Thursday, March 27, 2014

March is for Madness

Last week my boyfriend uttered one fatal phrase that shattered my world as I knew it.

"Why don't you make a bracket?"

Now if you're like me, the only appealing thing about sports is getting to watch built, sweaty men in tight pants grunt at each other in all their masculine glory.

So imma esplain....

March Madness refers to the NCAA tournament, basically the Super Bowl of Basketball. People get the chance to fill out a bracket, or multiple brackets, and compete with their friend's to see who can better predict which of the 64 top college teams you think will make it to the next round of 32, then what they call the "sweet" 16, the "elite" 8, "final" four, ultimately choosing a champion.

Again, keep in mind up until last week I knew as much about college basketball as I did about quantum physics. In fact, I hadn't even watched a single basketball game until January when my boyfriend brought me to a Nets game.

I'm not fooling anyone. He's well aware of my ignorance involving basketball, the tournament, and basically all things sports related, but encouraged me to make a bracket and play anyway.

It'll be fun, he said.

The more the merrier, he said.

Since the only thing I previously knew about any of these team's overall merit within the league is DIDLY SQUAT, I picked the teams to advance based on factors I deemed important. For instance I have an uncle from Wisconsin, ergo my pick. Harvard kids got into Harvard right? They don't allow failure at HARVARD.

Honestly for the most part I just looked at who had the better costume.

The best part is, you don't really have to know that much about statistics to pick winners. And once the teams I picked started winning, I went basket-ball-istic.

My roommate found me the night of the first day of games crouched over my iPad, clutching the screen with desperate fingers, crazy eyed, shouting "TEXAS DON'T FUCK THIS UP!" while checking my bracket stats on my iPhone and trying to get my computer to live stream the game so I could watch it on a bigger screen.

This weekend, a Saturday night in Manhattan mind you, I was found alone at a bar two Jack on the rocks deep erratically scanning five giant plasma screened TV's to keep track of the score of three separate games.

I wish I could tell you I was trying to impress my boyfriend but I'm pretty sure he's just frightened.

Leave it to me to take something to an ultimately unreal level. It's been a re-occurring theme in my life. I become madly obsessed with the things and LOVE THEM beyond logic or reasoning including but not limited to my flannel collection, my obsession with pirates, and my love for Jack Daniels.

It brings my attention back to my personal realization that I am nothing if not an overly passionate person and once hooked on something, I am unstoppable. My madness has previously carried me through my love for theatre, dragged my butt out of bed at 5 sometimes 4 A-fucking-M in order to out my name on a silly piece of paper that may or may not even be recognized. It has taken me on audition after audition, rejection after rejection. I worked multiple jobs in college trying to save money so I could get my own place in this big, delicious, rotten, apple as soon as I could manage.

Perhaps that's why it's so maddening to see the things I worked so hard for then, not turn out the way I expected.

I picked Wichita State to win it all. They were the #1 team in what is said to be a pretty weak conference. People didn't think they really had what it takes to beat out teams coming from the other, stronger conferences. I thought I had made a fair pick given their to this point undefeated title, but they were certainly not a popular pick and definitely not a wise wise one.

And wouldn't you know, Sunday I watched as they lost by seconds to Kentucky.

I actually almost cried.

With their loss came the dismantling of my bracket and basically any chance I had to win in my pool.

That's life though isn't it? Sometimes you pick the loosing team. Sometimes you loose.

I haven't been able to write for a while. Not because I haven't tried, but my words were leaving something to be desired and it was driving me mad.

I had to start over. Change topics. Try again because I needed to get words out and focus on what felt poignant and relevant to me and my life at this very moment.

Which appears to currently be basketball. Who knew?

Certainly not me.

I have to keep pushing myself to explore things in my life that may at first seem foreign. I never thought I'd write, or consider myself a writer. That wasn't the plan. I never thought I'd be someone's girlfriend or be part of a happy, healthy relationship. I never in a million years thought I'd get so damn invested in basketball.

Life seems to be one big upset after another. And even when I think I'm winning, all of a sudden I find myself posterized with life's sweaty balls in my face.

And it's all good. A little unsettling at times perhaps, to feel like things can change at any second and to know the way things are now are not the way they will remain.

That's really where the fun of March Madness lies. These games get unbelievably close. Your team could be ahead the whole damn time, and in the last fucking SECOND loose it all with the swoosh of a single basket.

All is fair in life and sports.

SO my team lost. Basically I lost. BUT it doesn't mean I'm going to stop playing along. There's more games to come and I plan to keep rooting for teams based on stupid things. Like who has the cooler mascot.



I'm having too much fun to stop the madness now.





Your one and only



...perhaps gone slightly mad...



Broken Record.