If These Balls Could...

I know there is a myriad of important things going on in the world (recessions? Heath? election?) but what is more important than my inaugural dodgeball game of the season? not much. And how exciting were our first 2 games? Not very. If These Balls Could Talk 2 got creamed.

What amazes me about this dodgeball league is that people actually take it seriously. We played a team last night that is a notoriously good - and brutal - team. They happen to have the tallest person known to man on their team and a few other beasts. But they are ruthless! Not only do they play a fierce game (and fierce in a bad way not in a gay heeeey! way), they are not even congenial people between games. They are just straight up assholes. It's like they got picked on their entire lives, they never excelled at sports and now are exacting their revenge. Or better yet, all they ever had was sports and come graduation from high school or college or whatever, they find themselves in the sport-free zone of NYC and need to fight poor defenseless non-jocks like the people on my team. I bet they all work at investment banks or something. Not that I am opposed to investment bankers.

Obviously, I never played sports in high school. Well I am only assuming that's obvious by the comments I made above. But let's just say that in high school I was one of the girls who had to take a second year of P.E. because I wasn't in a sport. And because I had a full schedule of AP and IB and BS classes I didn't have time to take this second year of P.E. until my junior year. But even then, I only had time to take half a semester. And I got lucky. My best friend and I ended up in a class full of sophomore boys. Just us and a bunch of tiny, adolescent, squeaky voiced little guys. And, naturally, we ruled the class. We were always team captains, rallying the troops, telling the teacher we had our periods so we didn't have to do anything. You know, taking advantage of our female status. And it was ridiculously fun.

But then senior year comes around. Last semester. And I still have half a P.E. class to finish. And no best friend this time. So there I am, moments from graduating, caring more about my boyfriend and off campus lunch than badminton, in a class full of non-athletic sophomore girls. It was like the worst stereotypes you can imagine came to life: the girl in the wheelchair, the fat girl, the non-English speaking crew, the girl who always wore sweats - in and out of class. And then me. I was forced to make friends with some semi-socially awkward girls who had collections of lip balm and hair scrunchies so I could partner with them versus the girl who smelled like milk and old bread. There was one girl I became particularly close with, if you call chatting in an awkward class "close." She was a senior, like myself. I had vaguely seen her around over the course of the past four years. She was a quieter girl, nerdy, but had a large group of co-nerdy girlfriends. Not that i was miss popularity or anything, but I had my share of friends spread around the school. The funny thing with this girl was that we would see each other around campus and quietly nod or smile, acknowledging each other. It was like we were having a secret love affair and we didn't want our friends to know. Just two girls from different sides of the tracks. I still think about her now, wondering how things turned out. If she ever finished UCSB like she wanted, if she ever fell in love. Who am I? Kevin Arnold?

Anyway, flash forward to the present, I'm back in the gym. Wishing I had given more thought to that second year of P.E. and writing a post that would make Brian proud, ie: taking an epic stroll down memory lane sans the super witty one-liners.

Love and Dodgeball,
Bridget