SuperNova Afterglow: End Of Days

Forced Myself

I forced myself to play all four days in a row this week while the children were away. I almost didn't play Friday because I only got three and a half hours sleep before I shot up in my bed and decided I needed to go downstairs and spend some time on my computer. I had hoped I would feel sleepy again., but I never did.

I think I consume so much caffeine and other stimulants during the week that it catches up with me in the end. I slept like a soggy log last night. I woke in the middle of the night to find the sheets soaked with my sweat. I turned off the heated blanket and took off my pajama bottoms and slept the rest of the night with one leg over the covers. After eight hours, I still didn't want to get up, but forced myself.

I took a hot bath and worked on a New York Times crossword puzzle while I was in the tub. The lighting was good, but without bifocals the words still blurred at times and it was a struggle.

My body aches, especially the right hamstring that nearly popped in the past few days. I took a hot tub before Friday's games, a short 10-15 minutes to loosen up and invigorate. It worked, but I couldn't stop sweating when I hit the gym and the floor. My goggles fogged so fast, I had to keep lifting them up or blow on them when there wasn't enough action to let me run about so I could keep them dry.

My wife super glued an older pair of rec specs that had also busted in the same right temple corner. I decided to give up on the recent pair, because they were tight and scraped my eye the last time they flew off my face. The older pair was harder to see with, because the frames were not clear, but blue. Add the vaporized lens and I was really blind.

Yet, I managed. Hobbled with a tight leg that worsened by the last game, I still made great defensive plays. I did shoot one air ball, but Jeremy gave me a second try right after and I drained it. I had a few key three-point shots and did some good work inside. Young Mike tried to take me in the post again. I swiped away the entry pass, it got kicked back to him in the scrum in the lane that followed, and he went up and faded baseline aiming for the glass. I got a piece of him and the ball and he quickly claimed foul. Marginal, but acceptable call. The game ended on the next play when someone got hurt, so I didn't get to further frustrate him.

I won't ever allow him to get confident while we're playing each other. He is too easy to figure out and manipulate to give him opportunities to think he's better than me. It motivates me to play guys like him. I don't have to say anything -- just let my play speak. He was running down guys like Clay who made poor decisions, loudly and derisively yelling, "Come on!"

What can you do? I prefer to let them figure out their mistakes by not saying anything.

I had another blog post to fill out from the other day and I am already writing this. Oh, well. Another time.

Told my wife I was going to take a break from basketball to let my body heal up (eye, groin) and until I can get a new pair of prescription goggles.

You know, for as much as my previous pairs have suffered from blows to the face and head, you would think I would second guess how and why I play basketball. I risk losing vision trusting some specs that I bought at Wal-Mart to keep my eyes safely secured in their orbital resting places.

I have suffered scratches over each eye lid and a lacertion over my eyebrow and orbital bone. Yet, when the goggles break, I put on my glasses and keep running. The clear rec specs that I was using for the last year were supposed to only be my backups, replacement goggles. That's because they were too tight and deemed a waste of money. I kept them and used them to replace the first pair that broke. And now they break and I fix them and my old pair and I still haven't gotten a replacement. Risky?

I play to get back what I missed out on, hoping I'll get back a little of what I lost. This is quality of life. Though, I risk quality life hereafter. Basketball is like a creative outlet, and thus, a source of pleasure for one who yearns to recapture former glory...and possibly still write a new chapter. Just don't know the end to this novel.