Tag: Heisman Trophy

Ghost Town

Monday morning and back to the office with me in a little bit. It is very dark this morning, and I kept waking up all night, too. But I feel okay this morning, if a bit tired, and that’s perfectly fine. It is the last week of October, after all; but I am going to run my Halloween Horror Month into the weekend as well. It was a nice weekend overall. I loved the rain and the coziness of it all on Friday night and most of the day Saturday and even into Sunday. Next weekend we also gain an hour of sleep–which means it will definitely be dark every night when I come home from the office. That always feels a bit oppressive, but I’ll live through it, I suppose.

LSU fired Brian Kelly yesterday, after Saturday night’s embarrassing debacle in Tiger Stadium (the students apparently were chanting “Fire Brian Kelly” in the fourth quarter), so the season is pretty much over now for sure. Interesting that we’ve fired every coach since NIck Saban left two decades ago…but Kelly also breaks the streak of three consecutive coaches winning a natty, too. I was never a fan of Coach Kelly–he never impressed me when he was at Notre Dame–and I also thought the way he fucked them over to come to LSU was kind of shitty. But he was hired and deserved a chance to prove himself, but after that first season’s win over Alabama and Jayden Daniels’ Heisman Trophy (both of which were more due to Daniels’ talents rather than anything else), he kind of has been on a bit of a skid. I have no idea who the new coach will be, or what will happen with the players, but here we are. Things are really not looking well for Louisiana football this year, with only Tulane really holding up the state’s football honor.

Who would have thunk it? Roll Wave!

I started reading Scott Carson’s Lost Man’s Lane, but after binge-reading Holukoa Road on Saturday (you can read my review of it here, if you like) my reading brain was a bit fried yesterday and I didn’t get very deep into the book. We binge-watched the rest of Alien: Earth yesterday, which was a lot of fun and very interesting. I also got the Scotty epilogue done and turned in yesterday, so for now I am going to bask in the glow of being finished with that before diving into anything else. I don’t think I have anything else promised anywhere, so I can focus on things I want to write and see what happens to them when I throw them at the wall, right?

I also watched Scream 2 yesterday, and rewatching it so soon after a Scream rewatch reminded me of how much better the first was than the second. The second was good, don’t get me wrong; but it wasn’t as ground-breaking and clever as the first, nor was it as layered. But it was clever; it just wasn’t as clever as the first. Next weekend I’ll probably watch Scream 3, the original trilogy, and will most likely watch the next three before the release of Scream 7.

Tonight after work I have to run some errands on the way home, and then I hope to get a few chores (dishes, mostly) taken care of once I get home. The weather is going to be more fall-like after today–this week has highs in the upper sixties/lows in the fifties, which won’t be a ton of fun, but I am embracing it this year. LSU also has the weekend off, so I won’t be as pressed to watch football games this weekend, and that’s also fine. I have better ways to spend my time, although I can always read while a game is on in the background. I’d like to get the Carson book finished by the end of the weekend, so I can move on to Church of Frendo, but after that I think I am going to read a new-to-me classic crime novel; maybe something by Dorothy B. Hughes or a revisiting of Charlotte Armstrong. I also want to get a lot of books taken to the library sale Saturday morning.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines with high hopes for another marvelous week here in New Orleans. Have a terrific day, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in with you again tomorrow morning.

Laugh, Laugh

Sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

I wasn’t sure I was going to write here today when I first got up; I overslept, for one, and then was thinking more along the lines of just getting under my blanket in my easy chair and spending the entire day reading and ignoring everything going on in the world outside my bubble–where I suspect I’ll be spending an awful lot of time either for the next four years…or for the rest of my life. It’s thirty degrees here at the moment, and now we’re apparently expecting anywhere from three to six inches of snow (!!!!!) over the next few days, including sleet. It could get really bad here with the snow and ice and cold, and now they are saying we might have to stay home for two to three days! There’s been no word from work, of course–so I will have to get up at six tomorrow morning anyway to find out if they’ve closed the office or not. I love my job I love my job I love my job.1

Yesterday was pretty unremarkable, really. I ran out to make groceries and while it was sunny and nice, whenever the wind blew it felt miserably cold, the kind that goes right through you to the bone. That’s the kind of cold we get here, a wet cold, and that’s why I hate the cold weather here so much (when I can’t just stay cozy and warm at home and underneath blankets); it feels so much colder than it actually gets here. I really do have to write a snow-day Scotty book, don’t I? We watched a terrible thriller called Project Power, primarily because it starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt, whom I love, and it was both set and filmed here. It was entertaining enough (as with anything filmed in New Orleans, the geography was hysterically funny–how does one ride a bike from the West Bank to uptown and then to Jazzland in New Orleans East?), but then we moved on to The Jetty, a crime drama about a cold case and a connection to a current one starring Jenna Coleman that is actually quite excellent, and examines age of consent v. maturity, which is stunningly well done. Highly recommended; we have one episode left which we will probably get to later on today and then we’ll start another.

