Out of Miasma

My title today is a little bit of a pun; the definition of miasma includes "a heavy vaporous emanation or atmosphere," while the pronunciation sounds like "my asthma." (Both words comes from the Greek.) And ever since I was diagnosed with asthma back in my teens, it's often felt like my lungs were filled with a heavy vaporous atmosphere. When I have an attack, I struggle to get air in and out of my lungs; my breathing becomes shallow and it feels like the air I do take in doesn't have any of that tasty oxygen that we're all addicted to.

There are three things that can set off my asthma: heat, humidity, and exercise. The latter has always been a problem, especially because I was never very athletic as a child or teen, unless there was a pool involved. I also discovered in my twenties, thanks to a stress test that ended with me passing out, that I have a little quirk that leads to a huge drop in blood pressure whenever my heart rate gets really elevated. In other words, if my heart starts beating really fast, I pass out. This is an autonomic nervous system thing, unrelated to the asthma, because a really interesting medical test involving a tilt table and some adrenaline got the same result. I don't have to take any meds for this, but as a result I'm really aware of any light-headedness and haven't had any fainting episodes in the past 15 years or so.

You can see, though, that I've had plenty of reasons not to take up running. Exercise heavily, and I start wheezing. Exercise really heavily, and I could pass out. Add to that a history of wonky knees, and I just never wanted to go there, not while I could swim or bike or do tae kwon do instead. Still, I was frustrated by my lack of stamina, especially while fighting. Even when I take my wheezer (ie, asthma meds), I struggle with my breathing. I wasn't sure how I could change this.

A few months back, I found inspiration in an unlikely place. I was writing something new for National Novel Writing Month, involving a character who overcomes her shyness, in part by getting involved with a fundraising triathlon. While I was researching what might be appropriate times for teens to run a 5K, I came across a website whose title was interesting: the Couch to 5K Training Plan. I looked through it and it looked like something I could do. The first week of training only involved running for 60 seconds at a time. I thought I could do it, but did I want to? That's when things got a little weird. You know how some writers say their characters get away from them and do things they don't expect? Well, mine never really do that, but Annabel (my character) was posing me a challenge. As I kept writing her story, it was like she kept saying, "If I can get over my shyness to make friends, get involved at school, and even get a boyfriend, how come you can't try running?"

I decided I could try. I started the Couch to 5K program in December and took it slowly, a couple weeks on each level. I started out using a kitchen timer to track my intervals and eventually got a cool GPS watch to tell me my pace and distance. I ran two or three times a week throughout the winter—yes, even in cold and snow—and eventually managed to put together a three mile run. TSU and I registered for a 5K race that I knew would be on flat terrain, and on a cloudy Saturday morning we drove out to beautiful Belle Isle. And this is what happened:

Yeah, that's me running. Actually, that's the end of the 5K, past the 3-mile mark and heading into the home stretch. At this point I could see the finish line and the timer. I finished in 32:33 (well under my goal time of 35 minutes), but more important, I ran a steady pace the whole time, a constant 10:30 minute mile. I felt pretty good when I finished—more than good, pretty super awesome.

I'm still running a couple times a week, and will probably try another 5K soon. Am I a runner? I don't think so, because I don't really enjoy running and I'm not very good at it. It's helped my stamina a little bit, but I'm never going to attempt a marathon (my ankles ache to think about it). I'm just a person who runs and is stubborn enough not to give up. Thanks, Annabel.

There's no pleasing some people....

It's January and football season is almost over {sob}, so of course I'm going to talk about baseball. I wouldn't call myself a rabid baseball fan, but I enjoy attending games and I usually keep up with what the Tigers are doing. The year of their last championship, 1984, I attended around a dozen games in person, and still remember watching Jack Morris throw a no-hitter on TV. I'm not obsessed with statistics, but I do like looking at numbers and thinking about historical debates. So I consider myself more than a casual fan, and thus just as qualified as any other internet geek to comment on the recent Hall of Fame induction of Rickey Henderson.

