Sebbylite

I never thought that I would actually have to say that to someone, and be asking a literal question. I mean, give me a break, I’ve asked teammates if they were on fire before, but that is totally different.

I went to the closest neighborhood market near where I live (the Mark-up Time) to get some stuff, and the resident homeless guy was sitting out front peddling. Now this is usual for pretty much any place in Seattle that people congregate, there is some homeless person outside asking for money. I don’t know if I’ve ever shared my views on this, but let’s just say that I tend not to give them any money.

Anyway, I went inside and made my purchases, and when I came out the guy was still in the same spot. He was obviously on “break”* because he was sitting on the curb and smoking, and not asking everyone that made eye contact for money. But as I walked by, I couldn’t help but smell him. And on top of the usual unwashed man smell was the undeniable smell of burning. And it wasn’t just burning, it was burning hair (which everyone knows exactly what that smells like, and exactly how bad that smell can be). I suspected that the guy, who was smoking by the way, had someone managed to ash on himself and just hadn’t noticed it yet. But, since it was late and I was tired, I got back in my car to go home.

I would say that about 2 minutes went by between me walking by the guy and smelling burning hair and when I finally pulled out into traffic and made a u-turn to go back home. But as I drove by on my way home, I noticed that he was wildly slapping at his arms, as if he were trying to put out a fire. Maybe I should have said something, but it seemed to me like he would have found out sooner that he was on fire.

What can I say, I might be an asshole.

*Standard Union Rules apply: 15 minutes off every 3 hours worked, with a 30 minute lunch in the middle of an 8 hour day.

The first Club Nationals that I ever attended was in Florida in 2000. After I graduated from Carleton, I stuck around Northfield for the Fall and played with Sub Zero, the team out of Minneapolis. We were a pretty solid team, with some college superstars past and present and some wily veterans (unfortunately, we also had some not-so-wiley veterans, who definitely kept us down as a team), and on any given day we could beat any team in the country. We usually didn’t, but that is a different story.

After the first day of pool play, we weren’t in the best spot. Our O team was chundering something fierce, and the only reason that we were staying in games was because our D team was amazing. I remember one point against Jam in the last game of the day-the O team was mid-blow up, so they put in the D team on Offense to get some time to talk things over. Jam threw a pretty tight man D against us, and this is what happened: caught pull, swing to handler, in cut by Nord, in cut by me, back to Nord, to me, to Nord, to me, to Nord for the goal. The CUT give and go offense at it’s best, and pretty much unstoppable (although unfortunately unrealistic to keep up for four days at Nationals).

Regardless, after that day, I was in a hotel room with my parents. I went to sleep around 9 that night since the Florida heat and Nationals competition had taken it out of me. 4am rolls around, and I wake up after a pretty intense frisbee dream. And it wasn’t the usual, wake-up-and-pee-then-go-back-to-sleep type of wake up, but I was physically and mentally awake. After tossing and turning for about 20 minutes, I got up, went down to the lobby, and went to Denny’s that was in the same building as the hotel. 4:30 in the morning, at Nationals in Florida, and I’m wide awake and eating some Moon’s Over My Hammy?

After I finished, I went back to the hotel room, got back in bed, and instantly fell asleep for another hour and a half. And then had the best day at Nationals that I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it was because my breakfast was fully digested and not weighing me down, or if it was because I had a good breakfast instead of just a bowl of cereal, or what, but it worked.

Why is this relevant? Well, because it is now 4:56am on Sunday morning of Regionals in Seattle. I just woke up from an amazing frisbee dream (there was an all-star game that I was playing in [don't ask me why I was in this game, I don't know] that had me, Alex Nord, Ben Wiggins, Lou Burruss, and other stars against Mike Grant, Jeff Cruickshank, Greg “Shekkie” , Keith Monohan, Tim Linksfield, and others. We had just pulled deep into their endzone, and they tried to thread a throw downfield to Shekkie, who I laid out and blocked. When I woke up, it was stall 8, and I was either going to throw a hammer to Nord, or throw a Mini throw to Ben). Instead of going back to sleep like any normal person, I got up, stretched a little, walked my dog, had a bowl of cereal, and wrote this post. Does this mean that I am going to have the most amazing day of Regionals that I’ve ever had? Probably not. But it does mean that I am excited to play, and I haven’t been this excited to play frisbee in a long time.

*I never would have guessed that my first post in a long time would have been this one, but it was. And I’m sorry that I’ve been neglecting my faithful readers. I’ll try to be better.*