Alphabet Project: Broomball

Broomball

Eight of us are crammed in a car that seats five. One person sits in the passenger seat with another on his lap. Four of us are squished into the back seat. Someone even volunteered to ride in the trunk.

Sober drivers are hard to come by when there's a broomball game. It's a game best enjoyed while drunk, and as many people as possible want to enjoy it to the fullest extent. But the ice rink is a ten minute drive from campus, so some people have to stay sober and their cars get pretty crowded.

The ride over is loud. We've had a lot to drink in preparation for this once-a-semester game. The windows are all rolled down so people can hang out and provide some relief for the cramped car. The music is blasting and everyone is shouting over it.

At the ice rink we spill out of the car and go inside. The rink is a mass of people. At least a hundred students, maybe closer to two hundred, have gathered. We're milling around, sliding across the ice. 

Human + alcohol - friction = laughter (and bruises in the morning).

At midnight the game starts and a ball is thrown into the rink. The drunken mass now has a purpose. We are running towards the ball, trying to get it first. There’s only one rule in broomball: get the ball in the other team's net.

It doesn't take long to figure out  that if you go near the ball, odds are you will end up in a pile of people. And if the ball comes to you, you will be at the bottom of a pile of people unless you throw it away immediately. Once you are in one of these piles you learn that your body bends in new and interesting ways. Ways that will probably be painful tomorrow.

Tonight drunk trumps pain.

At one point I see my roommate going for the ball while a frosh is to pulling her away. I do what my alcohol soaked brain believes is most sensible: I go after the frosh. The only problem is that he’s way bigger than I am and pushes me away easily. The next moment I’m down on the ice, and he’s reaching out his hand to help me up. My head hurts. I must have hit it when he knocked me over. I wave his hand away and indicate that I’m okay. Then I make my way over to the side of the rink.

The game’s been going on for half an hour. The other team has yet to score and we’ve scored 3 or 4 times already. Possibly 5. It’s a little unclear, but we're winning. That's all that matters.

When I’m reasonably sure that the room is spinning because of the alcohol in my system and not my head injury, I go back out on the ice. This time I make my way over to our goal, where a group of girls is lined up to block the other team from scoring. Arms linked, fingers woven into the net, our job is to block people more than balls. Which we do quite effectively.

Soon enough the timer buzzes indicating the end of the game. The final score? 69 to bitch, as always. We won, as expected. Some people say we scored 4 times, others say it was as much as 9. The other team didn't score at all.

We pile back in the car and go home. Tomorrow will be painful. Bruises and cuts on top of a hangover make getting out of bed hard. But that only lasts for a day. Memories are forever.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 18

Day 18: Character Who Didn’t Get Enough Screen Time

So I'm going to delve into Angel a bit for this post.  Because the character I want to talk about appeared on both Buffy and Angel and I still wish I had seen more of her.

She first shows up in the season 2 episode Lie to Me, going by the name Chanterelle. Chanterelle is lonely and desperate for acceptance. She has joined up with a cult of vampire worshipers, convinced that becoming a vampire is the key to fixing her unhappiness. Little does she know that Spike and his gang have no intention of turning her (or the other cult members). They just want an easy meal. Fortunately Buffy saves her.

When next we meet Chanterelle, she has changed her name to Lily. Lily is broke, homeless, hungry. She's completely dependent on her boyfriend, Ricky. Ricky even went so far as picking her new name for her.  She runs into Buffy in a diner in LA, when Buffy is living and working there under the guise of Anne.  The two of them help each other reclaim control over their lives.

Buffy is too late to save Ricky, so Lily must face the prospect of life on her own. Buffy helps her see that she is worthwhile, and that she can take care of herself. Lily asks if she can have the name Anne. For her, it symbolizes self-reliance, courage, and strength, which are qualities Lily has come to value and wants to find in herself.

The next time we run into Anne is in the second season episode of Angel, Blood Money. She has faced the demons and decided that there are scarier things. Upon discovering that she could take care of herself, Anne turned around and started giving back. On Angel, Anne has opened a homeless shelter. It's a wonderful success. Anne and her shelter appear on Angel a few more times, including the season finale. And she shows that she does possess the strength and self-reliance she wanted so badly in the third season of Buffy.

I wish we had seen more of her journey. I would have liked to witness Lily's transformation into Anne. I like to think that she stayed in touch with Buffy, at least for a few months. I really wish there had been an episode, or even a series of flashbacks, to show how she found her strength and why she decided to open a shelter.  It is undoubtedly an interesting story, and one I wish more time had been devoted to.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 17

Day 17: Character You Relate To The Most

It's the computer age, nerds are in.  They're still in, right?

