on an ordinary nebraska night

I wasn't so sure about Omaha. I wasn't so sure about Omaha for 10 days. And I wasn't so sure about Omaha for 10 days with swim fans. But as those wiser than me have told me so profoundly, "sometimes, with work, you just have to suck it up." I would suck it up and go to Omaha.

Omaha, Nebraska with none other than a AA Royals farm team, and a non-pro hockey team, sees itself as the unofficial amateur sports hometown. It's housed the College World Series, NCAA volleyball, and now the Swimming Olympic Trials.

I was a competitive swimmer. The twice a day, morning and evening workouts, stinking of chlorine, little other social activities to my name type. I've often said, as it turns out when you spend your life submerged in water, you don't spend a whole lot of time developing your personality. I again reinforce this point. Swimmers are kinda weird. But I'm getting off track.

Omaha loves amateur sports. And it would love itself some swimming for a solid week. I wish I could say I could tell you much of anything about Omaha, but it's difficult, being the town is, for a week, a melting pot of people from all over. I've enjoyed the "where are you from," conversations. But it isn't a real, get to know you Omaha trip. The locals are no where to be found. Although I have seen several "Nebraska: We Heart Meat" tshirts. And they aren't fucking around. Omahaians are a meat loving bunch. It's a damn good thing I dropped the veggie shtick months ago. I'd be real damn hungry - although I'd finally fit in those skinny jeans, now that the trend has past. Though I again am getting off track.

My credential gets me some pretty damn sweet access. In the first night of competition, Men's 400 Individual Medley - Final, Michael Phelps of oversaturated swim fame, and competitor and Florida Gator Ryan Lochte faced off. They say in press conferences they are friends, that Ryan pushes Michael and vice versa. But I don't buy it, to tell you the god darn truth. That's like saying I like the guy on my tail at the 405 less than half a car length away making me feel the 20 miles an hour over the speed limit I'm going is still not enough. Ryan had hedged Michael out in morning prelims. But it's expert opinion you don't give it all in morning, you give enough to qualify for finals, and hold out enough to edge out your competition at night. For those that think swimming is just about getting in water and swimming as fast as you can, as it turns out there's a little more to it.

An ordinary Nebraska night. With a lot of meat in my belly, and swimming on the brain, I watched "friends" Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte in some friendly competition. Going in to the last 50 meters, Ryan and Michael neck and neck, it's just a sport, but it makes you nervous. I was nervous. World records for both. Of course only Michael's counts. Imagine breaking a world record and having it not count. That would make me less than friendly. But if friends or not (I still say not) it raises the curtain for a week of world record breaking performances, I say do what you will.

By the time the night was over, three world records were broken. And another two by morning.

Nebraska could be not all bad. Although ask me again at the close of 10 days. As I leave for home with my Nebraska: I Heart Meat t-shirt.

Life, Death and Yoga

“I think I’m going to have a psychotic breakdown.”

“Well thank you for telling me.”

“I just wanted you to know so you don’t have to, like all the other people say, I never saw it coming. You can say proudly, ‘yes I saw it coming all along.’”

“Yes, I saw it coming all along - and just let it happen.’”

“Well you can manipulate those details any way you want.”

I could let you in on where it all started, what all this entails, but it would take oh so long to introduce you to all the various players, it may be easier to just pick up at the breakdown part. So I was well on my way to a psychotic breakdown. I tried to continue business as usual, but after the first mention, “are you dead?” (no I’m putting my head down while this person on the phone is yelling at me) and the second “you really not dead?” (no I’m plugging things in under my desk and it’s also safer under here) I need to prioritize my sanity.

In an owners manual to life’s stead, I settled on some practical fixes to apply to what looked like the complete breakdown of my relationship with reality.

I tried a bath with aromatherapy crystals. I tried a bottle of wine. I tried yoga.

So on the verge of psychosis, and now in pigeon pose, remembering by pain I had bruised the top of my knee caps the week prior, and trying not to fall over or embarrass myself in any similar way, I took deep cleansing breaths, found my center, focused on the now, straightened my back, tightened my core and tried to regrip reality.

