Re-match, bitch.

My senior year in high school, I went to the Grand Canyon. I'd been plenty of times before (after all, you can't live in the "Grand Canyon State" without going at least once), but this time was going to be different. We were going to be hiking into the canyon.

I was pretty unhealthy in high school and generally unaware of the outdoors world. But, my friends were going so I talked my way onto the trip.

"Are you sure you want to go?" one of my teachers asked me. He was concerned that someone of my, er, caliber might have a hard time hiking downhill for 2 miles and coming back on a steeper incline for another 2 miles.

"I can do it," I said. I flashed a smile, dropped some witty banter and I was in.

We got to the Grand Canyon in a group. I was nervous because the only exercise I ever got was walking from the main building in the high school to the carne asada stand in the back parking lot. More so than being nervous, however, I was cocky. I compared myself to the people I saw hiking into the canyon.

"Alright," I thought. "If that guy over there can do it, I can do it."

I started at the same pace as my classmates but after a quarter mile, my pace slowed considerably. My knees weren't prepared for two miles of downhill and grew shaky. One of my friends and a teacher, Ms. U, stayed behind to walk with me while the rest of the group practically ran down the trail. We stopped every ten minutes because I needed a break. I'd sit on a rock to take a break and watch as kids, teenagers and grandparents passed by me, smiling and laughing. I didn't understand how someone could be smiling while walking down. Good Christ, I could barely convince my mouth to open wide enough to breathe let alone smile.

We were a mile and a half down when another teacher, Mr. M, came trekking up the trail to meet us. The same Mr. M who I convinced to let me come on the trip was now informing me that he didn't think there was enough time for me to go all the way down to our intended meeting spot.

"It's just that it gets pretty steep up here," he said. "Everyone else is already almost down there and there's still another half mile to go from here."

I stared at him, out of breath. My friend who had been walking with me looked at me, then Mr. M, then down at the ground.

"I just want you to remember that for every bit you go down, you have to go back up," Mr. M said.

I nodded. "I'll just start walking back up then. I'll meet you guys at the rim."

Mr. M nodded and my friend gave me a wave. I was humiliated. I wasn't embarrassed at what Mr. M had said to me; he was just trying to look out for myself and the rest of the group. I was mortified that I overestimated my ability to keep up with my peers. I'd always had the mentality that if I thought I could do it, I could do it without any practice or preperation. When it came down to the wire, I convinced myself, I could do any physical task that was demanded of me. It was bad that I didn't realize my philosphy wasn't true before I made the journey down a giant canyon face, but it was even worse that something so obvious had to be pointed out to me in front of my friend. The more horrifying thing, however, was that I was more than a mile into the Grand Canyon and I had no idea how I was going to get out. I was stuck.

So, I started walking. I slowly trudged up and put on a good face as donkeys and senior citizen groups passed me. I made jokes and laughed when my classmates, done with their lunch near a drop off that I never got to see, caught up to me and proceeded to pass me yet again.

"We're trying to beat Mr. M up to the rim!" they shouted to me.

"We'll see how that goes," Mr. M said trotting up a few steps behind them. Those bitches. I could barely breathe and they were having a race up the Canyon.

I was exhausted and defeated in more ways than I could imagine. My toes were numb and the walking sticks that carried my shaky legs down the canyon were now just another source of excess weight. I was just about to give up and try to hitch a ride on a donkey when Mr. M came lumbering down the Canyon.

"I thought you could use the company," he said. It was the first time in my life that I remember feeling overwhelming gratitude towards someone. I would have punched a donkey down the canyon at that point if he had asked me to. A little while later, Ms. U joined in our trek up to the rim. After 8 grueling hours in that bastard Canyon, I made it to the rim. My classmates welcomed me when I got back to our camp and everyone did me a favor by ignoring the elephant in the room (or the campground).

The Grand Canyon kicked my ass that day. I had never in my life felt so defeated. We came home and my ego mostly recovered, but there has always been a scar on it that just can't quite fade away.

Well, this weekend, I'm looking to tackle that scar. I'm looking for a re-match with the Grand Canyon. I've got broken in hiking boots, lots of sunscreen and a healthier self to bring to the table.

This weekend, I'm coming for you, Grand Canyon. I am going to stomp your ass with my gianormous hiking boots and then I am going to eat an ice cream cone and marvel at your ridiculous natural beauty.

This weekend is our re-match. It's on.

Hold the Elevator

Remember the MTV show Daria?