I’ve pretty much blown off everything this weekend for the most part, and have little productivity to show for it, which means that today I need to try to get as caught up as possible before Paul gets up and comes down to join me in the living room this afternoon. I still need to write up my thoughts on Ode to Billy Joe, I have several things I need to be writing, and need to be done, so I think I won’t be turning on the television this morning or this afternoon and instead parking in either my chair to read or at my desk to be writing. When I finish this I am going to go read, and then most likely to shower and get back to work here at my desk,

I was very pleased to see that Jayden Daniels and the Commanders (sounds like a 60’s vocal band, doesn’t it?) won their playoff game (my condolences, Detroit Lions fans) and what a mark he’s making in the NFL! I told Paul yesterday, “ten years ago if someone would have told us that two of the greatest NFL quarterbacks of all time would be LSU graduates and Heisman Trophy winners, we would have laughed in their face.” It’s true. During the Les Miles era the LSU offense often sputtered and misfired, with talent being wasted on both sides of the ball; the defense was great but the offense could never be depended upon. Since Joe Burrow arrived in 2018, that has changed completely and flip-flopped; now we have a defense we can’t count on, but an impressive offense. I think LSU is going to be very good next year, and might be one of the few bright spots of the year in this household, for sure.

I am really enjoying Farrah Rochon’s Bemused, which will be fun to write about when I finish reading. I think Hercules is one of the more underrated Disney animated films, and my favorite part of the movie was the muses (and I live in the neighborhood of the muses, too)–so this book is absolutely perfect for me. I always loved ancient Greece when I was a child, and was an even bigger fan of the mythology. (Funny how it’s always Greek myths rather than the Roman versions, even as we call him Hercules–which is the Latin; in the Greek it’s Heracles.) I’ve also always wanted to write about a Greek myth, revised and updated and modernized, or even not; I’ve always wanted to tell the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of Cassandra on the walls of Troy as her city burned. I love Madeline Miller’s reinterpretation of myth in The Song of Achilles and Circe, but she does it so well I can’t imagine being anything other than a very pale carbon imitation. (Does anyone remember carbon paper? Is it even used or made anymore?)

But if I don’t buckle down and start writing, I don’t know that I can actually go ahead and call myself a writer anymore.

And on that note, I am going to make another cup of coffee and head into the living room with Bemused. Have a lovely Martin Luther King Jr holiday, everyone, and I’ll give a snow report update tomorrow morning, either from here on a remote day or from the office.

  1. Okay, to be fair, I just checked my email and they will decide this afternoon whether we’ll be working “remotely” or not tomorrow. My apologies to upper management. ↩︎

Another Lonely Song

Friday morning and have to go into the office for a number of meetings and things today, but hope to get out of there around 2ish to run errands and head home. Huzzah! I slept well last night (and all the way through; didn’t get up once) and feel pretty terrific this morning. Maybe it was the bellinis I had with dinner last night? Perhaps.

Yesterday was lovely. I had a nice day at work, then came home and wrote before my dinner plans. I managed to finish Chapter 7, which was enormously pleasing, and then went to meet my friend for dinner. Look at me, out on a school night and having two drinks with dinner! But it was very nice. Lilette, the restaurant on Magazine where we had dinner, is marvelous; I always have a good time whenever I have a meal there. The conversation was also quite fabulous; and it was a very contented Gregalicious who got home from dinner around eight thirty. Paul and I watched another episode of American Sports Story; it’s an interesting exploration of toxic masculinity in sport, and how damaging that was for someone like Aaron Hernandez, deeply closeted and so terrified anyone might ever find out. (I did wonder what Tim Tebow would have said to him if Aaron had told him the truth–I think we know, and what a shame there wasn’t a single person in his life he could be honest with.) It’s very well done (although some of the reproductions of Florida football games were clearly reproductions and not actual game footage; it may have even been CGI but it didn’t look real), and the acting is, as always and ever in a Ryan Murphy show, superb. The young man playing Hernandez is quite good. It’s also quite excellent at showing what a monster Urban Meyer is as a coach, and how little he actually cared about his players (every time I think that Urban Meyer had Joe Burrow on the bench, wasting his talent for two years, I smile); I have never liked nor trusted that man. He’s clearly a good coach–he won three national titles at two different schools–but he’s not the kind of coach whose players speak well of him–and his teams at Florida were clearly out of control. (He also had Cam Newton on the bench at Florida; that’s two Heisman Trophy winning quarterbacks who rode the bench for him.)

