Sports Update

Matthew and I enjoy listening to Tony Kornheiser's podcast. It's a fun way to keep up with what's going on in the world of sports.

Matthew and I both fell in love with sports early; in fact, Matthew and I sort of became friends through our first worldly love, Sports (and I became friends with Matthew's brother, GoHeath, through same). Let me tell you, these were two very hot-and-heavy romances for some years--Matthew and Sports and me and Sports--and it was a heck of a lot of fun for the two couples to hang out together. We very often double-dated (remember the high-school golfing in swanky Lone Oak?), and sometimes we vacationed together (remember that Dolphins-Ravens game at Memorial Stadium in a quaint Baltimore neighborhood?). And Matthew and I talked each other through some hard times in our marriages (those phone calls during halftime of UK-basketball games in the Joe B. Hall years).

But you've got to learn to ride out constant ebb and flow through any marriage, and the surf can be particularly choppy when one marries so young. Our marriages to Sports are ... um, complicated  in this smack in the middle of (hopefully) middle age (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MATTHEW!). Matthew has some kind of thoroughly-modern, open marriage--I mean, he's dutiful with the kids (keeping up with the Dolphins, UK and the A's on the internet), and sometimes he and Sports show up together at some exotic locale (the Tour de Somewhere), and everybody still thinks he and Sports are really cute together and have This Whole Thing figured out. Of course, nobody at work or on social media would ever believe that he and Sports haven't been actually living together for many, many years, and, frankly, it is none of their business, and I should really say nothing more about it here.

I will say, however, that Sports and I still share the same, old house. Nobody thinks we look good together. People see Sports around town, and she looks great--all fresh-faced and healthy, involved in everything, doing interesting stuff all the time, hilarious, etc. They see me, and I look like hell--he's only 49? People come over, and I know it's uncomfortable--not a family home but like a dorm with different people living there and some shared cooking and living space. Look, it's hard. We've gone through some really hard stuff together--that one-win season with Cam Cameron, the Cespedes trade, the Bullets all of a sudden announcing they wanted to be called the "Wizards." I'm not saying I've been a saint; UK basketball and I didn't speak for about 10 years, and that's no way for anyone to act. Sometimes, I keep Sports on mute. It's really, really hard, and people grow and cope differently, you know? It's really, really hard.

We're still here, though, Sports and me. The Capitals are going to the Stanley Cup finals. I'm glad the Dolphins are giving Tannehill another go. Shuster won. I tuned in on the A's animation at MLB.com during a break in lawnmowing yesterday, and Oakland came back in the bottom of the first to take a 4-1 lead on Seattle--and I flipped open the newspaper this morning to see the A's held on to win 4-3 and break the Mariners' winning streak! That's two games over .500.

We're still here.