dara t. mathis

Confession: I’m a Football Fan Who Doesn’t Like Athletes

Sometimes you have to own your ugly. This is mine.

I am a fantasy football playing, college team cheering, NFL-loving chick who spends hours every weekend glued to the television watching men run up and down a field in tights. I bust celebration dances when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers manage to do the impossible and win a game. I dress my daughter in Falcons onesies. Yes, I love the game–but I don’t love them pros.

My husband showed me a picture of a mock jersey for Florida State University quarterback Jameis Winston, whose Heisman-worthy season has recently been overshadowed by rape allegations. Where Winston’s name would have been, the fan pasted one word on the jersey: INNOCENT. I made a stank face and turned my head. The ensuing conversation forced me to admit that I suffer from a lingering case of athlete envy.

Back in grade school, I resided squarely in the category of nerdy kid. I lived and breathed my grades and any accolades that came from them, but secretly craved the pixie dust that made people inhale the farts of athletes and swear they didn’t stink. I pretended to hate them and their cloying fans.

I thought adulthood would be the great equalizer, and then I grew up. Teaching at FSU, I met many wonderful student-athletes (I was Christian Ponder‘s English 101 teacher, my claim to fame). But something bothered me. “Tutors” shadowed the athletes everywhere, poking their heads in classroom windows to make sure butts were in seats and collecting homework assignments for Blackboard. It was a hand-holding I’d never seen before. If all this sounds aboveboard to you, consider that the FSU athletics department was penalized for an academic cheating scandal.

To some student-athletes, school is just a part-time gig hindering their real job: being an athlete. This rankles. So many students fight to maintain grade point averages for skimpy scholarships and struggle to eat, while athletes swagger across campus full on meal plans they skip out on some days.

One college football player told me he had no idea everyone on campus didn’t have a meal plan.

I was flabbergasted at the entitlement until I realized just how insulated athletes can be.

I was lucky enough to visit the athletics building and see for myself the fabled fountains of Gatorade and golden toilet seats. Only one of those is a hyperbole. There was a beautiful filigreed metal tree on the wall, with engraved Plexiglas pictures of white-haired ~~saints~~ alumnae who had donated millions to the program. This is why FSU’s name still rings bells even after decades of having a mediocre football team. Money.

This is why they coddle athletes from birth to pro. Money. This is why, when athletes are accused of doing awful things, police officers warn the alleged victim that they will be raked over the coals in a football town. Power. This is why fans attempt to hunt down and spread the name and image of alleged rape victims to discredit them. Mania. Fans border on worship, becoming devotees of impervious gods who couldn’t care less about their existence.

The worst in football fandom is the epitome of rape culture.

Not that Winston could not be innocent of rape. He may be. I am waiting on a trial and verdict before casting any opinions on the matter. But the Steubenville rape case is a prime example of what happens when society prizes a game over people. The laments are not concerning an alleged victim, but that “poor boy’s” tarnished future, even if that “poor boy” turns out to be a sexual predator.

If no one protected athletes at all costs for the sake of a team, “football culture” would not exist. We all contribute to this culture that makes heroes out of men, but demonizes them when they fall short of the glory. Especially the black ones. I disapprove of both the coddling and the abandonment. So when I say I don’t like athletes, it is a blanket statement that thinly describes the disdain I feel for the mythos of the athlete, and not the people behind the personas.

I have heard it said that sports is a benevolent good. No; sports is a kajillion-dollar industry that chews up young bodies and spits them out once they are broken. The real gods are not on the playing field but in sky boxes wearing suits and penny loafers. And they never, ever stop laughing.

Friday Feel-Good Tune: “Back and Forth” (Aaliyah)

She was absolutely beautiful, wasn’t she?

Before the controversy about R. Kelly and alleged underage marriages, before Dame Dash, before Romeo Must Die and Queen of the Damned, and before the tragedy that saddened the world–Aaliyah was a fly Detroit girl whose debut single gave me my first Friday feel-good tune.

I had no girls to pick up (I was 12), I had no party my mother would let me attend without parental supervision, and I couldn’t dance worth a penny. But whenever “Back and Forth” came on in 1994, I couldn’t stop moving. And if this video doesn’t epitomize the absolute best in ’90s urban aesthetic (leather pants with cropped t-shirts!), I don’t know what does.

The opening line, “It’s Friday! (Heeeeey!)” should brighten up your entire day, so bust an MC Hammer on your way home from work and slide into your weekend like you own it.

Happy Friday!

