Latest thing Laura is excited about

Tennis!

OK not really. Or not exactly. I'm not sure how I feel about the prospect of becoming a tennis fan, it's just so ridiculously preppy. I feel like I'd never fully trust the players to actually be likable. On the other hand, I randomly decided to say hey in one of ontd_tennis's Wimbledon FFAs and everyone was super nice and welcoming even though at that time I hadn't actually watched a tennis match (last night I was able to tune in for most of Nadal's match yesterday, ESPN2 was re-airing it woooo).

BUT. I did get INCREDIBLY EXCITED about last week's 11 Hour Tennis Match of Crazy Marathon Epic Awesome and Fretting! Between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. I only noticed it because I was in a World Cup free for all watch post at ontd_extreme and there kept being the occasional comment about "OMG IS THIS TENNIS MATCH STILL GOING??" and finally figured out that something epic was happening.

Then, of course, I got totally sucked in. This was late in the day on Wednesday (in England, at least) so there wasn't much of the game left that day, but I searched for articles about what was going on, learned about the players, joined tennis communities. . .

Something about, I don't know. I guess I got invested at first partly because I was just worried about their health. And then I wanted to know how it would end. And then I got so upset for Nico, even though I was vaguely pulling for Isner before the match. Plus it was just such a sports hero moment. Neither of them gave up, neither of them wanted to lose the game even after playing it for days.

I have come to adore both players. I keep doing French language searches in google news for Mahut and then translating all the pages so I can get a better feel for what's up with him. I've discovered that google translator will always make "court" into "short" even when it refers to a tennis court. Luckily I have just enough French that when I hover to see the original I can combine that with the auto-translate to get some kind of sense.

A (slightly edited for translation) quote: "I would like to be remembered that I went for it all the way, maybe even a little further, I was ready to die on the ground to try to win, I was brave, I respected my opponent and the values that sports conveys. For now, the experience of my life. I am very proud that young people take their lead from what I did."

Awwwwwwwwww Mahut!

Isner is adorable and I'm happy for him that he won and his ridiculous height (6'9" or 2.06m - if those aren't the same, blame the article that gave me the metric) but Nico was the lower ranked player who rose to the occasion in this incredible match and had to experience the tragedy of losing, but was still incredibly classy - and incredibly heartbroken - in the aftermath.

But really, everyone was classy. Each player talked a lot about how amazing the other was, stuff like that. Classy and cocky, but whatever. Plus Isner is 6'9", and I find ridiculous heights and height differences to be HILARIOUS. That's an inch taller than my monstrously tall cousin, who I miss now. XD He moved to the west coast years ago, but oh man. I was a short kid and he was VERY intimidating. 10 years older and 2 feet taller. XD (I'm still short, but within the normal realm of short. Whereas as a kidlet I was always one of the shortest in my class.)

The umpire, by the way, Mohamed Lahyani, is also ridiculously adorable and apparently already has his own fan following and is known as Mo and has a rep for being very smiley. :D LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE. Also he said "Seven hours in a chair was nothing to me, I fly economy." Looooove so much. He also said he was so sucked into the drama of the game he didn't notice that he had to go to the bathroom.

However, since I've gotten into tennis almost no one that I've been rooting for has won. I mean, I've been making some of my decisions based on ontd_tennis and who they seem to be rooting for but sometimes there's someone I've heard of or who seems cool. . . however random my decisions might be, the people I like seem to not be doing well. I should probably stop caring and they'll thank me. >.> Sorry, Andy Roddick! I was quite upset over your loss the other day! I am SO not cut out for this sports fan thing. Although I coulda told you that from the Olympics. So much triumph. . . so much tragedy.

Speaking of which, the World Cup! D: Awwwwwwwwwwww Team USA! It took me a little while to get going on the World Cup because I was in a full curling viewing frenzy and just could not process the depth of information needed for me to get fully invested. But I was able to slowly, eventually pick up bits and pieces (_extremers tend to highlight the good-looking players so I can be aware of them, but they generally assume everyone knows the names already and therefore sometimes it takes me a little while to figure who those players are. . . but I've been slowly collecting knowledge.

