The Week That Wasn't

The lamp. 

The lamp was the first thing I saw when my eyes opened Monday morning. I was hoping it wasn't Monday morning. I was hoping it was, say, Wednesday and I'd slept through Monday and Tuesday. But it was Monday. It's not Monday's fault that it comes after Sunday. It's just that this particular Monday came after that Sunday. 

I don't really remember a lot about Monday. But I do firmly believe that there's an Everybody Loves Raymond episode to cover almost any situation in life and, in this case, it would be the episode during which Robert and Amy get married. 

I won't bore you with a recap of the entire episode. If you want to watch it click here. Suffice it to say that the ceremony didn't go well and during the reception Ray gives a great speech trying to smooth everything over. The long and the short of it is that our brains work like a filtering device and the further you are from a situation the more positively you remember it.

Monday I was not far enough removed from the situation, and now my brain has edited Monday out.

I was off on Tuesday so I lay on the couch. I took three separate naps in a 10-hour span. During the parts that I was awake I avoided anything that might possibly address the situation. That meant no sports, no news, no late night talk shows...basically I could only watch things that had already aired on TV at least 24 hours prior to me waking up and seeing the lamp. 

Enter TBS. 

What once provided me with lasting childhood memories of Braves baseball was now my escape from sports of any kind. I ended up binge-watching New Girl. I'd never seen an episode and now I'm almost a full season in (no spoilers, please). It doesn't get much more non-sports than that, except for the fact that one roommate once played pro basketball in Latvia.

That night I put my "no sports" pact with myself on hiatus long enough to watch Georgia try to salvage its gut-punch of a season against Florida. 

Back to TBS.

By Wednesday the scene in my apartment was pretty dire. The blurry green image in the picture below is a pack of provolone. When I woke up that morning that was the only food remaining in my fridge, and I'm pretty sure its expiration date had long passed. 

I decided to leave my apartment for the first time since the situation presented itself. Not only did I go outside, I went for a 2.5-mile run. Turns out, you can't outrun a situation. It will catch you when you stop. 

I also went back to work, which turned out to be somewhat therapeutic. You never know how well your co-workers actually know you until a situation presents itself. In this instance, no one spoke to me or made eye contact for the first five hours I was there. 

They know me pretty darn well. 

I came home that night to the movie Uptown Girls on TV. Don't know it? Neither did I. But I watched the last hour because I was pretty sure it was safe. Not a bad flick, actually. Then a few more episodes of New Girl on Netflix. No chill, just bed.

The only good thing about Thursday is that it was both my Tuesday and my Friday at work. After a few more episodes of New Girl it was actually Friday and I'd been looking forward to this particular Friday for a few months. That's because this particular Friday I was seeing Bon Jovi live for the first time in more than a decade. I've loved Bon Jovi since, let's see, fifth grade?

Unfortunately this concert was at Philips Arena. Philips Arena is next to another arena, and that arena that used to represent such joy now represents the situation that gives me night terrors. So I did what they do to horses to keep them from getting spooked: I blocked my vision from the offending spectacle.

Yes, by Friday I was a frightened horse.

Then a funny thing happened. I found out that it's almost impossible to have a negative thought in your head while 20,000 people are singing "Livin' On  A Prayer" in unison at the top of their lungs.

Then another thing happened. A wonderful visit with my family on Saturday presented an opportunity to acknowledge the situation verbally for the first time since it presented itself.

Then yet another thing happened. An impromptu visit with some very close friends on Sunday, who are also very close to the situation, allowed me to finally talk through some things with people who know exactly where I'm coming from. I didn't know it at first, but it was the first time they had addressed the situation as well.

Does that mean I'm all better now? Of course not. But it's a start. 

So here we are, a week later.

In the end, the one thing I keep coming back to about this week is the closing line in Uptown Girls: "Every story has an end. But in life every ending is just a new beginning."

I need that to be true, because the situation that presented itself last Sunday night didn't just ruin Sunday night. It ruined about five months of wonderful memories that will now be tainted the way a wonderful relationship can be by a bad breakup. 

I've been through my share of breakups over the years and I've learned one thing: Like Raymond said, the further you are from the situation the better you feel.

