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Jan. 21st, 2005 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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librarygrrl commented on my being "caught up" by cleaning out the basement, doing taxes, etc. It's really quite simple. Give me too much time, and a task or tasks that I really dislike doing, and I will wax your bathroom floor, clean the dust bunnies behind your radiators, organize your coupons, and sort out your junk drawer. I am incredibly efficient at doing less-unpleasant things in the face of more-unpleasant things.In this case the task being avoided is writing a syllabus for my class. This is the third time I've taught this class (American Culture) and so it shouldn't be too hard. But syllabi make you confront how limited you are as a teacher, and you think about all the things you didn't get just right the last time you taught the class, and so the result is a lot of procrastination as you try to brainstorm how to make it better. Plus this time I'll have at least 25 students, over three times as many as I had last time, which increases the pressure.
I thought that I'd have a very busy weekend on top of it, but it looks like we're in for a Nor'easter. Because, you know, insanely cold isn't enough; we need to be firmly homebound to really appreciate winter, or something like that.
There was a time when a snowed-in weekend was something to look forward to, almost romantically. But with Mini-Me, we have become familiar with the parental imperative of Getting Out of the Goddam House. As I explained to
hydrozoa not long ago, that is why the zoo is overrun with ankle-biters. But the library isn't open on Sundays, and it's too cold to go to a playground, walk in the woods, etc. Last weekend we went to the Mystic Aquarium, where she ran around happily squeaking at all the fishes. This was a good environment for the first hour and a half or so, because it was largely enclosed and she couldn't get into trouble running around. Then exhaustion kicked in, and proximity to the other wee vectors once again resulted in us all getting sick by midweek. (I have had something like six colds in the last four months.) Still, you realize how they can get away with charging you $14 per adult. Get Out of the House. Somewhere your kid can run around.
But despite it all I think we are doing OK. And we do have the "fun" of watching the inevitable Steelers loss on Sunday. That is, the fun of my wife and child hearing me moan and scream and say those special daddy words. After last week's debacle, she picked up a new phrase -- "stupid football!" Trying hard not to transmit that particular gene.
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Date: 2005-01-21 08:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-21 08:38 pm (UTC)I must find a way to harness this power. When are you next visiting? :-)
Good luck surviving the weekend! Is there a store or mall or something nearby with a play area?
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Date: 2005-01-23 12:04 am (UTC)Two feet of snow... I think we're gonna have to find an igloo!
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Date: 2005-01-22 12:20 am (UTC)Snow snow snow!
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Date: 2005-01-22 11:55 pm (UTC)shit do I know about snow, except that this year at least, being snowed in is not really all that unusual!
Transmit it!
Date: 2005-01-22 01:05 am (UTC)Again with the inevitability! Man, you are negative. They won 17 games in a row or something... How does this translate into an "inevitable" loss? Pittsburgh people! Jeezus Krist!
Re: Transmit it!
Date: 2005-01-23 12:01 am (UTC)You know and I know and everyone else knows that the only reason they "won" was to inflict maximum hurting power on Pittsburgh fans this week. This is all some sort of horrible divinely ordained punishment for some unknown crime... Because they have to be the best team in the league for the maximum crushing involved with losing the conference championship at home, again and again and again...
If he wasn't a rookie, it maybe would have been possible, dadgummit.
Re: Transmit it!
Date: 2005-01-24 04:36 am (UTC)- Big Ben throwing many interceptions, vs. a mediocre team (the Jets) = barely a win
- Big Ben throwing many interceptions, vs. a very good team (the Patriots) = a pretty good loss
They did pretty well for the season. If they play as well next season, with a more experienced QB, they could do it. But it never works that way in the NFL. Next year they get all injuries and lose half the team to free agency. But damn, it was awful close this time around.
Re: Transmit it!
Date: 2005-01-24 12:47 pm (UTC)But there was no guarantee that that was an inevitability. I hope having "called" it is a salve of some sort.
All's I'm's sayin's is...