Now, as long as I can remember following baseball, I can remember Rickey Henderson. He began playing in 1979 and soon became known for his base-stealing ability. I liked watching him, not only for his amazing speed, but because he always looked like he was having fun out there. He played until he was 44 (he couldn't have needed the money, with over $40 mil in career salary), and even spent part of the 2001 season in the minors, hoping to come back to the Big Leagues. That year, when he was just a year younger than I am now, he played 123 games for the Padres and stole 25 bases.

If you look at his career statistics, they're amazing: #1 all-time in stolen bases (1,406) and runs scored (2,295). Second all-time in walks (2,190), 21st in hits (3,055); he had some power to go along with his speed, too, for his 297 home runs rank in the top 125 all-time. His 81 leadoff homers are baseball's all-time best, too. He was no slouch in the field, winning a Gold Glove, and won the AL MVP in 1990. He was a 10-time All-Star and, of course, holds the single-season records for stolen bases (130).

So it was no surprise that Henderson made it into the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He needed 75% of the vote from the Baseball Writers' Association of America, and got 94.8%, or 511 of 539 possible votes. Which made me wonder: what were those other 28 people thinking? Henderson was a bit outspoken (often confusingly so), but there's no taint of scandal surrounding him. If baseball's all-time leader in stolen bases and runs isn't a no-brainer for the Hall of Fame, what is? What else do they need to see?

"I'm sorry, Rickey, but I don't vote on the first date."
"I'm sorry, Rickey, but your teams only went 2-of-3 in the World Series."
"I'm sorry, Rickey, but you didn't prevent the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake."
"I'm sorry, Rickey, but I can't vote for anyone with an unnecessary 'e' in his name."

I guess some folks just can't be satisfied.

Sorry, Lions Fans!

[Takes Official NFL-Licensed Detroit Lions Paper Bag off head]

As I'm sure any of you NFL fans already know, this year my Detroit Lions did what many said could never be done: they finished the season winless, with a record of 0-16. They even made this monumental feat look easy. A couple of times they had a lead going into the fourth quarter, but each time they managed to screw something up and give the game away. Now, you may think this winless season is the fault of the players, the coaching staff (most of whom have been fired), and horrible management of the gladly-departed Matt Millen, but I'm here to confess: it's all my fault.

I wasn't always a Lions fan, of course. I loved Michigan football from the time I was a little girl, but I wasn't really aware of the NFL until 1977, the year I collected team pencils from the vending machine at my middle school. Through careful hoarding of quarters and shrewd trading, I managed to get all 28 teams, even the Baltimore Colts, Los Angeles Rams, St. Louis Cardinals, and Houston Oilers. (I'd hoped to show a picture of my pencils, but they're missing from my school treasures box. I wonder what they'd fetch on eBay.) I didn't really pay attention to the Lions until the 1980 season, when they started with four straight wins and a couple of the players recorded their own version of Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." Of course, the Lions were the ones who eventually bit the dust that season, missing the playoffs by virtue of tiebreaker. Still, they were on my radar, even though I didn't get much chance to watch them, not being the one in control of the clicker.

It was only in the 1990s that I became a faithful follower of the Lions. Even if the team was stinking up the field, you could always watch Barry Sanders, arguably the greatest running back ever. And actually, the 1990s were good for the Lions: they went to the playoffs six times, even though they only won a single playoff game (against the Cowboys, woo hoo!). But then I moved to London and lost track of the team. I ask you, is it coincidence or karma that the year after I left, Barry Sanders surprised the NFL by retiring early and immediately taking a vacation in London? Then, while I still wasn't paying attention, the owners hired a former sports announcer with no executive experience to run the team. Since I returned home in 2002, the Lions have punished me for my neglect by posting a record of 29-83, the worst in the league. It's like they're saying, "Oh, so now you're watching? Well, we'll only win one of every four games."

I'm not sure what I've done now, because owner William Clay Ford refuses to purge the management and seek the best in the NFL to take over the team, as Mike Illitch did with the Tigers after their record-setting 119-loss season in 2003. Three years later the Tigers were in the World Series; I doubt we'll see the Lions anywhere close to the Super Bowl in 2012. Maybe I should've bought a Ford Escape for my last car.

Whew. I'm glad I got that off my chest. Now, how long is it until Draft Day?*

*115 Days, 21 hours, and counting.