I do have some errands to run after work; I have to get the mail and pick up prescriptions and maybe do a bit of a grocery run. I also have laundry to do once I get home, and then I think I’ll be in for the day. I have another writer friend in town this weekend that I am hoping to get to see, so I think I’ll try to do that tomorrow. I also want to work on the book some more this weekend, and start playing around with the next one I want to write. I want to finish reading Gabino’s new book–I started it last weekend, and it’s off to a really powerful start. It grabs you by the throat and won’t let you look away, no matter how badly you might want to!

I also have some cleaning up to do around here as well. It never really ends, does it? At least my filing it pretty much caught up, and I certainly can’t let the inbox stack up the way it has in the past. Staying on top of things is usually the smart thing to do…but I sometimes get lazy, particularly if I’m tired; that’s when I really don’t want to do anything when I get home except catch up on the news. I am so much happier now that I’ve blocked every news source that started the “get rid of Biden” nonsense in July; the age and mental acuity of a presidential candidate ceased to be an issue in this election once the President dropped out, despite the patentedly obvious decline of the Republican candidate, not to mention his planned vengeance tour if he wins. After doing everything they could to ensure Hillary lost in 2016, they have the nerve to continue to both-sides everything while pretending this is a normal horse race election because they are a national and historical disgrace, the New York Times editorial board endorsed the Vice-President while continuing their horrendous, clearly partisan reporting.

Your words are hollow when you are sane-washing an incredibly dangerous narcissist. It’s not what you say, but what you actually do, and I will never forgive nor forget their collaborationist quisling bullshit as long as I live.

So, after work today I am going to go run those errands and then come home to be productive. I have my to-do list ready to have things checked off, and there’s some writing that definitely needs to be done this weekend. Next weekend I may be meeting Dad in Alabama, and will probably head up to Kentucky for a week around Halloween; not sure when that would be, but it’s on the schedule.

And on that note, I am going to head into the spice mines on this rainy Friday morning. Have a great day, and I may be back later; I’m tricky that way.

Back Door Santa

Today’s title sounds rather like a gay Christmas tune, does it not? It certainly sounds like a great title for a gay porn story set during the Christmas season, and just typing that out made me immediately regret never doing a Christmas gay porn anthology–imagine how the evangelicals (aka cosplay Christians) would have reacted to that!

And Jayden Daniels won the Heisman Trophy! GEAUX TIGERS!

I overslept this morning, mainly because I didn’t sleep well last night. I didn’t feel good yesterday; I ran some errands and came home exhausted, collapsing into my chair in exhaustion and later on, started feeling crummy; my stomach was really bothering me for some reason, and I went to bed early, hoping to sleep it off….only couldn’t sleep for a long time. I did finally fall asleep after midnight, and when Sparky got me up for his six am feeding I went back to bed and stayed there until almost nine thirty. I don’t feel that great this morning, either, which is not a good thing, either. I think my blood sugar crashed and I never really replenished it yesterday, and I also think I’m dehydrated–so no, this coffee isn’t really helping much here, either. I think when I finish writing this I am going to go sit in my chair and read for awhile until I feel somewhat better, and will write later on today.

I hate when I don’t feel well, you know?

We got caught up on Monarch: Legacy of Monsters yesterday, and then watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which was…disappointing. I love the character, I love Harrison Ford, and I love Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but the movie just didn’t engage me the way the first and third movies did; the second, fourth and fifth being disappointments. Just thinking about those movies for a moment, though–the first and third movies are predicated on the idea that the Bible is true, and there is a God up there in the heavens or wherever that is supposed to be. Likewise, horror films and books as a general rule, also work as inadvertent Christian propaganda; vampires and The Exorcist go so far as to say Catholicism is the only “good” force to combat non-Christian supernatural forces. There’s an essay in that; I’ve always found it amusing that Christians–especially Catholics–are very anti-horror because “demons and witches” and “the devil” while the work itself actually is predicated on the foundation that the Bible, and Christianity, are not only real but the primary defense against evil in the world. (It always amused me the way the church always came for Anne Rice, when all they had to do was read her books to see how staunchly pro-Catholic they actually were.)

I was too tired and unwell yesterday to be able to focus on reading more of Raquel’s book, but I am going to probably dig into that for a while this morning once I finish this and put some food into my system to see if that helps me feel better. I think it’s weather related; our bipolar weather swung back into the warm and wet side again yesterday afternoon and into the evening, so it may have been a combination of sinus, blood sugar crash, and dehydration–so I am going to have to have some of that rehydration drink today. It really does suck how a bad night can throw you off your game; all I want to do is go back to bed and rest some more. This doesn’t bode well as I have to go back to work on Tuesday; yikes! But if it wears me out, it wears me out–and should mean I’ll sleep well that night.

