Tag: Death Valley

All I Want

Today is the first time I’ve felt human all week.

I don’t know if I am completely over being sick yet, but I don’t feel bad and I don’t feel faverish and nothing aches, so I am considering this a win and that I’ve weathered whatever flu-ey type thing this was that descended, unwanted and uninvited, on me last Sunday. I am also hoping that I can make it through this day without getting sick again, and of course, now it’s the weekend and I can recover over the next two days and catch up on everything that’s lingered and slid this week.

Here’s hoping, at any rate.

LSU plays second-ranked Georgia this weekend in Death Valley; I imagine I am going to get a lot of cleaning done Saturday afternoon. Ceiling fans, windows, baseboards…maybe even sweeping dust off the walls.  There is no Saints game on Sunday–this is the bye week–so I should be able to spend the day writing, reading, editing and perhaps doing some cleaning; and maybe even make an appearance at the gym. Now that my sleep has returned to what I used to consider normal–waking up every morning just before seven–there’s no reason I can’t go back to what I used to do; answer email, write blog entries, do some writing, go to the gym–on the days when I don’t come to the office until later in the day; and on the days when I get off work early I can also go to the gym in the evening. The key is to not give in to the laziness and the inertia of doing nothing and once I get things moving, and get into a more regular routine, I can make a habit of it. I also need to focus on eating better; I think I lost a few pounds while I was sick.

I’ve also not worked on anything the last few days while sick, so I also need to start getting caught back up on everything again, since I am now behind. Heavy heaving sigh.

But I started reading Gary Krist’s wonderful Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle of Modern New Orleans. I just finished reading about the murder of Police Chief Hennessy and the lynching of the accused Italians–horrific, and horrifying–and have just gotten to the part where, in an effort to clean up New Orleans, the city decided to restrict prostitution to a small area–Storyville.

Seriously. I could get lost in New Orleans history research for the rest of my life and die there, happy.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Humpin’ Around

Ah, Sunday morning and I feel worn out completely. We got back from Baton Rouge around eleven thirty last night, and i finally was able to go to bed around one in the morning. I ache and am tired; but I have things to do today that Must Be Done and so here I sit, at my desk with my fingers skittering across the keyboard, hoping to get a second wind or something so I can get what I need to get done, done.

The second cup of coffee seems to be helping.

But I still feel terribly low energy. I guess this is an age thing again–but I am not giving up going to night games at Tiger Stadium! Football season is only three months of the year, after all, and I can live with being exhausted on the rare Sunday after a pilgrimage to Baton Rouge–it’s not like we go to every game, and besides, it is fun.

The game itself was fun, if a bit stressful. There were a lot of strange similarities to the Auburn game: LSU dominated the first quarter and a half, took a lead, then slowly let the other team back into the game before and after the half, and then with about eleven minutes in the game woke up and put it away. There was even a weird sideline catch that had to be reviewed; another difficult corner-of-the-pylon touchdown catch overturned on review; and an utter failure for two quarters for the Tiger defense to stop the passing game. I was also annoyed to see that half of the student section and a good 20% of the stadium left at half-time when we were up 24-7; if you’re not a big enough fan to stay for the entire game give your fucking tickets to someone who will. I also take issue with something I’ve noticed they now do in the stadium in the second half; between plays they play loud dance music (not the good kind you hear in gay bars, I might add; but rather the kind you hear blared from fraternity parties); I’m not exactly sure what the mentality behind this is–they also do it at the Dome during Saints games–but what this does is effectively remove the crowd from the game, particularly when the Tigers are playing defense and the stadium needs to get loud: you can’t build up enough noise to rattle the offense of the other team if the music doesn’t stop until the quarterback sets. Stadium noise has to build, and no one is going to try to yell louder than fucking loudspeaker music. This also takes the band out of the game. Death Valley is supposed to be loud; that loud home field advantage is why the place is called Death Valley in the first place. And why the sound people think silencing the crowd and taking them out of a game which has suddenly become closer than anyone would want is just fucking stupid.

And if you’re going to do that, at least pick better fucking music.

There were several instances where the team was trying to exhort the crowd to be loud and  as they tried, the genius working the sound system would play the fucking bad stadium music through the sound system. And it takes away from the experience for all of the fans. Do you want us to not yell and clap and make noise? Why?

