A couple weeks ago, I contracted an infection under my left eye.

I have two bumps under the my eyes, closest to my nose, under where the tears drain into my nose, one for each eye. The bumps have been growing as of late, causing me to wonder if they're something worth looking at. They're under the skin, unlike the BCC, and seem to be growing over years.

The infection I had under my eye was caused, I'm sure, by my constant worry about the bumps. My worry about them has been increasing as for a while now, which means the amount I touch them increased, which means more dirt, more oil, more chances of infection.

And what do you know?

I couldn't tell if the infection was a boil or pimple or what. What I could tell was that I didn't want the infection to move to my eyes, so, thin skin under the eyes or not, I was going to clean up that spot.

Do you know how painful alcohol fumes are next to your eye? You don't? Well, don't find out.

When using rubbing alcohol on the bump didn't dry it out or fix the problem, I did what any nominally insane woman would do.

I cut it out.

Just as I had done when I was younger, I took a sharp object, cleaned it with alcohol, cleaned the short object with alcohol, cut the skin slightly, and cleaned out the puss next to my eye. While I was there, hey, why not remove the bump, too? It would mean only a slightly larger cut, and I could see what it was.

To my surprise, a gentle push on the bump caused it to move. I managed to move the bump down, and outside through the infected spot. Poof! Another bump gone.

The bump bothered me, though. I might have considered keeping the thing and having it analyzed, but that seemed weird. I asked Lisa if she had bumps under the surface of her skin, bumps that were hard, and clearly not pimples or acne or blackheads or anything reasonable that everyone knows what it is since junior high.

To my surprise, she said, "Oh, you mean like the calcium deposits like this?" and pointed to a bump that looked just like the one I had extracted a couple weeks ago. "Yes!" I exclaimed. She then went on to explain that yeah, they're normal. They happen. You can have them removed if you're likely to pick at them, thinking they're a whitehead.

Well, there you go.

Or rather, there I go.

Patrick Hard used to play for a top Open team, Ring of Fire, which played in the finals of the 2002 Club Championships. Watching the various videos of him and his team, many people would say something to the effect of Patrick's being one of the, if not the, top players on the team. I recall phrases like "carried the team to..." in reference to Patrick and the team. Not only is he that good of an ultimate player, but he's that good regardless. One of the good people I like in my life, if only at the edges.

Patrick plays Mixed ultimate these days. When asked why he switched, he said, "because I don't like the person I become when I play Open." I think he was 22 when I first heard him say that, and was impressed with the wisdom and maturity of the statement. Had I known Patrick, I wouldn't have been surprised (see above reference to "good people").

Today at Regionals, I had an incident where I can honestly say, I don't like the person I've become, at least not the person on the sidelines who can't play in the game. In my lowest moment of the weekend, I acted in a completely and totally inappropriate manner on the sidelines, and I'm embarrassed about it.

Worse, I don't know how to fix it.

The incident occurred during the Golden Spike game. It was our second game of the day, after a bye, having won our first game today against Mentaltoss Flycoons, 11-10 (ooooo, tight game!). Our game yesterday against Golden Spike wasn't exactly a clean game, which is to say it was really ugly, so Kris asked Joshua Greenough, Brass Monkey's captain, and Steve Finn, Shazam Returns' captain, both of who were playing in the finals, if we could have the observers for our game. Joshua said yes. Steve said yes. We had observers.

This was good.

Various points happened, the score wasn't close (we would end up winning 15-6, breaking their spirit in the process), when Wade and a Golden Spike guy are going hard to a disc that was hucked close to the sideline where I was standing, which was close to the endzone. The two were running full sprint, with Wade on the inside, his opponent downfield one step. Wade laid out just before the other guy did, and knocked the disc away. They both landed in a heap on the ground directly in front of me. I was no more than 15 feet from the whole event. The Golden Spike player called foul, which threw Wade into a fit. "WHAT? I got there first! I hit it away!" Wade contested the foul call and threw the disc back. Both players were incredibly fired up, with the Golden Spike guy cutting hard to get open, and Wade not giving him an inch.

Meanwhile, I was on the sidelines momentarily dumbstruck at the foul call on Wade's spectacular play. But only momentarily.

Heckling of the Golden Spike would not have been out of line at that moment. Neither would expressing my incredulity at the call. Maybe a boo here or there would have been okay.

What came out of my mouth, however, was not okay.

I started screaming from the sidelines incoherent, but clearly nasty words at the Golden Spike guy. I recall looking down at my coat, thankful that you couldn't tell what team I was on, as I continued with my rage. I vaguely recall Andy looking over at me, staring for a bit, then edging away at the crazed spectator that looked like his teammate, but wasn't acting like her.

