I finished writing the lowercase version, if y’all are, y’know, interested in reading and being well-rounded with both versions and all.
(Side note: Has anyone been keeping count of my Sara Bareilles-inspired posts? I feel like I’ve got to be at three or four by now. She’s just so great.)
Anyway, you may be wondering why I called this post “Love in This Club Redux”. Welp, Nationals is back in Boulder this year, and the last time Club Naysh ran through Boulder this was my jam (and it *still* goes mad hard so uhhhhhhh). I had it on repeat for the entirety of that weekend, and every time I hear it, I remember watching the showcase game, or Hodags/Mamabird, or Illinois/Magnum, or Bella/Fugue, or UCLA/Carleton, and all the other great games I watched. It was a mixture of excitement to be there and watch and photograph all these great games and also deep, deep sadness over not being there to compete. But I’m especially hype because Nationals was really amazing that year. I remember 2008 with a fondness that I don’t really have for ’07 or ’10, two other Nationals events that I traveled to watch. I’m not sure that it was all about the games, because I saw some GREAT games in both ’07 and ’10, and it wasn’t all about the players that were there, because there were some Gs in both ’07 and ’10 too. I don’t know what it was, maybe I was feeling a deep appreciation for what was happening and really understanding the work and mental adjustments that were necessary to play on that stage.
Anyway, I’m one of those people who likes to return to old and familiar places and spaces to revisit old feelings and memories. I don’t necessarily want to go back and relive those things, but I like to go back and try to appreciate all the things I felt and the memories I made. Y’know, like going back to your high school gym or something and remembering how NOT fun running suicides were, or going back to the practice fields and remembering all the hours of work and all the hours of goofing around that went down there. You don’t necessarily want to do all those things again right then and there, but it’s fun to look back on them and smile/cry/vomit about it.
On a personal note, that trip was just SOMUCHFUN. I mean, I can’t even begin to pick out hilarious stories to share because there are way too many and I wouldn’t even know where to start. Especially after how our season ended, I didn’t think I’d have as much fun as I did or laugh as hard as I did. (Ok, I’ll share a fun fact: I died for about 6 seconds on this trip. Tried plugging my phone? Laptop? Camera? Don’t remember, just remember that I was plugging *something* into an RV power outlet. Bad idea. Sorry I’m not sorry that I travel with that stuff when I go camping. I don’t know how to camp, I didn’t learn how to speak English until I was six… ;D)
Anyway, I hope I can make it there this year, fangers crossed. I think I’ll be wide-eyed and excited just because I haven’t really been keeping up with the happenings and I don’t know who’s good and who’s exciting to watch, not to mention I’ll be in Boulder with my frands! My head would be on a swivel and I’d probably take about a thousand photos per game. (I would probably still scowl, though. Not because I’m angry or because I’m not enjoying myself, but because that’s my face at rest. Eh.) Ooh, not to mention! It would be my camera’s first ultimate tournament! Just gonna look at old photos to get amped, now.
By the by, these were all taken with my old Olympus and the terrible lens, so clicking the images for a higher resolution photo may or may not actually yield a better image. *shrug* Sorry ’bout it.
And by the way, if you’re wondering, after looking through these photos … no. I didn’t have a favorite couple of teams or players or anything like that at all. Nope.
(/fangirl)
