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my_own_ire_land
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Name: Jonathan
Interests: reading, writing, music, mags, tennis, travel, theater, film, postcards, puns, shiraz, sharks, storms, phone-tography, NYC, the Northwest, Ireland & Scotland, Frenglish
Expertise: abiding
Occupation: Travel Editor
Industry: Publishing
Message: message me
AIM:  scottjon20
Member Since:
5/29/2006
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| I hate realizing things. Usually it's because I'm tardy with it.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts..."
-Bill Shakespeare
_________
Realization: In a few short weeks, I will be the only member of the original quartet abiding on 608 Woodruff's first
floor who is yet lurking in Indianapolis.
Seattle. Ann Arbor. San Diego. Yep, they're all gone, or about to be. The Woodruff casa was balkanized swiftly.
Indianoplace. That was the long-running pun I'd never heard until this weekend. A long while back I took to
sticking up for this city, and yet now I'm feeling a restlessness about that which I toil and play over that I haven't
had for a long time, if ever.
Part of that has to do with recent relational burning, and part of it has to do with this blasted legal and insurance
shrapnel still stuck in me from a car wreck. Trust me, I know: sigh. But it's not over yet, and now I'm told that
I've been followed by insurance operatives or PIs or - what the hell? - someone to keep tabs on my true condition.
As if people can never or should never heal. As if they're not still due some just compensation for injuries suffered.
When does it truly end? That's what keeps me going: It has to end.
Honestly, one side benefit of someday leaving this city is to never again be anywhere close to the Near Eastside of
downtown on New York Ave, where That Happened. Again, I want to be done talking about it forever as much
as anyone else, but it's a ghost that loiters, and so I speak to it.
How I hate the idea of running from something. Maybe I need to get this wreck fiasco sorted out for good, put on
my dating blinders for a time, just close off in my tower with the last three Potter books and a notepad. Maybe
then I won't want to tumble out of here.
But maybe that's putting a clamp on a true yearning. And that's no good.
Places I think about: Portland, New York City, and D.C. Oh, and San Fran. Two of those could harbor
publishing job prospects even within my own company, and all are just fantastic cities. I haven't been to San Fran
to see yet, but I believe.
Maybe I shouldn't even be putting this here.
I am certain that Naptown would get by all right despite the drain of my brain. I would miss the prime chances to
work and/or go to the Super Bowl in 2012. And I'd certainly miss the opportunities that came my way to
escort and talk to some of my favorite pro tennis players these last three years, including this past week:
  
Tommy Haas [Germany] Dmitry Tursunov [Russia] James Blake [U.S.]
Then there's this: Were I to stay, I may have the opp to be a key member of the Indy tournament staff next year.
Hmm. And I did just join a local tennis league to get some more structured action. Heh.
Even so, the queries I pose to myself remain, when? and where? and for what?
With all due respect, I will not just up and move somewhere and work at Starbucks so as to have insurance until
I find something decent to do. I can't do it. I hate their prices and their burnt coffee and their "comic ubiquity" too
much. Plus, they're on a downward spiral.
Which is exactly where I refuse to be. And I refuse to just abide. I want to do.
A Manhattanite I collided with a few moons back remarked that I belong in a different city, somewhere else,
somewhere bigger, someplace like New York. I couldn't decide if this was to be a compliment - some outsize
personality or intelligence or passion seen in me - or a subtle dig. I chose to see it as the former, still do. These
days I can take almost anything as if it's a veiled compliment. True kudos, lame jabs, kisses that burn bridges -
they're all the same. It's all about spin. All about spinning things so as to make them bearable.
I want to do so much more than survive. I've survived a thing or two, and it gets old.
Just some honesty here. This post is all over the place. As is my head. As are my people.
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Yeah, so this awful incident (preceded by a few awful incidents) occurred outside my door this morning.
As my aptmate was pulling out onto the street to head to work, no less. Scary.
Indianapolis + summer heat = just awful
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Life of late feels like it's getting away from me.
Or maybe that's just the people in life.
Unrelated: Transcribing interviews takes for-freaking-ever. I hate it.
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| when tennis gods collide
We interrupt the previously scheduled emoting for a special comment...
Wimbledon came and went, and the finals were chock-full of impeccable play on Centre Court, which seems
more a theater than a stadium. In the words of my high school tennis coach, "I'M TICKLED PINK!"