I suspect (hope beyond hope?) very few people actually heard me, and if they did, they didn't associate me with my team. However, fundamentally, I'm completely and totally embarrassed of and mortified by my actions. Life really should come with a big UNDO button. Or at least an 8 second rewind, do over, contest.

When the game was over, I noticed a Golden Spike woman crying. They had just lost their second game to go to Nationals. I was reminded of Kris' and my Rippit season where we lost the game to go to Donner Party, then the next game to go to Red Fish Blue Fish, then the last game to go to BST, whom we had beaten the first game of the day. My first thought was, "Hey, they just pulled a Rippit!" Golden Spike was about to play Mentaltoss Flycoons for fourth place and final slot to go to Nationals. They had never beaten Flycoons, and, after their game with us, they weren't going to today.

My second thought as I walked over to the start of our next game against Brass Monkey was, "You didn't really think you were going to Nationals, did you?"

Kris' thought was, "Move over, let the adults play now."

We beat Brass Monkey 14-9, for the second seed at Nationals. Taking the easy road to get there.

Today was strange.

I slept like crap last night, to be greeted with an overcast morning, no breakfast items I could really eat as most were bread or wheat-based (oh, waffles, how do I miss thee? Let me count the ways!).

Guy was there to help with the camera work, so I handed him the video cameras, showed him where the tapes were, and sent him off. A few minutes later, I was handing him my hat and my rain jacket, as the weather was crappy. Yay, Regionals in Burlington, Washington, where even the locals ask, "Why again aren't we having Regionals in California?"

We knew we had to be on this weekend, so we had a long warmup before the first game. Based on how the schedule was, and what we knew about the teams, I planned on playing the first two games, maybe the third game, then stand on the sidelines the rest of the tournament.

Our first game was against Shadrach, the second against Sleepover. Both teams were ranked fairly low in the tournament, both managed a few points on us, I played in both, while Guy used the games to practice videoing and Gillian practiced taking stats.

The third game was against Golden Spike, which gave us a game at Labor Day this year, and beat Brass Monkey at the same tournament. I didn't play in the game against them. We lost 13-15. The game was close the whole time, with our biggest lead at 9-6, and their biggest lead 10-13. Yeah, a 1-7 run for them. We faltered. We faltered, and the game was ugly. Almost every goal was called back on a foul, or travel, or pick, or other call. The wind picked up, and the game was ugly, and we lost.

By the time the fourth game started, I had already taken off my cleats. However, instead of playing Brass Monkey as we expected to play, we played Bozos, from Bosemon, Montana, originally seated 10th. The game wasn't really close. We were disheartened, yes, but they had lost before they even began. Crystal suggested I put my cleats back on, and play a few points, so in I went. I caught one throw just outside the endzone on a swing pass from Shirley, but didn't have the confidence to release the low release throw to Warren who had the perfect continue for me for the score. I had another score called back on a pick call that I mostly disagreed with, having seen my defender on my left as I was starting my cut, when I heard the pick call on my right. However, she said she was picked, so I lost my other goal. Sigh.

The bad thing about the last game was the headache that started in the middle of a point. Instead of my usual both sides migraine, this one was the right-side only headache that sent bolts of pain around the side of my head with every minor effort, such as standing up, running, lifting my bag. Two advil, a meal, and two more advil didn't do much to help it, I'm afraid.

So, we we'll go into Sunday without a first round bye. I think this'll work better for us. We're not always a first day team, and having a good game early on will fire us up.

Lisa and I dropped Jake off at his school this morning on the way to having breakfast. I'm starting to realize just how hard avoiding wheat and meat is, given how difficult choosing something to eat was this morning. Practically every item on the list had wheat in it, making breakfast limiting, yet entertaining in a way: how can I build a breakfast big enough to satisfy me but without bread, muffins, biscuits or cookies?

After breakfast, Lisa asked me if I wanted to stock up on tournament food for tomorrow. I enthusiastically said yes, and off we went to the island's Safeway. My entire experience on the island has been ferry to backroads to Hogwarts, back to the quaint downtown area, around to the ferry. I had no idea there was actually a highway that shuffled people away from the ferry to the other side of the island.

I learned about the highway today.

When we arrived at the Safeway, I looked around and commented, "Gee, I feel like I could be anywhere with a strip mall, overcast skies and a few trees." Lisa chuckled, and agreed: the shopping center was a strip mall, just like every other one you've ever been to.

Worse was when we went into the Safeway itself. I walked in maybe 5 steps, looked around, and wondered if I had teleported back to the Bay Area. The Safeway was exactly the same.

Conversation with Lori tonight:

Lori: dammit, I just remembered to check in because I read your blog
Lori: and we're in B
Lori: damn
Kitt: boo!
Kitt: Boo B!
Kitt: hmmmmmm.....
Kitt: boobie?
Lori: yay!