Fantasy Fiction and Football

Oh, the romance, the desire, the overwhelming feeling that real life is NOT GOOD ENOUGH - that's where fantasy comes in...

No, I'm not talking about anything dirty, I am talking about the compulsion we have as humans to determine that our current surroundings/ football team/ spouse/ etc are not quite what we would create if we could simply close our eyes and bewitch ourselves into something alternative, something better.  This is the consequence of being the only know sentient beings in the universe, our perceptions of what might be more entertaining or more enjoyable have no sounding board outside of others like ourselves.  And so we are trapped in our minds having these great ideas and no outlet:

Thought: I could coach a better team than any of those current NFL jokers
Solution: Fantasy Football - a mental masturbatory exercise in feeling superior because you were able to virtually compose a team of players that don't really know you're their coach

Thought: It'd be super cool if dragons were real and life was more like a game of risk.
Solution: Game of Thrones (books, HBO show, RPG and LRPG, plus I'm sure there's some sort of magic-esque game being played with the characters)

There are other examples that I could list, but these are simply the two I encountered today (if you don't count drooling over the cover art of some sexy books on Amazon), and participated in!  I am no better than the fantasy dwellers of D&D and window shopping on 5th Avenue. I will most likely never coach an NFL team (as my only qualification is that I really like to watch big tough guys make big tough plays), nor will I be indulging in backstabbing an heir to an imaginary throne (though more likely than the NFL scenario - thanks a lot Roger Goodell!) but it never hurts to fantasize.

Gay Men: Regret or Relief?

Before I start into the important stuff, I need to get one thing off my chest -- I love you, Matt Bomer.  You are flawless.  No matter what anyone else says on the Good Reads discussion board, I think that you are the clear choice to play Matthew de Clairmont in the Discovery of Witches movie (you should call your agent and get in on that).  Sometime I daydream about us meeting and this is sort of how it goes:

knock at door, April opens door to see Matt Bomer standing in Kensington looking like a tropical sea breeze in the oppressive heat (probably wearing white linen pants).  

Me: OMIGOSH! You're Matt Bomer, I love you!
MB: You're kidding, April Maxwell, I love you!  You make those old purple work out pants look amazing, and without make up you're more stunning than all the pictures I've seen of you on Facebook!
Me: Well...if you think so
MB: I know so!  I can't imagine a life lived without you any longer, please, run away with me.  Of course we can take all of your animals, and your romance novels.

This is usually the part where my subconscious realizes that I've gone way overboard and wakes me from the fantasy that will only hurt me in the long run.

You need to understand that this is not a random event reserved just for Matt Bomer (sorry Matt).  Every year I seem to fall head over heels in love with a TV actor.  This is always a risk for someone who watches as much TV as I do, and I am totally willing to live with the consequences.

However, lately every time I fall madly in love - one Google search tells me that my chances are less than nil, my new crush is totally and completely (and happily) gay.  This kind of information can crush a girls' spirit.  Now my fantasy surely can't happen, he doesn't even like women, let alone women in Philadelphia that like to eat while watching TV in purple track pants.  The knowledge that I am coveting what I can't have makes it less appealing to daydream, it looses it's escapism for me.  I guess I have to find another ridiculously hot guy to fall madly in love with (but I had already married MB in my head...).

I was trying to explain why I wasn't as excited to see MB in Magic Mike to my sister, and she offered an entirely different perspective on the matter.  She said that when she realizes someone she finds super attractive on TV is gay, she's relieved.  Now she doesn't have to worry about what might happen if she was to meet this person.  She no longer has to worry about her reaction.  She doesn't have to think what might happen if the object of her affection doesn't like children, or wants her to leave her husband, or has cats.  She can watch and enjoy, carefree, now that there is no risk involved.

So, when I find out that my TV fantasy man is gay in real life, should I regret my choice or feel relieved that I won't have to choose between my husband and this mega stud?

A Letter to Philadelphia

Dear Philadelphia,

  
Thank you.  You have officially made it impossible for me to shocked into silence or rage anymore.  It has been a long journey, taking me almost exactly 3 years to become completely desensitized to the nonsense and insanity that is the experience of living within the city limits.  Like the Borg, resistance has been futile and I resign myself to doing all the things that make no sense.