Finally a champ!

Most of you probably know I'm a huge football fan. I bleed Maize 'n' Blue (and there was a LOT of bleeding this year), and I've already written about how being a Lions fan has prepared me for the publication search. Sunday afternoon means my workroom TV is turned to NFL football. When we were living in London, I listened to Michigan games live on the internet, and taped Monday Night Football so I could get my fix. I subscribed to the premium sports channel in January just so I could watch the playoffs and Super Bowl. I even turned a trip to Scotland into an opportunity for football, taking the boys to an NFL Europe game. (Watching football in a soccer stadium half-full of Scottish fans is a mind-trip deserving of its own post someday, but not now.)

The final sign I've gone completely cuckoo for football was joining a fantasy football league a few years back. You may have heard something about fantasy football—it's gone from a weird hobby to a real money-making business over the past few years—but if not, I'll just explain the basics. Essentially, you pick your own "team" made of the basic positions: quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, kicker, and defense. Your players can come from a dozen different teams if you like. When they play, you score points for each yard gained, touchdown scored, or fumble recovered (or lost). So every week, you see whether your players earned more points than your opponents'. Based on your performance head-to-head, you get wins and losses; you even have playoffs during the last two or three games of the year.

It sounds crazy, but the NFL loves it—it gives fans who might ignore the sport once their team is out of it* a reason to keep watching. I now pay more attention to all games, hoping to see how my players are doing. And I seemed to do okay with my picks. In my first year, 2005, I finished third in the regular season (thanks to Pats QB Tom Brady and the Indianapolis defense), but I tanked in the playoffs and finished last in the league. In 2006, I again finished third in the regular season (Brady again), and third in the playoffs. Last year, I finished first in the regular season (Indy QB Peyton Manning), but tanked in the playoffs, again finishing third.

But finally, in a year when I got no pleasure from local teams, my fantasy team came through. I got the jackpot #1 draft pick, so I not only got Vikings RB Adrian Peterson, but also Peyton Manning and Bears RB Matt Forte. (Consistent RBs are the key to fantasy success, I've decided.) With some luck in the draft, and some smart pickups, I finished first in the regular season. I squeaked by in my first playoff matchup, and only needed 8 points from the Monday night game to win the championship. I spent last night glued to the Chicago-Green Bay game, muttering "rush Forte!" through three quarters as Chicago's offense went nowhere. Finally, they listened, Forte broke through for some yardage, and eventually scored a TD. And I am now a fantasy football champion.

So I'm happy, even if the whole idea is a bit sad. (Even sadder: I'm trying not to think about how there's only one more month before football is done and I must endure the gloom of winter with nothing but hockey and basketball.)

*Not me, I was still listening to the Lions on the radio Sunday, hoping they might get that first win. They lost. So who's more pathetic, them or me?

Oh say, why can't I N-B-See?

Luckily for my sleep habits and the fast-approaching school year, the Olympics are over. No more staying up til midnight waiting for gymnastics scores or rain-delayed beach volleyball finals. All the spectacle and pageantry are over, and it was a great two weeks of sport. You'd have to be a total grumpus not to be thrilled by Michael Phelps's eight golds and Usain Bolt's sprinting records, or to be moved by the stories of the South African amputee who competed in the open-water swim, or the 33-year-old gymnast who moved from Uzbekistan to Germany to get cancer treatment for her son, and won a medal against competition half her age. The Olympics are full of great stories like these.

However.

I am still quite displeased with much of NBC-Universal's coverage of the games. I understand that gymnastics, swimming, and track score high ratings, and that's why they get the main focus of the prime-time coverage. And this year satellite users actually got a button that took them to a menu where they could choose from several channels that had coverage (something only eight years behind, and vastly inferior to, technology that the BBC used in Sydney). And yet, with all those channels, I didn't see a single taekwondo match on the air. And this, after the Today show showed profiles of the Lopez family, who are the first three siblings to all medal at the same Olympic games.

