Category: summer

On talking too much, or the NBA Summer League

When I was in graduate school several years ago, the introvert in me – and that would be 100 percent of me – was desperate for some quiet time.

You don’t get much in graduate school. It’s all group projects and collaboration (another overused word! noted for later topic) and covering for That Guy.

I found then that there was one place, one unlikely place, where I could enjoy near-complete silence: my dental hygienist’s chair.

84ee4004ce93a31b9c6f4b38a501d82b

I’d lay down on the vinyl, in that curiously comfortable decline, and we’d say nothing. I’d close my eyes. I knew when to close my mouth for that tube thing. She might ask if I had summer plans when we were done. Maybe.

I still don’t even know her name. I don’t need to. This is still one of my favorite things to do because there is no talking, and no one feels awkward about it.

I suspect that’s why so many of you cook, or write, or train, or paint: It’s not always a solo pursuit, but it’s quiet.

Desperate for basketball

There’s this Rush song. Maybe you know it. Oh, of course you know it. Everybody knows it – it’s Rush. It’s “Spirit of the Radio.”

And there’s a phrase in it that describes the majority of my basketball viewing, if you can call it that: it’s “a friendly voice, a companion unobtrusive.”

See, there’s quiet, and then there’s isolated. I can do the latter all too quickly.

With basketball, I can turn the volume on low to just barely hear some of the region’s TV announcers, all companions unobtrusive. I can watch it out of the corner of my eye as I exercise for excessive periods of time, something else done perhaps in the pursuit of quiet.

The NBA’s Summer League, while nothing like the NBA or especially college basketball*, would ostensibly fit the bill, yes? Turn the volume down to low. People moving about. No one talking to me, just in my vicinity, the voice just familiar enough.

usatsi_10971194_147386290_lowres
Champs…of the Euroleague. Sorry, guys, we know you worked hard, but still

Except.

ESPN, the Satan of sports broadcasting, took over the Summer League two or three years ago. Which means there is constant yapping. I mean, Dan Dakich. Would you shut that whole in the middle of your face? For a second?

I know the answer to this.

NCAA BASKETBALL: JAN 17 Michigan at Wisconsin
FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY, DO NOT USE THAT MIC, DAN DAKICH

The NBA does a lot of things right, but man, I’m looking at cricket as an alternative. Cricket! In America! What is this country coming to?

*Wait until November, friends. I will try not to but probably still will bore you to death with Big East basketball. Sorry in advance.

It’s finally summer and no one’s happy

It’s finally summer in the upper Midwest of the United States. At least it is this week.

o-DULUTH-MINNESOTA-900
Duluth, Minn. This is nice. And not where I live. 

It’s been curiously rainy and cool until this week. I couldn’t tell you why; I heard it’s got something to do with the extremely cold winter in the Plains states next door and the jet stream out of Canada. Well, thanks, Canada. For America’s Hat, you’re not doing a very good job keeping us warm.

(Canada, I’m kidding! Except for your interloping NBA team, you are stupendous!)

I wanted to address a few results of the area’s extended chilly rainy spring:

  • Foul moods sticking around
  • The hilarious belief that now that it’s around 80 degrees, it’s “hot.”
  • My suddenly and completely out-of-control yard

Nobody’s close to happy

pg2_g_cubsfan_300
This summer might be cheerless for most, but laughing at the Cubs is always available.

Everyone suffers from some degree of seasonal affective disorder up here, I think. Or that’s the claim. I had a boyfriend a while back who claimed to suffer from it, but I never noticed a difference between the summer jerk and winter jerk.

This year, no one’s had to make a particular claim. The cheerlessness was palpable in everyone, and is still, even though the weather seems to have turned a corner.

One wonders if the longer one spends in the gray rainy dark, the harder it is to snap out of the cabin fever and into a more human state of mind.

We can get into the metaphysical discussion, our essential being, and does an extended negative circumstance, like crap weather, put us into an existential crisis and all that. Does it change what we are? For how long? Forever? Or can it not change our essence?  Are we crab-asses, essentially, or people who are just crabby a lot? Is there a difference? I’m open to ideas.

It’s not hot. 

I grew up on the coasts of North and South Carolina here in the states. And I’m here to tell you that 80 degrees is not hot.

It’s also not “muggy.” For the past couple mornings the news has reported an onslaught of muggy weather. Right now that means 58% humidity. That’s adorable! But it’s not muggy. It’s nice.

I’ll take arguments in the comments below, but I’m not wrong. In fact, I’m right! If that doesn’t make you want to comment, I don’t know what will.

My yard is the Genesis Planet.

If you’re Gen X like yours truly, then you probably remember Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, which included the creation of a brand new planet full of giant ferns and hostas and other extra-large, but definitely earth-bound plants. It was called the Genesis Planet.

This is now my yard.

I know some of you really get into this stuff. I don’t. See above, North and South Carolina coasts. As a kid I had to work in the yard around three times a week for most of the year. The smell of cut grass still makes me nauseous but I’ve otherwise repressed those memories. I’m lost out there in the yard, what with trimmers and clippers and mowers.

So save me! I’m taking applications. Let me know in the comments below if you’d like to get my yard under control! I’ve got five bucks with your name on it.

Thanks!

As always, thank you to my readers, current and new. I look forward to talking with you!