the league

HEY GUYS IT'S SEPTEMBER RIGHT.


In the midst of my brother's sudden illness, other downer news, and everyone's general bumminess about things, I'd almost forgotten about my newest obsession/hobby/major manifestation of stress and anxiety.


Fantasy Football.




OK. I know, I hate me too. Just hear me out.




I've been invited for years to join one of these fake sport leagues for people who are obsessed with a certain sport and just can't get enough of it and aren't good enough to play it professionally.

 I love college football and getting drunk and tailgating and singing Carmen Ohio and crying over losing games, but I don't follow pro football at all and I really don't need something else that I'll ultimately and inevitably become emotionally invested in and lose my shit over.


So I always cheerfully say "No thanks!" and carry on with my life. Which is exactly what I did this year.


Until Manfriend joined a league with all of my college friends and former college roommates and they were going to be smack talking and discussing it like all the time and omg I don't want to be the left out loser in the corner who has no idea what they're talking about so I cope by eating my feelings and chewing on my hair.

At almost the very last second I gave in decided to join. NO big whoop, I wasn't going to get too involved, I just wanted to be kinda sorta in the loop.


So the night before the draft, I rested my head upon my pillow and drifted off to sleep without a care in the world. I probably dreamed about shoes and champagne, and canoeing on a river, and bubble gum. It was a solid sleep.


I got to work that morning and figured I'd do a tiny bit of research to see who I should select for my team- The Draft was at 7pm.


And I got to the first website and promptly freaked the fuck out.


Because this shit is seriously, seriously involved. One of the first tidbits of advice I came across was something like this: 'NEVER BE LATE FOR THE DRAFT. Would you show up late to a job interview? Of course not- and THE DRAFT is more important than any job interview, so be on time.'


Ever heard of a Sleeper?


Welp, I hadn't.


I felt lost and out of control and suddenly very at risk to become a loser, THE loser.


And so I did what came naturally to me, I became completely and totally obsessed.


I had approximately ten hours from the time I became fixated on fantasy football until the auction style draft. Ten hours to learn everything about players, team, and the rules. And I was starting with absolutely nothing, so I was essentially screwed.

Let me tell you, people are fucking unreal about this stuff. It means more to them than their real lives. THEY DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE REAL LIVES.  I don't know how I'm going to manage this one team and we're talking MULTIPLE TEAMS for a lot of these guys.


When I left work at 5 pm the day of the draft, I was armed with a belly full of panic and a stack of post it notes with random names and tidbits of wisdom scrawled all over them. my plan was to rush home and make CHARTS and nonchalantly pump Manfriend for information.


Five minutes after arriving home, I'm certain that he wanted to kill me. I was already half a beer deep and I could not sit still. My eyes were darting around. Post its were everywhere. I'm surprised he didn't just strangle me there to put my out of my misery.


Manfriend tried to keep reminding me that it's "Just for fun!" to which I wailed "I WON'T HAVE FUN IF I'M A LOSER!!!!"

Which, is obviously true. I don't really partake in things I'm not good at. I know that sounds pretty pathetic, but I mean, why would I? I try everything and then continue doing the things I found myself to excel at because they're the most enjoyable for me. Hence, not playing video games.

About an hour before the draft I was left home alone so Manfriend cold procure another computer and a six pack. For me. To ease my nerves. And because he honestly couldn't stand to be around my ridiculous stress level anymore. Easy for him, he actually watches the games!

AMIRIGHT?!

Anyway, in case you were wondering, the draft went fine. I played it pretty conservative with the fake-money auction, which is in stark contrast to real life where I throw my money everywhere except in a savings account and spread it as thinly as possible to insure I get the most possible cheap thrills. I actually got pretty drunk and deeply regretted it the entire next day at work. I also got most of the players I had my heart set on and it was OBVIOUS that I'd done my homework more than anyone else.

To me, at least.

I will declare myself the FANTASY FOOTBALL QUEEN if all goes according to my master plan.

Stand by.

XO Sara

a sucker.

I'm a sucker.


Not gullible, not common-sense challenged, not afraid in any way of confrontation.


A sucker.


