So Sore

Due to the rain two weekends ago, my return to playing football (I only gave up my indoor league...come on, you know me) in my outdoor leagues was put off by one week, making this past weekend the start of the seasons.

As I've already mentioned in the last blog entry, this weekend also included a trip to AC. So, Saturday morning, after approximately 8 hours of sitting at numerous blackjack tables, 12 or more (who keeps count?) Captain and cokes, 6 hours of sleep, and 3 hours of driving, I stood on the fields in Bethesda ready to play.

Surprisingly, the haze of hangover and random pot smoking (you know I only touch the stuff very infrequently) does not affect my football play nearly as much as it did my driving to the field, as I caught about 8 of the first 12 passes of the game including our opening touchdown. Not too shabby for a 30-year old who hasn't played in over a month. Nonetheless, we're playing my brother's team, and they haven't lost a regular season game in 2 years...and that quickly appears not to change.

Let me explain why. You see, this is a co-ed league. On the field at all times, you are required to have five guys and three girls. Our girls, though talented from girl standards, are completely overshadowed by their girls, two of which are talented from guy standards. I ain't kidding. They beat our girls on routes by like 5-10 YARDS consistently. One girl caught a diving catch. Another got tackled by a guy on our team (by mistake) and got up and called him a pussy. Well, everything but that last part...but she did get up without a problem, and I'm sure she was thinking.

We're down a bunch quickly, it's like a thousand degrees in the sun, so I take myself out for a few drives in the second half and after the loss, I'm in bed, trying to rest my body.

Like an ass, I decide to go down to Adam's Morgan with Kevin, Jen and some of her friends on Saturday night, and after a couple drinks and a near fight with a shitfaced jerkoff who grabbed Kevin's pizza and took a bite (that's a story in itself, maybe I'll post that later), it's 2:30 AM and I'm just going to sleep.

My next football game is at 10:15 AM on Sunday morning in my men's league. Having not learned anything from the previous day, I carry my hungover self to the field, and the second 1000 degree day. Why is there no shade!??!

Since our team is lacking any real linemen, and most of our players are even smaller than me (and I only weigh 175), I take one for the team and decide that I'll play some line, knowing that I'll give it 100% to protect our QB or try to sack theirs. Within a matter of drives, however, I am dying, having been thrown around by guys that outweigh me by about 30-50 lbs. Kinda wish I hadn't lost all that weight a couple months back.

You see, this is when having a fat friend is useful. I need to find more fat friends. They're good to make fun of when hanging out, since there's a plethora of fat jokes out there, and they're even better when you need to play football. I guess I'll just narrow down my fattest friend right now, and constantly invite him to the chinese buffet and Cici's until he's ready for action.

We lose a close one, 6-13, and following my shower when I get home, I start to feel some tightness in my back. Then some soreness in my shoulder. Then an aching in my thighs. Within a couple hours, I'm having trouble standing straight up, as my lower back is tight as hell.

An afternoon of football watching doesn't help the cause much, and neither does a night of sleep, as I woke up this morning and literally felt like I could "feel" every muscle in my body working as I made even the slightest move. Good thing work is low impact...oh wait, it's not. I'm laying pipe at a pool in Virginia. Yep, laying pipe. That's what we pool guys do. Giggity giggity.

So, I get home tonight, and I make the executive decision. After taking my shower to clean the dirt off (laying pipe is a dirty job), I turn on the bath tub and take a soak. Yes, I used the bath tub for something other than having sex or a lead in to having sex...go figure. It appears to have helped somewhat, and I went the extra step of dialing up some internet porn when I got out (it just seemed like the right thing to do). And now, here I lay, in bed once again.

Why do I put myself through this?...because I love it. It's good to be back at it.