red herring

I'm looking up the weather in Charlotte right now because I'm going to the ACC championships to watch FSU vs VT.
Pretty cool, right?
The thing for me about sports is that everyone always assumed I didn't like them because I'm quiet and not outwardly sporty. I played softball for 9 years, assholes, and was raised on a steady diet of baseball, hockey, and football. I go to Florida fucking State. Of course I like sports.
But I hung out with the goths and artfags in high school, and they didn't like sports. We didn't talk about the Habs during the Stanley Cup playoffs, or discuss the Williams sisters when Serena beat Venus at the French Open, or even Michael Phelps during the Olympics. Sports didn't exist for them, but they did for me. And they still do now. I don't hide it anymore like I used to. I still have the goth friends, except now they're called hipsters, and we still discuss things deemed more important by the "intellectual" crowd: art, literature, music, blah blah blah Radiohead blah blah blah War in Iraq blah blah blah Slow Food Movement blah. But that gets boring and tired and worn out. Come college, and I made friends that love football, and know more about it than me, and they teach me and it's awesome. Now I find myself getting ready to go to the ACCs even though I really can't afford to, but when you're best friend calls you at 7:30 AM to tell you she's already bought the tickets and bitch be ready because this shit's gonna be craycray and feathers and glitter are a must and like no eating for the rest of the week because we've gotta look our best for gameday and Tyrod Taylor's goin down, you can't say no. Even though you're Goodwill copy of The Swan Thieves is begging to be read, so is the prequel to The Mists of Avalon, and Infinite Jest is still sitting with a page-corner creased at about page 24359825094385 because you just couldn't do it, it was too amazingly depressing and put you in a frame of mind you imagine not too far from that of Mr. Wallace himself the day he decided to hang from a rope in his bathroom.
I'm addicted to the camaraderie of sports, to the unifying magic it casts on masses of vastly different people, from the far reaches of the social, economical, pyschological landscapes. I like the feeling of having something in common with that many people because sometimes I feel I don't have anything in common with anyone ever on the planet, and thats the worst, most lonely feeling in the world, worse than hugging yourself to sleep at night because it's cold and you've got no one else. I like being taught about 3rd down conversions and what off-sides means and the highest RBI in history and miracle stories like the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team beating the Soviet Union. It sends shivers coursing through me and my follicles to stand on end. I like bumping chests with the stranger next to me, despite my boobs and their pit stains, because that was a touchdown pass Ponder just threw with like a minute left in the game and fuck UF so hard I hate blue and orange together.
I recently spent a summer in Little Rock, AR at The Oxford American. I was an editorial intern, and yeah that part was really awesome, I completely loved every grueling second of it, but what I loved more was all the literature I was exposed to and had the opportunity to read. Including sports lit, which is so damn inspirational sometimes it gave me goosebumps rivaling those I get when the gloves are off and the punches get super serious during a hockey game. It made me want to get into sports writing, or be a sidelines reporter for ESPN. I don't know enough about sports, but I can learn. And I'm going to. Because, goddammit, there's nothing wrong with liking sports, just like there's nothing wrong with liking going to Burning Man or Woodstock or Crunkfest or the poetry reading at that cafe or the physics lecture at 8 PM tonight or the amateur circus or fashion show or the American Kennel Club/Eukanuba National Championships (because I love dog shows too, so fucking sue me.)
So much of this essay sounds really contrived and pretentious, I know. Like, not only am I trying to prove I like sports, but also that I'm deep and smart and like, I read books omg! All I'm saying is I like sports and going to games even though I don't know much about them just as much as I like staying in with Marion Zimmer Bradley or Mario and Luigi.