Playing Ultimate Part 1: My First Game

I have been playing ultimate for 28 years. I am also a writer. After a significant amount of time trying to figure out how to combine these two skills, I settled on writing a series of stories about my life as an ultimate player which, if all goes well, will also be turned into a groundbreaking psychedelic rock opera entitled Tommy unless someone has beat me to that already.

Here is Part 1: My First Game

It was late spring 1989, flowers were blooming, love was in the air for the local birds and bees and I had just turned 18 and was finally on the cusp of graduating. While I was excited for university and couldn't wait to get out of that "hell hole" (author's note: not an actual hell hole), all in all, high school was pretty good for me - above average grades, minor roles in school plays, and minimal amount of long-term permanently scarring moments. But, there was one major thing missing from my To Do list for school; one glaring thing, in fact. I had never played on a school sports team. And I loved sports! I was literally in love with sports, seriously, it was a huge problem. Honestly, I followed almost every sport as if my own existence depended on them (maybe they didn't, but was I going to take that chance?) and it had always been my dream to be a star on a team with the bleachers full of adoring fans cheering for me (true story - I spent hours in the backyard completely dominating my solo version of tennis-ball-against-the-aging-wooden-fence baseball and as well as being a virtuoso at one man balloon basketball in the rec room). Unfortunately, in reality, I lacked what is commonly known as skill and thus, I never made even one team.

Not that I hadn't tried. If they gave awards for trying, I still wouldn't win one, but I'd be close. There were numerous failures and shortcomings that I just don’t have the room to adequately give justice to here, but am happy to send interested parties the entire DVD collection. I remember going out for the basketball team in grade 9 after a summer of watching Bird, Magic and Isiah on TV and believing that my time brazenly dunking on the kiddie hoop in the lane was all the prep I needed. Sadly and unfairly, I was wrong. Laughably wrong if you were someone else, which I wasn’t. Instead of walking around the halls full of pride after making the team, I came away psychologically and metaphysically knocked down as I had to finally confront that I didn’t have what it took. I still walked down the halls as I needed to exit the building. Turns out that I couldn't dribble well enough to be a guard, wasn't tall enough to be a forward and couldn't shoot well enough to be on the team at all, but I could be a manager if I didn't find that too insulting, which I didn't...till now. I was an amazing grade 9 basketball team manager, by the way, years ahead of my time.

I so badly wanted to wear our school colors with the nickname "Grey Ghosts" emblazoned on the front to hopefully terrify, or at least confuse our opponents (“why were the ghosts, grey, and what did that mean?”) and I wasn't ready to give up. I considered volleyball (too short), soccer (hilariously uncoordinated with my feet) and rugby (scared of everyone and everything hitting me). Don't misunderstand, I wasn't a stereotypical glasses-wearing, calculator-carrying, member of the chess club nerd decorated with skin blemishes and freckles, I mean I was, but that’s not the point, or not this point I’m trying to make presently. It wasn't that I wasn't athletic, I played competitive racquetball, squash and tennis as a teen, but unfortunately, no school team sport worked for me and those individual sports carried next to no cache, which I had cleared ample space in my backpack to carry. My parents consoled me the way that only my parents could (although to be honest I didn't go around trying out other parents approaches to compare and contrast) with well-meaning clichés such as "keep your chin up", "don't take it on the chin" and other chin-related expressions and idioms that were meant to motivate and inspire me, which they did, while also making me fairly self-conscious about my chin.

And then, just when I was ready to give up all hope, I found Ultimate. Looking back on things, it must have been destiny or fate or a result of being stalked.