Apparently, NBC has time to show four replays of every dive in preliminary competition, and a dozen replays of Bolt or Phelps, but not even one two-minute round of a TKD medal match? They weren't even pretending this year to show most events live, so they couldn't edit the competition to give us a little more breadth of coverage? On Saturday afternoon, they figured people would rather watch table tennis, rhythmic gymnastics*, and synchronized swimming** for three hours than see a single, 6-minute TKD match. Why? It wasn't because Americans were challenging for medals in those events, because they weren't. What world are the NBC producers living in? Certainly not the one where mixed martial arts shows draw high ratings and pay-per-view audiences, or the one where 1600 competitors of all ages (and both sexes) competed at a national TKD tournament not two months ago. Sure, TKD bouts on an Olympic level can be a bit slow, because the competitors are so good, but it can't be any worse than the Olympic boxing match I saw last week where the competitors grabbed and held and threw each other to the ground instead of actually throwing punches.

NBC seems totally oblivious to this, as shown in their coverage of the athletes during the Closing Ceremonies. They showed the Lopez family again, saying they medalled, but I had no idea what medals they actually earned, since NBC didn't show them. Then they focused on Bryan Clay, the American gold medalist in the decathlon, traditionally called the "the world's greatest athlete." The announcer said he seemed to be overshadowed in these games by athletes like Phelps and Bolt, and I shouted "DUH!" at the televison, for NBC blew off the first day of decathlon competition, moving it from primetime to late night, and then devoted about two minutes to each of Clay's second-day events before showing the entirety of the last event, the 1500 meter run. But that night they showed most of the marathon live, because there's nothing as exciting as watching guys run through streets for two hours. (Hey, it was LIVE!)

So I guess I'm going to have to wait another four years to see world-class TKD on the television***. Maybe by London 2012 I can get digitally broadcast CBC, or BBC America will offer their own coverage. Or maybe NBC will give us real choice through satellite coverage. You never know, it could happen.

* I'm sure the ladies of rhythmic gymnastics work hard, but to me their "sport" looks like something better suited to the circus, not the Olympics. There's virtually no tumbling, so it's more like dance than gymnastics. (Don't get me started on the idea going around about adding Ballroom Dancing as an Olympic event.)
** And just to be totally inconsistent, I hate it when people make fun of synchro. I actually did this for a year in junior high, and it's very tough.
*** And also "Team Handball." I want to see this because I have no idea how it works. I'm envisioning a dozen guys on a squash-sized handball court. Do they tag team? Take turns hitting the ball? My mind boggles.

Olympic observations

I'm a little pressed for time lately—which may have something to do with the amount of Olympic competition I've been watching—so today's entry is a bit stream-of-consciousness, just things I've been wondering about while watching the Olympics.

On watching track events: I can't imagine working and training years and years and years, as many of these athletes do, and then having something go wrong (clipped hurdle, botched baton pass) in your event. How must it feel to be so close to achieving your dream, and then make a mistake? It's one thing to perform your best and lose, but to not even perform your best? I lost sleep before and after a simple state competition, overthinking every mistake; how much worse could it be for these Olympic athletes? I can't imagine. I guess the Olympics are a high reward, high risk event.

On watching gymnastics: Conversely, what must it be like to be 18 (like Nastia Liukin), or even 16 (like Shawn Johnson), and achieve your lifelong dream? I can only imagine how gratifying it would be to work hard, perform well, and win a gold, but then what? There's still three-quarters of your life to live. What do you find to do next? You can't really do the same thing but better, you've already got gold. So now what? Not a problem I'll ever have.

Also, if the Chinese did falsify birth records for some of their gymnastics competitors: Why? Did you really think you could get away with it? I guess if you head an authoritarian state, you probably did, but did you think about the loss of face if the truth came out? How terribly embarassing. I guess they did it (if they did it, which they probably did, if you looked at some of those girls) for the same reasons some athletes start doping: they just wanted to win too badly. I don't understand it, though; even if you win, wouldn't it feel hollow, because you cheated? And when you get found out ... ask Marion Jones whether it was worth it, when she only had those gold medals for only a few years.

On watching beach volleyball: Beach volleyball is awesome. How do they move so fast on the sand? How do they dig some of those spikes? How do they manage to return almost every serve? I love volleyball, even though I'm slow and can't jump high.

I wish I were tall.

