One blaze of glory...

I love the Olympics. It's so compelling, watching people who've trained all their lives for a shot at the gold, knowing that most of them won't even get close to a medal. One little slip and it's all over. Or, one really great performance, and you're a legend. It's heartbreaking and uplifting all at the same time.

I really love the winter games. I just like the winter sports more (plus: SNOW!). It's more interesting to me to watch people skate really fast in a circle than it is to watch people run around in a circle. Plus, the skiiing! The moguls! Hockey! And especially... the figure skating.

I know. It's totally girly to admit how much I enjoy this sport (and do not even try to tell me it ain't a sport. YOU try it.) but I love it. In 1976, I was so enamored of Dorothy Hamill that I decided I wanted to be her. I even had the Dorothy Hamill wedge haircut at one point. No, it was not the least bit flattering (I'd show you my yearbook pic with that look, but it's too small and dark. Yeah. That's my reason.) I took skating lessons for awhile, until I was stymied by my inability to skate backwards and to perform a waltz jump (funny... I can skate backwards NOW....now that it's too late for my Olympic career....sigh.).

I like the summer games too. I mean, who couldn't love watching hunky young men in little teeny swimsuits, swimming and diving? And then...there's the gymnastics.

Actually, I don't like that as much as I did when I was a kid. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the knowledge that all those girls are starving themselves for their sport. But I do remember loving Olga Korbut in '72 and of course, Nadia Comaneci in '76. Because of them, I signed up for some gymnastics classes. Guess what? I wasn't very good, and didn't last long. The only "tumbling" move I could master was the roundoff, and everyone could do that!

You could say I was a bit of a dilettante when it came to sports. I tried a bunch. I had some skills in each one, but never enough to stand out. I played basketball more than any other sport, and I think the only reason I was any good at that is that I was taller than everyone else -- I've been 5'8" since I was 12 -- so I was really good at intercepting the ball. And I wasn't afraid of the ball, like so many girls were.

I remember one co-ed P.E. class in 7th grade in which we were playing basketball, and the asshole male coach was demonstrating the chest pass. I was his guinea pig for the demonstration. He then told us girls that if we couldn't handle that, since we're so weak, you know, we could use the overhead pass instead. I got so insulted (being the indignant middle-schooler that I was) that I chest-passed the ball back to him so hard he had to step back a few steps. Heh.

But I digress. I expect to be glued to my TV a lot over the next couple of weeks, experiencing the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, vicariously.