casual ultimate » Midnight in the Garden of Buzzillions

I am at work at midnight. It’s awesome. I think a lot of my creativity gets stifled by the daytime and the expectations that I put on myself and that society seems to have for people between the hours of 9 and 5.

I played Fools West this past weekend, and I got the distinct pleasure of being beat by Hensley and Vijay. God, those guys can ball. I remember when Vijay was just sort of popping onto the scene in Chicago as Bill Finn’s right-hand man at CUSL. He was obnoxiously good and just had nonstop energy. For a guy like me who has an inertia that I like to exert on the entire field while I’m out there, it was very impressive to see a guy moving at a completely different speed, with a tireless spirit, and really sharp facial features. Does Vijay look like he was drawn by an artist or something? It doesn’t make sense that his face would belong to a real human.

Anyway.

Downtown Brown played so great in Semis and Finals. They made play after play and deserved to win and assuredly did. I played on the Bruisers which is a bunch of big guys who know how to use their size or just tackle people. The team is founded on a few principles: 1) no fouls called, 2) no fouls contested, 3) no strategy. Unfortunately Seth was on our team, so 1) suffered at times, but on the whole, the philosophy prevailed. It was a pretty great group of guys, and I looked off Beau while he in turn hucked a goal to me. In other words 3) was in full force.

The 2009 Season: Hmmmmmm. Revolver looks awesome this year. The table is set as far as I’m concerned; we’ve got everybody back except for handler (who was really dead weight), and we’ve got the perfect combo of captains and coach. I feel great. I feel so ready to have a great year. However, my knee keeps steadily reminding me that I’m playing on borrowed time. I saw my grandma at my sister’s wedding last fall, and unlike most everyone else, she is at an age where she doesn’t pull punches. She said, “You’re gonna stop playing.” She may well be right. I have cartilage damage in my right knee, and it doesn’t feel good on Monday and Tuesday after I play on it. I don’t want to bury my head and pretend it’s not happening. That’s not good enough anymore. I want to live in reality. Some reality is that I have played for 8 years now out of shape. I’m still a little out of shape. I’m getting closer to a good playing shape, but to be honest, I’m not there. I’ve been the heaviest guy on every single team I’ve been on, I think (except One Degrees of course). I’ve always been able to play well despite my size, but that’s not good enough anymore either.

You may well see me play the season this year and live in denial. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d done that. It wouldn’t be the first time an Ultimate player pretended that feeling like a late-career NFL quarterback on Monday morning is ok. Dudes icing their knees, taking ibuprofen like it’s a vitamin, drinking before/during/after, holding their bodies together with braces and tape so that they can chase the disc for another year, another day, another point.

I’ve got a buddy at work who teases me because I say I’m playing the best Ultimate of my life and that I’m in the prime of my career, and here I am icing my knee at work and taking Ibu. “I’m in my prime,” he says with a big shit-eating grin on his face, mimicking an old man who can barely get up to go to bed after he finishes his crossword puzzles. Foreshadowing?