We also watched some of the Grand Prix figure skating final last night, too–after finishing Indy and giving up on another show we were watching–and there just aren’t a lot of good, top quality skaters anymore; there’s a huge drop-off from the top three–and the pairs? Yikes. The team that won was the best of the six, for sure, despite a lot of mistakes. Skating just isn’t as much fun to watch as it used to be–although Ilia Malinin and his insane amount of quads in every long program is pretty impressive, and he’s getting better at the artistry, which used to be practically non-existent in his programs. I think he’s going to be one of the greater skaters, as long as his body holds out–all those quads are a lot of pressure on his ankles, knees, and hips.

Sorry to be so dull today, but yikes–exhausted and tired and still not feeling super great.let me eat something and maybe that will help–and so I will bid you adieu on this Sunday morning, and hope you have a lovely day.

Shock the Monkey

Saturday morning, and feeling okay. I ran some errands yesterday–mail, prescription, grocery shopping–and instead of going to Five Guys I stopped and got a very healthy turkey-avocado sandwich for lunch instead, on wheat bread, and it was delicious. I used the wagon to bring everything back from the car to the apartment, but after putting the groceries away was very exhausted. I started reading my next book (Lisa Unger’s Christmas Presents) but didn’t get very far into it. I wound up watching the Oregon-Washington game (to see how their quarterbacks matched up against Jayden Daniels for the Heisman; I am biased but was utterly unimpressed with either of them) for a while, and then just kind of zoned out and watched documentaries on Youtube for a few hours till the game started. I am feeling better, but my energy levels still deplete quickly–probably why my surgeon didn’t want me to return to work just yet.

Last night I slept through–didn’t wake up at five like I inevitably always do and then go back to sleep–and woke up at eight, deciding to go ahead and get up rather than loll about in the bed. I figured I could write my blog entry, drink some coffee, and then head over to the easy chair to read the new book for a few hours before trying to get back into writing MY new book. I also need to do some self-promotional entries today to get back on track on promoting my two new releases, and I also kind of need to figure out where I am at with all of my in-progress projects and make a plan to proceed with everything. I think I am going to go back to trying to plan out my year and so forth, because this scattershot method I’ve been using for so long hasn’t really worked out the way I would have liked; but scattershot tends to do that. I have any number of short stories I’d like to get finished, and there are also the novellas; and I have at least two novels in progress that are up to five chapters but have gone no further than that. I also need to get better organized with everything else in my life, too–my desk area looks better than it has in years as far as clutter is concerned, but it needs to be cleaned and straightened up a bit, and there are other things in my desk–the stack of Scotty books, for example–that don’t need to be here. I rearranged the work space before the surgery specifically to free up space on the desktop, and it did work; this arrangement looks better than the way that it used to look. I want to write today–I think I am going to work on some things for the new book too, so I can really dive in headfirst; I don’t have much of a plan for the book other than I know what one of the driving forces behind the plot is going to be; who the villain is; and who is going to die. It’s all mapped out in my journal, but I need to write it all up into a word document so I can easily reference it. Plus, typing shit makes it seem more real to me, which makes no sense to anything other than my twisted brain.

Sparky has discovered the great joy of knocking over the recycling to look for bottle caps, which are his favorite toy and means I don’t need to waste any money buying him anything; why spend more money when every bottle comes with a plastic cap toy for the little darling? He’s inquisitive and he’s smart–he now scales the drawers like a ladder to get up on the counter when the drawers are closed; if he can’t get up there the usual way. He showed off this new trick to us yesterday when we were putting away the groceries; so there wasn’t a clear space for him to jump up, so instead he pulled himself up by climbing the drawers. This tells me there’s really no point to putting things out of reach because he’ll just figure out a way to get there. Scooter wasn’t especially smart, nor was he terribly interested in toys or playing or anything, but Skittle was smart–and I suspect Sparky is even smarter than Skittle, and he’s getting so big! I think he might even wind up bigger than Skittle. Do I want to have a big, incredibly smart cat? It scares me just a little bit, to be honest. But now he seems to have calmed down a bit, and is a sleeping kitten donut on my desk. He really is a beautiful cat.

We had a lot of rain overnight–flash flood warnings, tornado watches all around us in neighboring parishes, the usual–I slept through it all. I didn’t even notice it was raining last night–without my hearing aids, I can’t hear anything other than thunder–but I am sure the rain helped me sleep. I didn’t sleep for a full ten hours; it was only nine. I was thinking yesterday that I need to start getting used to getting up early again before I have to return to work on the 12th, so it won’t be as horrible as it might be. I had finally gotten used to getting up early, and now I have to start getting used to it all over again, which isn’t going to be very much fun at all. But this is a relatively easy month to ease my way back into work again, with the holidays and extra time off at the end, so there’s that. And then again, it’s Carnival shortly thereafter, which I think is late again? I haven’t looked, but I think we have a late Fat Tuesday again this next year.

And on that note, I am heading into the spice mines for the morning. Have a fabulous Saturday, Constant Reader, and I’ll check in again later.

