Powerade

Call me ambitious, call me competitive.  Some of my favorite moments in life revolve around sports.  There’s nothing quite like the glory that comes with a Grand Slam or a photo finish.  I can still remember standing in a bar in Chicago watching Michael Phelps win the 100 m butterfly in Beijing by one one-hundredth of a second.  The whole bar was frozen in awe before it came back to life with such a roar the ground shook.  I love sports.  I always have.  They bring people together and unite us in a world that does its best to keep us divided.  They also keep us humble and keep us striving to be better and to reach for something more.  They also contribute to a massive amount of alcohol consumption, personally, and more outrage than I’d like to admit.  Sometimes I throw things.

The Browns had an 0-16 parade which made me wish Cleveland was a person I could have drinks with on a Tuesday night.  I feel like all of us should strive for a little more of that in our lives.  Not to be losers, obviously, but to stop taking yourself so seriously all the time.  Celebrate what you can and find the silver lining.  ‘Party like it’s 1999’, which is a weird term because I remember the New Year’s Eve of 2000.  I was in high school and the media had us believing that everything was going to shut down and clocks would stop working and life as we knew it would turn into mush.  So naturally everyone was scrambling around desperately trying to lose their virginity which was very entertaining from a spectator point of view.  It was very Noises Off mixed with Can’t Hardly Wait.  Who knew Armageddon was such an aphrodisiac?  So back to topic, I don’t believe I’ll be watching the NFL for awhile.  The Bengals (**cough** Mike Brown **cough**) have decided to extend Marvin Lewis’ contract for another two years which is basically the equivalent of making Trump the CEO of Twitter.  Being a Bengals fan has taught me a lot of life lessons.  A few being no matter how far ahead you are, you’re probably still going to lose and you can’t be disappointed if you have no expectations.  Not the most uplifting mottos, but true none the less.  So thank you for teaching me humility and how to be terrible at your job and still make millions.

The winter Olympics are less than a month away, I finally understand curling and the excitement within my veins is intoxicating.  I’m sure South Korea is thrilled to have us, but not as thrilled as they are to host North Korea.  (forehead slap)  It should be interesting none the less.    If the U.S. women’s hockey team ends up in tears on the rink again, don’t call me for a few days.  I get very invested, as you know.  While I’m disappointed about the lack of Russians and NHL players that will be competing, I’m sure it will fade as soon as I hear those trumpets.

Speaking of winter Olympics, let’s talk about my blood boiling rage that is Tonya Harding.  The first woman to do a triple axel, the first woman to turn figure skating into a contact sport.  Let me get this out first.  The movie, I, Tonya, is incredible.  Apparently some people are all upset about CGI and honestly, that’s the least of my problems.  My problem is that she’s waltzing around on red carpets, Hollywood Reporter covers and Golden Globes tables like she’s some kind of special who forgot how her story ended and what she did.  Which makes sense granted the amount of times she says “It wasn’t my fault” in the movie, based on actual interviews with her and her ex husband whose accounts were filmed separately and only synced twice the entire film.  The film is empathetic to her story which comes at no surprise granted the majority of it was told from her POV.  Go figure.  I am not.  I am sorry for her deplorable mother, I am sorry the judges weren’t fair and no one deserves to be in an abusive relationship but you don’t see Ashley Wagner, Olympic hopeful who was recently snubbed by the judges, running around crowbar-ing her teammates.  Harding thinks of herself as the victim, which she would be if she hadn’t gone all T-Swift Look What You Made Me Do.  She knew.  You don’t get banned from an entire sport and stripped of championships because you didn’t know.  You even bring up the name Nancy Kerrigan and you can see the crazy in her eyes.  Just ask Piers Morgan.  I’m sure she’s writing a book titled ‘If I Knew’ as we speak.  Now I’m all riled up.

Not everyone is as passionate about sports as I am.  I get that.  It’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  I was raised on the Kool-Aid.   It’s how I found my confidence.  It’s how I made a lot of my friends.  I hope you find things in this life that inspire you and evoke emotions and create conversation.  I hope you find something that gives you purpose and makes you feel invincible and alive in every sense of the word.   I hope that you don’t make excuses for yourself and take the easy way out.  Always take the high road.  I hope you leave people feeling better about themselves.  I hope you aspire others to be better.  I hope you can look back and be proud of the trail you’ve made in this life. I hope even when you’ve put it all out there and still don’t get the results you’d hoped, you find a reason to smile and throw yourself a parade.  Cause why not?