I grew up vegetarian, though that isn't important for this story, and also loving throwing Frisbees, or more accurately, being totally frustrated that I couldn't really throw one to save my life which thankfully never came up. I was told that a ball dreamed that it was a Frisbees, which was but one thing that a ball and I had in common. My parents always brought a disc with them whenever we went to a park and they were just so good at chucking it to each other and then turning to me and smiling in a perfect mix of taunting and love that only they could master. All throughout my youth, I vividly recall being in awe of how they would effortlessly wing this colorful plastic disc to each other at a good distance without it wobbling or hitting the ground. I would just lay there, under the big ol' oak tree, reading Nancy Drew, and eating sugar-free snacks, just wishing that I could throw like they were. Occasionally I would be permitted to join in and I clearly stood out as "NOT A THROWER!" (why my mom had to continually, and quite joyfully call that out each time I was about to throw, was beyond me) as my discs posed immediate health hazards to all humans and animals nearby as the Frisbees would rarely get to one of my parents and when they did it wasn't pretty. I always looked up to their ability to throw so crisply and accurately while humming the hits of the 70s and early 80s while doing so. I really wished that I could do the same.

For much of grade 12, my friends and I had spent our lunch hours walking outside, eating lunch and throwing Frisbees, usually in that order. It came as quite a shock one day when they approached me unknowingly carrying large amounts of static. They cornered me (to be fair, I was already in a corner at the time marveling at the practical application of angles), and asked me if I wanted to come out that evening to play on their team. I instantly said "sure" a little too loudly and enthusiastically for the librarian's taste before inquiring exactly what kind of "team" this was and whether I'd need to be vaccinated beforehand, which, for me, was a deal breaker. I found out that my friends had been leading a secret, double life for years now while also playing ultimate on Wednesdays as well, without telling me or possibly they had told me and I was lost in the bliss of yet another incredible peanut butter sandwich.

Why they wanted me, a guy who couldn't hit the side of a barn even when provided with a barn ahead of time to practice on, was beyond me. Also beyond me was quantum mechanics, as well as why orange shirts just don't go well with brown pants. Maybe they had done their due diligence and research and realized that I was the missing piece to the puzzle for their team and that they saw within me great potential and just wanted the opportunity to help me unleash it or, conversely, they were fresh out of options and were incredibly desperate and I was their final hope so they wouldn't default. Either way really, I was just so excited to have been invited out to join their team as long as dogs weren't involved in any way, which they assured me they weren't, though I swear I heard barking and the cackling of laughter in the background on the phone when they hung up.

I remember my first game so well.

It was a late Spring Wednesday evening in 1989 at the idyllic Jericho Beach Park in Vancouver with the coastal mountains looming in the distance and that ever-present and beautiful aroma of the woods after a rain all around. The grass was still damp as I dropped my bike on the sideline and ran over to join my team just hoping that this wasn't all part of an elaborate hoax, though, like all of us, I do love a hoax from time to time. The previous summer, the team had been called The Pink Lungs, but with many lineup changes, the new team was called Hat Head (we all wore hats...on our heads) and eventually we morphed into Bandana Republic (we all wore bandanas while also feeling strongly that supreme power should be held by the people and their elected representatives, if you are into that sort of thing, which we were). I jogged around in my running shoes warming up, trying to ignore how damp my socks were already getting while also attempting to look like I had some idea of what I was doing, and failing miserably. I was a pro at attempting and failing to fit in, though this was the first that my socks were wet at the same time, so there was that.

To get ready for the game, our side performed a detailed routine of ritualistic stretching that the director of the local dance academy said was mediocre at best while we claimed that we weren’t auditioning and that she should leave us alone. Then we started a “simple” throwing drill where my discs went everywhere but their intended targets. I considered either specifically not aiming at the targets or breaking down and crying or both. One friend came over and seemed to be threatening me not to screw up the game, though in retrospect, he was probably just struggling with seasonal allergies. While looking forward to a relatively relaxing sporting activity between friends, I was mostly hoping that I would escape, body, glasses and psyche fully intact (or least no less intact than when I started) and that they would want me to come back next week if, for nothing else, as some comic relief or to throw over ripe fruit at. My heart was pumping a mile a minute and my head was spinning (both par for the course for a Wednesday evening); I never played team sports ever since I swore off soccer after that rabid dog tried to eat my leg on the gravel field during a lunch time game back in grade 5 as I figured “why did someone invent a game that involved a rabid dog in the first place?” 

