missed chances

just thinking about those couple of days when i drove myself to stay up and get good and tired, knowing without having to look after the boy, i'd have all morning to sleep it off.

well, i never did -- either morning. i stupidly left my phone near the bed.

now i'm just as tired as i ever was, if not more so.

i'm an idiot.

now what?

same thing every spring. last west virginia loss after the thrill of the post-season and then ... nothing.

my normal online sports fix go-to's don't have the same flavor with my mountaineers out of the picture. the closest thing i have to look forward to is six months away when wvu kicks off against marshall.

of course, there is life to attend to -- particularly the yard and this pesky ant infestation going on in the house -- so i suppose it's good to have no distractions going on.

and think about it ... in six months, i'm fairly certain the boy will toddling around and getting into even more mischief than he is already.

do i really want to fast-forward my already sleep- and energy-deprived body any further than its already extended?

last day

so the missus and i had this agreement.

my west virginia university banner goes up at the start of football season and comes down whenever the basketball team is done playing.

the mountaineers made it to the final four last year, so it stayed up well into april, whereupon our agreement slipped her mind and i conveniently neglected to tell her.

she remembered at the end of football season this year. i told her we still had a few months to go.

so we lost today to the same kentucky wildcats we beat to get into the final four last year.

considering the bad turn we had with the supposed stars of this year's freshman class, we're lucky to have made it into the ncaa's in the first place.

say what you will about bob huggins, he knows how to work with what he's got. i think he squeezed blood from the proverbial stone to get us where we finished today.

going down by eight with a team as thin as ours was wasn't a bad loss, all things considered.

so ... i'll do the honorable thing and take it down ... tomorrow.

single-minded

this was something i used to do fairly regularly: go out nights and enjoy beverages with friends.

i make note of this in the wee hours of the morning after st. patrick's day because i'm on the tail end of about 48 hours of bachelorhood while the missus and the baby visit grandma and papaw so i can set poison ant traps throughout the house.

i had to fill in on the late shift so one of my staffers could get ready for an early morning flight.

it was well past 1 a.m. when i pulled onto kanawha boulevard to head home when i noticed people spilled out onto the sidewalks.

"oh yeah," i remembered. "it's saint paddy's."

and, with no one waiting at home for me, i actually entertained the idea of parking the car, walking into a tavern and having a beer for old time's sake.

some combination of maturity, better judgment or tiredness dissuaded me from harmless trouble. why risk it?

coming home to a house empty but for a hungry cat, i was able to move heedless of any noise i might make.

i left the bathroom door open while i showered. i took no extra care rifling through the plates and cutlery as i prepared a midnight snack. i listened to the radio at a volume that i could hear over the sound of my own chewing.

if you've never tried, anything involving movement is about twice as hard to do if you're trying to do it quietly, so i enjoyed my more efficient use of energy.

throughout the whole exercise, i tried to remember if this was what it was like being a single, unattached man.

back then, i had cable tv, so, especially after a big sports day (my mountaineers beat their first-round ncaa tournament opponent) i'd likely have surfed the news for recaps and analysis of the game and probably would have fallen asleep on the couch.

it must have been one of my strategies to avoid the quiet of lying in bed with only my thoughts.

i mean, that must have been why i left the tv and/or radio on when i lived alone. i had to create my own company or at least the illusion of it, right?

but aloneness wasn't a bad condition. i think everyone should know how to live with it.

besides tv and internet foolishness, i learned to fill my hours with writing and prayer. i cultivated friendships and socialized. i was up on popular culture.

now i have a helpmate whose company i love and enjoy. i cook less. i have a social events scheduler. i don't even have to keep up with pop stars.

that old life isn't like riding a bike. it's a town long receded in my rear view mirror that's a nice place to visit, but one that i'm not willing to move back to any time soon.