Sincerely,
April



I have thought many times of writing a letter to someone in city government, or the newspaper.  And then I realized they are all in the same boat as I am.  Sure, some people escape to the suburbs, but not all of us have the stamina to take the expressway to work every morning.  We are trapped in our rowhouses, forced into the belief that the city has turned everything around.  Black is white, day is night, etc, etc...nothing here makes sense anymore, and I am helpless to fight it.

Example 1: The taxes.

I am a democrat.  I love social programs.  I am a teacher.  I think that we should spend money on public schools.  I don't mind paying my fair share so that programs for children, the elderly, the infirm, and those less fortunate can continue.  But REALLY?  We have the highest sales tax in the state (8%), the city is assessing all the properties to boost the tax revenue  they can collect, and they charge a 20% parking tax in the garages!!!!  I


Example 2: The streets.

One time, I remember thinking that Streets of Philadelphia by Bruce Springsteen was one of the most beautiful songs I'd ever heard.  Then I moved here, and POOF, romance gone.  Suddenly I knew why The Boss was bruised and battered and why his legs felt like stone.  Driving in this city is full contact affair.  I once had someone honk, pass me on the right, during a RED LIGHT!!! (gosh, I'm not sure why I didn't think to go through it instead of waiting like some sucker)  There are also the four wheelers and dirt bikes that are exactly "street legal" zipping beside cars and the wrong way on one way street.  I wonder if the inspiration for the Fast and Furious franchise came out of some poor guy's waking nightmare of driving on Front Street under the EL and praying that he'd make it out alive.

Example 3: The sidewalks and empty lots

There is trash everywhere.  My garbage men somehow make more trash.  It seems as though the discarded cartons of Arctic Chill iced tea and the wrappers from flaming hot Cheetos are procreating to create street pizza and debris of soft pretzels and cheese steaks.  Stuffed into the grates of the sewer, and overflowing from any open can there is a soft buzz of giant flies and piles and piles and piles of garbage.  Every week we put out trash to be collected, only to wake up to a swirling eddy of wrappers and cast offs.  It makes no sense -- we as a people can't possibly produce all the trash that I see.  Soon we will be waist deep in detritus, and the city will continue to pay sanitation workers to create more.

But today the prize for most ridiculous goes to the bill that came in the mail from the City's Department of Finance.  I knew upon reading it I should have been incensed, I should have railed against the idea of a city charging me to prevent crime in my home (I would assume that it would make it easier for police, me actually deterring crime using my own money and resources), and doing it ANNUALLY!  But instead of rage and fury I felt resignation, and that's when I knew that maybe the Hangover 2 was onto something -- Philly has me now.

Support your local sheriff, I mean, library

Some of my fondest memories of childhood take place during the summer.  Creating dance routines to NKOTB with my sister in the back yard, camping under the stars, staying up late, and sleeping in.  Summer brings the joys that I wait for all year, and then look forward to again as soon as it is over.  Despite the heat and the sweat, summer holds magic that other seasons envy.

Some of my favorite memories of summer revolve around the public library.  Every summer my mom would enroll my sister and I in the summer reading program where we would be allowed to check out up to 10 books to read, and once a week we would go to the library, walk through the gates and head for the children's library in the back.  The walls were painted with scenes from notable fairy tales and stories, the seats were bean bags, and there were tiny turtles hidden in the murals that you could search for all day and not find every one of them.  Sometimes there were stories, sometimes there were new books on display with beautiful covers, and sometimes the children's librarian would come and personally help you to pick the perfect book.  My mom would keep track of each book that we read and then report it when we returned them to the library.  At the end of the season there would be a picnic for all of the summer readers, with prizes for top readers.  I am proud to say that I won as top reader for all the students in the 1st grade -- I already knew then what most people take a lifetime to comprehend -- it's hot outside, stay indoors!