As I looked across the field, I noticed that the other team had MATCHING SHIRTS (!?!?!?) which seemed to either be their attempt to intimidate us (it was working!) and/or encourage us to buy or invest heavily in Adidas. In my shaky-at-best memory, they were tall, lean and spectacularly tanned. It seemed totally unfair that our ragtag bunch of pseudo, quasi athletes who could have easily been mistaken for a group of foreign exchange students from Eastern Europe or a youth community theatre troupe for wayward teens had to go up against these veritable Olympians. In my paranoia (which my grade 7 teacher once referred to as “impressive”) I was sure that the other team had already sensed my blood in the water and were plotting and scheming to expose the imposter (me) on their way to total domination. As I stood there shaking in my boots (no one told me not to bring boots!), I was completely consumed with not screwing up or being the primary reason that we lost. As we huddled up in a circle before the game, I complimented our team on our ability to form a circle so well on such short notice with next to no practice. I remember in my panicked moments before the game hearing these strange terms thrown at me like "the force", "the stack", "hucks", "striking" and “macroeconomics” while I employed the time-honored strategy of smiling and nodding to give the illusion that I had any idea what they were talking about.

The game began. To say that I had dreamt of this moment ever since I was a child would be completely inaccurate, because how would I have had any idea on any level of consciousness that I’d ever be in this exact position. No, I had only dreamt of this moment since a couple days before when they invited me to play. In my dream, I was the star. Small in stature, but huge on the field as I made awe-inducing play after awe-inducing play. There were a series of incredible dives for Frisbees, amazing and improbable leaps into the sky to grab discs that were seemingly out of my reach and a game-saving play for the ages that was commemorated by a local artist who used primarily watercolors on canvas. Alas, my idiotic reality never lives up to the stupid expectations of my dumb dreams.

We started on defense. I was told to do “whatever it took” not to let that guy standing across the field from me to score. I tried to wink at my teammate to show that I got it, but, honestly, I’m a really poor winker and it probably came across like I was hitting on him or that I had dirt in my eye, which are often easily mistaken for each other in my experience. I learned quickly that not wanting your check to score wasn’t enough and you had to actually do something about it as he was unlikely to listen to your fancy reasoning. The game went by in a blur, and that was even after I cleaned my glasses. I spent the evening huffing and puffing, trying not to run into people, and standing around waving and calling for the disc. I slipped and fell constantly all over the place (remember: running shoes on damp grass) and I did not complete one pass or catch one disc. Aside from that, it was an unqualified success on par with the tuna salad I had made that past weekend. I was thrown to a few times, partially out of pity and also sympathy, which are really hard to tell apart while playing a sport for the first time. 

Despite losing and not really getting involved, I was in love, even though I was a bit scared and had no idea what exactly I was getting into, which was, sadly, eerily similar to many of my first human relationships too. In my short experience, I felt something deep inside me that ended up being heartburn, and then I felt something else, a stronger feeling, like I had finally found my game, my people, my home. If I were a stronger, less-in-touch-with-his-emotions man, I wouldn’t have cried. First thing the next morning, I got dressed and had some breakfast, again not really essential to the story, and then went off to get some cleats to greatly eliminate the falling as well as being able to help my father aerate our yard. Though I had only played one game, I just knew that Ultimate was for me. There was just something about this game and this sport and the people that grabbed me (quite aggressively I must add), shook me to my senses and wouldn’t let me go until I ran away from home leaving only a short, cryptic note like it was a cult, which I was totally okay with as I had been considering running away to join one at some point in the near future regardless. 

Stayed tuned for Part 2: Learning the Game

She was Leaving

She was leaving.