I'm an advertiser's dream. Short of buying things off of the TV and texting 'match' to 4469 or whatever that gimmick text-messaging scam is, I'm not a hard sell. If I see Taylor Swift singing her heart out while wearing some Covergirl lipstick, I will google the shit out of it until I find the exact shade of lipstick. The color may look like shit on me, but by then it's too late because by then I've already let my imagination run rampant and seen myself up on stage, crooning to a jam-packed stadium of adoring fans, and BY GOD if I'm not there yet, that LIPSTICK will nudge me the rest of the way.

Right?

I know that I'm not Taylor Swift, and I really have no desire to be famous,  sing in front of thousands of people,  or even be blonde; I genuinely like being a brunette, for all intents and purposes. But the picture of it all, the entire scene laid out that way and the hint of a promise that I could have it all, it reaches out and snatches me from the doldrums of my significantly less glamour-filled life. Hey, at least I can wear the same lipstick though, that's something. So I'll go to five different stores just to find it, because I've obviously got nothing better to do, like the dishes, or exercise, or figureout what I actually DO have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding at in the long-run.

Sucker.

When a Target commercial comes on, I will, I kid you not,  SHUSH the other people in the room. Even if I'm a guest in their home. They don't even say anything in Target commercials, I swear it's always just some cheerfully covered Beatles song or something. But Target sells me the idea of a squeaky-clean life, where everything exists in coordinating colors, and filth and rubbish and ugly carpet don't exist. Um, duh. OF COURSE I'm listening when they're talking. Target doesn't have bad hair days, they've got every product under the sun to make your hair look just like their models. Target doesn't have piles of clutter and old mail that no one bothered to organize, it has file folders and office organizers.

Etc, etc, every other GD store with a commercial in print, radio, or television.

I know it's not feasible, that nothing I can buy will give me exactly what I want- but they make it seem that easy, so WHY CAN'T IT JUST BE THAT SIMPLE? I just need this or that and everything will be peachy fucking keen.


Sucker.


And finally, when I get in front of the boob tube and there's a show on with meaningless petty drama, pretty dresses, and women who feel entitled to fame because they have too much money and wear too much makeup- I will stare glassy-eyed until the conclusion of the show. I don't know these people, nor do I want to ever meet them. But it's REALLY hard not to get sucked into what they think is crucially important for an hour. Because honestly, their stupid problems make me feel better, and they're supposed to be the ones who have it ALL.

Which is why I'm addicted to Big Rich Texas- where the biggest concern on any given day is who is breaking the rules at the country club and who's daughter has an inappropriate tattoo.

TIME WASTER

I will watch the show and then I will NEED to know more. I will find out when the show is on. I will record it. I will walk away when it's all said and done feeling worse about humanity and also about myself for getting so involved. I will vow to never do it again and the moment some similar shit show display of life lived on the shallow end pops up in front of me, I won't be able to look away.


Because I am a sucker.



And you know what, all of this is responsible in large part, for why I practically never turn on the TV by choice.

Xo Sare

it's raining grapefruits.

Over a month ago now, I, in my infinite wisdom, purchased a twenty pound bag of grapefruit.

A sane person might ask why, why, one would ever think it was a smart idea to purchase that volume of grapefruit?

A month ago I would have argued the logic until I was blue in the face and, in my own mind, come out the clear winner, no matter what.

Not anymore.


You see, a month ago grapefruits were my favorite fruit.


Winter is the time of year this citrus crop is in full swing, and it's a ray of light onto my otherwise dismal cold weather existence. For the majority of this particular winter, I would buy grapefruits by the handful, two or three at a time, maybe a five-pound bag here or there. But, they're dirt cheap in the winter, and my waning budget won out that day, I went for the twenty pounder because it was six dollars and my god am I a sucker for a bargain.  


That's a fuckload of grapefruit.


But, I figured, I eat one for breakfast almost every morning already, they keep for a relatively long time, they're delightful and delicious, good for you, and why the hell not?

So, I embarked on a solitary journey. Me and my mission to consume twenty pounds of citrus before it becomes too mushy and disgusting for even I to deem edible.


Why do I get so much enjoyment out of a food that requires at least two utensils and a four-part process to consume? Some sick, wrong, part of me actually enjoys working for my food. So, I don't mind at all the necessity of a detailed preparation before the enjoyment portion of my morning meal. I quite like cutting the fruit in half and outlining each triangle portion with a knife, to make removal less arduous. Aside from chop sticks, the grapefruit spoon is my favorite utensil. A single fruit, designated its own human eating mechanism. Now that's status.


