Long Distance Waiting: Georgia, Green Bay, and the Election

In fourth grade, Ms. Mihms, my P.E. teacher, pulled my best friend Matt and I out of the line and told the rest of the class, "we're not going anywhere until these two learn to be quiet." I then asked her, "does the time we were quiet to walk over here count?" Matt then giggled like the Great Bungholio, "yeah, did that count?" We were never quiet. My friends and I have always had an unrelenting and loud relationship, and the ease with which words flow from my mouth can at times wear on the listening prowess and patience of others. I am aware of this, and that's one reason I need the Matt Rauschenberg's in my life. He always gave me as many words as I gave him. Every Beavis deserves a Butthead.

When my family moved from Georgia to Virginia, Matt became James, Andrew, Dan, and then Aisander when I got to college. They are all obnoxiously my friends. This past weekend Dan and I were at a wedding between our friends Drew and Megan (congratulations), and we began freestyling on the dance floor. Later, we freestyled on the bus back to the hotel. None of it was any good, but it was obnoxious: "We get abstract as Coltrane/ get brain like Lil' Wayne/ We're so outside of sane/ they call us insane/ walk like we was maimed/ yeah, laugh at our pimp walk/ yeah, it's all talk/ like rawk chalk jayhawk/ it don't make any sense/ we used to Sprint for ten cents/ now we got a circle of friends/ and they all long distance." Yeah, Ms. Mihms would have kept us on the bus until we got quiet.

I'm going on about how easy words tend to come for me because, at this present time, I have nothing to say on this blog. My two football teams' seasons stand on a precipice. If Georgia and Green Bay were rivers, then the bed they sleep in has led dreams to collect behind the Hoover Dam. The flow of the river stalls, enthusiasm wanes, and I'm waiting for something to blow the dam into pieces. When waiting, words tend to be awkward. Think of the conversations people have between stops on the Metro or between floors on an elevator. These conversations are meaningless, except they spend the time when our friends are long distance and we don't have ten cents worth of time to call them.

Right now, Georgia and Green Bay are between floors and between stops.

Georgia's season seemed somewhat derailed after the Alabama game. The chance to take back the number one ranking was there after USC lost to Oregon St., but the score at halftime read 31-0. Then there was a bye week. Bye weeks offer a lot of time to wait, but I didn't have anything to say. I just listened to the elevator music, read the Metro ads, and stared straight ahead. This past Saturday they defeated Tennessee, but Tennessee just doesn't seem like Tennessee at the moment; so when everyone around Georgia jumped in the polls this week, Georgia held steady at number ten. A long distance call used to be ten cents, and if this week is an indication of anything, then Georgia has some time on its hands to call next season.

Green Bay started the season off 2-0. I was hyped. I would call my Dad, down in Fredericksburg, to talk about how Aaron Rodgers might be the real deal and that he seems ready. Then Dallas showed us that we have no running game and our secondary has too many injuries. We were 2-1, soon to be 2-3, but we did defeat Seattle yesterday. Of course, Seattle isn't Seattle anymore; they're Tennessee, and we're waiting on Aaron Rodgers' shoulder to heal. We don't know where our season is heading. We're just staring ahead of us. We have no small talk to make. We're just hungry; our faces worn like busted up shoes, smelling like tobacco, sweat, and the midnight shift. Our eyes are full of glass, knowing something didn't go as planned at some point, but that points on a map are always relative. Directions always are. #4 is behind us, and the unknown is up ahead; and we all have a different opinion about which is better, the past or the future.

These seasons are at a crossroads. Most people talk when they reach a crossroads. They lay in bed, praying out loud to their God. They meet to have lunch with a friend and bring up their travels casually, asking the friend first, "how are you?" They call up a list of confidants long distance and talk more than ten cents worth because it seems our troubles are getting bigger with time, so we need more time to hash them out on the phone; or we blog, journal, and write.

I just don't feel like I have much to say right now. Green Bay plays Indianapolis next week, and Georgia plays Vanderbilt; but I don't really have much to say about either.

The river's water collects at the dam, and the dam needs to be blown a part. Football games seem more and more like small, insignificant cracks when one watches the stock market and realizes the economy right now is as unstable as nitroglycerin, and that while it is unnatural for a river to wait, it's also extremely dangerous to rush into anything that involves explosions, concrete shattering, and the unleashed power of a river. These kinds of choices require patience, a patience only the homeless and night riders of the Metro possess. The kind of patience that, unfortunately, can lead to indifference, an aimless riding from stop to stop, on a train, thinking one destination is no different than another.

My point is, when you vote this November, vote with a destination in mind, no matter who you happen to be voting for. We need vision, and we need guidance. In the meantime, we have football games, that like long distance communication only requires us to talk and listen.

Go Dawgs! Go Pack!
God bless and thanks for all the obnoxious people in my life; they're cocky enough to know who they are.