4th Down and 10

There's no denying it any longer. Sundays are officially over. There will be no more getting up late and eating breakfast when most people are thinking about lunch and passing pieces of the paper back and forth for hours into the afternoon... Until we realize that the day has totally passed by and it's time to start thinking about... dinner?! How did it get to be time to think about dinner? I think it's time to play Cribbage for a little while, maybe I would say. He would say, perhaps. But there won't be any Cribbage anymore. Not for a while, anyways. No more Dinners (note the capital D) because those are generally reserved for the boys at Rocky's. Yeah, I'm a little envious of that. Because it means no more hanging out together in smug coupledom, watching whatever HBO original series is showing that Sunday with the gentle teasing back and forth as we compare one another to the characters on the shows.

That's how I think of Sundays, even though it's not every Sunday that it's like this. But because there have been enough of them, I really resent when I lose my Sundays and have to give them over. Surrender them to the League and to Fox and CBS and the Almighty ESPN and yes, to the boys! It's a neurotic thing and I've gotten better to adapting to the shift in our relationship every Season. After last Season, I had acclimated to not having Smug Couple Sunday so much so that when it was time for its return I had to get used to having Scott around all the time again. Get used to not spending the day running around, seeing people, shopping, having lunches, whatever. Had to get used to not having as much Me time and having that amount of We time put bank into the account. It was very odd.

And it's odd when it returns. Because despite all the pre-season denial I was in, there's no denying it any longer. Football Season has officially begun. The Fantasy Football League had its draft tonight and I think the only other time I've seen him this excited was.. Well, it was. Hmm, maybe before the draft last year, now that I think of it! (If only I could tap that excitement and use some of it for good instead of eeeevvill. Ha!) I'm kidding, I'm sure I've seen him this excited over something else before -- I just can't think of when it was. He was so excited over the draft, that I actually caught the fever and was a little excited myself. (Though Lord knows, it's not like I would admit that out loud.) Which really makes me angry. I don't want to get excited over anything to do with football because frankly, I'm more than a little reticent about becoming one of those women who gets into football because "their man" is. Then they say that they REALLY like it and watch it all the time. Maybe they really do, but there's just something I don't really trust about women who are into football. I kind of see it as a betrayal. (I wonder if the reader who went off on my kid thing will go off on me for not liking football... Probably, if she was still reading!) Here is this thing that men will devote hours, weeks, eons more mental energy into than they ever will into figuring out women and what makes us tick -- I have a little bitterness about it. So, if I were to get sucked into it, just to get my Sundays back, then I would be betraying the cause of all womankind -- wouldn't I?

I also have bitterness towards every woman I know who somehow fortunately found themselves falling in love with a man who happens to not be that interested in football. (And there are men who are interested in football, but compared to Scott they are frankly not that interested.) But on the other hand, I can't help on some really twisted level but think that there is something wrong with men who aren't that interested in football. I guess because I have almost never had a man in my life who wasn't somehow obsessed with football, it's a completely foreign concept to me. So foreign that I have this weird relationship with football -- I completely despise having it as any part of my life and yet I can't imagine not having it in my life because it always has been.

Another epiphany -- Touchdown!

H-

ps: I have no real idea what 4th down and 10 means, but I associate that with football and when I think of the game I can hear that same phrase in my head every time. I just tried to get Scott to explain it. It makes a bit more sense now. Damn, that means I'm starting to understand the game and that's how they get you!!