There was an episode once where Daria and her pal Jane are going door to door selling chocolates. They stop at a house and knock on the door. They hear distant footsteps and some banging about. When the owner of the house finally opens the door, it's a large, sweaty woman in a moo-moo who is breathing rather heavily.

"Sorry girls," she says in a deep, mannish voice in between gasps of air. "I just came up from the basement."

Daria and Jane exchange looks and then offer her a chocolate bar. Because she's a hefty and, one can only assume, hungry woman, she agrees.

I don't remember the rest of the episode, but I'll always remember the way the big lady in the flowered moo-moo talked. My brothers and I cracked up at that and years later it still swims around in my head.

Today at work I was in the basement filling my water bottle. I usually make a bee-line to the elevator, but today I decided that I would spice up my morning routine and take the stairs. My office is on the 6th floor and each floor contains 2 flights of stairs. Including the stairs to get to the first floor, that's 14 flights of stairs.

Since I'm a masochist, I dropped a mental f-bomb to the stairs and started to climb.

2nd floor rolls around and I'm thinking, This isn't too bad. Not breathing too heavy and I can feel my heart rate climbing a little.

3rd floor comes into view and I'm thinking, Maybe I can bail here and take the elevator.

4th floor and I'm thinking, Shit! This was a bad idea. I haven't even broken in these shoes yet!

5th floor and I'm thinking, If I die in the stairwell, I wonder how long it'll be until someone finds my body. Is this why everyone in early America was fuckin' ripped, because they had no choice but to take stairs? No wonder they went and got themselves polio.

Finally, the 6th and final floor and I've never felt such sweet relief. I drag myself to my desk and make a mental note to burn down the stairwell.

"You alright?" my co-worker asks, amused.

"Sorry," I say between some heavy breathing. "I just came up from the basement."

Oh shit. At least I wasn't wearing a moo-moo.

How to Excrete Excellence: Sports Edition

So there I am, minding my business and checking my e-mail, when I saw this headline:

Unapologetic Coach of 100-0 Win Fired By School

The story, if you're too lazy to click on the link, is this girl's high school basketball team from Dallas beat another team so badly (100-0, as the title suggests) that the girls from the winning team apologized for it. In my head, the apology went a little something like this:

To the team that is still trying to pick up the pieces,

We're terribly sorry we owned you at basketball. Seriously, we didn't mean to take 3-point shot after 3-point shot, especially after it was painfully clear you didn't have a shot in hell at winning. Additionally, we apologize for pulling your pants down, licking the palm of our hands and spanking you over and over again in front of your family, friends and school mates while tears of shame streamed down your (face) cheeks. Our bad.

I get why an apology was necessary. It's high school basketball, not the (W)NBA. The coach refused to apologize though. He said, "Aw hell nah! There's no way I'm apologizing for teaching my players to be awesome, albeit kinda cocky assholes." But to be fired over refusing to apologize? To get shit canned from your job because you taught your players, oh, I don't know, to win? That seems a bit much. Granted, I don't really know much about basketball except for basic Phoenix Suns knowledge all Arizonans are required to know, but I think this might be a little much.



Raja Bell is my favorite because his name is that of my favorite Disney tiger from my favorite, racially stereotypical Disney Movie "Aladdin". Rawr!

Could the coach have told his players to scale it down a bit and stop showing off? Probably. Should he have told his players to at least pretend to be having a hard time for a while and show a little grace? Sure. But that's not how athletics work in the good ol' US of A. Sure, athletes here have talent. Bigger than talent, though, they all have gigantic mouths that run at a million miles an hour so everyone will know how awesome they are.

Here's a breakdown as far as I've been able to tell when it comes to sports in America.

1. Discover a sport your good at.
2. Make playing it your #1 priority. School? Fuck school. You're all about putting a ball through a hoop/putting a ball in another person's hands/messing around with balls in general.
3. Make money off of your ball handling abilities.
4. Become unbelievably cocky about numbers 2 and 3.
5. Film commercials for anything. Literally, anything that will pay you. Ben-gay and Wheaties sponsorships only go so far. Mercedes-Benz and Roy's Auto Body sponsorships last a lifetime.
6. Waste all your money on stupid things, like a football shaped pool or strippers.
7. Fall on hard times.
8. With no education to fall back on (see #2), re-discover love for your sport.
9. Don't call it a comeback (psst- it's a comeback!)
10. Raise children to repeat.

All in all, these girls did what they were coached to do: eat losers for breakfast. The fact that the losers they happened to be munching on were 8 girls from a school that specializes in "learning disorders", well, that's just sports in the USA baby. Is that Nike and Gatorade knocking at the door? I think it is.