I made a HUGE mistake

Actually, I made two mistakes. I'll tell you the smaller one first, since it's easier to describe. Since Aly went with my mother, my aunt, cousin, Ellie, Keri and a bunch of other people to see "The Lion King", I thought it was a good idea to go home and start cleaning out my old bedroom closet.

For years my parents have been getting on my ass to do this because I have 18 years of Sports Illustrated meticulously stored in there. They are all very carefully placed in old ice-cream cone boxes (the perfect size and shape for holding magazines) and they were all in numerical order from December 29, 1986 until January 5, 2005.

Before I went home I went to the local discount store and bought three 50 gallon tubs to store the SIs. The reason? I was putting them in the basement and I didn't want them to get wet when the cellar floods.

After filling the first tub with ten years worth of Sports Illustrateds (about 520 copies) I now have to figure a way to get this from my bedroom (second floor) to the basement. Way, way, way to heavy to carry. So I decide to push the tub. I got to the top of the stairs and then got in front of the tub. BTW, this thing is about the size of a coffin for a 10-year-old and weighs about 250 pounds.

I manage to get it down the stairs with minimal damage, actually one issue comes out and gets ruined but that's ok, it was this one:



Anyway, I didn't really give a shit because it was a Yankee. And it was Alfonzo Soriano.

So I continued pushing this thing through the living room, down the hall and to the precipice of the cellar stairs. I tried doing the exact same thing as I did with the other set of stairs but something went wrong. Every single Sports Illustrated I owned from 1994 through 2005 spilled out every where. It was a mess. Just a pure, unadulterated fucking disaster area.

I lost it. I started swearing, kicking things, yelling, I acted like a three-year-old. I knew it was a dumb idea, but I did it anyway. So all of those years of hard work of making sure that each magazine was perfect, that no one smudged anything that they were all in order went down the stairs in 30 seconds. God. Just thinking about it pisses me off.

I cleaned them all up and then started on the second tub. Instead of filling it upstairs I brought it downstairs and brought the magazines downstairs too. It took a bit longer, but at least I wasn't spending a half hour cleaning magazines off the cement floor. I guess I learn from my mistakes.

Speaking of mistakes, Thursday I was pretty depressed at work. Nothing went wrong that day, but I think I missed the boat on something that could've made my (professional) life a bit better. And the thing is, I know the exact day when this happened. That doesn't occur too often in life.

Let me back up a day to set the story. On Wednesday night we had our normal semi-monthly Chili dinner. It was Colleen, me, Skaus and Jamie and Drew. Very small as far as Chili's nights go, but whatever, it was fun mainly because our waitress sucked and we made fun of her a lot.

Colleen was telling us high school stories (she's a teacher) and Jamie turned to me and asked, "Whatever happened to you and the teaching thing?" Good question. What ever did happen with that? A few years ago, I took the Massachusetts teaching test and I passed. It's a pretty tough test and I was pumped that I passed it on my first try, not a lot of people do.

So, even though I didn't have my Master's Degree yet, I was able to teach in Mass schools. I worked every connection I had in Revere, Amesbury, Bedford, where ever. I got a few interviews, but they all said the same thing, "You don't have much experience." In Amesbury they said I should take a year off and student teach.

So, I sort of gave up. As committed and enthusiastic I was about teaching, I just kept running into brick wall after brick wall after brick wall. It's one of the very few times in my life that I wanted something so bad, but never got it. Eventually, I forgot about it and just concentrated on my present job, which isn't too bad, but it's not what I really wanted to do.

But Jamie's question started to jog my memory, I remember before starting an intro to education course in the fall of 1993 thinking, "Yes, I can see myself as a teacher. Definitely." As the semester porgressed, I remember talking to someone and them saying, "Why do you want to become a teacher? You'll never make any money."

That cinched it for me. As far as I knew, when I got out of college with my English degree I was going to making a lot of money somewhere. Plus, I started to think about when I had to do my prepracticum and how I didn't have a car and what a pain in the ass it would be to get to Andover High School or where ever. Never mind that that was two years away and something could've been figured out.

So, I junked the teaching idea over money. Fucking money. Like I said, I tried to pick it up later in life, but time had already slipped by and it was really too late. What really sucks is that I would've been a great teacher. I like kids, I have an easy way of handling them and when I substituted I had a great time teaching high school and elementary school.

But now, now that's all gone. The one thing that I learned from that mistake is that I'm never going to base a decision on money. Of the top things in my life I wish I could change, that would have to be number three.

To change the subject a bit, on Thursday we sent in our application for the apartment, I really hope the background check goes ok, because I don't know if I can handle another month of looking for places to live. That has been a huge pain in the ass. I like the place we found and I'm really looking forward to finally having a place with Aly.

Speaking of Aly, last night we went to an Italian restaurant in Medway (I think) to celebrate her grandmother's 85th birthday. She honestly doesn't look that old, nor does she act that old either. If I have half the energy and pep she does when I'm that age, I'll be very happy.

Pats. Super Bowl. Tomorrow. This is what I wrote on SoSH on Wednesday:

Ok, I'm a Patriots fan. Not an original die-hard, but I've been on the bandwagon since the Tuna and Bledsoe came around. Not coinicidently enough, that is when football moved to number two as my favorite sport.

(The Red Sox and baseball are the only team and sport that I could not do without, if the Pats, Celts and Bruins all moved to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, I'd be sad, but I'd be suicidal if the Sox did that.)

In any event, are you really that pumped and jacked for Sunday's game? I mean really excited?

I was for the game in 1997, 2002 and 2004, but for some reason I can wait for Sunday. I'm looking forward to it, because it's going to be a great game and it IS the Super Bowl, but I'm not half as excited as was for those other years.

I think it comes down to the Sox winning the World Series. Every other championship or championship came that has been played in Boston (or with Jordan ... I know, I'm a bandwagon loser for being a Bulls fan in the 90s) has been a pale second to the Sox winning. I knew this, deep down, at the time.

Now, it seems, nothing is as sweet. I doubt that I'll ever have that sort of jubilation that I did when the Sox won it in October ... don't get me wrong, I'd love to try and feel it again next year and the year after that, but nothing is the same as your first time (in both sex and heroin ... or so I'm told).

And I don't mean to sound like a wah-wah, but I just wanted to gauge the fandom here. Am I alone?

Some people agreed with me. A lot didn't. Now, I can say that I officially don't agree with myself. On the way home today, I got more and more pumped up for this game. It should be a real good one and one day I'm going to be really bummed when I think of the fact that I took this team for granted. Go PATS!