Why do you seem to derive pleasure from forecasting failure when it is not inevitable? This seems very Pittsburghy to me. I am guessing it's the "expect failure so that victory is more sweet" mentality. I have somehow learned to watch football without thinking that my thoughts are floating out in to the cosmos and affecting the outcome of the game. You should learn this... wait... what I meant was: You should be more like me. No wait, I meant: I am better than you. No, I mean: you SUCK! YOU JINXED THE TEAM!
[Of course, you get the spirit there. I am still susceptible to the incredible highs and lows of football viewership. It's amazing is it not? Not that I am susceptible, but rather, how powerful the game affects even geniuses like us.]
Rookie Quarterback takes team to AFC Championship, fifteen consecutive wins, best defense in the NFL... these are all very good things to have.
And there's no guarantee that injuries will come. And Free Agency is a two way street. We can pick up players as Free Agents as easily as lose them. And the ones we lose are usually nearing the ends of their careers. And the team seems to do a tremendous job in the draft year after year. And we take raw players and make them extraordinary players. I really doubt that Heinz Ward could have become an extraordinary player on any team but the Steelers. We ain't gonna lose him. And if we lost Plaxico Burress (or the like, "flashy" players)... ehh, good riddance.
Every time we lose someone, someone comes in to take their place.
The only places where I am concerned are:
1) The Offensive Line. The Steelers never seem to get a STELLAR Offense, but when they rise to the level of High Mediocrity, it is usually the result of an effective front line.
2) The Defensive Coordinator. We can't lose that guy. He's some kind of genius.
I am too a nutcake
Date: 2005-01-24 02:41 pm (UTC)I think I am better about this by now. I have decided that they are perfectly capable of losing without my help.
I don't think it's Pittsburgh people, as such, really. I think it is Pittsburgh, but in the sense that the Steelers seem to always have the same kind of season. Low expectations, a stumble at the start. Then somehow, and for no evident reason, things just start clicking. They hit a streak. They unexpectedly beat a heavily favored team. They move into first place in the standings. People start talking about them like they are the best team in the NFL. Then it's December, and they're not playing as well. Maybe they lose to the Bengals or something. But by this point they are so far ahead of the other teams, it doesn't matter. They do well in a divisional championship. They are unstoppable! Then they are outplayed at home for the conference title.
I know you know what I'm talking about. This is five times in the last 10 years, this exact scenario. And the one time they made it to the Super Bowl, they very nearly lost that conference championship too.
And, as you say, it is always for the same fundamental reasons. They built the teams around the offensive line and incredible defenses. (Although, they really need to have a set of play calling that is not always like this: 1st down: run up the middle. 2nd down: run up the middle. 3rd down: shotgun pass to the sideline. Every single possession they did this last night. It drives me crazy. It seems to me that they do so much better when they mix up the play calling. Would it kill them to have tried a lateral or an end run, once in a while? They count on the line for a hell of a lot.)
Now, it is pure coincidence that their falls and rises and falls and rises and falls match my own cycles of disbelief and belief -- that when I start to think they will win, either in a game or a season, they start to lose. That I turn off the TV because I have written them off, they start to play better. This really does happen, but not because of cosmic forces. It is because other teams have let their guard down at the same moment, and to their credit, the Steelers do not give up. I do know this. It doesn't make it any more pleasant.
Anyway, tiny djinn are not affected by a force field involving my house, Heinz Field, and a Terrible Towel. I'm just saying that there is some objective reality in them usually being very good, just with one or two key components missing, making being a fan an unpleasant experience.
That component for them is almost always something about the quarterback. No one mentioned this, but in the five AFC championship games they were in, I think they had 4 or maybe 5 different quarterbacks (I can't even remember them all). Every one was a wunderkind for a brief moment.
They're like the Red Sox of football. Always very good, but not quite enough to seal the deal, and often losing in situations where they're favored, for no apparent reason.
They did well this season with replacing injuries, true enough. I'm just saying, given the churn in the NFL, good years are usually followed by bad years.
Also, as you may have realized by now, I am a somewhat pessimistic person by nature. That nature also includes hoping in hopeless causes. (Though not really hopeless causes. Imagine how different our lives would be if we grew up in Cincinnati!) So I guess I am asking for it.