She couldn’t stay, not here, not now, not any longer.

She was tired and frustrated and lonely and sad and trapped.

She was done with him; his smell, his smile, those eyes, that feeling she got each time he was there.

She had wanted so badly to go for days, weeks, months, but couldn’t because she always stayed.

She was emotionally and physically spent; her reserve was empty, she was done.

She ran.

He knew she was gone.

He smoldered, literally as he stood in their, his empty place.

He had really screwed up; broken the one thing in the world that made him feel sane.

He missed her, them, what they once were but hadn’t been in so long.

He should have loved her, the way she needed, but just couldn’t and didn’t know why.

He wanted to go back, to fabricate one less lie, to hold her, to caress her hair just so.

He fumed.

She finally breathed.

She melted into her sister’s arms.

She sat in the big chair by the window; crying, yet finally happy.

She wasn’t sure where to go or what to do or who this person sitting here even was anymore.

She needed to find herself, again; rebuilding from the bottom floor, brick by brick.

She knew that as low as now was, that it was temporary and that bouncing back was inevitable.

She dreamed.  

He was lost.

He had never really been on his own, ever.

He was the sort of guy who needed someone, to feel accepted and whole.

He always chased them away; his own worst enemy friends told him.

He kept busy by throwing himself into work, the gym, the sidewalks at night; trying to think.

He prayed for one last chance to win her back, to show the improvement he had made for her.

He longed.

She was a new person.

She felt alive and free and happy.

She used to believe that life was something that happened to her, that she was but a passenger.

She was finally moving up and going places and not looking back at her old self and life and sadness.

She thought of him here and there; a song, a movie, a fragrance, but the thoughts were fleeting.

She enjoyed being single, no compromises or concessions; totally able to be herself all the time.

She laughed.

He was a new person.

He struggled and struggled, felt pain, but time did heal his wounds.

He looked like a whole different man; new clothes, new apartment, new approach, new life.

He listened to others when they spoke, really listened and really cared unlike he ever had before.

He thought of her; hoping she was happy, holding no grudges, remembering all the good about her.

He knew that she had helped him, when they were together and by leaving; ripping off the bandage.

He grew.

Finding "The One"

The year was 2004 and I was single again; a fact that would have been hilarious if it wasn't so soul-suckingly frustrating and that is saying something as I happen to enjoy a chuckle at some good soul sucking from time to time.

I had finally faced the facts after years of looking sideways at them; I was ready for a change. A big change. A change with a capital C smack dab in the middle of a sentence regardless of what those grammarians would say. Those particular grammarians live just down the block.

Here's what happened - I had realized that I was tired of dating for all of the reasons that I had been dating for up until that point. Like many others, I too had dated for companionship, for love, so others would stop staring and once out of spite. That short-lived, spite-filled relationship was emotionally damaging while also the motivation I needed to get rid of that junk I had in the trunk. I wasn't sure why, but I had been carting around junk in my car trunk for months with the only benefit being my ability to employ a misleading expression in my writing.

But now, at the ripe age of 33, I was ready for something more out of my dating experiences, something meaningful and something much deeper, and no, I didn't want to just walk over and stand on your suspicious pile of banana leaves that you claim will lead me to this deeper place I'm looking for. "How do I move from where I am now to where I want to go?" I asked myself each morning while brushing my teeth which led to a disgusting amount of toothpaste and spit on the mirror. I believed I was doing all the right things and going to the right places and that I was made up of the right stuff, unless aerospace travel was involved. I'd even bought a spectacular new hat.

I was rolling the dice and playing my cards and I even spent hours spinning a roulette wheel grinning like the town idiot and nothing was happening. Maybe giving out signs to the universe that I liked games of chance wasn't the answer? Maybe attempting to emulate the town idiot was the wrong call? Possibly filling my afternoons asking myself rhetorical questions while scaling freshly caught trout was too meta? Was I sending out sort of a signal causing all of the great women to flee, sort of like how animals sense a storm coming before humans do? Did I need to "lose" my glasses or "be" taller or stop seeing deodorant as optional?