My Spouse Wants a Gun, But I Don’t

Case O' Guns — Doesn’t look like fun to me. (Photo credit: Gregory Wild-Smith)

When my husband found out that we were having a girl, he covered his face with his hands in sincere terror. “What am I gonna do with a girl?!” he lamented. Family and friends jokingly gave him the answer: “Welp, guess you better get a gun!” It conjured up the image of a father standing on a creaky porch with a 12-gauge shotgun cradled in his hands, eyeing the poor sap about take his daughter out. I’m not sure if our daughter’s birth was the genesis of my husband’s desire for a gun, but here we are.

He wants a firearm; I don’t.

Considering my family history, I should be a proud gun-owner. My parents are both military veterans. I grew up on and around military installations, seeing Military Police stroll around with the butt of their service weapons flush against the hip. But this upbringing also meant I was far from the threat of gun violence in my community; I never felt the primal need to protect myself from a gun with a gun. Even so, my mother has been known to carry her Ruger into Baptist church services, because, well, you just never know when the Pastor will flip out on you.

My husband wants a gun because, he tells me, people are crazy and we need to be able to protect ourselves. He wants to take me to a gun range and teach me how to shoot bullets into a paper drawing of man. I have no desire to do so. Despite the knowledge that people are scary, I still don’t want a gun.

Given the push-come-to-shove scenario, I’d rather have anything else. A bat, a knife, a ceramic vase, heck, a Taser. Just not a gun.

Something inside me recoils at the thought of shooting a person. I do not see safety in the steel barrel of a pistol, just carnage. I see the inscrutably small hole with death at the bottom of its black tunnel. The sharp crack of metal striking bone. Ragged threads of flesh torn by a spiraling, conical projectile. I imagine the acrid scent of singed gunpowder is what my fear must smell like to those who are unafraid. So much fine smoke.

But honestly, what frightens me the most is being unafraid simply because I am carrying. Gun culture in America is the cloak of power over cold comfort. We joke, “BLOCKA BLOCKA!” We aim two fingers at imaginary perpetrators and rap about making fruit salad from split melons. We are cowboys, cavalier about the loss of lives as ephemeral as our own. I don’t want to “wish a ________ would,” just so I can perforate his body with perfect circles. I want no part of a braggadocio rooted in blood.

This makes me more a weak pacifist than an advocate for gun abolition, though. I still support both gun ownership and gun control. I understand that people are the propulsion behind gun violence. Something other than confiscation must be done to curb America’s fascination with the business of firearms.

Ultimately, I support my husband’s wish to protect his family by any means he deems necessary. Whenever I find enough space in the budget (we will not have a Smith & Wesson before we have a new couch; sorry, love), I will acquiesce. The gun will be a guest in my house I ignore. And getting comfortable with the prospect of pulling any triggers? That will always be a long shot.

How do you feel about guns and gun ownership? Have you ever fired a gun?

5 Things I Learned From Failing NaNoWriMo

I never expected to fail National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) so spectacularly, but here we are, 21 days into November, and I have about 500 of 50,000 words written. Yes. The failure is that great. Sure, we have nine days left in the month; there’s still time! But no, it’s not happening, and I know why.

I started NaNoWriMo like I start my exercise binges: looking at pretty pictures of books and ~~wanting to be the skinny girl on the cover~~ thinking, I could do that. Why haven’t I done that yet? I am currently 40,000 words into a project that has haunted me for the past six years. I cannot quit it, but I cannot finish it, either. This marathon month of novel writing was to be my final push past the finish line.

But after the initial buzz of November 1st faded, I realized I set myself up for failure in the worst way. I petered out early and I’ve had 20 days to reflect on it. Here are the five things I learned from this colossal whomp of a writing challenge:

1. Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail, duh. It’s a cliche, but an apt one for me. I began NaNoWriMo on a whim and, though I felt I could do it, novels need game plans. I did not carve out writing time. I currently write in the margins of my day, when I’m not working, mothering, cooking, or cleaning, or sleeping. I should have set aside dedicated blocks of time to do nothing but writing. And not tweet watch.

2. Research is Not Shirking. My writing project deals with the Black Power Movement in the 70s, requiring a good amount of side reading I haven’t done yet. Part of the reason for my stall is that I cannot write when I do not feel confident in my knowledge base. I picked up the books I need to read and have shifted my focus to gathering information.

Since, um, I’m an awful drinker, I just take that to mean drunk on happiness to be writing at all. Yeah.

3. Outlining is Not the Enemy. For six years, I’ve been writing by the seat of my pants. It’s gotten me over halfway finished with my project, but in a haphazard, non-linear fashion that exhausts me every time I think of fixing it. I realized that I need to create a skeleton to flesh out the bony parts of my narrative. No one can sink their teeth into a story with no meat to it.

