I'm a Sports Fan. Kinda.

I was walking my dog in Lents Park, near my friend Erin's home, in Portland when I caught myself watching a group of guys playing basketball. That was when I came to this conclusion: I sincerely enjoy watching both basketball and baseball and I prefer watching both of them live. I've never been to an NBA game, but I really enjoy basketball games in small gym-type environments. I went to a small liberal-arts college that had a really good basketball team. I didn't go to that many games, but when I did I always thought it was really fun and wanted to go to more games.

I love going to Astros games. I find baseball a little harder to watch on TV because I like to see the whole game at once.

Football? God love me, because I'm from Texas of all places, but for the life of me I just don't enjoy watching football games. However, I do like going to college football games. I like the atmosphere, wearing school colors, and the snacks. I just don't really pay attention to the game. Here I am at a Clemson game in 2008. I had NO idea what was going on, but there was a lot of orange and we ate sandwiches before the game so that we wouldn't have to spend money on snacks. Boo.

As I continued my walk in Lents Park, I walked past two little league fields and I came to another conclusion: little league/softball games make me uncomfortable. I think it's because baseball is such a quiet, slower sport and at the little league level the field and bleachers are just right there. It's so close and intimate, you can hear everything, people can yell things out to the kids, if the kids don't do well it just seems really awkward. And then there's always the parents screaming "encouragements" at their children. I would be a TERRIBLE soccer mom. Heaven forbid my future, hypothetical children enjoy sports. This will never be me. For many reasons.

I would probably just sit on the bleachers with a distressed look on my face, wondering how this was going to emotionally and/or physically impact my child and I would never yell out anything. Hopefully my future, hypothetical children will enjoy arts & crafts. or music. or chess. wait, maybe chess is too competitive...