Right now, I'm pissed off and feeling whiny and full of self-pity. And while I'm sure indulging these feelings would make for interesting reading, I'm going to try something new. Rather than bitching about it right now, I'm going to sleep on it and see how I feel in the morning.

So let's focus on the good things from the last couple of days. Pooh's party - The pool was awesome and for once I didn't obsess about how I looked walking around in a swimsuit (or less). I just got in the water and swam and enjoyed myself. More than half the guys got in the pool. Maybe three of them wore bathing suits. I love pool parties. I did the polar bear club thing of hanging out in the pool, going into the sauna for a while, then going outside and sitting on the patio (it was around 33 degrees or so) until I couldn't stand it anymore (probably five minutes or so). I'm one of those odd people who really likes the cold. I just hate the cold when it's humid or raining.

Today's matches - We won the first match (Our A-side vs. Philly's A-side). We lost the second one (Our B-side vs. Boston). The third match (Atlanta v. Philly B) was great. It was one of those matches where the outcome was uncertain until the end. Philly started off with a couple of scores and Atlanta just started whittling away at it. It looked like Atlanta would score in the final seconds, but it wasn't to be. The final match was a harlot match. Anyone who wanted to play. It was a pretty good match, but I don't know how the scoring went.

I'm not going to blog about tonight's party yet, but I will mention that I got a very pleasant surprise. At one point fairly early in the evening (about an hour or so into the party) one of my teammates brought someone over to me and said "This is him." Turns out that the person who had been looking for me was Bob. So I've met another of my blog heroes. We didn't get to spend a lot of time hanging out (sadly, he was looking for me by asking for Crash . . . only about 10 or so teammates know about the blog . . . so he spent a lot of time not knowing who I was), but I have a couple of Bobservations based on the time we hung out.

1) Bob is a very nice, friendly guy.
2) Bob is even cuter in person than he is in his pictures on his site.
3) He was willing to pay $20 to hang out with me despite only getting to have a couple of beers (he dropped by on his way to another event) and having to put up with about 150 drunk ruggers in a very confined space (upstairs at the Eagle). That earns major points in my book.
4) Meeting him absolutely made my night.

One other thing that made my night, there were three zulus. As I have explained, it's a rugby tradition that when a player scores his first-ever try (like a touchdown in football) he performs what is called a 'zulu'. I don't know why it's called that; it just is. In most matches (college and above . . . I don't know if they do this in high school . . . I might have to drop by Xavier and find out), the player strips naked once the game is over and runs once around the entire pitch (a rugby pitch is a little bigger than a football field). Last year at this event, one of the Boston guys was in the middle of performing his zulu, when a couple of Park Rangerettes came over and read us the riot act. Fine. Sure. Whatever.

So we do our zulus at the bar now. Tonight there were three; two of the guys from Atlanta (or Philly . . . I've forgotten) and one of our boys. Our boy swore up and down that he didn't want to, wasn't going to, and couldn't be forced to do a zulu.

Yeah. He did it.

Sadly, from my vantage point, I missed seeing . . . um, the goods. Pity, too, cause he is very, very cute (and also a great guy). The fellow who is filming the documentary about the club got the zulu on tape, but I'm sure he'll be discreet.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to skip Adam's after-party due to my general mood . . . which I'll blog about later. I'm going to read a few chapters in my latest quick read ('Geography Club' by Brent Hartinger). Maybe once I've done that, I'll feel like heading over.