I definitely relate to Willow more than any other character.  In high school I practically was (2nd season) Willow.  I shared the shyness, the quirkiness, the nerdiness.  I even kind of looked like her.  (I also got compared to Alyson Hannigan's character from American Pie.  The horny band geek.  Clearly she will have to play me if they ever make a movie about my life.)  I have a similar love of knowledge.  I'm also fairly skilled with computers.  I can at least usually figure out what I want to do.

Like Willow, I was always a big fan of school.  I didn't like chemistry as much as her, opting for the physics route.  Maybe if I could have made some magic potions, I would have changed my mind about that.  But it is what it is.  I also loved history, and spent some time in high school tutoring my fellow classmates.  I was asked to teach our physics class when the teacher was put on probation.  That wasn't exactly successful, though.

I even find myself occasionally comparing my boyfriend to Oz.  In the "I, too, know the love of a taciturn man, and you have to look at their actions" sense.  Because Boyfriend's actions certainly speak louder than his words.  In a good way.

I'm sure this is no surprise to anyone who knows me.  I always identify more with the geekier girls in Whedon's shows (Fred and Kaylee).  And BtVS is no exception; I am definitely Willow.

I'm Aware Already!

Note:  It's a rant-y day.  I'm sorry

There's another girl's only breast cancer awareness meme going around Facebook.  This time instead of the color of your bra (which I did participate in last year), you're supposed to put a fruit in your status, indicating your relationship status.  Here's the secret code if you care:

Blueberry: I'm single
Pineapple: it's complicated
Raspberry: I'm a touch and go woman
Apple: Engaged
Cherry: In a relationship
Banana: I'm married
Avocado: I'm the "other one"
Strawberry: Can't find the right one
Lemon: Wish I was single
Grape: Wants to get married.
Passion fruit: Widowed
Peach: Same sex partnership/Domestic Partners

Let's skip right past "Lemon" and on to the other problems with this.  As I said, I did participate in this last year.  It was simple and silly, so why not?  But I've since done some research and now, armed with a bit more knowledge and perspective, I'm becoming more and more bothered by this meme.

The main problem is that it excludes men.  The girl's only attitude implies that breast cancer is a female disease, which isn't true.  Men have breasts, and, like women they can get cancer there.  Yes, women are more likely to get it, but excluding men from the awareness campaign is awful.  It makes it look like an us vs them issue (shhh, don't tell the boys!), when in fact we're all in it together.

I'm also a little mad because March isn't even Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  October is.  I mean, the whole "let's be aware of something for a month" is a little ridiculous anyway.  There are more than twelve things we should be aware of, and we should probably be aware of them all the time, not just for a fraction of the year.  In fact, I found this compilation of all the different causes each month is dedicated to.  It's getting a bit out of hand.

Back to the point.  As far as I'm aware March is Women's History Month.  Now I know my breasts are an important part of who I am as a woman, and I would probably suffer a crisis of identity if I lost one or both of them.  Our concept of self is very much tied to our physical bodies, and there's certainly enough societal pressure telling us that women have boobs and men have balls.  I can only imagine how tough it would be to have a body that doesn't match society's expectations of your gender  It's something that I've been lucky enough not to experience.  I hope I never have to experience it.

As fabulous as my boobs are, they are not my sole defining feature as a woman.  So I'm a little upset that Breast Cancer Awareness is trying to steal the spotlight from Women's History Awareness.  Breast cancer and women's history are both important topics, and both should get a spotlight.  So back off, Breast Cancer.  You'll have your turn again in six short months, when even the NFL wears pink for you.

Finally, I feel compelled to point out that all this awareness isn't doing anything other than generating awareness.  This isn't exactly a bad thing.  But as aware as I am of breast cancer, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of progress being made.  It remains the second most fatal form of cancer for women.  It is, of course, equally fatal for men who contract, but they aren't as likely to get it, so they don't die from it quite as often.  The death rate and diagnosis rate aren't really decreasing at all.

Awareness is leading to a lot of fear and paranoia.  And all those monthly self exams are leading to more false positives than anything else.  False positives are expensive and time-consuming to deal with, not to mention the fear and anxiety they cause.

My OB/GYN (who is incredibly smart and up-to-date on research) told me to just skip the monthly self-exam altogether.  As a young, healthy woman with no family history of breast cancer, I'm better off just letting him check for lumps during my annual exam.  Women over 40 should be getting annual mammograms.  And clearly if you're high risk, you should talk to your doctor about all of this.  But if you aren't, then you probably don't have much to worry about.

