A Saturday in the life of married, working Brandon

Google Image search for Weekend brings up this.

I remember way back when I was in college how glorious Saturdays seemed. They were the day after Friday, which was an awesome day in and of itself because it meant that tomorrow was Saturday, which meant there was nothing to do but sleep in and eat and nap and watch TV and eat some more. (Unless it was the spring, when we had games every weekend, or the fall, when we had practice every weekend.)

Well, here’s basically what my day’s been like today.

(Be warned, it’s boring, so don’t read it.)

This Saturday technically started yesterday, when Dan, the excellent sports editor for the Wilmington Star-News, called and emailed asking if I could cover something today. I didn’t really want to, but then, I’d bailed out of covering a UNCW soccer game Friday night, which cost me some cash, and in all good economic sense I couldn’t turn down two assignments on one weekend. Plus this one paid extra because I got to take the picture to run with the story, too.

The Saturday started fairly normal. We slept until 11, which was awesome. And really, really lazy, but it was still awesome. Then I woke up and transcribed part of an interview I really shouldn’t have spent so much time transcribing. I won’t tell you what story it was for, but it was one of the more boring interviews I can recall ever having done.

I did that for 20 minutes or so, then I got hungry so I woke Katie up and we ordered Andy’s. It probably wasn’t really in that order, but I’m hungry now, too, so I’m starting to rush through this so I can go eat leftover Andy’s.

On the way to and from Andy’s I got to talk to best friend Brandon, with whom I haven’t talked in too long. Then Katie called and needed brownie mix from the grocery store, so I stopped to pick that up. No, wait, that’s not right. That’s not until later.

Anyway, I got home and we ate our Andy’s — I had the Andy’s cheeseburger, she the chicken philly or whatever it’s called and however it’s spelled, plus fries and Mountain Dews for both of us — while watching Family Guy.

I swear, every time I watch that show I lose brain cells, and every time, I wonder why in the world I put myself through that.

Anyway, then I called this guy who wanted to buy that surfboard I blogged about a couple weeks ago. I lost some money on it but it’s finally out of the house, which automatically made this day a 9. On the way home, Katie called, needing brownie mix for her small group dinner thing tonight.

Then I got home and showered because I had to go cover this thing, which would actually be kinda cool. It was an autograph session for the Willie Stargell Foundation charity golf tournament. There were about two dozen celebrities there and I recognized like, half of them. The story will be in Sunday’s StarNews.

I was at that thing for about an hour and a half, interviewing people and taking pictures. I met some characters, there, let me tell you. It was very saddening, seeing guys walk through there with backpacks stuffed with memorabilia and no wedding rings on their fingers. Good thing there were a bunch of kids there too. I remember meeting BJ Surhoff at a thing once. I don’t remember what the thing was or how old I was, but I was young enough to be completely wowed by the guy and I didn’t even know quite who he was, except that he was sometimes a catcher and sometimes an outfielder and I really liked playing catcher in our backyard baseball games. Thus, I made him my hero for an hour.

I saw that look on plenty of those kids, that lo

Gator Rivers. A long time ago.

ok that I must have had. They’re frozen, getting hit in the face by no-look passes from “Gator” Rivers, a former Harlem Globetrotter. It was great.

 

Anyway, then I came home around 4, but on the way Katie calls again, needing eggs to make the brownies. She thought she was being a horrible wife but I just thought she was being cute and whatnot, especially how she kept promising to make it up to me. I didn’t argue with that.

Thus far the day’s about an 8, knocked down a notch by the knowledge that I’m going to spend the next hour or two figuring out how to make the guys with the backpacks and the celebrities and the kids all mesh into one interesting story.

Then I get home and give Katie the eggs, then spend the next couple of hours — give or take a few minutes here or there for various reasons ! — languishing over this story. I think that anguish came in part because of the recent comments I’ve been getting on the blog by people informing me of how bad I am at writing about proving God’s existence based on writing about demons or something like that. Which is weird because that’s not what I was really after, anyway, but I let things get under my skin sometimes that I shouldn’t.

Man this post is getting long.

OK, so eventually I’m like, dude, it’s a recap of an autograph session, not an epic story that will ring through the ages. An autograph session, with ringless guys developing scoliosis because of their camping sized backpacks filled with baseball cards and pictures. (OK, that’s a slight exaggeration….it was just a normal backpack filled with cards and pictures. And bats.)

So I crank it out, read over it, send it along, then edit a couple pictures I took and send those along too. Mostly of Gator Rivers playing with the kids since he was the only guy there who actually moved around. Cool guy.

Then I finished transcribing the long, boring interview. Somewhere during that time Katie left. I don’t really remember when.

Then I finished the interview and came here to blog about my day instead of studying more for the GRE, because I am a loser. Although now I need to go do that studying thing. And some pushups. Kramer — my older younger brother — was punching me last night while we were at Logan’s — the younger younger brother — first game with Greenfield. Kramer called me flabby. I am getting flabby.

Hence, I’m off to do pushups.