bring It Up

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

There are two kinds of people I just don’t understand: atheists and people who don’t like sports.

Now, you probably just read that sentence and have gotten the completely wrong idea about me. I’m not a redneck or a Bible thumper. I happen to be a Christian, although I go way out of my way to make that fact NOT be your problem. I also happen to follow several sports teams (almost as religiously as I follow religion) and ALL of my teams are better than your teams…at everything. I mean, even at converting oxygen to carbon dioxide. Better at balancing their checkbooks, better at waiting in line at the DMV, and definitely better at their sports.

But here’s my confusion: I truly don’t understand people who get up in arms about me believing these things. I’m fine with other people on Earth not liking my religion or my sports, but I don’t understand why they are so violently opposed to me participating in any of the clambakes that go along with church or football.

I could be wrong on a few fundamental religious points since my ordination came off the internet and only lets me watch religious ceremonies and not actually conduct them, but aren’t ALL members of ALL religions sort of required to think their religion is better than other religions? My Jesus can beat up your Jesus, and all that stuff? And if atheists think I’m a whiny, stupid, sheep-like follower of a complete and total lie…why do they give a shit? I’m not shoving it in anyone’s face, so there’s really no need to trash talk like we’re two drunks standing in the parking lot of the Super Bowl, arguing over a bad call made by the ref six seasons ago.

In the interest of full disclosure, I do understand that both Christians and sports fans–football fans specifically–have a really bad history of not making their beliefs other people’s problems…that whole Spanish Inquisition and the crusades to the Holy Land do immediately come to mind, although I don’t really have any historical event to compare to the slaughter of millions of non-believers where football is concerned. But I keep coming across little comments and insults hurled at Christians and sports fanatics who are just sitting there, minding their own business, not telling a soul that their god and their team is better than anyone else’s.

I’m no saint. Of course I think you’re stupid and pathetic for not believing in the same things I do, but I don’t have to bring it up. My innate superiority because of my choice of football team is just a known fact. But people who hate football somehow think I’m less of a person for believing in the existence of football, and don’t get me started on what I’ve been called for believing in the existence of anything else.

We all need a better “live and let live” policy, and again, I do understand that religious fanatics taken as a whole probably need to be the first ones in line to receive etiquette lessons. You can mock my god and my beliefs all you want to, you can even call me a barbarian for my adoration of violent sports. just kindly do it over there somewhere so you don’t block my view of the replay…of touchdowns or of Jesus.

The Memes Are Chasing Me!

ME Overly simple thoughts , , ,

First, I cannot write a blog post about internet memes without a shout-out to my awesome friend and fellow writer, Rachel in the OC. She has been diligently educating the world on the proper pronunciation of the word “meme,” even going to great lengths and vodka-infused research on how it should be pronounced due to its Greek roots. I think the vodka might have extended the diligence and the research, but don’t tell her I said that.

So there we were, minding our own business at a cross country meet. Hundreds of high school girls with their hair in the requisite bouncy ponytails were lined up to run three miles on this really grueling, muddy, yucky course, our daughter included. Wait, I have to back up.

I have to tell you about last week’s cross country meet. Why yes, as a matter of fact, society screws over every single Saturday of your life when your child is good at sports. I digress. LAST WEEK, unbeknownst to us, our daughter stepped in a hole and twisted her ankle during the warm-up. Every time we saw her during the three-mile race, she was crying and on the brink of outright sobbing. Even for someone who was injured, it was a little bit embarrassing, mostly because we could feel the ugly stares from other parents and hear their whispers: “Those monsters shouldn’t make her do this, what kind of parents make a child cry???” Okay, in the interest of full disclosure, some of those ugly comments came from my own husband.

*IN MY DEFENSE: There were lots of girls crying during this race. Apparently, it’s just a thing they do. And none of them had seen that great baseball movie where the guy yells in her face, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

Back to yesterday’s race. I had prepared my daughter all week for the fact that it’s really not okay to cry while running, even if you’re injured. We worked out a strategy to hold back the tears: total bribery. If she made it through the race in good spirits and got close to her goal time, I would buy her these boots she’s wanted for weeks. Go ahead, judge me, then ask me if I care.

