You would think, were you a rational human being for whom sports are a fun diversion, I would be happy. I'm a hockey fan. I'm a playoff hockey fan. I'm a Blues fan. The Blues are damn close to being involved in playoff hockey again. Therefore, I should be happy.
Am I happy? You tell me:
1) I'm not sleeping well. Shit, last night I didn't sleep well because fucking Detroit lost. (That's wrong on so many levels.)
2) I'm forgetting to do really basic crap in my everyday existence. ("Oh, they pick up the trash EVERY Tuesday.")
3) I'm chewing my fingernails off at an alarming rate. (Who needs ‘em anyway?)
4) I'm having trouble thinking of anything even remotely funny to say for my weekly column, because all I want to do is laugh nervously like Peter Lorre on crack. (What's new?)
So here I am at work after getting maybe two hours of sleep last night, wishing I could mainline caffeine instead of drinking it a cup at a time, fretting about tonight's hockey games. And I do mean games. I want this over tonight. (Yeah, I'm talking to you Minnesota. Get off your lousy, boring ass and win goddamnit.) I want this particular brand of tension to be over and done with, and in a positive fashion. Oh, I know that the playoffs bring their own variety of pit of the stomach terror, but there is something about a seven game series, one team against another team, that makes it much more straightforward and humane. Scoreboard watching is killing me. For some reason it seems every team in the hunt with the Blues for the last couple playoff spots (except Edmonton) have been playing .900 hockey for weeks. I know that is bullshit, but fuck it all they never seem to lose.
So, as a result, I'm moody, irritable and, because of medication, sadly sober. This makes me an asshole, sometimes, and one of ginormous proportions.
I know that civilized human beings don't really act this way, but fuck civilization. There is hockey to be won.
The following is, for my money, the only piece of art that ever got to the essence of what real fanatics go through. (Particularly from 3:20 on.)
I have no idea if any of us are worth psycho-analyzing. I do know that none of us here give a shit. That makes us, in a sense, beyond saving.
So be it.
GO BLUES!!!!!!