So I've been pretty much glued to the TV for eight of the last eleven nights. I absolutely adore the Olympics, but the only sports I make certain to watch are gymnastics and figure skating. Honestly, they're really the only ones that can hold my attention for more than about five minutes. (Although snowboard cross is pretty cool.)
I always get a little nostalgically depressed watching them though, especially figure skating. I always wish I could have gone to the Olympics - in either sport. Yeah, in case you couldn't tell my fantasies back in the day were about as girlie as it gets. :-) And let me tell you - Atlanta and the Magnificent Seven? I was this close to flat out changing my name to Shannon Miller. You know, if you can't beat 'em . . . pretend you are 'em.
I wanted both gymnastics and figure skating lessons so badly when I was younger. I did get a little bit of gymnastics - one summer when I was sixish Ashli and I both got to take a class, and then I got to take another when I joined the school gymnastics team in eighth grade. Well, it was actually just a floor exercise team. Which is probably a good thing. Because I sucked. The most difficult skill I ever managed was a cartwheel, and I was never particularly magnificent at those. Strangely enough, I am/was much better at left-handed cartwheels than right-handed. It would always confuse people when they saw me do one. I would get all these weird looks and "Aren't you right-handed?" 's, and I would just sile and nod and they would look at me like I was some sort of mutant or something. Good times.
As for skating - well, I've been ice skating twice in my life. Correction: I have worn ice skates on ice twice. I didn't really do much of anything that could be considered "skating." Or moving . . . yeah. It's nothing short of a double miracle that I haven't broken both ankles twice. So I ge really jealous when I see all these girls in sparkly outfits landing triple axels. Grrrrrrrrr!!!! I coulda been a contender . . . yeah, uh, no I couldna been. But I wanted to be, dangit!!
And going along with the pathetically girlie fantasies, the last few Olympics I've really wanted to be either a pairs skater or an ice dancer. I"m guessing that one's at least slightly influenced by watching The Cutting Edge a few too many times. (Toe pick!) It's such a perfect story . . . perfectly high school daydreamish, anyway - boy meets girl, boy and girl skate, boy and girl win Olympics, boy and girl fall in love . . . *sigh* :-) In fact, to this day my favorite skaters are Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, and I'm willing to bet that almost nobody else even remembers who they are. But holy crap, do I remember. First there was the screaming at the TV after the Russians scores were posted. Then there was school the next day. My first class was social dance II, and we were learning a bunch of lifts and tricks, one of which happened to be similar to a lift one of the pairs had done the night before. The teacher made the mistake of trying to bring that up, but all she was able to do was ask if anyone had watched skating last night, which caused the gym to explode with the massive, echoes of female rage (seriously, every last one of us started ranting!) while the guys just looked at us like we'd lost our minds because, naturally, none of them had any idea what we were talking about. Good times. :-) All day that was pretty much all we talked about. We were MAD!!
I'd more or less forgotten about the whole thing . . . well, not forgotten exactly, but moved on I guess. I didn't realize just how vaguely bitter I still was until pairs finals last week, when I discovered I was ecstatic that the Russians weren't even on the podium - yay! And can I just say that the pair who won? Holy. Freaking. AMAZING!
It's so weird to think that most of the skaters are younger than me now. Sooooooooooooo not right! It's really depressing too. As long as they were older or the same age as me I could always pretend that some coach would discover me and I would suddenly get good enough to make it to the Olympics after just a year or two of training. yeah, I know, totally unrealistic, but that's the whole point of a fantasy, right? But that's so not gonna happen anymore. Sad. :-(
Weird addendum: Evan Lysacek was in my dream last night. So random.
P. ost S. cript
Well, this is quite the . . . golden . . . performance. Really funny in a "holy cow, am I seeing what I think I see?!" sort of way. I think it's meant to be pretty racy (PG-13), but I find it so ridiculously over-the-top that the sexy factor plummets. Basically, if you don't have a problem watching Michael Phelps swim this shouldn't be an issue either. But seriously - giggles. Lots of giggles. And there will be no taking Plushenko seriously ever again.
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