Confessions of an Olympic Junkie

Oh, my blog posts will be short and few these next two weeks. Hi, my name is Diane, and I'm an Olympic junkie. I'll watch nearly anything if it's Olympic. Gymnastics? I love watching the tumbling and near-falls. Swimming? As a kid it was the sport featured in my gold-medal dreams, before I discovered I was short, slow, and klutzy. Diving? Hoo boy, look at 'em twist and tumble—and how do those 10-meter divers manage not to crap their pants every time they look down from the platform? And we haven't even started the track-and-field or taekwondo or archery or rowing competitions yet.

Thanks to the joy of TIVO, I don't have to watch all the commercials, all the "human interest" stories, all the replays and interviews. I don't have to stay up until 1:30 am to see the end of live competition. I don't have to procrastinate on Chapter 17 by writing in my blog....

Whoops! I think there are pretty horses jumping for gold! See you later!

If you tear it down, will they come?

So the other day we were headed to Canada and were detoured from the highway. They've got the roads shut down because they're rebuilding everything in order to provide a better "Gateway" to the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit and Windsor. Of course, being an MDOT project, the detour signs were completely useless and we ended up wandering around Detroit. This is not scary to us, as both of us worked downtown for at least ten years and know that the city's horrible rep is for the most part undeserved. (Unless you're talking about city politics, in which case it's worse than you've probably heard.) Anyway, our version of the detour took us to Trumbull Street, the home of Tiger Stadium, former home of Detroit's professional baseball club.

Now, I'm not a diehard baseball fan. I enjoy live games (and courtesy of my writer's flexible schedule, have accompanied my friend to Opening Day the past six years), and might watch an inning or two if I click by it on the TV, but more likely than not I'm can't tell you the Tigers' record on any given day. I'm not compelled to follow every move of the club or watch every game, as I am with Michigan football. Still, I have a certain fondness for the Tigers. The first local championship I ever witnessed was the Tigers' run in 1984. I actually went to over a dozen games at Tiger Stadium that year, in which they opened the season 35-5 and finished with 104 wins. I remember watching Jack Morris throw a no hitter (on the tiny 10-inch TV in my folks' kitchen), and I was actually at the stadium when the Tigers won their 100th game, making Sparky Anderson the first manager to hit that mark in both the American and the National Leagues. When the Tigers clinched that fourth victory in the World Series, I remember walking out from my apartment on campus and hearing people honking their car horns and cheering. (I also remember the overheated coverage of people in the city "rioting" over the championship. Sigh.)

In later years I was excited to see the Pistons, Red Wings, and Wolverines win championships, but the Tigers were my first experience with sports glory, so I have very fond memories regarding the team and Tiger Stadium. This made what we saw during our detour so sad: Tiger Stadium is being demolished.

Don't get me wrong. The new stadium, Comerica Park, is a lovely facility and has contributed to a revival of that part of the city. But it seems so wasteful to just tear down the old ball park. Baseball was first played at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull in 1896, and Tiger Stadium itself has been around in close to its present form since the late 1930s. After it closed following the 1999 season, however, the park has remained vacant. There is a group that is trying to redevelop the site, preserving at least the field, but it's not guaranteed that they will succeed. Seeing the left field wall come down seems like a blow against all the hopeful things people in this part of Michigan would like to see for the city of Detroit.

Life Lessons from the Lions

[Removes bag from head.] Hi, everyone. My name is Diane, and I'm a Detroit Lions fan. I can't help it; it's how I was raised. It's pretty miserable, being a Lions fan. During my lifetime (42 seasons), the Lions have won exactly one playoff game. (At least it was against the Cowboys.) They've only had 12 winning seasons, and four of those were before I was in kindergarten and knew what football was. Since 2001, the Puddytats have a scintillating record of 31-81, which I believe is the worst in the NFL. Bad coaching, bad draft picks, bad management, bad play—I've seen it all. Even the franchise can't ignore how bad they've been; their current marketing slogan for the season is "Claim a piece of the future" (... because we don't want you to think about the past).