You and I

Sunday morning after a relaxing Saturday in the Lost Apartment. I went by to get the mail and stopped at the Fresh Market, then went back later to CVS to get my booster vaccine for COVID-19 and pick up my post-operative medications (my BASTARD insurance refused to cover the oxycodone, of all things. I hope this surgery costs them a fucking fortune). The games on television weren’t very interesting, frankly, and the only one that had any potential at all turned into a blow-out (Georgia-Tennessee). It was kind of a laid-back bland boring kind of day, which was kind of necessary. The prescription issue–I stopped by CVS on my first trip uptown, but one of my prescriptions wasn’t ready (the one I had already called to approve over the phone) but it turned out the reason they kept not filling it was because the insurance wasn’t paying for it and I had to say, “yes, I will pay out of pocket for it, thank you” which was why I had to go back later in the afternoon–so I figured I may as well make a vaccination appointment for when I do go back. You know me, always trying to be as efficient as possible and to utilize my time more effectively; seriously, I know now it’s an anxiety thing. I never quite understand my anxiety and what triggers it or causes it, or how many coping systems I have engineered over the course of my life to work around it–which turns into compulsive behavior.

I’ve yet to figure out how the obsessive part of me comes from the anxiety, but I am sure I will at some point.

My arm–the one I am having the surgery on–is sore this morning because I figured I might as well get used to that arm hurting and had the booster shot in that arm. I slept deeply and well last night; I went to bed shortly after the LSU game concluded with a 56-14 score with Jayden Daniels tying the school record for most touchdowns in a game (the other was Joe Burrow’s eight against Oklahoma in the 2019 play-offs…but Burrow scored seven in the first half and the eighth on the first drive of the second half before sitting out the rest of the game (LSU could have scored a hundred that day had they been so inclined; that game still boggles my mind that it actually happened–as well as how). If there’s any justice in the world Daniels will win the Heisman Trophy (he is clearly the best player in the country), but welcome to 2023 and college football. An impressive showing against Texas A&M won’t hurt his chances, for sure–but the fact LSU has a terrible defense this year shouldn’t overshadow what he’s accomplished with our offense. As an LSU fan, it boggles my mind that we have one of the best offenses of all-time, and yet our defense–always a point of pride in Tigerland–is one of the worst when our defense has historically always been vastly superior to our offense. We used to lose because the offense couldn’t score; now we lose because our defense is terrible. Even last night at first it looked like “same-old same-old,” with Georgia State scoring on their first two possessions before the defense clicked into gear and they never scored again.

Tulane also won again yesterday. Well done, Green Wave!

I spent some time reading Lou Berney’s Dark Ride yesterday and I am loving this book so much. Hardly, the stoner burnout loser main character, is probably one of my favorite characters I’ve read in quite some time; he resonates with me, especially with his newly awakened sense of right and wrong–which does not, I might add, change anything for his normal circumstances–he’s still a stoner burnout, still gets high as he puzzles his way into figuring out what to do next, and whether he should keep carrying about these random two kids he saw one day that might be victims of physical abuse. He reminds me in some way of a modern day American Don Quixote; I don’t know if that was what Berney was going for, but I can tell you this–he has nailed the voice of this character, and the story itself is quite good–and of course the writing, as always with Berney’s work, is spectacular…and it’s quite inspiring.

It also feels weird knowing I don’t have to go into the office tomorrow. Tomorrow is the last day I have to get everything ready in the apartment before the surgery–laying in supplies and getting everything ready to go for Tuesday. I suspect that I am going to be in some kind of drugged stupor for the first two days at least, and maybe by next weekend I’ll be lucid enough to be able to write a blog post; I don’t know. I suspect yesterday’s low energy was in some ways triggered by the knowledge of the surgery coming along with slight irritation over the prescription issue. But I made my meatballs last night (Paul astutely pointing out that I really make meatball stew rather than meatballs in gravy, and that is a very thin line) and they were very good. I also did some straightening up around here–I was expecting Paul to go work with his trainer and then go to the office for the afternoon, but his trainer canceled on him and he stayed home–moving down to lay on the couch and (hopefully) make a bed for Tug/Sparky; unlike Scooter, Tug’s a little more restless and he’s kind of gotten used to using my lap in the easy chair as his bed–and sure enough, he spent most of the day sleeping in my lap as I lazily scrolled through social media, looked things up on Google, and basically did nothing productive while watching yesterday’s (mostly boring) games. I probably should have watched Kansas-Kansas State, which the Wildcats won in a shoot out 31-24 (when was the last time both teams in the rivalry game had winning records? The futility of the college football teams in the state of Kansas is astonishing, even with KSU turning things around in the last thirty years–they’ve beaten KU fifteen straight times now). I’ll go look at what happened around the country in the sport once I finish writing this and move on to the easy chair to finish Lou’s book so I can write about it later. And I need to do some more blatant self-promotional posts before I wind up not being able to post anything at all for who knows how long?