Regardless, something had changed in me from the past and it was not solely my brilliant decision to stop wearing thick woolen knee-high socks in summer, though that didn't hurt. What did hurt was the cut on my middle finger on my left hand. I was more confident now than ever before, moving up from "hiding in my room" to "not leaving the house without a Groucho Marx-esque disguise" to "so that's what the sky looks like". Also, I now knew, after numerous failed combustible experiments that would have made amateur chemists run for cover, exactly what I was looking for in a woman. Aside from the obvious - sense of humour, sense of taste and no rap sheet - she would have to be active, want to start a family and, most of all, "get" me even when I was being my cute, adorable, illusive and wax-covered self.

I found myself stricken by a new feeling which my doctor claimed was only allergies, while I argued that it was maturity. We fought over it, until we decided to split the difference and he only charged me half price for the session. This maturity hit me like a sack of bricks and the sack of bricks I paid my next door neighbour to throw at me for comparison's sake also felt like a sack of bricks, only infinitely more brickier. No longer was I a little boy or a young man or easily confused with a particularly vain orangutan, I was an adult who now had gained access to all of the clubs the adults hung out in if they hadn't just changed the locks and installed new security measures.

As a tribute to the important work of our early settlers, I just had an urge to settle down. I initially wasn't totally sure what that entailed, so I "hit the books" which lead to an immediate ban from the library. Who knew librarians could get so angry? Armed with knowledge, I was now ready to enlist and join the troops on the front line to win the war up until my best friend telling me that that analogy was as misleading as it was unfunny and if I ever, years later, decided to write about this experience, it's inclusion would be seen as quite obvious filler.

Touche.

As I committed to leaving singledom behind, I shed a small tear, although it very easily could have been sweat as I was perspiring at the time. To be clear, I am always perspiring, which, aside from the obvious psychological upsides, is quite frustrating especially when I am in the mood to appear dry. Being single had been "okay" and dating was "not bad", but I was finally completely ready to transition from "how are you still single?" to "who is marrying that guy, oh it's you, well congrats". 

But it's not as if they rolled me off the assembly line ready for a relationship. Despite how it looks now, it took a lot of work and sweat and rolling around in the mud trying to avoid getting trampled by pigs. True story; avoiding getting trampled by pigs was the goal I included in my high school yearbook. After years of baby steps, which I only discontinued when the laughter starting sounding more hurtful, I gradually worked my way up to having the courage to speak to a human female in person. Turns out that all of that practice in the lab with female mice was good for nothing outside of developing and perfecting no fewer than 7 different squeaks and knowing which cheeses to provide after arguments. 

I was tired of meeting a girl, being enamored and literally transfixed by her shiny jewelry, going through a truncated "feeling out period" that usually involved absolutely no feeling aside from the totally "accidental" bumping of elbows, and then going our separate ways. This painful routine happened again and again like a borderline-unwatchable community theatre production only with a tad fewer boos. But, I was slowly and deliberately, sort of like a semi-conscious koala hopped up on a strong dose of eucalyptus leaves, figuring things out. I now knew what I wanted and the sort of person who would fit that bill - no, not the comically large set of duck bills I have for special occasions - but the relationship bill (okay, you got me, the duck bills too); the big challenge was either finding her or somehow setting a trap.

I was looking and looking. Not knowing any better, or knowing better but choosing to do things how early humanoids would have done them, I was actively looking primarily using my eyes while also allowing the others senses their turn so they didn't whine and complain. (My nose never stops sniffling about how unfair and unjust things are). I wanted to find the woman I could spend the rest of my life with while playing up the positive aspects of that and all the while avoiding using that as my pickup line unless I could nail the perfect mix of pity and sarcasm.

