An Afternoon in the Life: Kat's Sunday Conversation

I give you an unprecedented look into my personal journal. I know, I know. It is nary a time that a girl lets anyone read her personal journal. However, I want to let everyone know how sad my life has become, thus I give you last night's entry in it's entirety:

"11/6/04
So here's my question. I'm reading Sports Illustrated right now before bed, and I'm reading about Ben Rothlisberger (who isn't the greatest looking QB, but he's not that bad.) What would of happened with him had Mularkey still had been the Steelers' offensive coordinator? Would Mularkey draft Rothlisberger? I think so. Would he be as successful under Mularkey? I don't think so...but then again, isn't Rothlisberger pretty mobile and good at thinking on the fly while Bledsoe isn't anymore?"

That was my journal entry. That is not a rare journal entry for me. I remember one journal entry from last year that asked if anyone else besides me was weirded out by the fact that Billick and Belichick have similar names and if you squint or look really really quickly, they kind of look the same, but not really.

Yeah.

I have no life.

And I will not be getting one anytime soon. I just spent all weekend at a campus activities conference in Marlboro, MA. Now, these gatherings are filled with colleges the size of a small suburban high school with more corn stalks around them than students. These students and advisors want to attract talent to come perform at their school, and a lot of the time, because of their location, their only option is to hire smaller acts through campus promoters, who in turn, feature their top acts at this conference.

Then you have us, Boston University. Promoters saw my polo shirt and literally dragged me by my sleeve over to their booths, trampling over some poor student chair from Tiny Little New England College to stuff my arms with their promotional materials. "Boston University! We love you. Let me give you this DVD of my new band/comedian/really-bad-hypnotist." (I hate hypnotists.) I'm like, "Uh, sure, okay." The double-edged sword of working for a name school: everyone wants you. And when I say everyone, I mean promoters. Not men. Unfortunately.

Speaking of men, I'm going to make another plea to the male population of Boston: I'm very fun to watch football with, thus why you should date me. Example: they just showed a clip of the Broncos-Texans game, and the touchdown by Kyle Johnson where he finished it off with a little Western-like gallop jig. I turned to Caitlin, and rather dryly commented, "Ride 'em cowboy. Yee-haw."

These end-zone dances are getting a bit...elaborate? I admit to having one of the primary offenders, Terell Owens as the key to both of my fantasy football teams. I also admit that end-zone dances don't phase me or make me outraged, but that is probably because I'm of the generation who grew up with "Prime Time" in his...well, prime. My sister, as a little kid, thought Deion Sanders was cool because he danced. Back in 1995, when she was 8 and I was 13, we used to emulate the Deion dance--hop ball change to one side, hop ball change to the other.

Now on a completely unrelated note: They just showed clips from the Seahawks-Niners game (which the poor poor desolate Niners lost), and Greg Gumbel just commented, "Shawn Alexander had another awesome day." Having a "I-need-to-take-a-month-off-and-sleep-to-recover-from-the-past-five-years" moment and not recalling if I had him on one of my fantasy teams, I wondered aloud, "Am I sitting on Shawn Alexander?" Caitlin turned to me and said, "Ummm...." I looked at her worried face and calmed her, "On my fantasy team." Caitlin sighed. "Oh...I was going to say you've really lost it because you're sitting on the couch." (I didn't have Shawn Alexander, I had Stephen Alexander of the Lions.)

Okay, so I was wrong about my statements earlier in the season where I said that Doug Flutie should start over Drew Brees, and that the Chargers will never be super again. Um...they're proving me wrong on a weekly basis now. And Drew Brees is actually cute. My new question is, have the San Diego radio stations broken out the Super Chargers song yet? I sing that song in my head every single time the Chargers are mentioned. It was that ingrained in my brain during that whole lead-up to Super Bowl XXIX...which, if I haven't mentioned before, will be 10 years old this January. A whole decade ago. My Super Bowl XXIX sweatshirt (which I wear to bed still) is 10 years old. This freaks the heck out of me.

The Pats just beat the Rams. The Bills beat the Jets earlier today. The Niners lost miserably. Why can't all three of my teams win? Two out of three isn't bad, but the Niners need to step it up. According to various reports over the past few days, Kevin Barlow and Fred Beasley agree with me. But they're placing the blame on the wrong people. Don't blame each other, Niners--blame your front office. Oh, you can't, they pay you.

I will wrap this up--dinner and law reading awaits--but I would be remiss if I left the previous entry without a follow-up. I wrote that entry ("Why I Moved to Boston") at 2am after returning home from working Game 6 of the Red Sox-Yankees American League Championship Series. I honestly didn't think the Red Sox would win, so I knew I had to express the unique hopefulness of Boston before it came crashing down. I remember when the Bills made the Super Bowl when I was in elementary school and middle school, and I remember the pep rallies in school and the parties my friends and family would have, and how my mom and I went to Ames (a discount department store) to get Bills clothing to wear during the week leading up to the game. This was exactly like that, but magnified a hundred times.

If I will remember anything for the rest of my life, I will remember two feelings: I will remember being so nervous during Game 7 that I refused to move from the raffle table. (We had raffles during Game 7 of the ALCS and Game 4 of the World Series as part of our "alternative celebration" plans.) I was forced to go in during the bottom of the ninth because I had to start the raffle immediately after the game ended. I was facing the crowd, and at the last out, there was a collective leap and a huge blur in front of my eyes. It was the most amazing feeling ever, where so many people were so excited and then the collective thud when everyone's jump fell to the crowd. I can't explain it any better than that.

And then there was a week later, on Nickerson Field. By this point, I was bitter and cold, hoping that they would just win because I didn't want to have to sit out here another night and deal with the DJ and the tables and the catering--but then again it was the bottom of the ninth. And Mike, Danielle and I were standing in a line on the edge of the track facing the big screen. One of us said, "Can you believe this might actually happen?" We just watched, and watched and then all of a sudden Foulke threw it to first and the whole field either fell to their knees or hugged the person next to them or jumped in the air. All I remember is seeing at the screen and field and squealing, "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, they just won the World Series!" and Danielle, Mike and I looked at each other and were just floored. I couldn't think, "Don't let the kids leave for Kenmore." I couldn't think period. At that moment, the past three weeks of getting extensions on my papers and falling behind in life in general so I could show this on campus and make it something other than just watching it on TV for these students was all worth it. It was the most amazing experience of my life.

The year I moved to Boston was the year the Red Sox won the World Series. That's it--I'm here for life.