Heavy sigh.

And on that note, I am taking my coffee and Dark Ride to my easy chair, only to emerge from it to get more coffee until I am finished reading it, and have started my next read, Zig Zag, by J. D. O’Brien. Have a lovely Sunday, Constant Reader, and I’ll probably be back later on today at some point as well….and I just remembered there is no Saints game today, so I have no excuses.

I Believe in You

GEAUX TIGERS!

I love my LSU Tigers.

Someone asked me the other day if I had gone to LSU, and I had to admit that I hadn’t. I am not an alumnus of my favorite university. I do not have memories of college days walking to class in the shade of  the magnolias and live oaks, of going to Tiger Stadium and sitting in the student section and going crazy on Saturday nights.

tiger stadium at night

I didn’t go to an SEC college; and if I had, my parents would have most likely sent me to Auburn–and given how regularly LSU beats Auburn, that certainly would have made living here problematic! I grew up rooting for Auburn first and then Alabama–but I always liked LSU. I liked their colors, I liked that they had a live tiger, and I loved that their stadium was so insanely loud. I started paying more attention to LSU when we moved here, obviously–and Paul also started rooting for LSU. The year of Katrina I pushed Auburn aside once and for all for LSU, and I’ve never looked back.

And of course I should be an LSU fan, even though I didn’t go to school there. I live in Louisiana, and my tax dollars support LSU, so I have some ownership there.

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And have I come to love the Tigers over the years. I vividly remember, for example, the 1997 upset of Florida, ranked number one and riding an incredibly long–23 or so games–winning streak in the SEC. I remember the upset of Tennessee in 2000, and the shocking upset of Tennessee to win LSU its first SEC title in over ten years in 2001. The national championship years of 2003 and 2007. The upset of Georgia in 2003 that told the country LSU had arrived. The “and Flynn is back to throw…to the end zone and it’s CAUGHT! Are you kidding me?” last second win over Auburn in 2007, the nine minute drive to beat Florida that same year, the trouncing of Ohio State in New Orleans for the national title.

We went to our first game in Tiger Stadium in 2010, the Mississippi game–and after being there once, there was never any chance of looking back or rooting for anyone else. We became ride or die LSU fans that night–and have gone to at least one game every season ever since. And it’s not been easy–there have been some highs, there have been some terrible lows, inexplicable losses and the firing of Coach Miles, the questions about Coach O when he was hired, that loss to Troy…but the loss to Troy was a turning point for the Tigers. Just as in 2000 under Coach Saban LSU lost to Louisiana-Monroe, only to turn everything around and win a national title three years later…here we are two years after the Troy loss, with probably one of the biggest turn arounds in college football history.

The coach no one wanted. The quarterback who didn’t play for three years at Ohio State. The two star receiver no one wanted. The running back who was told he was too small to play major college football.

A season that almost seemed like the plot of a movie, one of the greatest stories in the history of college football.

And tonight is the night; the official end of the college football season with LSU playing for the national championship in New Orleans, in the Superdome, against the defending national champion Clemson Tigers. Tigers v. Tigers.

If someone had told me at the beginning of the season, way back in late August, that LSU would be playing for the national championship at the end of the season, I would have thought well, one can always dream, of course.

And yet, here we are, exactly where Joe Burrow said we would be at SEC Media Days, when he also said LSU would be scoring 40, 50 , 60 points per game.

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And with only a couple of exceptions, he was right. Only Auburn held LSU to less than thirty points; but the final score of that game (23-20) doesn’t really give an accurate indication of what the game was like; LSU trailed 3-0 early but never trailed again, and Auburn scored in the closing seconds of the game to pull that close. LSU never trailed anyone for very long this season; they trailed Florida 28-21 for a long period in the third quarter before tying it up and then scoring twice more to finish them off. Texas led 7-3 before LSU went on a tear and was up 20-7 at the half, and never looked back.. Alabama (ALABAMA, yes, THAT Alabama, who’d beaten LSU eight straight times while establishing itself as THE marquee program) never led, and never got closer than within three after LSU’s first touchdown. We were ahead of Alabama 33-13 at half-time.

I still can’t get over that.

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This season has been a magic carpet ride for LSU fans, it really has. The entire state has fallen in love with Joe Burrow–he’s as exalted almost as much as Drew Brees, and when you consider the fact that Brees is practically King of Louisiana, you can perhaps get an idea of how much the state loves our Ohio transplant. (Interesting that the two quarterback gods of Louisiana got there start in the Midwest playing for Big Ten teams, isn’t it? And they both wear Number 9….)

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And he won the goddamned Heisman Trophy. Only the second in LSU history–which puts him up there in the same category as legendary Billy Cannon. His number will be retired someday, and his name will be permanently mounted on the stadium with the other greats. His statue will be in front of the stadium next to Billy Cannon’s.