So by the time of the Algeria game I was totally invested in the USMNT! . . . And then there was the Ghana game. ::sigh:: At least I haven't actually watched any of the games from the group matches yet because most of them were on while I was at work (or before I was getting into it) and I think I SHOULD still be able to watch them at espn3.com or something. They're a very good-looking and very lovable team. I like that we're all so proud of them for doing well and being such inspirations even though they didn't come home with a victory like America usually expects. I like when I get to feel good about my country.

Anyway, the US's exit did take the wind out of my sails a bit but I'm trying to reinvest myself in other teams. I know the names of good-looking players on most of the remaining teams, my favorites being Spain. They're very hunky. I'm going to try not to get too invested, though, so the Laura jinx doesn't take them out. In the meantime I'll just try to get a better grasp on everything. (I'm undecided about how much tennis terminology I want to learn, although hilariously Katie's boyfriend is a big tennis fan. He's very confused by my new interest.)

Even though I'm embarrassed by my total ignorance about all these things I'm becoming a fan of, I also love the not knowing, because it means there's so much for me to discover. I loved getting context for the Isner-Mahut match from tennis fans, finding out what (if anything) the participants were known for before and stuff like that.

So many sports. I still really don't want to get into the big time pro sports, though - MLB, NFL, NBA. Although I am going to a Mets game sometime this month.

Actual going out doing real life things with friends!

So I've barely had much time to myself over the past week - I have done something every single day since Thursday (I wrote this on Wednesday during the day, that evening I did just sit at home and FFA at _extreme and read tennis fanfic and watch TV. Tonight Katie is over to hang out but she's on the phone). I usually try not to be busy 6 days in a row, I like to have some days to chill out, but it's been fun and not too crazy.

Thursday my much beloved friend Courtney was visiting for the night! She just got back from a year teaching in American Samoa - one of the smaller, outer islands. And she was in NYC to take her girlfriend to the airport and thought she'd visit her friends in Brooklyn on the way out.

So on Thursday we met after I got out of work near St Mark's Place, because I already had plans with my friend Alison from work to go to this bar that has board games and play Sorry. Courtney & I got there first and it was really crowded, but they had ESPN on so I FINALLY actually got to see the end of the Isner-Mahut match. I feel like I didn't even get to watch any previous-day highlights Wednesday night, maybe I wasn't fully on board and I'd just discovered a new BBC West End casting reality series, that aired this spring and was casting Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and was roaring through videos of those performances.

Well, the point is whenever there was tennis on screen I was just ignoring everything that was going on around me and gluing my eyes to it. Courtney was very understanding!

However, as the place was so crowded we couldn't play sorry, so once Alison showed up (with our friend Vivek who is the one who took care of me on the horrible alcohol day that I've named Vomitfest 2010) we head out and were going to go to our shuffleboard place but didn't really feel like it, I felt more like darts & Alison agreed. But on the way there we ran into a friend of Alison's who's a regular at the shuffleboard place and said the owner had another bar, closer to the subway, that was big and chill and had darts. AND IT DELIVERED!

I had some drama with the bartender who didn't believe that I'd paid and put my drink on Courtney's tab because of some confusion and then was obnoxious about it and finally bitterly paid me back out of her own pocket, even though I wasn't fucking lying about having left 6 dollars on the bar, for god's sake! Like, we went over and said "Oh, excuse me, did you put my drink my friend's tab? Because I paid for it in cash at the time." And she said "No, you didn't!" WHAT THE FUCK? Way to outright call me a liar, you turd. Maybe if you fucking picked up the money as people paid you would be on top of what was happening at your bar. Yes, I know we discussed me putting it on her tab and I understand that you were confused, it is totally understandable. BUT I PUT MONEY DOWN AND WHEN I SAY I DID, DO NOT OUTRIGHT SAY I'M LYING TO YOU. Ugh.

However, I won two games of darts after trailing all game and it was a really nice, chill place so we'll probably go back anyway. XD

( Friday-Tuesday, with a detour to Torino 2006 )