It's a Monday morning, it's been a few weeks, let's try something where I do not use the delete key except to correct a spelling mistake. Starting now.
By the way, this is intended to be a stimulus to write, this method. Just get it out of your head. Might have used quotation marks around that last one.
Played hoops yesterday. Good sentence. Guys were a little testy, or rather the games were a little chippy. Let's make a catalogue of events: in backwards order, the games ended on a massive score dispute involving Mando and the same young guy I had a score dispute with last fall. I was packing up to go and was not playing in that game, so wasn't certain how it started, but they were yelling like they were at Omaha Beach. Something to do with whether the game was to go to 11 or 12 points, and it eventually simmered down as it was established that we always play to just 11.
Before that there was some sideline razzing of one of our guys who called a foul on a defender even though it's true that our guy was the one throwing his shoulders around.
Before that I had to tell White Kobe in what amounted to new territory for our relationship to "watch (himself) down there" after he used my back and shoulders as a springboard to put a miss back in. Last fall he did that once and acknowledged it, but this time he was running back down the court while my teammate Gil just looked at me and I was thinking Hang On, What just happened there? It was one of those deals where somebody missed from outside, I'm underneath ready to jump, and suddenly somebody's putting it back in and I'm not even getting off the ground. He probably did have great timing, and when you're the guy that's timed it right, it's true it makes everyone else look like prisoners of gravity. Still, Gil's look told me that it wasn't quite kosher. So anyway White Kobe merely said "Yeah okay" in an ambiguous way which fairly pissed me off. So here's where it gets good. We're down 10-8 after his dubious put-back, he says Yeah Ok, I drive and dish to somebody, pop back out, catch a pass just inside the arc, step back outside the arc and make it 10-10. They come down and miss, we come down and make and win. Never done the step-back three before. Billy my brother-in-law owns that move. Hop back and make a three. So we say good game afterwards and that's that. Gil, by the way, was the centerpiece of our win, dong everything that he's known for. So I've lost a little respect for WK now because you gotta know when you do that. Afterwards Gil said there was no doubt. Of course in pick-up ball it's on the fouled to call the foul, but I'd already called a contended foul earlier that game, which brings us to the first incident...
Where I called a foul on a guy who stripped it from me as I was passing it, and his response was "that was ball first, then arm!" but I didn't say boo and he gave it back and said my name a few times in exasperation and a few more "ball first, that was ball first!" and then that was that. Well, except that this did influence me to not demand a re-do of Kobe's possession later in the game. I don't want to cross over into complainer status, but the truth is also that I also don't like confrontation for the obvious reasons: it's stressful, it causes upset, and I don't have a third reason. I like to think of myself as Guy who doesn't call fouls because he doesn't need to and usually people call themselves out when they foul me, but I have to admit that I'm also Guy who's unwilling to rankle others twice in a game, even if it's justified. Must ask self also: am I intimidated by WK? For instance, would I have called out somebody else on that? The problem is, the guys I would have called out actually would have called themselves out to start with. And while it's true that the game unfolded from there ideally, with us winning, and my irritation transmuted into triumph, that sidesteps the issue of "why wouldn't you demand a re-do?"
I've lost my temper a few times over the years, with strangers and friends on the court, but not with, I realize now, an Alpha-dog like WK. So this session of navel-gazing here has led me to conclude that this was a case of animal-like deference, my "watch yourself down there" amounting to a lesser-cheetah's feint before loping away. Although the winning the game part would be like winning a cheetah sprint to nab the springbok anyway. Of course, the springbok won't always be available that way, and challenging the alpha cheetah will more often than not be the way to it. Must remember that. Must go now. Must go eat Savanna-Flakes.