Where was she? Locked in a women's prison for a crime she either didn't commit or didn't commit well enough which is why she got caught? I wanted to find her now! The clock was ticking, loudly. The incessant ticks and tocks were giving me a headache as well as providing a helpful metronome-like effect that helped with the pacing. I was trying as hard as I could though I'd been warned by others not to appear too desperate. After months and months of trying, including hours of late night practice in front of the bathroom mirror, I thought I'd nailed the perfect level of desperation, and yet still, no dice as well as not finding "Miss Right." Having a good set of dice to roll would have helped when things got slow. 

I'd also been told that it would happen when I least expected it which, while comforting for some, made me feel like I was a bit character in a horror film who didn't make it past the first 5 minutes. When I least expected it? "How could I live with this hanging over my head," I wondered until I just couldn't wonder any longer and I tried to hang something equivalent from my ceiling to give me some approximation. Oh, the neck spasms!

In this period of time I consecutively dated a few different women for relatively long expanses of time. The actual amount of time in each case was short, but when compared to the zero days of dating when I was single, it seemed much much longer. Each relationship possessed some of the character, spirit and chutzpah that I was searching for, while also sadly having glaring holes in their resumes. The unique combination I knew I needed to provide me with a lifetime of happiness was proving as elusive as the unique combination I needed to open my locker at the gym. "Perhaps they are the same combination," I wailed in desperation at the moon before my neighbour threw her entire family's collection of rain boots at me - all the wrong size, I might add. As I went my separate way with each of these women, I told them that bringing in stacks of newspapers as well as empty glass bottles and aluminum cans was an odd, yet strangely sensual manner, to say goodbye while they kept asking if I would, pretty please, stop talking and do their recycling one last time.

I'd hit the proverbial low. My self-confidence and lack of dating success met like two fronts in my living room until it started to rain. Turns out I was outside at the time, but that was beside the point. With nowhere else to turn (I'd tried left and then right and was all out of options), I lay on my back on the hardwood floor for a while and closed my eyes before attempting the same steps only on my bed. The bed was much more comfortable. "Dream big," my grandmother was always telling me in a slightly threatening way "and while you're at it, would it hurt you to do something big in your waking hours as well?" 

That night I had a series of crazy and crazier dreams that gave me some wonderful ideas for new pasta sauces. Upon awaking, I walked, as if in a trance, to the bathroom and washed my face or, what I later figured out, what was the reflection of my face in the mirror and yet somehow, I felt cleaner or at least looked cleaner in the mirror. I left the house with reckless abandon, shortly after vowing to live life with more reckless abandon. Instead of standing in the corner thinking about asking that girl out, I was going to stand somewhere closer to the middle of the room. No longer was I going to psych myself up in car that today was going to be different and the drive home at the end of yet another failed day cursing myself for missed opportunities. "Don't worry; there's always tomorrow sweetie" I reassured myself in the best Fairy Godmother voice I could muster up after a full day of barking out math instruction to teens - it may come as a surprise, but teens loved my German Shepherd impressions.

No, I was prepared to take life by the lapels and refuse to let go until I had a set of new, slightly ripped, lapels. When I used to zig, I was going to zag. When I used to loudly whimper, I was going to still whimper, only more quietly. When I used to stare a beautiful woman in the face, albeit from across the block, I was now going to approach her face and talk to it. I had no reason to cower or be meek or hide behind an intricate Chinese mask, even it meant that my mask collection would just sit in my closet gathering dust. Everything I had ever done had led me to this moment. The failures, the rejections, the notarized letters to cease and desist had attempted to knock me down, but instead that had given me something closely related to and rapidly approaching pride. She was out there, I just knew it, and I was going to find her and I'd even packed a light lunch for the trip.

I ventured far and wide. I crossed the tracks and climbed the trees. I spent hours of back-breaking labour digging up my backyard, before remembering I lived in a second floor apartment. I read the tea leaves and rode the waves and even considered taking a glass blowing class at the local community centre before coming to my senses.

