I was talking to Brad today and I was noting that most of my posts lately have been about hockey and/or have lacked any real substance. I have since come to the conclusion that the hockey posts count as substance. Finding a new passion is a blogworthy thing. But in the excitement of new things and the busyness of day to day life the other things, the heavy things, the stuff of emotion and and dreams and life's future can get lost or slid aside.

It's time for those things to return if I can find the energy to get them written. Some are easy, and are just a matter of finding time to commit them to text. Others are harder, requiring vulnerability or some measure of mental processing that has yet to be done.

I'm sure there will still be posts about hockey too, because hey, it's the playoffs.

A short list of life's activities, and the grey hairs caused by them.

3 Traumatic Breakups: 0
3 Deaths of people really close to me: 0
4 Years in a stressful job: 0
2 Years in a job that made me want to rip my hair out: 0
1 Fundraiser for 300 that had to be *perfect* down to the last detail: 0
1 Fundraiser I planned myself: 0
2 Months of watching hockey: 5

I grew up in a house where there was constantly football on the TV. Football preempted all else. We weren't allowed to walk in front of the tv during a play. Football was boring. The first (and only) baseball game I ever attended was 0-0 with no base hits until someone hit a homer in the bottom of the 9th. BO-RING! I also grew up in a house of readers. We weren't athletes. My sister and I never played sports, though we were both cheerleaders for a couple of years.

Okay, now stop laughing at the visual of me as a cheerleader. It was a looooong time ago. Bottom line is that my whole life I've been pretty much uninterested in any kind of sport.

Then I started hanging out a lot with Charlotte and Dee. They like hockey. I was "eh" on hockey. I didn't really care one way or another. I saw snippets of games here and there, but nothing that really held my interest. Until I went to my first game that is... After that, I loved hockey. I have been to several games since, and every game reinforces my love of this sport. Now that I have Tivo I record the games. I understand what is going on most of the time, which is probably the best part- understanding the penalties and the action.

My dad used to yell at the tv during football games. I always thought it was dumb. But last night, as I watched the Sharks beat the Canucks and clinch their playoff spot, I yelled at the TV. I whooped in celebration when we won, which made my housemate laugh. My friends are very happy that they've converted me, and are highly amused at how quickly I became such a big fan.

I'm going to the Sharks/Canucks game tonight, and I'm so excited. The energy at the Tank should be really high, and I will be right at home screaming with the rest of the fans.

**UPDATED** I had the following exchange with Caryn that totally reinforces what I just said here, and it made me laugh.

judy: mainly I am just so excited about tonight that I want the work part of my day to hurry up and end
caryn: what's tonight?
judy: Sharks vs. Canucks, the second in a head-to-head series
judy: last night's game was very exciting because it not only clinched our playoff spot, but guaranteed us at least seventh in our division
caryn: lol. listen to you. you didn't know anything about hockey a few months ago... look at ya now. :)
judy: heh. yeah, I just posted about that