It's a dignified fruit. One for sitting down, actually having a meal that can't be scarfed amid traffic and slammed breaks and mascara application during the morning commute. This is a now sit down and read the paper and concentrate on this one task-at-hand hand food, and I respect it. For all my crazy and hurry and rush, I respect a goddamn fruit for forcing me to slow down and enjoy something, maybe just one thing, before letting the rest of the day get the better of me.


I fully realize that grapefruit is larely consumed by the elderly, who actually have the time to sit down and read the paper because they don't have shit to do other than go play bridge and watch the news, but maybe that's part of why I like it. My grandparents eat grapefruit frequently, with them even breakfast is a sit-down affair. As a child I waited impatiently for the day that I would be allowed to cut my own grapefruit, side-by-side with my Papa and help him with the crossword. I'd try to be like him and enjoy slightly bitter flavor instead of dousing mine with sugar. I still need sugar, so I guess I'm still not an adult quite yet. Maybe it's the nostalgia it stirs in me that keeps me coming back to such a formidable foe.


Whatever the reason, I've done what I always do with things I feel any affinity toward. I live and breathe the shit out of the thing until I'm so sick of it I never want to see it again. I do it with songs, listening to a tune on repeat until I know every nuance and pause to the point of complete familiarity and in time disgust, clothes, books, foods, drinks, and even grapefruit.  Now that I've been forced, in a race against their fragile produce expiration date, to consume grapefruit as if they're actually going out of style, I get absolutely no enjoyment out of eating them anymore. The people at work probably think I'm on some fucked-up diet where I'm only allowed to eat grapefruit for every meal.


IT'S LIKE THEY KEEP MULTIPLYING.


I'm not even close to the bottom of the bag, and I'm so sick of grapefruit I could start throwing them though car windows.

So, despite my otherwise not-very-good-at-sharing personality, I'm making this announcement:


FREE GRAPEFRUIT FOR EVERYONE!


You want them? Come and get them.



XO Sara

the end of an era.

Sometimes, I am the worst.

Or, as I prefer to look at it, sometimes the winter harrasses me to the point of near workplace panic attacks and complete seasonal bitchiness. To cope, I get wine-drunk on a Monday night, thanks to Lucky Duck reisling and forgetting to eat anything other than a Marie Calender frozen mac'n cheese all day, with my friends when I'm supposed to be studying for the GRE test that happens in less than two weeks and cost a cool $160.

This NEVER would have happened in the summer.

So yeah, that's what's up with me.

I'm wearing a silky shirt right now, begrudingly pulled in desperation this morning from the dwindling supply of clean shirts in my closet. It's at bare minimum two sizes too large for me and a ghastly shade of dark greenish blue. Slim pickings.  It's making me feel like a cross between a circus tent and a goddamn douglas fir. Not pretty.

Pretty much the only truly productive thing I've done today is doodle these creepy little faces into the corner of the schedule I made for myself regarding all things work related this week. 

If you look really hard, you'll find that I'm not very ambitious about my time management skills.

Meh.

However, if today's a bad day due to a hangover riddled with guilt, then yesterday was even worse due to trying to process too much neurotic thinking about the past at once, coming out of an intense fight with Manfriend on Sunday evening, and trying futiley to rationalize to myself why it's perfectly fine that I'm such an asshole and everyone else can fuck right off. I felt dizzy and disoriented all day. Yeahhhhhhh, one of those.

Settle in and let me tell you a little tale of my woes.  

When I was 21 years old I started smoking cigarettes to look cool. I was/am a fucking idiot. I was a bartender living on a white-trash island of drunks in Lake Erie and I wanted to be a part of that community sooooo bad.. because, well, it was fun, really, really fun. I also needed an excuse to spend more time with a boy I thought was cute, and he smoked cigarettes, Camel wides, which is just so fitting. 

I started puffing away when I was drunk and could bum one off of someone. Or when I needed a break at work, I'd go sit out back on the steps and puff away by myself for a blessed few moments of peace. And then I started buying my own packs before too long, and it was allllllll downhill from there. I didn't even know how to inhale for probably three months after this whole ordeal started and I definitely didn't realize what an ass-hat I was about it until I was actually already inhaling and hooked....On the boy, Terry, and the cancer sticks, which are probably honestly the two most unhealthy things I've ever done to myself in my life.  He's a story for another time, or more aptly, never.