And then one day, it happened.

I need to say a quick word to all of you who were hoping for a sad, depressing, atypical non-Hollywood ending where I end up never figuring things out and I spend my days alone sitting by the fire chewing tobacco, I'm sorry, this is not that story.

I turned around, slowly for dramatic effect and she was standing there like how you'd imagine someone would look if they were standing. She moved her head from side to side as if in a shampoo commercial or to demonstrate for all watching that she had a full range of motion with her neck. I introduced myself smartly resisting the urge to insert the word "the" at any part of my name. She quickly retired to huddle with her assembled team who could have easily passed as either a group of very liberal accountants or the best mime troupe this side of the Mississippi to consider her options while I was left to flap in the wind which I did, as those moments are rare and fleeting.

It all just worked with her; I couldn't explain it. For a good week I was rendered speechless and the outright joy of all who knew me both for my good fortunate as well as my speechlessness was a real treat. Our relationship, while early still, worked both literally and figuratively and on as many levels and dimensions as either of us could comprehend with an average layperson's understanding of quantum physics. We were like two peas in a pod, or more accurately, I was, while she was supportive of my strange, yet oddly endearing, vegetable-themed hobbies.

Where all other attempts at relationships in the past felt difficult and tenuous, this was easy. Almost too easy, and yet it wasn't. It ended up being exactly the right amount of easy. We just hit it off from the beginning. To break the ice, I brought a chunk of ceremonial ice. Then we went on one date and then another and then another and I'd keep going, to give you the full and accurate picture of how many dates but I'm trying to wrap this up before dinnertime. We laughed a lot, so much so that we both complained of sore jowls. We talked a mile a minute which is, ironically, not that fast especially if the car you are in is on a highway at the time - believe me, it makes sense.

I was amazed. I was stunned. I needed to be roused every few hours with smelling salts that she oddly insisted on going Dutch on. Everything about her was on my list - especially not having a warrant out for her arrest as that is just a turnoff for me - and I found myself gleefully checking off all of the boxes that needed to be checked off until she cleared her throat as she was attempting to tell me about her day. And I wanted to hear about her day and was also happy to watch a short marionette production about her day if she had happened to stage one on short notice.

One thing led to another (this is always true and not really worth noting) and the next thing I knew I was proposing. I, Tommy Paley, was asking a woman to marry me and I felt a little nervous. Not that it was in any way the wrong thing to do, but nervous as the sheer weight of what this meant descended upon me like a pack of hungry bats (don't ask). Being married wasn't something I was planning to venture into unless it was the real deal. And this was it. I just knew she was the one. I knew it from the moment I met her. Or, in actual fact, like somewhere in the first several moments as I can't say for sure that it was the very first as I was pretty excited and not my sharp, analytical self at the time. 

It was like a fairy tale, aside from the distinct lack of evil witches and moats. Exactly like a fairy tale in every other regard though. As I dropped to my knee, I thought back on all of the years of loneliness, of questioning as to whether there was something horribly wrong with me, of those days in my youth when a simple drop to a knee wouldn't have hurt at all and I smiled. She smiled as well, looking down at me on one knee before her almost as if to relish that she was even taller than me than usual. And after I asked her the question to end all questions, she replied with the words I'd always wanted to hear but never totally thought I would,

"Yes, of course yes. You do have a ring, right?"

I knew I'd forgotten something.

In time, after numerous pay cheques and salmon-wrapped-in-filo-served-with-sauteed-vegetable meals later, she got her ring alright, several in fact, of all different sizes and materials before she had to ask me to stop as the joke had ceased being even slightly funny.

I had found "The One" and I wasn't letting her go.

My Letter to Roger Federer

Disclaimer: I am writing this as myself and I do like Roger Federer, but I am NOT this crazy about him in any way. I am attempting to be funny and the huge majority of what follows is completely ficitonal. 

