My Two-Cents: GM & the Off-Season
Happy Holidays, Ns2c-ers! November is upon us, which means December is around the corner… and with that, Christmas and NYE! But before any of that can begin, I must backtrack… November 13th is the birthday of my dear friend and bench mate, Grace Mathiason! And since I spend 8+ hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the SIM clinic listening to her great ideas (and she has to listen to my horrible ones, against her will!) I thought I would do a blog in honor of one of her theories. The on-season and the off-season.
If you're anything like me, or many of my friends (Grace included), you struggle with extremes. Half-assing shit is rarely in my nature. I prefer to be all in or all out. This philosophy has its naysayers and detractors who would argue that it is toxic. And to that I say – if I could change, don’t ya think I would have by now? But I can’t. So just let me be, teetering between extremes in my so-called equilibrium. Why cut something out of my diet partially when I could opt for a complete detox? If I can’t master a subject completely, what’s the point of learning a little? If I’m not going to get drunk at the bar, why bother wasting the time and calories from a couple of beers anyway? If I wake up at 11 and don’t get an early start, feeling behind, I might as well chalk today up as a loss, go to bed early, and try again tomorrow. These may not be super healthy ideals, but like I said earlier: if I could change by now, don’t you think I WOULD HAVE?! Anyways, my friend Grace (who often aligns with the extremist party) spouted another line of logic in this department the other day. If you are going out, don’t you want to GO. OUT. If you are going to stay in, don’t you want to STAY. IN. And since Grace’s birthday is in a couple of days, this blog post will be an ode to her philosophy. And in tandem, her! Let’s elaborate on the going-out seasons in depth.
In the chilly hell that is the Minnesota weather, everyone knows there is a prime going-out season: St. Patrick’s Day → Halloween. And by that logic, the offseason runs Halloween → St. Patrick’s Day. One picks up a new hobby (training for a marathon, yoga, arts and crafts, karate, an SSRI, painting, Guitar Hero, reading, etc.) One has the same joy that they had in the on-season, but in a more pre-emptive, rejuvenating sense. One prepares, both mentally and physically (BODY T), for the upcoming on-season. One knows that the on-season is not for the weak or feeble-minded – it’s an all-or-nothing endeavor. Holding down the in-season hottest bar is not a job that is given; it is earned. And you earn that bar by becoming the hottest, funniest, wittiest bastard in the off-season. As the legend (and snake in the grass) Kevin Durant once said, “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” Talent doesn’t hold your place as Queen of Smack Shack. Only hard work in the off-season can do that. And I know this is true because of REAL data – Grace Mathiason followed this method last winter, and she emerged from winter last spring ready to take her throne at Shack. And she maintained that throne all summer, a wonderful feat to watch! And if you have questions about my sources on this, just know that I was sotally tober enough at Smack Shack every weekend this summer to witness her prolonged reign. But I can also confirm that WE, as a city of Minneapolis, ran that damn bar into the ground. It used to be fun. It used to be care-free. Now it is so packed and my personal hell hole. So when I resurface on St. Patrick’s day, I will be wreaking havoc and claiming the throne of a new NOLO bar. But until then, I’m on the off-season rules. No over-the-top raging. A dive bar here and there isn’t completely formidable. But for every hour you spend in the bar, or mile you run the next day, you are allowed 1 minute on the dance floor. Like I said at the beginning, I struggle with balance. This is my not-so-fickle attempt to workshop it in.
Happy off-season, folks. May you all have a productive and rejuvenating one before our next tip-off. And when the time comes, my friends and I will resurface, hungry from our long hibernation. And if you are a Ns2c frequenter, friend, or foe, and are looking for a birthday gift from your truly (the retired co-queen and conspirator of Smack Shack, Kate Thors) you can fill out the following form to request a Ns2c Bday post! Or, if you have something you’d like me to write about, send it my way.
