In college I played a lot of basketball and I did odd things to occupy my time in between naps (I occasionally appeared in classes, too, but that was pretty uncommon).
One of the things I did was monkey around a bit with the quadratic equation. Specifically, I wanted to be able to do a square of any integer between 1 and 100. It might have been easier to just memorize all 100 possible answers, but I enjoyed doing the a2 -2ab + b2 math in my head, and I was reasonably good at it. No more, of course, because I've let the skill go to seed.
Another thing I enjoyed doing was kicking the ceiling. Literally trying to kick the ceiling by jumping and kicking upwards. I was able to do it, with some practice, relatively consistently in our dorm.
Yesterday demonstrated that, shockingly, physical skills can atrophy the same way arithmetic ones can.
I first got a hint at the end of my work day. I was being shot for our company's Web site and (because we're a cool place to work and they want us to share some of our personality) I was asked to bring three props. I brought a microphone (karaoke reference), a pair of books (a William Henry Harrison bio and a Talleyrand bio, to demonstrate that I can read), and a basketball.
The basketball was not to show that I played basketball... that would be too far-fetched nowadays. It was because I had written a bit about my love for the Blazers in my bio, and I thought it would be interesting to pose with the ol' Spaulding.
I had planned on spinning the ball on my finger and palming the ball, holding it towards the camera. Both of those things are relatively easy for me to do. Or at least they were.
My hands felt small and dry and weak at first as I struggled to palm the ball, and even when I eventually got the hang of it, I knew that I lacked the fluidity with the effort that I used to have when I played ball regularly. Spinning the ball on my finger went a little better, but I still had some lingering disdain for my lack of skill.
It was almost enough for me to tell myself I needed to start playing again. Almost. I would rather not set up expectations I will not meet, so I didn't do it.
After work I got in a quick nap at Buddy One's place (he still needs a better codename, I know; sorry...) and we went out and about Capitol Hill with some other friends.
We bumped into All-Star and Dos Claves at one place, and I took to talking to Dos Claves. She is a really sweet person I've known for about seven months who recently moved into the city for grad school... and somehow, some way, we started talking about kicking stuff above our heads.
Normally, when I say something like "somehow, some way", I'm self-editing because it's embarrassing or personal or whatever. In this case? I have NO idea how it came up. For my part, it was probably because I had been drinking and she's adorable and that combination sometimes makes me talk about odd things. I'm not sure what her excuse was.
In any event, I said that I'd be able to kick the top of a standard door lintel (edited from earlier incorrect use of "jamb", which is the SIDE of a doorway)... I could, after all, kick the CEILING when I was in college, and this was going to be six or eight inches lower. No problem, right? Additionally, where were we going to find a door lintel in that bar?
Well, Dos Claves was determined to see me try and show me that SHE could do it, too, so she dragged me over to the ladies' restroom and opened the door. And told me to go for it.
Fortunately, I didn't think about it. I didn't think about the odds against me being able to succeed, because if I had thought about it, I might have chickened out. And no one likes a chicken.
I didn't think about the people in the bar who might be confused, or about the fact that I was staring right into the ladies' room. I didn't think about the fact that I was wearing rather tight jeans or that I had consumed a reasonably robust amount of alcohol. I didn't think about how freaking long it had been since I'd tried anything like that.
Fortunate, right? Hmm. Maybe.
I took my phone out of my pocket and I was ready to go. I leaped and kicked and ... didn't quite do it.
I was high enough, definitely. I saw my foot flick significantly higher than the door lintel. But my depth perception was bad, and I kicked about six inches (three inches? I dunno) in front of the target.
And then I fell.
I fell down hard on my left side. Shooting pain from my hip and my ankle (which had slightly turned). And suppressed gasps and evil cackles from my group of friends, who had evidently caught site of me biting it right in front of the (open) door to the little girls' room.
Dos Claves had to repeatedly kick the door lintel, because I was distracted by the pain in my hip and kept missing her good work. After I congratulated her, she acknowledged that I had succeeded on a spiritual level, even if technically I did not.
My hip still hurts, but it was so worth it.
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