All the propaganda is probably just making you needlessly fearful about your own risk.  Take a deep breath, talk to your doctor, do some research (as in, peer-reviewed medical articles) and calm down.  Know what you're actually at risk for.  Personally, I'm far more likely to get skin cancer.  Where's the meme for that?

Grrrr

I was supposed to get the Middleman comic book today.  I watched the show back when it originally aired.  When the series finale was released in comic book form, I was initially really excited.  But then the local comic book store didn't have it, and I kind of forgot about it.

Life was busy.  I had work and was trying to make a new life for myself in Boulder.  So getting my hands on the comic book kind of fell by the wayside.  I remembered it once and went on Amazon.com, but the small supply had jacked the price up to $70, which I wans't willing to pay.

This weekend, I got tax refund #1 (which I should have gotten a year ago) and went on Amazon.comto buy the complete series of Battlestar Galactica.  I had recently been watching my Middleman DVDs while I was cleaning and I suddenly remembered the comic book.  I checked and the price was a far more reasonable $7.95, so I jumped on it.

For whatever reason, Amazon.com decided to ship my comic book separately from my BSG DVDs.  And not even just in a separate package, but through a different carrier.

So I got the confirmation that my package had been delivered today and rushed home to find out what happens to Wendy, Tyler, Lacy and the rest.  While the DVDs had arrived at my front door, the comic book was delivered to the office.

The office that closes at 5.

Which is useless when you get home at 6:30.

I guess I'll just have to find something else to do with my evening.  Life is so hard.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 16

Day 16: Episode You Like That Everyone Else Hates

There was a whole lot of backlash against the season 6 episode Normal Again.  In this episode, Buffy is stung by demon and the venom causes her to hallucinate.  In her hallucinations, Buffy is a patient in a mental institution.  Her parents are alive and together.  Dawn was never born.  Nothing that happened in Sunnydale is real.

Back in Sunnydale, Buffy's friends are trying to find the antidote for the poison.  But Buffy herself isn't sure what's real.  I mean, a girl in a mental hospital does make a lot more sense than a girl with superpowers battling demons.  So, with the help of her doctor, Buffy starts taking steps to break ties with the Sunnydale world by rounding up her friends and locking them in the basement with a demon.

Of course, Buffy ultimately chooses Sunnydale, drinks the antidote, and is cured.  But the last shot of the episode is Buffy in the hospital, catatonic in the corner.  The doctor is shining a light in her eye, saying "we lost her" and Joyce and Hank are holding each other, grieving.

The choice to make this the final shot, along with the hint that when Buffy died she actually awoke and lived in this "normal" world, angered a whole lot of fans.  They claimed that it destroyed the past six seasons by implying that everything happened in Buffy's head.  A lot of people simply choose to ignore that this episode even happened.  Which is a shame, because it really is a great episode.

This is the episode where Buffy stops complaining about how life was so much better when she was dead and decides to get back to the business of living.  In the midst of the incredibly depressing sixth season, things finally start to look up.

I had a slightly different reading of the ending of this episode than most of the fans.  Why can't both worlds be real?  BtVS has played with the idea of alternate dimensions before, in both The Wish and Superstar.  So there's no need for one reality to be true and the other to be nothing more than a hallucination.  I like to think that when Buffy finally does die once and for all (third time's the charm), she'll wake up back in the mental hospital, magically cured of everything.  She'll get the one thing she's always wanted more than anything: a normal life.  She'll get to hang out with her family and shop and date.  She'll be warm and loved.  And she'll be done trying to save the world.

And I think that's why I love this episode so much.  It lets me give Buffy the happy ending she'll never really get as the slayer.  Because as long as she's the slayer, she has to fight and lead and inspire and save the world.  But after she dies, she gets a happy, normal life.  We'll just skip over the whole part where she'll have spent her late teens and twenties in a mental institution.

30 Days of Buffy: Day 15

Day 15: Favorite Male Villain

The Mayor may actually be my favorite of all the villains Buffy encounters over seven years. He's proper and kind (except for that whole evil thing) and a total smooth talked.  He truly believes that the children are the future, he just has a slightly different concept of the future.  His relationship with Faith is a thing of beauty.

Honestly, the mayor his just a lot of fun.  His glee is contagious.  And I love the truth he drops on Angel and Buffy in Choices: that his immortality will make their relationship problematic at best.

Also, he eats the principal.