Dear Mr. Federer,

Let me start by saying that I have been a huge, huge fan of yours for many, many years and it is just so exciting to write this letter to you! I have been a tennis player my whole life, but when I started following you I became inspired me to work harder and train more often as well as become a better person, which I believe that I have and I owe it all to you. Whether on a court, in the gym or running through the cemetery in the middle of the night wearing a bear costume – it makes sense, but you’d have to be there – I am always thinking about tennis and of you, you wonderful man, you.

Now, please don’t get creeped out by this, because I am totally normal – exact words from my therapist, scout’s honour – but I have dedicated the past ten years of my life to you, all to you, trying to live my life how Roger would, which is tougher than it sounds from afar. Now, I know what you’re thinking, I have done my meticulous and thorough research, I am not a crazed lunatic who wants a lock of your hair – though I wouldn’t turn one down if you felt so inclined or were getting a haircut anyways and you don’t want to let all of that glorious hair just go to waste, do you? You do not need to alert the authorities, or if you must, at least order your favourite chicken salad off the lunch menu as you do need your protein, beforehand.

I remember the day I first watched you play, when your slim, yet muscular and positively gleaming Swiss body smoothly graced my television screen like a smooth, silky bar of wonderfully delicious Swiss chocolate. For a short moment I thought a bomb had gone off in my mind as I sat there, on the edge of my seat, watching you play like I was watching a god, until I realized that my roommate was loudly and abruptly pulsing ice in the blender while sitting right behind me, so he could observe me and take notes for science. He is always claiming to be a behavioural scientist, but I’m fairly sure he just makes smoothies at the mall. My mom claims he’s imaginary, so who knows.

If you came to my house, and I hope you do one day – a special seat at the dining table is yours as well as much orange juice from concentrate as you can drink – you’d see that my house is decked out in Roger gear! From my custom-made throw pillows in the shape of your racquet, to the Roger-themed museum housed in my garage, to the huge close-up photograph of your face that makes up an entire wall of my living room, you’d love my place. I often stand there, looking at the huge photo of your face for motivation, while swinging an imaginary tennis racquet wearing nothing but knee-high white tube socks and cut off jean shorts.

Each night before I go to sleep, I drink a cup of warm milk, check and re-check my list of people I must exact revenge on, and trim my toe nails, before dropping to my knees in front of my lamp that my girlfriend snidely, yet aptly, christened “Roger” before she angrily slammed the backdoor and left my life forever, and I pray that you will fully recover from your most recent injury and fight off your increasing age to once again take your rightful spot atop the tennis world. Those who say you are over-the-hill or too old or clearly a robot are so wrong and hateful and jealous and need to stop demanding that I forward her mail to her. 

You have provided me with years and years of joy! I just want to repay you in some way especially if it meant a larger tax return for yours truly. Each time you win and raise your toned and tanned arms, I feel like we have both won and that you couldn’t have persevered without my screaming “Go Fed” at the top of my lungs until my neighbour called the police to complain. Just being there, with you, as you stand with yet another trophy raised triumphantly above your head, a feeling of pride rises from deep within me. And when you look to the camera and smile, our eyes meet for a moment, and I know that smile is all for me, almost like we are sharing a private joke that the rest of the world just wishes they were in on, but they aren’t because they are losers, not like us. “Wonder twins activate”, I barely audibly whisper as my fingertips caress your face on the screen before some moronic commercial begins, taking you away from me once more.

As I sit alone in the darkness, or as I called it, Fridays, I clutch my gigantic Federer plush toy to my chest, I think of the amazing day when we will finally meet and I mutter to myself “you can do this” and “nothing and no one will stop me, this time” and “cut down on the air quotes while talking to yourself Tommy, people will think you are a tad strange.”

All the best Roger. I can’t wait to watch your return to form in the New Year.

Tommy