Flamin’ Mamie
Posted on April 10, 2008
Filed Under bitching and moaning, marriage, suburban joys | 11 Comments
Another day, another loss on the tennis court. I know, I know, two weeks in a row. How will I manage to go on? How will I ever earn back my blog audience’s awe and admiration.
During the match, I said ‘Fuck’ out loud, a lot, but otherwise managed to keep my temper under wraps. (Is there worse language she could have used, you ask. Well, yes, of course, but I can’t type it here for fear of the spam and internet stalkers such language might attract. Use your imagination. ‘Fuck’ is benign.) At the very least I did not slam my racket into the net or hit a ball at the opponent’s head after the losing the second set. So there’s progress, at least in my on-court etiquette. So you may not want me as your tennis partner next year, now that I’ve been defeated and have proven to be a very bad loser, but I promise you can still invite me to a mixed doubles social event and I won’t mention how I can see your thong through your tennis shorts or spill gravy on the tablecloth.
As a team, we knew this four week stretch was going to be difficult. Since we’ve held top position in the league for much of the year, we were scheduled to play the number two and three teams consecutively before the playoffs.
So today we ceded our first place position to a worthy team that has been chasing us by two points for the past five months. They caught us, they beat us, and I want revenge. Especially because one of our opponents donned a pair of blue tinted wrap around terminator sunglasses (which I found hilarious considering we are playing indoor tennis). I giggled and lost my focus and now feel all the more resolved to go get those forearm tattoos before next week’s rematch:
A series of tough looking townie women with cross hatches through their startled faces, like the old score keeping of aces across the nose of their planes in World War. Four is a good but credible number. And below their faces, written in that thick, faux-medieval font popularized in prisons, “Bring it bitch.” (Thank you, Ron. I’ve always sort of wanted a tattoo but have felt nervous about the permanence of the whole thing. I’m actually kind of uncomfortable with bumper stickers even. But now that you’ve given me this excellent idea for a permanent marking, how can I resist? Because if sunglasses can startle and fluster, I’m quite sure the taunt and bluster of a few well executed tattoos would nearly insure a win. And I seriously looked for pics of aircraft nose art to go with this post and found a lot of painted nudes with names like Memphis Belle. So Flamin’ Mamie’s the best I could come up with.)
If you define yourself in terms of tennis and then start to lose, your feelings of invincibility are challenged. If you define yourself in terms of your success as a writer and receive yet another grad school rejection in the mailbox, you are all the more convinced that you must suck. If you define yourself in terms of all the weight you bear admirably and with aplomb on the home-front only to hear from your partner that you’re not doing your share, then you’ve come up empty in this category too. Such is the week I’m having.
Cocktails and a male escort service couldn’t cheer me up at this point. But my windows are beginning to sparkle and, apparently, Mother Nature has forgiven me the tennis skirt comment because the sun shines and that’s something.
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