Jason's Untimely Thoughts

Turns out that writing something and putting it online about not being able to help with your kindergarten daughter’s hair is like shooting off an estrogen-attractor flare.  It’s better than any sitcom story of guys walking around with dogs/babies to attract the ladies.  People offering to come to the house at any time, day or night, do whatever, buy this product, comb backwards with your left hand, etc.

I should have pointed out that I told Adelaide the same thing I wrote, just writing it too so she can read it in a few years.  And that I believe there’s at least a little bit of “I want to fight about something and the hair is a guaranteed winner” going on with the hair trauma.  It’s OK, I’ll mostly just need to be a little more forceful about bath night.

Normally at this time of the year, I’m almost non-stop football.  I love it and always have.  It became so much a part of our fall, however, that I’m feeling very ho hum about this year.  I knew the first few games would be rough, and I was mostly right.  Having friends and family around all weekend helped, for sure, but quiet moments still popped up and were hard.

Specifically, waking up on game day and the national anthem were the hardest parts.  I’ve got a couple of habits during the anthem, one of which it turns out is finding out where Sarah is on the field.   That and 66,000 silent, yet mostly oblivious to my issues, fans were a bad combination.

The other thing I missed was reliving the game.  I couldn’t figure out for a day or two why I didn’t remember as much about the game as I normally do.  Dawned on me today that it’s because I typically spend a few hours afterwards culling through Sarah’s pictures, which had always been a reinforcement of the action.  I didn’t miss doing that at 1 a.m., but missed the experience in general and talking to her about the sideline goings on.

I also feel bad that the kids — players and Golden Girls especially — and their parents have lost a resource for photos of themselves in action.  Sarah always made a point of shooting ‘everyone’, so that they each could document as they could.

The first home game is this weekend, where I’m sure I’ll relive those experiences plus.  All in all, I’m not living and dying with the performance on the field as I’m accustomed.  And does anyone else find themselves just trying to avoid using words like “dying”, “kill”, in every sentence they can.  Batteries suddenly just stop working, instead of being dead.  Stupid silly reminders.