Growing Pains

Remember the good ol' days? Walking home from school with your friends, maybe shooting some hoops in between a heated match of Mario Tennis and trying to blow up a pumpkin during Halloween with some M-80s you somehow came across. Do you remember those phenomenal days you had as a kid?  

Although I have a soft spot for classic video games, pyrotechnics and Red Vines, what I loved most about my free time as a tyke was coming home from school or little league practice, grabbing a bowl of cereal (a great meal at any time of the day), stripping down to my boxers and watching whatever sports game was on the tube until it was time for bed. 

Watching sports then was like ordering pizza: you can't lose. Maybe I felt like watching Gretzky dismantle teams singlehandedly, or maybe I was in the mood to see Jordan dominate Hornacek on the low block; an evening full of sports never got old. These were the days free of homework, internships, paying cable bills, working and spending two hours trying to find a decent parking space close to class or home. 

The older I get it seems I have less and less time to watch sports on television. To think of a time in my life where I could watch basketball and do nothing all day seems absurd, it seems too good to be true. As a college senior with new responsibilities in life, I have had to adjust my sports watching habits.
I have sometimes had to cut my viewing intake of regular season basketball games down to the second half or first and fourth quarters. Other times, I create games with myself: if I study for two hours for my exam I can watch a game. Sometimes I just lie to myself and pretend I can do homework while sitting in front of my 20-inch state of the art tube I purchased at Target three years ago.  

Then there is the biggest tragedy of all - missing a nationally televised game showcasing your team. I try to recreate real time with visits to blogs, forums and scouring the web for highlights, but we all know anything virtual is nothing close to the real thing. It's a purr but it's not the cat's meow. 

We also can't forget about those bittersweet weekends, those weekends when you have two full days free of pointless busy work or redundant assignments that aren't helping you grow as an intellectual, or at least pose as one at Starbucks.  

I had one of these sweet and sour weekends recently. The Lakers played on Sunday but I already booked my three-day pass to Coachella in advance since I knew last weekend was one of those unadulterated ones. What does a man do? Stay for three days of the festival or rush home to watch the Lakers? What do you think a die-hard fan does?