It is game day Saturday, Maryland vs. U-Conn, and what I knew was going to happen after the insane week of proposal writing, happened.
I fell asleep shortly after eight- a pleasant thing- but not so pleasant when my eyes popped open at one-thirty. I was wide awake and could not get back to sleep until after three sometime- I got lost in that C.J Box Wyoming mystery-thriller for a couple hours and then had a very strange dream about being at a football game and getting into a fight with some guy who pushed me and I fell and hurt my leg again.
Weird. I obviously mixed up the anxiety of the 9/11 anniversary, and Raven and Mom’s 64th Anniversary two days after that and parts of the long recovery and rolled it into the tailgate-to-come today.
I drifted off for a while after the REM sleep passed and woke again about five-thirty and realized there was plenty to do yet- get ice, trundle down the silent corridor to get the ancient Thermos-brand red-metal cooler out of my storage locker, and bag up the bags of buns to pile on top of the cooler and the soft cool pack with the condiments and aged cheese and chips.
I feel a little wobbly on the leg after the hike around DIA yesterday pulling my cute little pull-cart with the boxed proposal on it. I obviously am not as far along in recovery as I like to think, and the long marble ramp the connects the new and old wings of the Headquarters showed me the difference between dragging the cart with the boxed proposal going up slope (no problem) and downslope (dicey).
The seats are about halfway down to the field, on the 50-yard line. Great seats, but there have been times we tumbled over the low bench seats for perfectly understandable reasons and I just don’t want to do that in a crowd.
Before the frantic preparation started, I thought about just cancelling, or meeting up for the convoy over to College Park and just handing over the food and announcing that I couldn’t take the risk.
What a pussy I have become!
Maybe I will just stay with the gear while everyone else troops off to the game- but if I am to do that, I will need to take a book and a radio.
There are certainly worse things than drinking vodka in the parking lot on a pleasant Saturday with all the game-day swirl of people and their personalities.
I just have the weirdest sensation. Like something is going to happen. I wonder what it might be. I can’t tell if it is big or little, personal or national. I just have that feeling. Is it what will happen in the wake of the Israeli strike on Iran? Is it about what is happening now, and that it will continue?
I should just relax and enjoy the game. But it is increasingly hard to relax. All the nerve ends are tingling.
Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com