Unfortunately there is no competition for adults, no incentive to read your heart out during the sweltering months of summer.  There has been a steady decline in the number of books I have read since those summers of furious reading -- there have been undoubted spurts of overachiever level reading during those years but no return to the consistency that was my formative summers.  I could give excuses (I'm busy!  The TV needs me!), or simply say that it no longer interests me to have read the newest releases and be up on my literature, but that's all lies.  It is simply because I am too poor and too lazy to keep up with all of it.  Books are expensive, and the cheap books for my Kindle are sometimes self-published pieces of garbage, which has made me weary of the sale books.  And the library is so far away...and I have to pay to park...and the librarians aren't as nice as the ones in my hometown...and it's really big and intimidating...and I'm embarrassed to check out the books that I really want to read (ie ones with half naked men on the cover)...and the list goes on.


However, this summer has been a resurgence, and not just because I have finally decided that I can squeeze a bit of reading in between watching full seasons of Dr. Who and Burn Notice, but because my library has catapulted into the 21st century.  I no longer have to travel the 5 miles in traffic to the central library branch (or pay to park, or talk to the customer unfriendly librarians) and I can download e-books and audio books with fully naked men if I want -- sans judgement (I'm still a little embarrassed, but only because I know what the covers look like).  The library will even email me when my titles are available for download, so that I don't have to miss precious minutes of the TARDIS checking to see when I can download the first of the Game of Thrones books (right now it looks like I will be reading that particular volume when flying cars become a reality).  It really has been an shot in the arm of a former compulsive reader -- and really this goes back to the true reality of the matter -- it's hot outside, stay indoors! (and read)

Hotter Than...

For those of you living in Philadelphia, you realize that we are in the midst of yet another heat wave, also know as Philadelphia summer.  Each time I check the weather on my phone there is a rather upset looking exclamation point warning me of extreme heat and begging me to stay indoors, keep hydrated, and check on my elderly and disabled neighbors and loved ones.  Now I realize that my friends in the Southwest will scoff at our meager double digit temperatures, and roll their eyes in disbelief as I describe the excruciating heat and the stifling humidity that is associated with a summer in Philly, but I tell you it is as hot as hell here for 80% of the summer season.

Being married to a man with the lowest heat tolerance I have ever come across, I hear the phrase "Hotter than hell" more often then KISS sang it in their aptly named hit..and it got me to thinking about hell.  Now, I realize that hell is most likely a puritanical construct created to keep people from stepping out of line.  It's that ultimate of ultimatums ...if you do that, you'll go to hell.  But every once in awhile I try to imagine what my own personal hell might be like -- you know, for sport.

Understand that there are plenty of situations that would qualify as hell on earth -- living in the slums of India, the African countries left desperate by drought, the underbelly of the the Russian sex trade -- this is not what I am thinking about.  I like to consider the Sisyphus-ian version of hell.  What is the thing that would drive you to the edge of madness, what menial task could punish you for all of eternity?

I've come up with a couple of scenarios that would top the list of personal tortures:

• Being forced to run on a treadmill for all eternity facing a TV that only plays the Fox News channel.  
• Having mosquitoes sting every part of my body and then having my hands tied so I could not scratch the offending bites

Now, of course there are other more "Fear Factor" like tortures that might send me over the edge for the rest of my infinite time trapped in the underworld, but these are the top two recurrent nightmares that leave me quaking at the thought of perishing with a tarnished soul.  Maybe while I am trapped inside my climate controlled house I should think about repenting before it is too late.

I Want to be an Executive Cat

As I write am sitting on your typical office chair.   It is black, has wheels, is most likely ergonomically designed to best support my lower lumbar and all that junk.  It might sound alright, but as is usually the case, there is something wrong with this chair.  It is missing the left arm.  My poor chair has only a metal plate on the left stump instead of a supple plastic cover.  I mention this not to complain, but instead to draw a comparison between my office accommodations and those of my CATS!!  


Were you to come and visit Casa Shraxwell, you would most likely find at least one cat curled up in an executive office chair.  Not the basic black model that I am relegated to, but a warm leather chair with padded support and features that are far superior to my own current seat.  Our cats have annexed each of the finer chairs for themselves and will go as far as to growl at you if you presuppose that the furniture in this house is for human usage.  Now you may be asking yourself why in the world we have so many office chairs in the house and the answer is to be expected -- we cannot get rid of the extra chairs, because the cats like them so much.



Catch 22?  Maybe.  Stockholm syndrome more likely.