“If you want to make this more difficult, lift up your right hand, wrap it around your back, pick up your heel. And don’t forget to keep breathing.”

Could this exercise in twister bring me back from the brink of a breakdown?

As I lay on my back, arms in air, feet extended up, in a pose I’d wondered if the great yoga masters had created to be hilarious, and whispered, “hey – do you think this makes us look like cockroaches…?” I’m now even more certain yoga is just disguised exercise, driving me probably even closer to breakdown - of both mind and now body.

I will probably survive this. With little fan fare go on. Killed not by work or yoga but old age sometime far from now, with my sanity put together by duct tape and cheap non-factory parts. Just a crazy old woman, with a sea of grandchildren, and a lot of stories to tell.

I Have A Dream

I have big dreams. Huge ones. But most days I resign myself to watching Friends re-runs in bed while eating chicken nuggets. Today I received some big news, big dreams, and after seeing those dreams through, I must now resign myself to crying to sleep, rocking myself in a pool of my own tears - while watching re-runs and eating chicken nuggets. Martin Luther King knew a lot about dreaming. So much so he gave a historic I Have a Dream Speech, on steps to the Lincoln Memorial. Desegregation and a Nobel peace prize followed. Those were some big dreams.

I'm a talker, conversationalist, as my mother says. So most people think they know me because I blab a lot. But I'm a complex individual. No nobel prizes but many noble undertakings. In the third grade I played the late Dr. King in our school play. Were there people more adequately suited than me? Perhaps. But man, you've never seen a white girl from the valley play a middle aged black man with more passion. Well maybe not passion, but I remembered all my lines and I was 8 so that was all that was really required of me. My I have a dream, well it could bring grown men to their knees. Martin Luther King, whether played by an 8 year old in a school auditorium, or in our minds, was a man among mere mortals.

I remember Martin Luther King Jr. today because these again are historic times. While I don't care of Obama, for reasons I will keep close to my proverbial political vest, I respect his motivations, where he seeks to move us, and from a past we should all move forward from. So I guess from the 8 year I once was, to the dreamer I will always be...good night.

Lessons in growing

Whereas I thought I wrote to entertain myself, apparently there are people who read it because over the past several months I have received a many scathing notes and correspondance and verbal battery from my loyal allegiance, many sounding a lot like "update blondememoirs, bitch." Hey, the profanity is unnecessary. But your point has been taken all the same. I wish I could say I've done nothing blog worthy at all, but that wouldn't be entirely accurate whatsoever. I saw the start of a new baseball season, catching games in Chi-town and Saint Louis, I was abused by some river rapids in central Texas and two stepped to Bill Joe Shaver in an old cotton mill and oldest dance hall. I've been kicked out of clubs in NY for being too drunk (I swear it was the high heels and 18 degrees outside - it had almost nothing to do with the 8 whiskey and diets I drank courtesy of a bachelor party I befriended after being banned from the bar after writing "be nice" in the tip field of the credit card slip). I partied with Winter Music Conference in Miami this March drinking Patrons and blowpops for breakfast and paying the price by narrowly making it through TSA and being really really sick the following week. "You did this to yourself," my senior producer yelled at me in a meeting. Not necessary. I've had weekend adventures galour but it's LA, and my gal pals, I always grow hungry for. So I think I will stay put here for a hot minute.

I went out to dinner last night with some of my favorite people, and while our table was being prepped I sat at the bar.

"What will you drink?," the bartended asked me.
"Oh, something white."

Now let's be clear. I could tell you I said this because I'm some sort of wine conissour, but it was more that I wanted to sound like a grown up, and I was wearing white - and there was an incredible liklihood anything red I'd wear. White it was.

I thought asking for cost was petty, and counter intutitve to the "I'm a grownup having grown up dinner with grown up friends and drinking wine at a bar" look I was going for. So I didn't ask. Our friendly neighborhood dinner cut me no deals, and I won't tell you how much that glass of wine was, but I will tell you this much, it wasn't even filled up all the way to the very top.

Being a grown up has it's way over rated moments.