Today was my seven-a-side team’s first game in three weeks. And for the first time since August, we not only had a full side, but also subs! Two subs! Who could come on the field and replace us if we got winded or injured! And we wouldn’t have to play down a man or two!

I could run around and not have to worry about saving my breath for later in the game. I could walk off the field to examine my knee, which used to have skin on it, without having to worry about putting my team at a disadvantage. When I got dizzy after a twisting, turning run past one defender down the touchline, past another defender along the goal line, and past the keeper for my third goal of the game, I could afford to walk off the field and wait for the world to stop spinning, my mind at ease. And when I sprinted most of the way down the field for my fourth goal, I could, without breaking stride, sprint over to the sideline and sub out so I could reinflate my lung.

We won, 5-2, but the highlight of the day was being able to watch the game for a few minutes at a time from the bench. Those fleeting moments of recuperation were like nectar and ambrosia with a side of manna. It was beautiful.

I’ve been asked to write my opinions about a number of pedagogical matters, fifteen pages max. I’m down to twenty-seven. They should’ve just asked me to give my opinion in person, I would’ve just shrugged and said, “Ah… you know.” But no, they asked me to write, and to write about matters I’m angry about. How the hell did I get to twenty-seven pages?

I just flashed back to first grade… my reading group was assigned to read the first half of a particular short story. I read the whole thing, and blurted out the ending without thinking (it had something to do with kids thinking a house was haunted; it was actually a bird–oops, ruined it again). Miss Tammany gave me a look that I have no doubt mimicked many a time in my career, and resignedly banished me from the reading area. @#^$*.

Now I’m flashing back to post-graduate Clemson life… coming home from work, my goofy Muppetish roommate and his pals watching a movie. I ask what movie, they answer Event Horizon. Without thinking, I asked, “Is that the one where the ship goes to hell?” The collective groan was so awesome it washed away any guilt I felt over having ruined the ending.

Not necessarily a logical thought process, but I got less than two hours of sleep last night. Cut me some slack. I’ll post parts of my pedagogical rant when I finish it.

Your Humble Narrator is going to “live-blog” my 34th birthday. It’ll be a full day at school, no planning period, followed by coaching a game at Sandalwood, followed by God-only-knows-what since I don’t have to get up early tomorrow morning. The official familial birthday dinner was this past Sunday, so I’ll be munching on leftover lasanga rolls, meatballs, steak and cake throughout the day. Here goes:

12:01 AM: Hitting the sack and hoping that I can fall asleep.

3:17 AM: Awake.

4:41 AM: Awake.

6:19 AM: Alarm. Snooze.

6:28 AM: Alarm, out of bed. Shower.

6:55 AM: Off to work. Helped some lady catch her dog in the parking lot. I’m a hero.

7:23 AM: At work. Birthday cards waiting for me in the mailbox.

7:45ish AM: Received TOTY recommendation letters. Huzzah!

9:06 AM: Watched DVD about Hugo Black in class. I enjoyed it even if nobody else did.

Period 2A: Received and consumed birthday cookie-cake from former students. Tolerated birthday song.

11:55 AM: Feasted on reheated lasagna rolls, flank steak, and a meatball.

12:10 PM: Helped former student jumpstart her car because she left it running the whole time she was on campus. I’m still a hero.

2:48 PM: Prepping for the game.

7:32 PM: Ugly first half, fell behind 1-0, but the kids stayed cool and everything came together in the second half. Two late goals, we win 2-1.

8:14 PM: Eating cake.

8:19 PM: Eating more cake.

8:59 PM: Returning calls, thanking folks for birthday wishes.

9:33 PM: Heading out.

1:38 AM: Rest of the night was a blur. Bus full of orphans broke down on a railroad crossing, I pushed it out of the way with my bare hands just before the train bearing down on it would have obliterated it. Well, it turns out that terrorists with a doomsday virus had hijacked the train, and— wait, that was all after midnight! Wasn’t on my birthday, shouldn’t write about it. Never mind.

All in all, a good day. I’ll do it again next year.

I recently learned that the December 1st episode of Psych is going to be a Twin Peaks reunion, starring Laura/Maddy, Leland, Audrey Horne, Bobby Briggs, the Log Lady, the mayor’s trophy wife, and the shut-in. I am stoked.