What a joy for me, to have all these friends watching and text-messaging (from "Are you watching this lunacy?" to
"I never thought I'd be so excited about tennis") and blogging about it and declaring it The Best Sporting Event
they have ever seen.
I'm right there with you, people.
First, I called Venus over Serena in the women's final. She won 7-5, 6-4, thus evening their head-to-head
match-ups at 8 wins each and claiming her 5th overall Wimbledon title, thus securing her place among all-time
greats like Navratilova, Billie Jean King (not the catalyst of a certain King of Pop ditty), and Graf. It doesn't
matter how she's playing, or that she hadn't won a tournament since last year - when Venus goes to London, she
storms the field. I think she sprinkles grass shavings over her cereal whilst over there.
The story of that match was younger sis Serena's wasted opps. It would prove to be the story of the next match
as well, a notably superior affair between the indefatigable titans of this tennis era.
Federer(erererer) vs. Nadal. Fed vs. Rafa. It will go down as the best rivalry by far in tennis - shoot, in individual
sports on the whole - for our generation. What's so compelling is the contrasting styles: Fed with his stoic Swiss
demeanor; his graceful, even regal blanketing of the court; his forehand missiles; and that huge yet elegant serve.
Then we get Rafa, he of the don't-call-'em-capris! pantalons (to balance out Fed's Vogue-adored cardigan [hmm,
Mr. Roger's?], he of the loopy, lefty serve and act-of-Greek-god shot-making.
No. 1 versus No. 2. Verge of age 27 versus the fresh 22 years. The pinched-faced pug versus the pit bull pirate.
When it was over: 6-4, 6-4, 6-7, 6-7, 9-7.
Four hours, 48 minutes. The longest Wimbledon men's final ever.
Egad.
Roger did it to himself, wasting 12 of 13 break points (points to win his opponent's service games) and fading fast
in the lingering light. His performance was shell-shocked and then rose to the occasion and then closed up again
like a flower as daylight bled gently into that good night.
Nadal is the first Spaniard to win Wimbledon since 1966, and the latest man (since Bjorn Borg in 1980) to win
the French Open in Paris and then Wimbledon in London in the same year. In the same one-month span even.
^ Casual sports fans or small-time tennis enthusiasts probably don't realize what an accomplishment this is. To
adapt to the London lawn (yea, grass - this is the oldest tournament in the world, birthed in 1877) after the brutal
red clay in Paris is just incredible. Never mind that Rafa pasted Fed to said clay (a 6-1, 6-3, 6-0 thrashing last
month). What truly signals the changing of the guard - Nadal may finish this year No. 1 now, for the first time - is
that the biceptual Majorcan rocked Federer at the start, sputtered a bit in the middle, and then returned to unseat
the king (the five-time defending champ!) in a 5th set that more than went the distance.
If anyone in the world has gonads of granite, it's Rafael Nadal.
Some (heard of John McEnroe?) are calling it the greatest tennis match they've seen, if not the greatest ever. It
surely defied the hype, superseded the calls for but another finely played, ultra-nice final for the uppity Brits, with
their tea and crumpets, throwing back their bowls of strawberries and cream.
This was tennis as boxing, and Nadal is a heavyweight. Let's. Get. Physical. It seemed late in the match that Fed
should have some teeth missing for the beating he was taking straight to the grill.
Simply put, no one in pro tennis makes Roger Federer look ordinary like Rafael Nadal does. Will he any longer
be the underdog in their matches? On the hard courts of New York and Melbourne maybe, but he now boasts a
12-6 record against Fed overall, and 4-2 in Grand Slam finals.
This begs the query: Federer for GOAT (Greatest of All Time)? He may yet prove to be - as the slightly
overhyped Steffi Graf was in her '90s dominance after Monica Seles was violently poked off the court - not only
not the greatest of all time, but not even the greatest when in his prime, the greatest of his own era.
Time will tell. Oh, time - you do so much.
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| without you here, this is less to say
I can't explain the state that I'm in
The state of my heart, he was my best friend
Into the car, from the backseat
Oh, admiration in falling asleep
All of my powers, day after day
I can tell you, we swaggered and swayed
Deep in the tower, the prairies below
I can tell you, the telling gets old
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you the day we were born
My friend is gone, he ran away
I can tell you, I love him each day
Though we have sparred, wrestled and raged
I can tell you, I love him each day
Terrible sting and terrible storm
I can tell you
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