long weekend

nice to have three days off. always nice. even if i spent most of the time slaving away in cori's backyard trying to move an unending pile of sticks. i swear to god it was like jesus with the fish and bread, feeding the multitudes. the sticks just kept multiplying. three vanloads to the dump later, and there's still a huge amount left to do, and here i was thinking it'd be two loads, at most. sheesh.

monday was the best, though. hat tournament down at the polo fields was tons of fun. i played really well and the people on my team were great. i should sign up for rec again this year, even though i'm not going to be here for most of the season. we went 2-2 while i was there (i had to leave before the last game, more on that in a minute) and i had a VERY high scores/assists-to-turnover ratio. hurray for being young, comparatively fast and experienced! then i rolled my ankle and it was all over and i sat out the last half of the fourth game. not a bad injury, but enough that i couldn't sprint or cut and it really isn't worth it to push something like that at such an inconsequential tournament. also i wrenched my back twisting for a catch, but that's nothing new and didn't really hamper me like the ankle did. i really hate being injury prone, it's pathetic that i should be bitching about shit like this at age 19. what's wrong with me that i take so long to recover from stuff and hurt myself so easily? i stretch better than anyone i know, i eat well, i'm never sick (except for that bout with whooping cough in february). that all being said, the tournament was SO much fun. props to sarah, jessica, melissa, andrew, john, paul, raylin, bruce, lauren, jamie and marcus for being awesome teammates. frisbee is the shit.

another awesome thing about this weekend: i picked up "the amber spyglass" by philip pullman, which i haven't read in probably five years, and started devouring it again. it is an amazing book. the whole "his dark materials" trilogy is fantastic, but this is really the best book. the depth of each character, the beauty of the concept, the unerring accuracy of the social observation, and, as my dad pointed out, the deep respect that underlies all the strongest and most important relationships in the book--as opposed to mere "liking" that passes for most relationships in real life and in fiction--make this one of the best books i've ever read. and, if i must say, i've read a lot of books for someone my age, especially these days. lincoln announced over the weekend, i forget the context, that he "doesn't read." to my mom. big mistake. if harry potter is good for nothing else, at least it's gotten millions of kids excited about reading who previously approached anything resembling a book with deepest suspicion, if not outright hostility. my brain wants me to launch into a long rant about education reform, which will catapault me into a rant about economic reform, but i don't really know enough about either of those things to make such a lecture worth writing out. arguing out loud, sure. an off-the-cuff essay? not yet. perhaps i'll go read about them now. or maybe i'll go back to my book, which i snuck out of the house because i knew dad would want to read it and i'm selfish. enough writing for now, i'm going to sip my cranberry juice and spin around in my chair for a little while. bye!