In a month I will leave for my annual trip to Braves Spring Training. Hopefully by then I'll be ready to be disappointed all over again. 

Or maybe I'll just buy a new lamp. 

UGA's Season In 60 Seconds

Not to be misleading with the headline, but I should tell you that the 60 seconds begin with the actual season preview. First, I have a few things to get off my chest...

It's no secret that I was (and still am) not a fan of Mark Richt's departure. Long story short I felt like he represented our University like no other. I wanted us to win a national title under him to prove that we could do it the "Georgia Way". But after last season Greg McGarity decided that we couldn't win the ultimate prize "our way", we had to do it like everybody else does it.

And so here we are.

I like Kirby Smart, not that he was waiting for my endorsement. He was my favorite player when we were both in college. His dad is one of my favorite coaches I've ever had the privilege to cover. He was the coach at Rabun County High School (Tiger, GA) when I started my first job in television in Toccoa, Georgia. A more genuine and affable coach you will not encounter. But he was also a great football coach. Apples, trees, etc.

My hope is that, in Kirby, we get the football coaching influence from Nick Saban and the people skills of his dad Sonny.  Early reviews aren't good...but there's still time.

I say all of that to say this: the Richt firing was polarizing among the Georgia people. I know this because it split our tailgate crew (going on its 12th year) down the middle. Each of us felt passionately that Richt should have been kept or should have been fired. There was no in between.

But the time for that debate has passed. I don't believe you have to be anti-Richt to be pro-Kirby, and vice versa.

I will say this: Kirby Smart has to win a national championship. Soon. Maybe not this year, but probably next. Mark Richt did everything else BUT win a national title at Georgia and was shown the door for it. So if we're still trophy-less in five years...what was the point?

Is that fair? Probably not. But neither is firing a man who took your program to greater heights than it has seen in decades.

So without further ado, Georgia's season in 60 seconds:

September 3rd vs. North Carolina - The ACC is useless after Clemson and Florida State. UGA by 7.

September 10th vs. Nicholls St. - Game should be well in hand in time for the NASCAR-minded Georgia fans to be back on their couches for the Battle at Bristol.

September 17th at Missouri - Missouri's defensive line could give Georgia's offense fits. I think we win here, but "closer than the experts think", to quote the great Lee Corso.

September 24th at Ole Miss - Thus begins the one-two punch that will likely decide our season. I feel like we're gonna win one and lose one. And this one being on the road, I say we lose a close one.

October 1st vs. Tennessee - IF we can escape The Grove unscathed, this game will likely see College GameDay or SEC Nation setting up on Myers Quad. If we lose in Oxford we win this one and vice versa. Like I said, 1-1.

October 8th at South Carolina - Columbia has been our Waterloo for a few years now, but this Gamecocks team is abysmal. If we lose in Columbia this time we don't deserve to go to a bowl game, much less win the East.

October 15th vs. Vanderbilt - This would be a typical "stumble" game under Richt. This game, not the outcome but the point differential, will tell the difference whether it's out-with-the-old or same-old-same-old.

October 29th vs. Florida - Kirby turns the tide on the Gators and this series becomes "Must See TV" for college football fans for the next 20 years. We win 13 of them.

November 5th at Kentucky - Win. And by more than Vegas thinks.

November 12th vs. Auburn - My how quickly the mighty have fallen. From what I'm hearing out of The Plains Guz Malzahn may or may not still be the Plainsmen's head coach when this game rolls around. Either way weird things tend to happen in this rivalry. We win...but close.

November 19th vs. Louisiana-Lafayette - Please.

November 26th vs. Georgia Tech - The North Avenue Trade School scares me less and less every year. Sure, they're going to win on occasion (see also: 2014), but overall this hasn't been a rivalry in years.

Regular season record: 11-1, (7-1 SEC)

If all of this holds true, then we win the SEC East and advance to the SEC Championship Game...where we will lose to whomever wins the West (honestly I don't know enough about the West teams to make an educated guess but everyone seems huge on LSU).

Why do we lose? Winning the SEC and advancing to the College Football Playoff is too much to ask of a first-year head coach with a true freshman quarterback.

But next year...

In the meantime I'll be keeping a close eye on those Hurricanes.