I only hope that the statue will be of him in what I’ve come to think of as his trademark pose–standing with a slight smile on his face, both hands grasping the neckline of his jersey in the front, pulling down on his shoulder pads.

And while I obviously want LSU to win, there’s also a part of me that thinks the national championship is just gravy on top of a magic season that will live forever in the hearts and minds of the LSU faithful. There were so many amazing moments in this season–the 3rd and 17 pass that went for the clinching touchdown against Texas; the interception against Alabama so LSU wound up scoring two touchdowns in the closing minute of the first half; the 49 points in the first half against Oklahoma–and remember, LSU was up 35-14 with four minutes left in the first half and scored twice more; that insane escape from being sacked that turned into a forty yard pass completion against Georgia; the trouncing of Texas A&M; highlight after highlight after highlight.

Usually, in past seasons, there was maybe one game, possibly two, that was legendary; this entire season has been.

And of course, this magic moment, on Senior Night, when he won the hearts of everyone in Louisiana forever:

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Legend.

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And if there’s any doubt left about how LSU fans feel about our Jeaux, check out this video, in which the Tiger Stadium staple, “Callin’ Baton Rouge,” plays over highlights from this amazing player:

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So, GEAUX TIGERS. And win or lose, thank you for this season. It’s meant a lot to all of us.

Louisiana Saturday Night

Last night, Joe Burrow won the Heisman Trophy; the first time since Billy Cannon in 1959 that an LSU player has–and it was just one more peak in what has been one of the most thrilling LSU seasons I’ve ever had the pleasure to witness.

It really has been something for LSU fans.

I started writing this entry the morning after LSU beat Alabama for the first time since 2011, and yet…I resisted posting it at the time. I try not to be superstitious, and succeed for the most part, but when it comes to college football (or the Saints), I give in to superstition all the fucking time, even though I know it’s absurd. For example, every season I pick out two images–one for my Facebook profile picture, the other for my Facebook cover picture. I do not change those images all season unless LSU loses; after a loss I choose two different ones because those two images have clearly run out of luck. Same with what I wear on game days. I always wear LSU sweats when I am at home; I’ve worn my yellow sweatshirt for every game I’ve watched at home this season, and will continue wearing it for the play-offs.

Every bit of juju, you know?

And watching the growing love affair between the people of Louisiana and Joe Burrow has been an absolute joy to watch. Being a football fan in Louisiana is somehow different than it is anywhere else–I don’t really know how to describe it. We cheer the wins and mourn the losses, but we never ever seem to take the losses out on the team. The losses are disappointing yes, but there’s always this sense that the fans and the team are in it together, more so than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. Drew Brees is a god in Louisiana and in New Orleans; now, Joe Burrow is one as well.

Paul said to me recently, “I never really think about you being Southern other than during football season.”

And he’s right–it’s true. One of the few remnants of my childhood upbringing is my deep and abiding love and enjoyment of college football. I’ve managed to shed most of my raising; values I was instilled with as a child that as an adult I’ve come to understand are neither right for me as a person or as a citizen to hold. It’s a struggle I continue to have even now; at least once a day my first thought in response to some situation or something someone says or something I see on-line is reprehensible, undesirable, and horrifying; shaking me to the very core of who I am as a person.

I suppose one can never completely be free of a Southern evangelical childhood. (Which reminds me of my essay “Recovering Christian”–which I really should finish writing.)

But one of the things I still hold onto is my love and enjoyment of college football. I grew up watching the games on ABC every Saturday; rooting for Auburn first and Alabama second. I always liked LSU–purple and gold has always been one of my favorite team color combinations, plus they had a real live tiger mascot–but they were a secondary team for me. I always liked their traditions and their stadium and all of that, but as I said, Auburn and Alabama came first. After I moved to Louisiana I began following LSU more–obviously, it’s much easier to follow the Tigers in Louisiana than anywhere else in the country–and of course, in the wake of Katrina turned my full fan capabilities to LSU, and have never looked back (I still root for Auburn and Alabama, in that order; I root for them except for when they play LSU and when they play each other).

This season has surpassed my wildest dreams for LSU.

I would have never predicted that the state of Louisiana would be having a football-season long (and probably much, much longer) love affair with a kid from Ohio.

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I mean, seriously. I was cautiously optimistic about the season before it began.

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But in all the fantasy narratives of an LSU football season I’ve daydreamed quite happily about, what this 2019 season has become was one that never entered my mind. Not even with my incredibly all-over-the-map creative imagination, would I have dared to dream what this season became.

Legendary.

