Hallucinations Of Angels With Dirty Faces Dancing In Casablanca

Sets 419-421:

Stuart v. E. at South Austin Tennis Center. Winner: E. 2-6, 6-4, 6-3.

My Mojo: Viral (Literally).

Note from two days later:

I got incredibly sick about five minutes after this match ended. I thought it was an electrolyte thing, but no, it was pure, weird, evil darkness that has gripped me like a lion with a helpless monkey in its jaws, and has haunted me through the weekend. Maybe I've got cholera or ebola, but more likely, it's just some run-of-the mill viral gungasmudge. So much for a dashingly romantic sudden death.

Anyway, I guess I'll ruminate more on this match later, when hopefully I will have stopped shivering away my mortal soul. Suffice it to say that my opponent was a sweet beacon of pure light who crushed me mercilessly nose down into the pavement at the end when I showed my weak underbelly; sort of like a cop chasing down a meth addict who just called her mother something foul and wretched. She absolutely ate my liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti. But, great fun; when do I get to do it again? And what a dazzling smile and cheerful, kind attitude she had while she mangled my nads on the court. Of all the gin joints, um, tennis courts, in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. And so on. Of course, my unexplained hemhorrage of mojo near the end didn't help my case much; I was not leading the dance steps at all by the end, but rather, laying on the ground, cowering, screeching, "Not the face!". Say hello to my little frien'. Quite debonair, if I may say so myself, to have debased myself through my endgame play so methodically.

As my wretched disease seems to have obviously pierced the blood-brain barrier, causing me to go way overboard on the cinematic and theatrical cliches, I think I'll shut up now, at least until my body temperature won't fry bacon. I got it from the toilet seat, I swear. But, E., if you are reading this, I hope we both live to tango another day.

Four days later:

OK, I've recovered now. I got incredibly sick for a couple of days, was shaky for the third, but now I am feeling much better; well enough to have ridden my bicycle to work the last couple days and to have spent nearly two hours doing monjo full-on 85% cardio in the gym last night. Even though I was a little weak and goofy, my attitude, as usual, is one of "Hey, let's see if THIS kills me." And amazingly, it didn't. Kill me, that is. I did wake up kinda dehydrated this morning, but with a massive amount of water throughout the day, I was able to swat that particular mosquito out of the way.

So I guess now I'll blather on about the actual match. I came into this thing feeling pretty good. I was returning solidly in the first set, and getting good directionality on my shots. My play was very strong the first set and I felt like I didn't have much trouble winning most of the games in the first set. My serves were not ultra-magic or anything like that, but they were decent and I had no problem getting aggressive on a lot of points.

In the second set, I started encountering much more resistance from E. Her game ramped up, and I started tightening up too much so I was playing stiffly. In both the second and third sets, we started off competitive for the first few games but then I dropped my game toward the end. But in both sets, when I dorked out at the tail end of each one, it was for different reasons. In the second set, I fizzled at the end because my focus was dwindling, and so I was not able to naturally play with good form. In the third set, I just massively lost energy. I was confused by this, because I hardly ever just drop in energy level. I did keep a good attitude, though, and that helped keep some of the losing games close.

The last point of the match was one of the longest points I have played in a long time. It just seemed absolutely interminable; I don't know how long it lasted, but it was a very long series of rallies. I was frustrated during this point by my absolute inability most of the time to hit the ball anywhere but right in the center of the court exactly where E. was, so my failure to be able to properly strategize probably clinched the loss of the point.

Then, as soon as the match was over, I needed to take a couple minutes on the bench, because my energy was drained. That's when the wave of nausea hit, and the next couple days were absolute hell. I barely made it home and into bed, and was hardly out of the horizontal position for most of the weekend.