So the first time she passed us yesterday, she wasn’t exactly crying but she wasn’t looking like she was having fun. And despite the other people around us quietly applauding like this was a golf tournament, I began screaming, “BOOTS! BOOTS! BOOTS!” I’m sure the other parents thought I had entered Dora’s pet monkey in this race.

Our running child perked up a little bit when she saw us because how do you not crack a smile when a middle aged woman is screaming, “BOOOOOOOTS!” for no reason? Then I began screaming, “SMILE! You’ve got to SMILE! THIS IS FUN! WOOOOOOOOOO!” That brought on a full-fledged tooth smile for only one second before she recovered and said: (drum roll)

“I can’t smile, I’m Kristen Stewart!”

It was the proudest moment of my life. My twelve-year-old isn’t allowed to play on the internet and she’s never seen any movie starring Kristen Stewart (except for that kids’ movie she made about a board game that sent the whole family into outer space). But yet, somehow, she just knew.

Sadly, my daughter didn’t make her goal time but she did such an awesome job that I told her she could have the boots anyway. Then even more sadly, we went straight to the mall to get the boots she has dreamed about for two weeks, but they look like hooker boots and I had to tell her no. She’s getting a pair of jeans instead. Unless they look like hooker jeans.

The boots looked a lot like this. You’d better be able to run really fast if you think you can pull those off in public.

Lorca’s Week In Review (Sports Edition)

ME Overly simple thoughts , , , , , , , ,

Well, that settles it. My offspring were slow runners in the family’s first-ever attempt at organized cross country running, my college football team barely got through in OVERTIME in a game that should never have made it to overtime, and I’m pretty sure people still think ping pong is an Olympic sport. I give up.

I rounded out the week by breaking a computer that I didn’t think was even more breakable, finishing the writing of my latest book (woohoo!), and drinking celebratory wine that was imported all the way from Birmingham for the occasion. Fortunately, I remembered to dye my hair BEFORE the wine this time.

I still found time to Pin funny stuff, and here’s the proof. This video is probably the funniest thing I’ve seen in years, even if I am going to burn in hell for laughing at it.

And no, angry commenters, it’s not a funny video because he’s scared or because he’s overweight, it’s funny because his aunt’s the only person in his life willing to say to the kid, “Get your butt up on that ride! NOW!”

I reviewed another grown-up-like book for my day job, and it was another one of those books that pulls you in from the very beginning. Cascade was worth every penny and every minute.

In unrelated news, I figured out today that it is almost October, which means two things: Halloween and NaBloWriMo. Only one of those things is sexy, and I’ll let you use your imagination to figure out which one it is. Have a great week!

Sometimes You Have to Kiss a Few Frogs

ME Overly simple thoughts , , , ,

Once upon a time, there was a gorgeous blogger who was just so eff-ing tired. She happened to be a princess. No, wait, a queen. Yeah, she’s a queen. A really good-looking one, one whose boobs were still perky and whose gray roots didn’t show all the time. She was awesome.

Her life was pretty tough. She had these two beautiful princess kids who were slow and untalented, but they usually sat there looking pretty and saying really nice things, so nobody minded that much.

One day, a real bitch came along and cast a spell on the queen and her whole castle. Everybody in the castle became really good at extracurricular activities. It got so bad, that at one point one of the little princesses actually had cross country practice, band practice, piano lesson, and baton lesson ALL IN THE SAME DAY.

The queen became tired. She wished she could be a frog so nobody made her drive them anywhere because it’s illegal for frogs to drive a car in forty-three states. And because she was the best queen who ever lived, her wish got granted. The End.

Don’t panic. I wasn’t really turned into a frog. That’s the frog head I made for my daughter’s Halloween costume last year during the entire month of October when I should have been sleeping, but instead realized that just laying there for four hours a night really wasn’t all that productive and was kind of self-indulgent. It still fits.