What kind of intelligent, relatively healthy, active 21 year old just ::picks up:: smoking like a goddamn hobby? The kind that apparently also likes to tolerate being treated like shit and made to feel worthless!

Whatever, like I said earlier,  I'm an idiot. Chugging forward:

Three years later, Summer of 2010. Now those were times.

At this point, I've matured,  I've moved on, I'm in an alarmingly healthy relationship with my best friend, but yup, you guessed it, I'm still fucking puffing away on those cancer sticks. Which Manfriend despises, causing some serious dissent in otherwise the most blissful of times.

So I was basically on a cigarette diet, I'd shaved it down to about one pack a week. I mostly never smoked around Manfriend- I was half-assedly trying, I'd go two or three days without a smoke break, no big deal.

And then the bottom dropped out.

The way I remember it, I made a few drunken allusions towards trying to inxnay the abithay. Then one day I got an email from Manfriend, saying he was quitting chewing tobacco, hence, I would be expected to stop smoking. Like I mentioned I was going to do anyway... multiple times... without doing so whatsoever.

'FUCK,' I thought to myself, 'I'm not ready!" But I decided despite feeling pushed into this, I would try. For manfriend. Certainly not for my own health, or the way people percieve me, or financial reasons. I was doing it for him and everything was GREAT and it was hearts, stars, and horseshoes, clovers, and blue moons, pots of gold and rainbows, and the red balloon. Peachy fucking keen. For about three weeks.  

And then I got drunk. It was wasn't that big of a deal if one of my friends gave me a cigarette. I wasn't buying them. It was harmless, just one. It's never really just one.

I started slipping up more and more and feeling kind of deceptive and sneaky, but not in the cool Sydney Bristow, spy sense, in the guilty, I'm-a-fucking-liar, letting-my-manfriend-down sense.

And then I started to feel really resentful, which is kind of a scary feeling because it's like a hybrid of feeling angry and guilty and entitled at the same time. I started thinking along the lines of, "Manfriend is trying to change me, and I'm making all these sacrifices like, like smoking! Which is a part of me, OMG I"M LOSING MYSELF!"

This was my thought stream:

OMG I NEED A CIGARETTE-> I can't have one because of Manfriend->  ahhh, smoking-> part of me-> manfriend wants to change me-> OMG I'M LOSING MYSELF-> AW HELL NAW.

And then in my mind I'd have the GIRL POWER head-bob going and dust off the rhetoric from my women's stuides degree and get all  "Ain't no man gonna change me," empowerment shit.

This went on for several months.

And on Sunday, it so happens, I got caught. Without a shadow of a doubt, busted. I rolled home from following my friend Erin to the car dealership to drop off her car and driving her home, and apparently guilt wasn't the only thing I reeked of.

Erin and I had parked in the parking lot of a Japanese Hibachi Grill, GOTTEN OUT OF MY CAR and sat on the curb IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER so that we wouldn't smell like smoke.

It didn't work because Manfriend is a detective.

Anyway, without going into all the details of our fight in which I honest-to-god started to pack a bag to drive to my house for the night, I've come to one conclusion.

I think I really have to quit now.

HEAVY sigh.

BUTTTTTTTT... I think I've finally figured out a way to justify it to myself. Maybe Manfriend wanted to quit together because we both had/have habits that are going to kill us, make us smell nasty, make us look ugly, and just generally bring our demise. I'm not even being dramatic people, DEMISE. I love Manfriend and he loves me and why shouldn't we try to be our best selves for each other? If you think about it, the prospect of wanting to be around for the person you love for the duration really isn't too much to ask. 

PLUS, Manfriend isn't some The Hamburglar character in a weird striped jumpsuit trying to steal me from myself, Terry was.  And I will be damned if I spend another day doing something that was his in the first place.

So, fine, I'll stop trying to make my lungs look skinnier by filling them with tar until they turn black, even if it's every now and then, on the sly, and maybe I'll get addicted to something healthier, like exercise*. After all, I do need some coping mechanism, I've got an incredibly addictive personality. It's why I don't gamble.

*(but let's not push it, I feel I've made enough leaps in the health and wellness portion of my life for one week).

Cheers to my renewed interest in my own health!

XO Sare