4. Be Realistic About How Much Writing I Can Do. This blog constitutes the most writing I’ve done in years. It’s fantastic to do this regularly, but I didn’t realize how much effort maintaining a blog and trying to complete a book-length project would take. At the end of a 700-word blog post, I am ready to veg out, not write 2,000 more words of scene, setting, narration, and exposition. I get fatigued. The solution is to pre-write stretches of blog posts so I can focus on my project.

5. Use Editing to Turn the Corner on Writer’s Block. Going through some of my previously written chapters, I felt the fix-it bug niggling at me and before I knew it, I was rewriting scenes. This didn’t count toward NaNoWriMo because of the 50,000 word count. But in totality, it contributes to the finished quality of my manuscript. Writing is writing is writing.

I have come a long way from a year ago–I wrote nothing at all and really hated myself for dodging writing like an old lover I dumped. So, while I may not hit the golden 50K on this go-round, I did pick up some valuable tools that will allow me to pace myself. I won’t quit and not-quitting is the first step to succeeding.

Did you try NaNoWriMo this year? How did you do?

The Politics of Not Cooking for Thanksgiving

English: Oven roasted turkey, common fare for ... — I am convinced “they” chose turkey for Thanksgiving just to troll me. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As Thanksgiving rears its conflicting smallpox and stuffing-laden head next week, I have a confession: I’ve been married four years and have yet to cook an entire Thanksgiving meal. Let me explain before you start typing furiously about me abandoning my wifely duties.

Thanksgiving is the Olympics of meal preparation. You train all year, slipping in a sweet potato pie here, a batch of spicy collard greens there, packing mac-and-cheese to bring to a potluck, or brushing up on your rump roast mid-July. You prepare for November’s bragging rights, to become the stuff(ing) of legends, the one known to put her whole foot in it.

I learned how to cook Thanksgiving dinner from my mother. We would rotate staying up all night on Thanksgiving Eve every year, basting “Tom” with butter and sprinkling ground sage on his naked bum. No recipe books or measuring cups; we cooked by sight and by taste. We charted our way through the memories of past dinners nibble by nibble, asking each others’ opinion on tang, spiciness, saltiness, sweetness. I learned a pinch of something can restore balance to the universe.

When I got married, my Thanksgiving experience changed, by necessity. The rotation of visits on all sides of a couple’s family is crucial to maintain a sense of fairness…and to prevent kvetching. If you visit one family tree two years in a row, be prepared to hear complaints from the neglected side: “We never see you!” So we switch it up yearly and enjoy his entire extended family or mine. I pitch in and cook where I’m able to; it doesn’t feel right otherwise.

Four years’ worth of rotations later, I have yet to host the holiday dinner at my place. I have my reasons.

For one, growing up and moving away from most of your immediate family means that someone has to be able to travel. And every working person wants to have the days adjacent to Thanksgiving off. Unfortunately, that’s not easy for me, and I have been stuck working the day before and after the holiday for two consecutive years.

Also, it is a tad gauche to ask folk to chip in for Thanksgiving, the holiday of bounty and do-drop-ins for dinner. And you better not side-eye anyone wrapping a plate to take home. But, real talk, who pays for all that food? For young families on limited budgets (like mine), the thought of financially bearing the burden of dinner for 30+ people is terrifying. No one wants to be the house that runs out of food. But no one wants to go broke over Thanksgiving, either.

Third on my list is a superficial, but no less concerning, reason. We bought our home two years ago and have yet to furnish it with the aplomb that it deserves. Hosting large dinner parties can be difficult without proper seating. Where will Grandma, Grandpa, Aunties, Uncles, Mom, Dad, babies, and cousins all sit? I panic.

Finally, Tom Turkey intimidates the cluck out of me. I have never cooked the turkey by myself and I’m scared now that my mother’s training wheels are off. So I plan to start small. One year, we will go nowhere and invite no one. I will buy a small turkey and lovingly baste that bad bird into succulence. Then, after my big turkey graduation is complete, I can trust myself to feed the extended family horde.

My misgivings on Thanksgiving have more to do with my ambivalence on being a full-fledged adult than how my family will perceive me. With my generation often moving back home or unemployed, when is that we take over to become the adults our elders now are? When do our homes evolve to being the House Everyone Goes to For Thanksgiving? Is it when we have enough money to foot the bill? Is it when we can furnish enough couches for the fam to watch football on?

Or is it when, once we’ve perfected the creaminess of that mac-and-cheese recipe, we can’t bear to keep our cooking to ourselves any longer? All of the above. But give me about two more years; I’m definitely coming for Aunt Sonya’s bragging rights.

How will you spend Thanksgiving?