Although in a funny aside, there were three young men sitting behind us at first who kept talking through the first quarter–which was also annoying–but I couldn’t understand a word they were saying at first, and I kept wondering what language it was. (You see how distracting it was?) About five minutes into the quarter I began to catch words here and there, and I realized they were speaking Cajun, which you rarely ever hear out in the wild anymore.

Which reminded me how fascinating of a state Louisiana is; and how interesting and varied the history is, which made me want to read more and study up on it some more.

Not a bad thing.

The Saints are playing the hated Falcons today; GEAUX SAINTS! I doubt that I’ll watch–my heart and mood simply can’t take it. I need to come to the same understanding about watching the Saints that I reached watching the LSU-Auburn game last week…but I’ll talk more about that another time.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover

IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT IN DEATH VALLEY! CHANCE OF RAIN? NEVER!

Later today Paul and I will head up to Baton Rouge for the LSU game! HUZZAH! There’s nothing like a game in Tiger Stadium, and this marks the ninth straight season Paul and I have attended at least one game up there. Both campus and stadium are beautiful, and it’s always interesting to see the changes to the area and neighborhood since the catastrophic floods a few years ago. The Tigers are 3-0, but have a tough row to hoe yet–three future opponents are ranked in the Top 10 currently–and at least one more is ranked in the Top 25. This might be the last game we attend this season–if the Tigers continue to win, those late season games become more and more important, and I seriously doubt any of our friends with season tickets are going to surrender tickets to the games against Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss, or Mississippi State.

And while it would be exciting as all hell to see LSU run the table…the schedule is just too difficult and honestly, after watching Alabama dismantle Ole Miss last weekend I don’t think the New England Patriots would be able to beat them. Even two or three losses on this schedule, though, can’t be disappointing.

We finished watching Ozark last night and now can’t wait for Season Three. The show is so dark, the writing so crisp and tight, the acting so understated yet real–it’s one of the best shows available to watch; Southern Gothic with a strong strain of noir running through it. I’m definitely sorry to have finished the season, and now am champing at the bit for the next one.

But despite the desert television became in the late summer, now shows are returning that we watch and entire seasons dropping on Hulu and Netflix to sink our teeth back into, which is lovely; now we don’t have the time to watch everything we want to see, which is a terrific problem to have.

I am going to spend the rest of this morning cleaning and getting organized; I left work early yesterday to get started on the weekend chores (knowing that today would be pretty much shot because of THE TRIP TO TIGER STADIUM) and then hopefully I’ll be able to get some reading done (Circe is calling my name) and some writing (I hope to get through at least three chapters of the Scotty revision this weekend).

Hope springs eternal.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Tell Her About It

At halftime, LSU was ahead 28-3, and the score could have been even more lopsided.

A punt return for a touchdown was called back for a penalty, and the Tigers also missed two field goals. Chattanooga’s original possession–they got the ball first–was sustained by some sloppy defensive play and some penalties, but after having first-and-goal from the Tiger eight yard line, Chattanooga was forced to kick a field goal–and never led again. Four plays later LSU was ahead 7-3, and never really looked back. Outside of that sloppy play and the penalties, LSU looked very impressive last night, winning 45-10 (Chattanooga’s touchdown came in the fourth quarter when the game was pretty much over, and scored in three plays against the second-team defense.) LSU looked great; getting interceptions, recovering fumbles, completing exciting long passes, and Danny Etling looked calm and cool–sometimes running when he had no one open, sometimes throwing the ball away, never getting intercepted and never getting sacked. (He did get called one time for intentional grounding.) It was, over all, an impressive performance, and LSU could have easily scored over fifty points at the very least.

And it’s always fun to be in Tiger Stadium.

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Today, I have to go make groceries, do some more cleaning, and do some more inputting of edits and I also hope to finish Chapter Five; and maybe tonight we can watch the first episodes of The Deuce and American Horror Story: Cult. I slept really well last night, and I also am planning on making it to the gym for the first time in weeks, and the first time in years without an appointment with my trainer. We’ll see how it goes.

And on that note, it’s back to the spice mines with me.