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LSU 55, Georgia Southern 3

LSU 45, Texas 38

LSU 65, Northwestern State 14

LSU 66, Vanderbilt 38

LSU 42, Utah State 6

LSU 42, Florida 28

LSU 36, Mississippi State 13

LSU 23, Auburn 20

LSU 46, Alabama 41

LSU 58, Mississippi 37

LSU 56, Arkansas 20

LSU 50, Texas A&M 7

SEC CHAMPIONSHIP:

LSU 37, Georgia 10

I also realized over the course of this season why it’s so difficult for me to care about the NFL (other than the Saints): because there are too many LSU players in the NFL playing for non-Saints teams, and I just can’t root against LSU players. Ever. It came to me when I watched the Texas A&M, when they finally took Joe Burrow out of the game to thunderous applause, a standing ovation and the crowd chanting his name, with–I am not ashamed to say it–tears in my eyes: I can never root against Joe Burrow, so whoever he plays for in the NFL I am going to have to pull for–and what happens when he plays against the Saints?

Therein lies the rub with being a football fan.

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This season has been amazing, absolutely amazing, and ever so much fun to watch. If someone had told me last season that LSU would be leading Alabama 33-13 at half-time in Tuscaloosa, or that they would hang fifty on A&M, or about those big final touchdowns against Texas, Florida and Alabama, I would have thought they were dreaming. Sure, I go into every season hoping LSU will play well and have a big year–I always hope for the best–but this season? Never would have dared hope that it would turn out like this. I was excited for Joe Burrow last year when he transferred in, but there was also that element of well, he couldn’t get the starting job at Ohio State–and much as I enjoyed watching him play, Danny Etling was also a transfer quarterback and while he did win some big games (who can ever forget that insane upset of Auburn in Tiger Stadium, coming after the embarrassing loss to Troy, when everyone wrote off not only LSU but predicted Coach O would be fired at the end of the season? I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Danny Etling), it wasn’t like he lit up the record books…and he couldn’t beat Alabama.

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And after last year’s Alabama game, I certainly never dared to hope LSU would beat them this year. But they did, and it was a thriller of a game, an absolute classic. (I may have told Paul to replay the game when I am on my deathbed, so I can die happy.)

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And yes, I am aware that I might take LSU football a little too seriously.

But what a season. I was checking some notes yesterday, and came up with these incredible moments:

*LSU has actually only trailed four opponents during the course of this season: they trailed against Florida 28-21 in the third quarter, only to win 42-28, including a goal line stand at the end of the game when it really didn’t matter if the Gators scored;

*LSU trailed Texas 7-3 in the first quarter, but took the lead back at 10-7; in fact, with 1:30 left in the first half LSU kicked a field goal to go up 13-7…but the halftime score was LSU 20, Texas 7. Texas would close the gap to two points twice in the second half, but the famous 3rd-and-17 touchdown pass slammed the door shut once and for all on the Longhorns;

*Vanderbilt scored first, but by the end of the first quarter LSU was up 28-7.

*LSU trailed Auburn 3-0 early before going up 7-3 and later, 10-3. Auburn scored to tie it at 10-10, but LSU never trailed again;

*With five minutes left in the first half the Tigers kicked a field goal to go up 19-13 on Alabama; the half time score was 33-13. Alabama never lead, the score was never tied, and Alabama was never able to pull close than five points the rest of the game. The third quarter was all Alabama, and they made the score 33-27 with fourteen minutes left in the game–the set-up for another one of Alabama’s come-from-behind wins. Joe then took the Tigers 75 yards, making at least three conversions on third downs to go up 39-27–and when the Tide scored again, Joe took them another 75 yards to put the final nail in the coffin with less than two minutes left in the game;

*Vanderbilt scored first, but by the end of the first quarter LSU was up 28-7.

*Also worthy of mention in the Texas game: Texas had 1st and goal and was stopped four straight times. LSU took over on downs. On the first play Joe threw one of his few interceptions; Texas had first and goal inside the five. LSU’s defense again stopped them four times–so that was eight consecutive stops inside the ten. Amazing.

*In the SEC title game, the score at half-time was 17-3. In a three minute flurry in the second half, LSU went ahead 34-3 before Georgia scored again.Screen Shot 2019-12-15 at 8.26.42 AM

It’s really been a magical, wondrous season to watch and enjoy; there have been so many times where all I’ve been able to say it “OH MY GOD” as I watched–the most recent, of course, that insane play where Joe avoided three tacklers and launched a pass that went for 71 yards….while running to the sideline.

There have been so many great moments this season.

And I haven’t even talked about the great story behind this season either: the coach no one wanted; the third string quarterback who left his original school so he could get a chance to play; the running back everyone thought was too short to play college ball; the linemen no one wanted; the receiver who was too skinny–they all came together in Tiger Stadium to create one of the greatest teams in the already storied history of LSU football.

I am so thrilled I got to see them play in person twice–the Georgia Southern game, and one of the greatest experiences of my life–the Florida game.

Thank you, Joe, Coach O, and everyone else on the team from the bottom of my heart.

GEAUX TIGERS!