Nicole

Has anyone noticed the haze around the moon tonight? It’s beautiful.

My heart is so heavy now. Such dread.

I watched the news, because they faked me out with all that talk of the season maybe not being over.

And then they mentioned how Chelios is playing for the UHL. The Flint Generals. I only know one person who loved (loves?) the Gens more than the Wings. That same person was (is?) also a huge Chelios fan. I always talk about him as if he’s dead. He’s not, he’s in Macomb (I guess there’s a difference..?) And who knows, he might be happy right now. But that’s not any of my business anymore.

I know everyone wonders why I miss someone so much who was never much of a friend to begin with. I wonder that too. I guess, because it ended badly? It was like watching a train wreck that nobody else was seeing and not being able to do anything.

I remember watching a Generals game with the twins when I first met them. It was at Al & Sheila’s after the study. Tony came in and said, “Who’s playing?”

How things have changed for all the people that were there that night. A few for the better, most for the worse.

I guess I learned from all of it. I’m not going to be a bystander (innocent or otherwise) if someone tries to wreck his or her life. That’s what’s goin’ on.

From: NHL Newsletter
Date: Wednesday, February 16, 2005 3:41 PM
To: nic8383@msn.com
Subject: NHL Announces Cancellation of 2004-05 Season

Dear Nicole,

The National Hockey League announced today that, because a
new collective bargaining agreement has not been realized,
it no longer is practical to conduct an abbreviated 2004-05 season.

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman issued the following statement:

“Every professional sports league owes its very existence to its fans.
Everyone associated with the National Hockey League owes our fans an
apology for being unable to accomplish what is necessary for our game
and our fans. We are truly sorry.”

————————————————————————–

I would beat the snot out of Bettman if I had the chance. Hey, maybe if there was a fight a hockey game would break out.

It took baseball ten seasons, a home run derby, a few great World Series, and apparently a whole lotta steriods to make people forget their little strike fiasco. And they still make far too much money. Absence doesn’t make the fickle public’s heart grow fonder, good games and good players do. Anytime you go away for an extended period of time, you come back to fewer, more cynical fans.

In happier news, Keane was great tonight. One sometimes forgets that a band with no guitarist can rock so much. The keyboardist looks and acts like a long-lost member of the Carlson family.

The two opening acts were really good too.

It would have only been two years. Not even. Less than. < (You know, the only way I remember the difference between < and > is that in second grade Nick Everett yelled out, “The mouth is opening to eat the bigger number!” And that is a sad and sharp comment on human nature, that the mouth always will go for the bigger number.)

I think I shall coin a law in the vein of Murphy’s. Rivett(e)’s law shall read thus: “Opportunities only present themselves when you are least ready for them. And by the time you are ready, they will have evaporated.”

Two years ago, less than < two years ago, there were opportunities. And I had no way of knowing, no way of telling them to just hang on until 2005, I will have my head on straight by then.

No one waits, no one anticipates change in anyone else. Which in a way is smart, or at least seasoned experience. The second Rivett(e)’s law could read: “If you wait for someone to change, they never will; but, if you write them off, they will do exactly what you wanted them to.”

Even after some, shall we say, test runs, I wasn’t ready. And I knew it. I’ve known a lot of people a lot less honest about how ready they are, they just go ahead. And get in over their heads. Am I trying to say it takes maturity to recognize that you are immature? I guess I am.

In about six months I will be turning 22. And maybe for the first time I will feel my age, not shell-shocked into middle age or emotionally stunted into childhood.

I’m looking up, even if things around me aren’t.

Last time I was home I found a poem, one of my favorites growing up, that I was starting to embroider in silver thread on blue fabric. Guess I was making a wall hanging or something.

But I thought some of you might like to read it, seeing as most of us are going through some pretty tough stuff lately.

The Light of Stars

(That’s me five years ago.) I figured nostalgia was appropriate since I have been a Patriots fan for ten years now. And sometimes I find myself humming the little tune I made up for these lyrics.
A different way to say ‘Hit me baby one more time’

~~Pearl Jam, Wishlist

That was of course before my darling Eddie V. went off his head and became Ralph Nader’s #1 (out of a group of 18 or so) fan. Nader would probably deem Camaros unsafe at any speed as well, and say that it was too dangerous to refract light rays off them. Seriously, by killing the Corvair the Nadester set domestic car design back 30 years, ensuring that Detroit would never catch up to Stuttgart or Tokyo. And for no real reason, because every other car in production in the early 1960s was dangerous. They had metal dashboards, for crying out loud! You know, there was another company at that time who also had a mid-engine, rack-and-pinion, air-cooled little roadster in production at that time… You might have heard of them, I think the name was Porsche? Thank goodness Germans don’t listen to the Chicken Little types.

Okay, that was a long digession, when I really meant to post my wishlist. See, I’ve been a member of amazon.com for years, sold some stuff now and then, but never really used the recommendations or wishlist much until lately. Tonight I just looked over what I’ve put on my wishlist. I don’t know what I was thinking last September. As if anyone would buy me Gogol? :P