So yes, the Lions suck. And yet, each fall Sunday I turn on the TV to watch. I pay attention to the draft, I read free agent reports in the paper, I believe the players when they say this year will be different. I love football, so why not switch my allegiance to a team with some chance of making the playoffs? Part of it is probably due to stubbornness. But part of it is also due to being a hopeless optimist. Each September, I really do believe that maybe they finally have the right coach/quarterback/defense to finally become a winning team. I often have to give up my delusions by October, but every season I hold out hope for something different.

This stubborn optimism is proving very useful as I seek publication for my creative writing. Here's the latest piece of bad news: a rejection of a picture book manuscript I've been working on for the last five or six years. This isn't what they call a "champagne rejection"—the kind where they turn you down, but praise your writing and invite you to try something different—but it's slightly better than a form letter. The editor made an effort to personalize the rejection, remembering the conference we both attended, and she didn't say the manuscript was unsuitable because it stunk.

So, I'm out of the playoffs for this season. Time to find another editor/publisher, take the field, and see how they like it. I'm a hopeless optimist. I'm a Lions fan, and I'm too stubborn to give up.

Why do I compete? ....

... because it feels so good when I stop. That's what I concluded today, my last day at Nationals, talking with my fellow adult competitors. I mean, is it really worth a week of sleep deprivation? (I've woken up earlier than planned every day this week, and I can't get back to sleep with my brain obsessing over past or future performances.) Is it really worth a week of upset stomach and nervous digestive system? (I'll spare you the gory details, but I had to force myself to eat this morning. I never have that problem.) Is athletic glory really worth it?

Well, I'm not sure. But after I finished competing this morning, I was the proud possessor of two bronze medals, as well as a rejuvenated appetite. I feel pretty good about it. I thought I performed my form about as well as I could; it didn't score as high as I'd hoped, but I still earned a medal, coming in third out of four competitors. Some of the kids on my team were in divisions with 20 or even 30 other competitors, so they weren't as fortunate. They all have a great attitude, and the team as a whole had a great tournament. A couple of golds, three silvers, and a over half a dozen bronzes, all coming back to Michigan. I'll be glad to be home, with some nice souvenirs to remember my week here in Madison.

You win some, you lose some ... TKD edition

So, I've had my first day of competition at the AAU Taekwondo Nationals. It's a huge event, with some 1500 competitors over six days, and I'll admit I was pretty nervous before competition started this morning. I was scheduled to appear at staging for sparring at 8:23 am, which sounds awfully early but since we're in Madison it was really more like 9:23 am (or that's what I tried to tell my body, anyway). The worst part about going into sparring competition is worrying about the bracket: how many people will be there? how many matches could I have to fight? will they really be the same age and size (they reserve the right to combine divisions, after all)? will my body hold out?

Things looked good at first. My division was only three people, and I was scheduled to receive the bye, which automatically put me in the gold-medal round. Only one fight, I thought. I can do that. So we were led out to our ring, where we proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. They started a group that was staged after us, while we continued to wait. And then they decided to combine another division into ours, which meant I had an opponent in the semi-final round. That would mean two fights to get a gold medal. Hmmm. So, a tougher row to hoe. My new opponent was older than me (not by a lot), a lower rank than me (although there's not really a big difference between new 2nd degree and a 1st degree), and lighter than me. However, she was also taller than me, and looked fitter overall. I thought I had a good chance to beat her. I had been training pretty hard, after all.

Fighting for two two-minute rounds doesn't sound that hard, does it? Well, don't believe that until you've tried it. The first minute is pretty easy, but then you start to get tired. You're trying to throw kicks, and they don't always connect. You have to move out of the way of your opponent's kicks. My opponent was pretty quick, and scored a few kicks on me. I managed to score a head shot (which is two points).

I think this photo is early in the second round (I'm on the right, in the blue corner). I was only down by two points, and she scored a kick on me but then I got another head shot. Unfortunately, that is when my asthma really started dragging me down. I had taken my wheezer (inhaler) when we first arrived at the ring, since it takes 20 minutes to work. But we didn't fight for at least another hour and a half. I didn't want to take another puff (taking too much can make your heart race), because I couldn't be sure it had worn off. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. In any case, I ran out of gas and couldn't make up the diffference. You win some, you lose some.

