Let’s Watch the Game!

For the third week in a row, I am going off-script and beginning this post with absolutely no idea what I will write about or where it’s going. It’s worked out well so far. Back when I was college (yikes, that was more than twenty years ago now), I was the copy editor for my campus newspaper and–as an added bonus to the terribly late hours and meager pay–the section editor gave me biweekly column space. There is nothing like a quickly-approaching deadline to inspire either brilliance or mediocrity. There is no in-between. My best column during that period was one I wrote about the Great Human Equalizer–laundry. It’s true. No matter who you are, or the circumstances under which you live, you must always contend with a huge pile (or small pile if you don’t wear much) of stuff that needs washed. It’s the one chore that never completely gets crossed off that to-do list. The baskets might be empty, but that’s an illusion. Unless the baskets are empty, everyone–including the beds–is naked, and no one plans to shower again ever, there is always more laundry to be washed.

Anyway, I gave up that editing/writing gig after three semesters, and I won’t say I never missed it, but it was nice to sleep again on those two nights of the week, especially considering I had a full time job that started at eight a.m.

I try to do a little writing everyday, and there are a significant number of things that “count” as writing as far as I’m concerned. Writing two pages of notes related to my NaNoWriMo idea? That counts. Reading three thousand words of my own writing to add some characterization? Counts. This blog post? Yep, that counts, too. Scanning cover art to add titles? It will count when I actually do it. Character sketch? I don’t do them, but if I did, you bet your ass it would count. Of course, writing new stuff counts, but I haven’t been doing much of that lately in favor of the final read-through and polish of Whatever Will Be (see the second item above).

Lately, I’ve been finding this difficult. Not because of writer’s block (because you can’t really have writer’s block for something that is already written, but if you could, I would certainly get it), but because here, in the last week of July/first day of August, I have reached peak distraction. There is, of course, my day job, which I continue to enjoy, even though the last week seemed like a year. There was last weekend’s camping trip, where I took my iPad with every intention of writing on it, but the only writing I actually accomplished was that blog post.

Now, in addition to the myriad distractions offered by the existence of any sort of internet connection, we also have the Summer Olympic Games. Instead of writing, I have become consumed, as I have every four years since 1996, by these Games, even though as of this writing, the Games have been largely Simone-less. (Aside: I am NOT going to make this post about Simone Biles, though as a long-time gymnastics fan, I certainly could. I will say she doesn’t owe any of us any gymnastics; she’s been training at peak performance for over a year in anticipation of the 2020 Olympics; and that if everything was “normal,” she’d be retired right now. Mental blocks in gymnastics are no joke and can result in serious injury or death. I one hundred percent support her decision to withdraw from anything she doesn’t feel ready for. End of aside.) Except for gymnastics and baseball, I am not generally a sports fan, but during the Olympics, I will watch anything. Swimming? Yep. Track? Sure. Beach volleyball? Absolutely. Fucking rugby? Sign me up.

It matters very little that I understand few of the sports I’m actually watching. I mean, I’ve always understood gymnastics (only women’s artistic, though. I can watch men’s and understand the scoring, but rhythmic and trampoline gymnastics are a mystery to me), and swimming and track are pretty straightforward, but a lot of the rules and scoring systems for the other sports make no sense to me, but I can read a scoreboard well enough to understand when the US team is ahead–or behind, as the case may be. Last night, we watched one of our men’s beach volleyball teams scatter a Qatar team all over the sand, only to lose the next two games (matches? I don’t even know. There were three of them). But in the spirit of international competition, I will literally cheer for anyone. Go, Greece!

And oh my God, I just watched the high jumpers from Qatar and Italy decide to share a gold medal instead of having a tie-breaker and we should just let these athletes do all the diplomacy from now on.

To be fair, I will turn on the Winter Olympics, but they don’t inspire the same fervor as the Summer Games do (I used to love short track speed skating, but to be honest, that was more about Apolo Ohno than the actual sport). The Winter Games seem to have a lot of skiing, which I have never done despite growing up half an hour from some of the best ski resorts in the country, because I have a thing with my feet that makes skiing impossible. Skating, too.

However, I think the Winter Olympics is prime occasion to have a normal human try a sport so the rest of us can see how hard it really is. I’m sure we’ve all watched the luge and thought, “I could do that!” until we watch Sally from Great Falls, Montana eat it on the first turn then tell every reporter and spectator in The Mixed Zone, “That was hard as fuck and I’m lucky to be alive!” We should definitely not let Steve from White Plains, New York try skeleton. That’s a disaster waiting to happen.

So for the rest of this week I will likely continue to allow myself to get distracted by watching the remainder of these Games, and put the writing (or polishing) on the back burner until they’re finished. Even this blog post took me way longer to write than it should have. But, that’s what makes me happy, and you know how I feel about that.