THE DAILY DIVERSION

YOU'RE NEVER TO OLD TO PLAY HOOKIE!

Yes, yesterday I played hookie from work. I woke up plenty early enough to call my boss's voicemail and tell him I wasn't going to make it in. It was really weak of me, but I wanted to stay in bed for a little while longer than usual. Try about 3 hours. I think I finally got out of bed around 10:30, but that may be stretching it. Yesterday was the first day that I've taken off since February, so it's not all that bad. I really enjoyed actually getting to see my fiancee for a little longer than just the few hours after work, before we go to bed.

Anyway, I've been pretty lazy overall, for the last few days. Obviously I haven't had any blog entries, but we haven't done much around the apartment either. We hung a few pictures but that's been about it.

So, without further delay, I'll get down to business...

Song of the Day #1: "Back Home" by Cold from A Different Kind of Pain

I've figured out that I hardly ever know why songs are in my head. Today is no different. I haven't listened to this album in a while. But I am this morning. It really is a pretty good album. This song is the lead track off of it, which is pretty good to start your day with.

My Dream: Okay, I actually had several dreams last night. This just happens to be the one that I woke up out of and wrote things down about. I was back in gym class at Greenwood with several of my buddies and some people that I know today. However, we're all our current ages. The coach decides we're going to have a round robin basketball tournament, while playing on a 9 foot goal. Back in the day, I used to be able to just crush it on a 9 foot goal, so the first thing I do is try to dunk the ball. I do it relatively easy, even though I've packed on a lot of pounds since then.

Everyone is absolutely amazed that I can even think about dunking the ball. I just kind of look at them, especially my friends who know I had some pretty good hops back in the day, and say "Man, this is nothing!"

The coach, who I never actually see, breaks up into three teams, Red, Blue, and Yellow. I'm on the blue team with my boys PT and Tate, a woman I work with currently, and another woman. Yes, we are playing coed games. As we're about to start our first game I see our opponents, the Red team, and I immediately think we have no chance. Their females look more athletic than ours, and they are taller than us. They have one of my friends on their team, Caudel, which kind of makes me sad. Being out of shape I decide to guard what looks like their weakest link. In my dream, PT had grown a couple of inches, so I let him guard Caudel.

We start out playing, and the first time I go to dribble, the ball just collapses. I look down and we're playing on grass. "Yeah, this is going to be fun! Not only am I way out of basketball playing shape,but we're playing on freaking grass, against a team that should own us?" I think to myself.

Well, it doesn't shake out that way. For some reason I just start dominating. Once I figure out how to dribble on the grass I start taking my guy to the rack, with authority, every time. He doesn't have a chance. I start posting him up, and as soon as I do, they double team me. That semi-works, but I'm still scoring, so they triple-team me. Now I start moving out a little bit and begin knocking down jumpers. Defensively, I'm just a beast. I can't count how many blocks and rebounds I have.

At one point in time I get in an argument with a set of twins they have on their team. I missed a shot, rebounded my own miss, then missed another shot. One of them rebounded it, and put it right back up. He finished with a weak-assed Laetner dunk. I started in "Man, you gotta take that shit back. You can't just put my shot right back up!"

The other twin, who didn't make the shot says "Well, the pros aren't doing it, so why should we?" I countered with "Well, you two aren't pros, and we're playing basketball, which was invented by James Naismith..."

Before I could finish, another guy on their team, a little short shit chimes in "Well, actually it was invented by..."

"Never mind! Nice dunk buddy! Let's just continue this game and get it over with!" I say. Diane gets the ball out front and dishes to me on the wing. One of the twins is guarding me, with the other waiting in the lane. I drive straight to the middle of the lane, where they both can get a little taste, and give them both a little two hand monster dunk, a la Charles Barkley. Ball game #1 over. I have no clue the score, but I think the other team only scored that once.

As soon as that game is over the yellow team comes on the court. I don't even remember the game starting but before I know it this guy in a beige suit (he looks like Robert Smigel as Carl Wollarski from SNL's Super Fans--the guys that always say Da Bulls or Da Bears, complete with the sunglasses) hits a little weak floater over me. I missed blocking it by maybe a quarter inch. He immediately starts in on me "What? Couldn't block that, superstar? Maybe you need to work on your game?" On and on he continues. One thing I always hated was people talking shit. I never did it unless provoked.

I get this guy down on the block and Tate tries lobbing the ball in to me, but it's too high. "What's wrong? Can't jump? Oh man! You shoulda had that one." I start thinking to myself "Man, I've gotta shut this jackass up. What can I do?"

I start playing help side defense, and get a ton of blocks out of it. However, he won't give me credit for them. He just says "Yeah, that was luck. You can't do that to me."

Now I'm just getting mad. Bad things always happened when I'd get mad while playing ball. I'd usually try too hard and end up turning an ankle or something.

Well, not this time...

Tate hits me with a good bounce pass just outside the left block. This guy has all the weight he can get on my back, so I give a good pivot, just so he can face guard me. I dribble backwards twice, to give a little launching room. He follows me out, just inside the 3 point line. I give him one good cross over dribble and head baseline. He's trying to keep up with me, but I'm dribbling with my left hand and he's trying to hack the crap out of my right side. I take off just inside the block and he goes up with me. His head gets just about to my waist, when I keep heading skyward. I look down at him, just as I throw down an absolutely nasty left handed dunk. Ball game!

By the time I come back down to earth he's already walking away. I turn toward him and start in "Was that what you wanted? Now shut the fuck up and go sit down! I hope you're happy!"

Right after that little tirade I wake up. It's 3:50, Tuesday morning.

This brings me to Song of the Day #2: "Ticks and Leeches" by Tool from Lateralus.

Banging in my head right after the dream:


I love dreams like this. Mostly, because it's so different than the way I am. I hardly every talked shit when playing ball. I let my game talk for me. If someone kept talking to me, I made sure that my team won, then I might say something. It always seemed like winning was more important to me that all the other crap. I don't think I'm actually going to break down my dream from last night, because it was most likely just hallucinations.

WARNING: If you are under the age of 13, do not drink 3 beers then take "Theraflu" to help you sleep!