but who's counting, anyway

I just got home from a field hockey game (more about that in a sec) and I'm so tired and wiped out that I couldn't even bring myself to take my shin guards off for the first hour of being home (part of that might be from also having a great but late-night-filled weekend).

kill bill 1 is on.  score.

I'm feeling old, or at least not in my high school field hockey playing shape (though I'm still wearing my high school gym shorts, go Flyers!).  Likely just the latter, but hard to know.

I'm hungry and can't even get myself to get up to microwave something, I will shortly.  You won't know the difference because this will all post at once...but trust me, I'll eat dinner.

Anyway, I'm playing on a local adult league that my good friend help to round people up for, and we just played our third game...

Some of the people on my team I played with in high school, and I have to say it's been one of the highlights of my week for these last few weeks.

I don't think it's a very fun game to watch, so much stop and go, lots of rules, the whistle blows constantly...aside from the sexy kilts we had to wear (roll up really short) in high school I'm not sure what anyone was doing watching us.

BUT despite all of that it's such a fun sport to play.

We have a small team, there are 7 of us, and we need 7 people on the field.  Your team has to forfeit if we don't have at least 5 at a given game...because of our schedules and the winter colds that I'm sure will come up, we've been playing man down or at least NO subs for each game.

We're talking running/sprinting (then a little walking) back and forth, for two-25 minute halves with a 30 second time out here and there.  I swear it's hard. I may or may not have wanted to vom the first half of the first game...but I managed to keep it together.

Some really nice players from other teams have been offering to play here and there on our team so that for the most part we aren't playing 5 vs. 7 (though its technically a forfeit if we use other players).

I'm not used to doing something that I'm not very good at.

Mind you I'm not being super hard on myself since I haven't played in about 10 years, and I'll improve I'm sure with each game, but it's not an automatic "Oh I kick ass at this".

(mmm Trader Joe's frozen Chicken Tikka Masala)

My default is to seek out things I'm good at, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

I think that despite the fact that I don't totally suck, I'm not the best.  This is tough for me on some levels in general, not even just in field hockey.  It's been teaching me instead to focus on having fun with it and improving myself (mainly my stick handling - insert inappropriate joke here)...versus worrying that I'm letting the team down when I miss the ball, or how I'm not a lead scorer.

I think this is an important exercise (physically and mentally) to push myself to do something that I'm not super wonderful at, and stick to it.  Pun intended.

There is also less pressure when you know you're doing something for the experience versus to impress someone else or to say I'm really good at this. 


Our varsity coach literally drained me of any enjoyment of playing my senior year.

I quit the team with 2 games left (then they went to tournament, damnit) mostly out of principle - aka anger.  I wrote her a letter explaining how she was a super bitch (not those words) and was unfair about not letting me play for many more than the required games, when I missed one for a legit reason, among other things she did that pissed me off.

I was decent, not awesome, but I had a lot of heart, I loved playing and she managed to strip me of this by her coaching "technique".

I say "technique" because it was more like she was militant and was good at making us feel badly about how we played versus encouraging us/inspiring us to dig deeper.  I'm not sure if I'd do it again, or if I'd stick it out to play the last few games now that I realize I was being a moody teenager, but at the time I felt like it was better to tell her she ruined it for me in hopes she wouldn't do that for future kids on her teams.

I'm not saying coaches shouldn't push their team hard and drive them into the ground to a certain extent, but there was an edge to her that just over the course of those seasons scraped away my love and passion for it.

If I had the choice I'd obviously be good at something vs. not, but being so-so is an opportunity to just enjoy it instead of feeling upset by it (like I did 10 years ago).

I'm glad that I have been reintroduced and still love it all these years later...

It is so fun despite our small team, no substitutes, it having been years since most of us played and our 0-3 record as of today, but who's counting, anyway.

We play with a lot of sweating, a lot of laughing and most importantly a lot of heart and it feels like a win to me.

I'm now much more apt to try something I might not be the best at, and I would encourage you to do the same.

(Maybe not the best time to recruit you our team when we play the next league...but I swear we are improving and with more players/subs we would definitely kick ass...if you're interested let me know.   Seriously. Do it.)

Until next time,
a tirEd fiEld hockEy playEr

“Good for you for not dressing like a slut”

Well finally the gluttony of Halloween is over.  The York Peppermint Patties that I bought for the house (I mean, for the trick-or-treaters) is gone, the weekend of drinking pumpkin beer, after pumpkin beer, after witches brew is over, and the time has come to welcome November.

Before I allow myself to move into November completely, I wanted to chat about Halloween briefly (I meant to post last night...but my timing has been off lately, so suck it up and read it anyway).

I love Halloween.  I love the opportunity to dress up, I love seeing people's costumes and laughing at the funny ones or being envious of their clever disguise.

