Shoelaces for Josie

Rarely do I run to dictionary.com to make sure I’ve used the right word. I’m pretty secure in my knowledge of words to know that if I don’t have the right one, at the very least, I’ve done an awesome job of faking it.

But I checked to make sure “disillusionment” was right, because I didn’t want to flub up on this post tonight.

I believe I’ve said this before but I don’t go into a lot of detail about my job for obvious reasons. I highly doubt my words would ever end up in places they shouldn’t (read as publications where people - aka the public - has access to them) but I don’t want to take that chance. So - I’m vague. No names, no comments about teams or injuries, no information about anything that hasn’t been made public by our office. I’m sorry if things don’t make sense sometimes since you don’t have all the pieces to string it together but, such is life.

I think I came into this job with expectations. It’s hard not to have expectations. It’s how we’re made. When you enter a relationship you have expectations about how it’s going to go and how it’s going to end up, when you get in your car, you have expectations that it is going to get you to your destination, when you ask a Wal-Mart employee for directions, you expect to get no information.

Barf, work is getting in the way of me ranting about work, must run.

Sometimes late can be good. Like……..when you sleep in late - well - that can be bad if you’ve missed a meeting. Late can be good when…oh pick me, pick me! I have an answer!….when you don’t floor your car at a green light because some royal moron blew through their red light. See, now you’re alive because you were late at stepping on the gas. Don’t worry about all the cars honking behind you. Obviously they don’t have as much invested in you being alive.

Late is not good when it’s after midnight on Monday. I haven’t been up this late in eons - probably since college. I can’t do it anymore. Contrary to popular belief, I am not the reincarnated superwoman. All of this doesn’t explain why I’m still up, does it? Well, I’m dedicated. I’m dedicated to this blog and I take my responsibility to my readers quite seriously.

That’s mostly true. Somewhat true. But the real reason I’m still up is to work. Silly me and running myself up against the deadline. One of these days I’m going to clothesline myself on one of my deadlines, and it’s going to take me awhile to pick myself up off the ground. But - why be pessimistic. It hasn’t happened yet!

Oh - I thought of another thing where late is good. When you turn on a light after you’ve just woken up and it takes a bit for it to warm up and really shine brightly. Instead of permanently scarring your retinas with an immediate flash of bright white light, you get to remain friends with your eyeballs and gradually get used to an increased amount of light. Aeh…aeh - I got the goods on this whole late thing. I’m telling ya, it’s a gift.

Homecoming with the big dogs - that’s what yesterday was. People ask me what I do on game days so here is a brief rundown.

- Go to the stadium three hours before kick-off and set up the photography workroom (lots of unnecessary details entered here)
- Assign the photographers and camera crews vests and babysit them through the game and for several hours afterwards
- Stand on the sidelines for our impossibly long games and when the boys play a bit too rough and get an owie, I report to the big man up in the box - pretty much like the FBI
- After the game, I collect all the vests and wait until the photographers are done submitting their work. *Disclaimer* - this has been known to take up to three hours
- Break-down the photography work room and return everything to its rightful place
- Spend a good 20-30 minutes hob-nobbing with the rest of my co-workers/our-job-owns-us people
- Go home and on day-game days watch a movie and eat a frozen pizza while everyone else is drowning the bitterness of another loss at the bar or on night-game days I collapse in bed at 1 in the morning

Still want to do what I do? Besides, we lost. And we shouldn’t have. I know they all say that but the officials overruled a touchdown and I saw proof in the photography room that my boy was indeed in the endzone with control of the ball. We lost by three points so, yes, when I say we should have won I quite literally mean it.

But there are moments where it is all worth it. As in yesterday, the event management director (the most amazing man at his job ever aka MAMAHJE) came up to me and pointed out two guys who had photog vests on and didn’t have cameras. I banished those two to the stands and then MAMAHJE pointed out a child and told me that anyone under 18 couldn’t be on the sidelines. I wasn’t sure how a child fell under my authority as the photography supervisor but I didn’t argue with MAMAHJE.

I walked up to the father who was standing behind the kid and asked, “Sir, is your child 18 years old?”

He looked at me as though I were daft. The child barely came up to his waist and was obviously no older then seven or eight but one can’t make assumptions. “No,” he responded.

“Well then, sir, I’m afraid he can’t be on the field as no one under the age of 18 is allowed to be down here.”

He was polite and took his non-18-year-old child away but I will forever remember the look he gave me. How classic would it have been if he had been holding an infant and I asked him that same question?