My heart bleeded, girl

I'm in Columbus. Nic, Erin, Larry and I are going out to dinner tomorrow for Mother's Day. Then we're having a "wedding round table." It's long overdue, and I feel badly that being in two different cities has made things more stressful for Erin as far as us getting our shit together for this shindig.

A belated thank you to wendy for the delicious postcard!

The PGH marathon coincided with the last week of my second round of P90X. Twenty-six weeks, not enough pounds lost, but a nice number of inches gone, and I feel awesome. This week is all about rest and recovery, and then Monday starts training for the Maui marathon in September. (Ashley and I are obsessed with training plans, so I have mine figured out to the tiniest detail. P90X doesn't provide a real rest day, although there is one day a week for stretching only. I was using that day to do a long run, so I haven't actually had a rest day in a while. That's fine for a time, but ultimately dangerous, injury-wise. So, for the next 18 weeks, I'm running three days a week, doing random P90X workouts two days, and resting two days. If I schedule in rest days, I won't feel lazy, because rest days are an important part of marathon training, even if that's sometimes hard to accept.)

I'm really looking forward to the hockey game tonight. I love the way Ovi is playing, with so much life, and I would almost use the word joy, in spite of having to adjust his style of playing. Even on the bench, he's 100% there. After both teams having to play 7 games in their first series, it looks to me as if the Rangers are the more tired team. Whoever wins, it will be interesting to see how they play against the well-rested Devils. (Larry hasn't been paying an attention to hockey this year, and last night I mentioned that Marty Brodeur is still playing, and he's like, whoa, how many decades has it been?)

Also, Lar and I are proud to say we are quarter-season ticket holders for the Columbus Blue Jackets. Whose fans just submitted a petition, signed by 1000 people, asking for the GM and everyone else involved to be fired. Haha, should be interesting. A quarter season is eleven games, I think. Larry says he hasn't met anybody here yet who has ever mentioned the fact that C'bus has an NHL team.

I read something the other day about John Tortarella's top five moments with the press, and one of them was when he called the Pens the most arrogant organization in the league. And it made me think about fans and team loyalties. I'm sure the Pens are arrogant, but I'm okay with that. And if I were a Rangers fan or a Flyers fan, or whatever, I would be just as fond of the culture surrounding those organizations as I am of the Pens. Fans are supposed to love what they love. I'm so familiar with the ups and downs of the Pens history. I remember when Howard Baldwin drove them into bankruptcy and Mario was able to buy the team because they'd deferred his salary for so long they owed him $30 million, which they then converted into equity and voila, he was the principle owner. And then again in the mid-2000s, when the city trusted him enough to build him a new arena and keep the team here for 30 more years, instead of moving to Kansas City. When your emotions are tangled up in the culture of an organization, it's hard to see the faults that outsiders may.

I've also been thinking about things hockey RPF and popslash have in common: hotels, arenas and dressing rooms, clubs, alcohol, long-distance travel, although mostly on planes instead of buses, the concept of team, all for one and one for all, the dangers of being outed, pining, and boys doing stupid things.

And while popslash has llamas, only in hockey could you have a story entitled A Herd of Staalions. It's by zortified and it's great fun, and apparently dine's fault. Sometimes centaurs play hockey. And that's okay. It is, indeed.

The phrases "bored of" and "on accident" really annoy me. It's bored with and by accident, okay?

I've been seeing some hockey/Avengers fic lately. The two biggest things on my flist, together. Almost as much fun as centaurs.

I really enjoyed SPN last night. Things are coming together nicely.

I have mixed feelings about the movie Dark Shadows. The original show was the reason I rushed home from school every day when I was in high school, you know? I'm not sure I wanted Tim Burton and Johnny Depp messing around with that. But on NPR yesterday there was a whole thing about the soundtrack, and while 1972 wasn't my favorite year for music, any movie that opens with "Knights in White Satin" can't be all bad. I may have to go see it.

This is an interesting blog post about sexism in hockey fandom, comparing it to some people in the media's bias against Russian players. I do get annoyed at both the gendered insults and the assumption that women aren't fans. Yesterday on the radio some guy called in about the game tonight and said his family was divided into two Caps fans, two Rangers fans and two "females" who couldn't care less. And yeah, the Russian thing is offensive, too.

And from Puck Daddy, here's an adorable interview, translated from Russian, with Geno Malkin.

To close, I hope that in an enclave somewhere in either Chicago or Buffalo, there are people putting the final touches on the details of Patrick Kane's poor life choices intervention.

Dammit, hockey gods. Why couldn't one series, JUST ONE, go the way I wanted it to? Would that have been too much to ask?

I don't mean the series where I wanted someone to lose, but the ones where I wanted someone to win. Pay attention, hockey gods!