After all, even though I lost my only fight, I still ended up with a bronze medal. Other fighters in bigger divisions don't get that consolation. Although I wish I could have performed better, I still feel great about sticking with the training and actually going up for competition. I don't know that I'll try it again—I'm in the upper end of my age division, 35-44, and there's a big difference between mid-30s and mid-40s. But at least I gave it a shot. And if you had told me when I was a klutzy teenager that someday I would be a National Medalist, I wouldn't have believed you.

Oh, and on Friday I get another chance to compete for gold, in forms. So here's to persistence and good luck.

Knees, I'm not listening to you!

Despite what Boy says, my knees insist that I am getting old. Lately they've been emitting more snaps and crackles than a box of Rice Krispies; in fact, sometimes I stop and turn my head, trying to figure out where the baseball game is, because by the sound of it someone must've just whacked a huge home run.

I think my knees have chosen this month to begin talking to me because I've been training pretty seriously for AAU Taekwondo Nationals, which start next week. (Next week! Start panicking!) Almost every Friday night for the past five months, I've been working out with Olympian's Tournament Team to work on my sparring skills. This is a heavy-duty workout, and I'm lucky if I can make it through without wheezing like an old steam engine. (I'm 25 to 30 years older than most of the rest of the team, and asthmatic.) It can be tough, but it always feels great when we stop, and the kids motivate and inspire me.

For this week, the runup to the tournament, the team has been meeting mornings to run in a local park. My knees say, "No running!" My lungs say, "No running!" My doctor says, "Running isn't so good. Bicycling is much better." So I ride my bike the 2.5 miles to the park, and cycle around the paths while trying to avoid crashing into my teammates. Tuesday I didn't count, but I probably rode around 6 miles at the park. Today I did count, and I rode a little over 4 miles. (Plus I saw some kildeer in the nature trail adjacent to the park, and promptly scared them off.) I'm not sure my knees feel any better, but I'm surprised at how good I feel after I finish the ride. (Must be those endorphins I hear "athletes" sometimes experience. Oooh, am I an athlete now?)

So all next week I'll be away at Nationals (although I only compete on Tuesday and Friday), and I'm not sure if I'll be doing much posting in this blog. I'm not sure if I'll be doing much writing. (Chap. 16 still awaits!) Still, it's going to provide me with some great inspiration. Lately, a character has been sitting in the back of my mind, distracting me from Chap. 16. He's a nerd, like I was. He's a total klutz, like I was. He's going to discover taekwondo, like I did. I think we're going to have a lot of fun together ... but I have to make it through Nationals first. Wish me luck!

There should be a word for this.

I suspect there are many people in the Detroit area suffering along with me this morning. No, not because their beloved Red Wings lost last night, but because they stayed up way past their bedtime watching the game. Now, I usually have a practical approach to watching playoff sports. If the game lasts way past my bedtime, I stop watching and go to sleep. I tell myself, "If they win, I can watch the next game in the series. If they lose, I don't want to see that anyway." But last night the Red Wings could have clinched the Stanley Cup (and were 35 seconds away from doing so, grrrr), so I didn't want to miss that. So I stayed up through triple overtime and didn't get to bed until after 12:30 am.

So now it's the morning after. I got up at the usual time (6:45) and now I feel bleary. My head is vaguely achy, I need a nap, and caffeine is not dealing with my usual morning grumps. (Plus Gigi is mewing at me because she wants to play. But, being Gigi, she will not let me get close enough to play, thus forcing me to move--blech--if I want to shut her up.) Now, if I felt this way because I'd had a little too much to drink, I'd know what to call it. I think most of us are familiar with the term "hangover." (Thanks for the lesson, RAF Association Band of Hillingdon!) It's a dreadful state caused by over-indulgence and it's all our fault.

So what to call my current physical state? It's certainly dreadful, it's caused by over-indulgence (of the TV), and it's my own fault, as much as I'd like to blame Maxime what's-his-face for sending the game into overtime. Maybe I'll call it a bangover, because "BANG! The game is over! Now try to sleep, ha ha ha!" Nah, that doesn't really sound right. A gangover, because I was watching my gang until the game was over? Ehhhh.

I think I should leave any more attempts to coin new words to mornings when I'm not suffering from--whatever.