The first season of Twin Peaks was… I can’t think of anything to say about it that isn’t hackneyed, so I’ll just go with “mind-blowing.” Every so often you’ll hear “there’s never been a show like this before,” in reference to some edgy, dark new TV drama… and then they’ll compare it to Peaks. I’m not a television historian, but if there’d ever been anything like Twin Peaks on TV before, I haven’t seen or heard of it. Perhaps some of our more seasoned readers can correct me. Either way, find the pilot episode and the first season, watch them, and then pretend that the season finale was the end of the series and that you’d always wonder what would have happened next.

I say that because the second season went horribly awry, and showed that the whole thing probably just should have been a single-season series on cable for maximum effectiveness. It had some great moments, but there was rampant making-it-up-as-you-go-along-ism that made certain subplots (James Hurley’s trip down the coast, Richard and Andy joining the Big Brother program, the Miss Twin Peaks pageant, the paternity issue near the end of the series) very hard to care about. The only saving grace was there was enough Lynchian weirdness to sustain the diehard fans’ interest, and then the show was (perhaps mercifully) cancelled. A year later, there was a prequel/sequel movie, Fire Walk With Me, that cleared up nothing while being simultaneously moving and disastrous.

And that was it. No more Peaks, but plenty of shows since then which clearly bore its influence and learned from its failure. I’ve never seen Psych, so I don’t know if it falls into that category, but the mere prospect of revisiting Twin Peaks–even with names changed and roles swapped around–will compel me to tune in. (Is “tune in” the right term to use for watching something on cable?)

One of the key elements of the show was a dream/vision in which Agent Cooper saw himself 25 years in the future. Well… 25 years later works out to either 2014 or 2015. Some of the actors behind big roles (Pete, BOB, Major Briggs) have passed on to one of the two Lodges, but it would be ridiculously awesome of Lynch to gather everyone else up and direct another coupla hours of Twin Peaks. Since that’s unlikely to happen, I’ll have to settle for a hopefully-enjoyable mini-reunion on Psych.

I dreamt that there was a typo in the ZIP code on my new driver’s license, and as a result I was forced to move back to on-campus housing at Clemson. The apartment building was on east campus, wedged in between the President’s mansion and Calhoun Courts. In real life there isn’t enough room for such a building. Now I can’t get back to sleep.

…

Bad news: Jim McMahon, one of my two most favorite football players ever, quarterback of the Super Bowl XX Champion Chicago Bears, and renowned rap artist, seems to be suffering from brain damage. Now, it is possible that the brain damage is karmic punishment for having played for the Packers in ’95 and ’96, but on the off-chance that it’s due to the physical abuse suffered over the course of a 15-year career in the NFL, McMahon has agreed to support the Sports Legacy Institute’s studies of the long-term effects of concussions on athletes. From the article:

“My memory’s pretty much gone,” McMahon recently told the Chicago Tribune. “There are a lot of times when I walk into a room and forget why I walked in there. I’m going through some studies right now, and I am going to do a brain scan. It’s unfortunate what the game does to you.”

A long career in the NFL can have a deleterious effect on one’s body and mind, but when I read this sentence…

In a recent interview with ESPNChicago.com, McMahon talked about the aftereffects of his 15-year football career and said he was in pain every day, hasn’t worked out in 15 years and can’t run.

…I wondered, how is that any different from his playing days? Back then, he was in pain every day, he didn’t work out, and he couldn’t run. He head-butted his offensive linemen to celebrate touchdowns, dove head-first on scrambles more often than he slid, and he drank too much, going so far as to show up for his first interview after getting drafted with a beer in hand. He was a drunken, reckless maniac. That, of course, is why he was awesome.

But he, more so than most pros, kept getting blasted over and over and over again. In 1984 he got hit hard enough that he suffered a lacerated kidney and missed the last eight games. In 1985 he missed five starts due to injury. In 1986 he was the victim of the Dirtiest Play Ever when Charles Martin bodyslammed him. Bastard ruined my birthday that year; McMahon didn’t come back until the next October.

Anyhow, that kind of punishment–even if it doesn’t involve getting hit directly in the head–makes your brain rattle around your skull, especially if you’re being driven into the artificial turf Soldier Field had back then.

The article says that McMahon is having great difficulty remembering particular games, including a spectacular performance against the Vikings in 1985 (he got subbed in late and threw three touchdowns in seven plays to bring the Bears from behind). That may be due to the passage of time and the fact that in that particular game he was so doped up on painkillers that he nearly fell over after taking his first snap, but it sounds likely that a brain scan will suggest otherwise.

I hope McMahon’s work with the Sports Legacy Institute is productive, that they can find ways to reduce brain trauma in athletes, and that they can find a way to help him make his life a little better. The Bears may need him again before too long.