The Trials and Tribulations of the not-so-New Bear Icon

Well, what ends well ends well, I suppose, and TBRU did take a few odd twists and turns for me, but eventually turned out to be a good event. As usual, too little sleep and too big of expectations got the better of me at times. Of course, as with everything, there's not enough time, and that's even been true with posting lately. I find that my head's filled with ideas, but there's never time to get them down - it's either that or sleep, and I need sleep.

With that being said, I don't have time to write down all the names of people I either saw again, or met for the first time, so y'all will have to excuse me if I don't do it. I tried to at least say hi and give a hug to everyone I recognized over the weekend, but I know there were several people I missed, and some I only found out were there after they had already headed home. There's been a lot of talk about how disjointed the whole weekend was, and I'll agree, it's very difficult finding the time to see and do what you want, and it's hard to spend time with a small group when there's so many others around.

So let's see, on Wednesday was when things started with a little pre-run dinner Matty hosted with just a few friends, including Mike and Howard who are great,, and I already knew that i was going to miss out a lot with having to work. I'll have to hope I can get a day or two off next year, especially as the party seemed to be in full swing on Thursday. A group of us went out to dinner (where sadly, joezer got sick and i didn't see him again), and I met Brian and Joe (newtonbehr). One thing that can be said for the weekend was that there was a real nice vibe meeting the boys from Boston and spending time with them.

After dinner we went out to beareoke at Woody's and heard Brian, bobaloo, kev_bot and Stephen (darkmirth) sing a few songs before some guy with his own original song about "returning to the dark ages" ruined the entire vibe. It was back to the Crowne Plaza where the party at the hospitality suite was just getting started, and many people were milling about. Our softball team was serving drinks that night and that meant Chris (f__k) would be there with other members of the team until 2am. I had to go home and get some sleep, and you know, even with only two months together, going to bed without your partner now feels really strange.

I left work as quickly as I could, but dinner wasn't on the mind of most people as they had gone to the festival of meat, Fogo de Chao. Still, Chris and Bob (not on LJ) indulged me with going with me to Whataburger, then it was time to go get the toga's on for Bobaloo's party. Well, it was billed that way, since the 'loo was hosting. Chris had gone with several people to purchase discount fabric at your already discounted Wal-Mart store. It must have been a pretty bad selection, as he had a wild sixties-style flower-power print that would have had Jo Anne Worley jealous for himself, and a parrots in paradise print for me that pretty much looked like Jimmy Buffet had barfed on me. Still, Chris topped this with a flower pin to help tie the whole ensemble together. I added my own flair by leaving a falling piece of cloth on my right side that seemed to recall all those dresses by Project Runway's Nick Verreos' fishtails.

I'll admit that I was hesitant about wearing the thing, and all-in-all, only about half of the attendees wore togas (and no one tried a leather toga, surpassingly - leather flags yes, actual leather for a toga, no). Still, it was fun and helped everyone get into the spirit. now if the music was better, that would have been great, but I never need to hear Barbara Streisand remixed. Still, I managed to hold the toga together through my on-air interview with John McMullen and Jeremy Hovies on Sirius OutQ before the outfit finally unraveled enough that I had to hold it together to get back to Stephen's room that he graciously let us borrow.

Now we slipped out somewhere around 1 am since we had softball practice on Saturday, and there's nothing I wanted to do less than that. I was upset about having to get up and go to the park that morning. Still, the day would continue with my being cranky, not being able to make the day work like I wanted. When it came to the evening, where we had missed seeing most everyone - I was already upset. Since only John (jkusters) and Mike showed up for the get together Chris and I tried to put together, I really had to work out those feelings and be a good host. In the end, it was good to be able to sit down with them, and actually have a conversation for more than a few seconds. I felt really bad that they drove all the way up to our house and there wasn't anything really going on. We'll just consider it a lesson learned that you just can't try to plan anything during TBRU. What worked 3 years ago was just a fluke.

We returned to the hotel on Saturday night to see the big underwear walkoff. There was one on Friday night too, but it wasn't as good as the boys on Saturday, and the amount bid on the underwear was much more on Saturday, too. Of course I'm going to credit Bobaloo for that, since he's better with auctioneering than Larry was, but Larry manages to make an better underwear model than most. Yes, Matty (mattycub) did himself proud, but Larry managed to pull in $450.00 thanks to a bidding war between some guy and John McMullen. Of course, Matty really sold his underwear, but then again, he had to, the tighty whiteys with a soccer ball printed on the crotch were kind of obnoxious. Still, just about every one of the underwear models were better looking than any of the bear pageant contestants. Hopefully the Dallas Bears will just drop the competition and go with the underwear auction and get some real entertainment for the dinner.

I do remember sometime in the middle of the auction leaving after I saw the cutest guys go by and getting the time to talk to Bob (bobinbstn) and Jeff (kingjeff), Mikey (profundis) Jeff (jeffbear63), Gus (bassettdawg), and Alaska Bill, among several others who I saw that night. So, there you go, some shameless name dropping.

Sunday morning came too damned soon, and we had to go out to the diamond in Irving. As we had breakfast in Irving with some of our teammates in our jerseys, some guy asked if I were coach - which our coach told him "No, I'm the coach, baby", promptly scaring the cute diner away. Still we got out to the field, and I kept score for a while before I came up to bat for the first time this season. I managed to hit the ball, and send it down the first base line, but instead of running down the line with it, i twisted myself up, and ended up on the ground, trying to get up. When I did recover, their first baseman was already tagging the base, and my knees were bloody and dirty.

Of course everyone was concerned except for me, so when our other coach asked me to go out to play first, I was ready to do so. besides, what psychs out another team more than putting the injured player out on defense? Well, it at least makes them think that your crazy. I struck out the second time up to bat, but not before getting a kind word from the other team's catcher, who was a hot looking bear. He also complemented me as we were exchanging high-fives after the game. I'm glad that I'll be seeing him again this next weekend for another game. Unfortunately Chris' great play at second was kind of for naught as we lost 10-6.

After that, we cleaned up and went back to the hotel where several people commented on my bashed-up knees, mostly thinking i had a better time over the weekend than I really had. Chris went on down to the Hidden Door, but I stayed behind to lobby whore and I knew how crowded the Door gets on TBRU weekend. I like being able to actually move a limb now and again. I got to actually talk to some people that I had only seen in passing for the weekend, like Alex (darke) and Jay (jaybear) and Kenny (kennydoug). Eventually the idea started to go around about getting some dinner, and it was already known that the crowd was really too big, but off we went to Gloria's. Eventually we had to break up into four tables, but it was good because you could actually manage to listen to most of the conversation at hand. It was a good meal with good folks.

Finally I would down hanging around on the second floor couch at the hotel. Joe, Brian, Justin (tuc1) and Alan (spargel) were there, so we had east coast, west coast and me in the middle, I guess. Again, it was one of those small times to actually sit and chat (most of it about sex, this time), and let the whole experience slow down. Then it was home, and to bed down with Chris, and back to normalcy, I suppose.

So there it is, all in one post, albeit long - but you know that's par for the course here. With the way things look, it will be another year before I head off to another bear run, and perhaps that's for the best. Sometimes we wish that the whole world was like a bear run, but sometimes we need the time to reflect just how crazy those times are, and how good.

For now, it's just trying to find the time to get all those TiVo'ed television shows watched.