I have a lot of fond memories through the years of Halloween and trick-or-treating...who doesn't remember the houses that always had tons of Reece's Cups and gave out whole candy bars. 

I've also always liked dressing up, even just when I was playing.  As a little girl I would often put on a a bunch of old clothes of my mothers, shoes that were too big for me and mittens as fashion gloves and walk around like a Hollywood star, blowing kisses...or dressing up in old dancing costumes and dancing around the living room. 

I think that it's part of my imagination that never went away as I aged, and remains a joyful thing for me.  Simply put, pretending to be someone, or something, else is fun.  I'm trying not to read into this too  much and evaluate myself on why I like to pretend to be someone else, but I'll just confirm to you and myself that I do love being me. I want to be me...But, for a day (weekend)? I'm cool with being someone else.

Some of the costumes I've been for Halloween were a skeleton, an 80's punk, a witch,  a Greek Goddess, a princess, a slut, a devil, a pumpkin, an angel, a double rainbow…

Wait, what? A slut you say, E?

Well, I'm kidding.  I actually haven't.  

I usually do “homemade” costumes by using things I already own with a few key props.  These costumes tend to err on the side of being less expensive and having longer hem lines (this year I was Amelia Earhart, doesn’t get much sexier than that, right?). 

To be fair, there was one year I wore a very short toga dress (sheet) and another where I wore a long blue t-shirt with leggings, but as I'm writing this I feel like it's silly.  If we’re being honest a sheet or a long t-shirt doesn't really move the needle, in the same way as a sexy bumble bee or a hot version of Mario/Luigi (even with the mustache - jut in time for Movember) does.

I’ve typically been a bit more…well…prude with my costumes.

Not that there is anything wrong with dressing provocatively for Halloween.  Frankly, I think that when people say “it’s just an excuse for girls to get slutty”, that they are right…but I think it makes sense and really who is complaining?  Okay, well other chicks I guess are complaining and typically (like me) they wouldn't be caught dead in something that resembled a sheer short and low cut Princess Jasmine outfit showing...well everything.

To be fair though, I think there is a little dirty Cinderella in all of us. 

For those of you who are confident in your body enough to show it to the world in a bar or at a party (and have your thigh high frills and cleavage forever remembered by your Facebook friends) then who am I to judge that?

Okay I realize that sounded sarcastic, but really, I guess I just know that if I was in better shape or felt like my body was a hot commodity, I would likely want to show it off too. 

Since this weekend I wasn’t dressed like an Amelia Earhart whose clothes were ripped off by her plane (likely) crashing, I didn’t nab any Zombies, or drunken-chicken-eating Red Sox Players, or Jersey Shore Fist Pumpers, but I did manage to get some attention...most notably from…an older heftier lady.

“Good for you for not dressing like a slut,” this woman at the bar leaned over and said. 

“All I see is red slut, green slut, blue slut.”  She continued. 

From there she went on to offer me some of her makeup to make my face look “dirty” which would have actually looked like I was trying to make A.E. look like she was from Africa.  She was a nice lady.  I think she was wearing a candy striper costume that, to be nice, we’ll say was probably for someone who was still eating PB&J with the crust cut off and drawing stick figures…not slutty at all, but way, way, way too small.  I guess having outfits that fit is worthy of a whole other blogpost.

Anyway, back to the compliment about not dressing like an invitation to be hit on. 

Ouch?

I don’t know really how to take that.  Thank you for acknowledging that my skin is primarily covered, but are you calling me frumpy?  Are you inadvertently saying that I don’t look attractive?   Are you like me, Ms. Candy Striper and mad because you’re not getting attention Mr. Spock or Quail Man? 

Of course she was trying to be nice and I got other compliments on my costume calling it cute or creative…so I felt good about what I was wearing, but still, a compliment for not looking slutty almost comes off as a backhanded compliment.

I guess I’ve always kind of been the one that was cute or creative one vs. the overly sexy one.  I guess I’ll just have to leave that to my hot and sexy friends and fellow party goers, and really I'm fine with that.

I have had this daydream where I meet a guy on Halloween and he’s dressed as a giant Solo cup, or Peter Pan or something.  Makes for a good story. I guess that's what most of us are looking for when we dress up and try and impress others either by being scary, attractive, interesting, funny or slutty on Halloween.  

Anyway, enough rambling. 

I say go forth and show whatever you'd like when you dress up for Halloween.  My only word of caution is - If slutty Halloween costumes kind of resemble your normal attire, maybe you need to rethink some things for the 364 other days of the year...

Well maybe more like 363 days - since I enjoy dressing up, I'm thinking I might do a costume party for my birthday this year since it will be on Friday the 13th....Halloween in April? I don't see why not. 

Maybe for that I'll show some skin...birthday suit?

Until next time,

Amelia (E)arhart