Handball Stuff

Handball Floor

There are sweat splotches on the floor
where droplets landed after being flung
from whirling bodies
which pivot in the corners
like tops that can't quite seem
to stop bouncing off the walls.

The floor is filmed with dust
and footwork requires focus
on its slick surface,
except where swaths
have been cleared
by sliding bodies,
impromptu brooms
thrown about ungracefully
and thudding in desperation.

Grown children
clinging clumsily to their fascination
with a bouncing ball.

Poem:
I'm not sure this is finished. I feel like I should add more to it, and if it comes to me I'll probably do so. I haven't ever really written about a sport I play, and I wanted to try it. I'm undecided whether or not I will try it again. The reason I chose this in particular is (aside from it being the sport I played most recently) that the floors of our courts are in increasingly bad condition. People disregard the signs specifying which types of shoes to wear, they are never cleaned, and our previous best court has been taken over and destroyed by the boxing and cycling clubs. So the topic was on my mind.

Observation:
Handball is a pretty weird sport. For example, the best player in the world is an overweight ex car salesman. Athleticism, while obviously beneficial, plays less of a role than in most other sports I've tried. Strategy and a good sense of where the ball is going are essential, and it encourages constant adaptation. It's also one of the few sports I've played that doesn't skew itself toward tall people. When I played tennis I wanted to be taller to take advantage of more serving angles. Basketball is a no-brainer, and ultimate frisbee, where at least there are situations in which height should be dominated by tall people as well. A bigger wingspan for throwing means a harder time for the defense, and tall people obviously have an easier time getting the the disc first. But in handball, being taller just means you have to bend down more to get the shots near the floor. Long arms, while useful in many situations, are ungainly for shots that are directed into the body. All in all, this is the sport for me. I don't have the raw sprint speed required for other sports, but in handball I can make up for it with good anticipation. And my hand-eye coordination is pretty decent, allowing me to pick up shots on the fly and disrupt the rhythm of the game. I would try and get more people to play this sport, but there's a problem: you have to hit the ball with your hands. When first starting out, the sport is a bit of a chore. After my first time playing, I took my glove off and my hand was so swollen I couldn't distinguish the knuckles as I biked home. Now, there are more intelligent ways to go about starting the sport. There are lighter balls beginners can use, padded gloves, and if you acquire good technique, that will take a lot of the stress off the palms of your hands. But coming from tennis, I just smacked the ball with my hand in a flat motion repeatedly, and the bruises I wound up with made playing in the future a trying experience. So when people ask me whether or not it hurts my hands, I say "Only for the first month or so." Which is a pretty big commitment to ask of someone who isn't sure about the sport and just wants to try it out. For me, it was worth all the pain and then some to finally find a sport to which I was well-suited.

Exercise:
"Your character visits the dentist"
Your character visits the dentist. Write the scene.

Typical waiting room. Tropical fish meander around their tank, tireless in their attempts to hypnotize the waiting patients. I'm watching the blue one, which is smaller than most of the others, but follows a less-established pattern. I don't think I've ever been to a waiting room without a fish tank. I briefly wonder whether tank maintenance is part of the dental school course requirements. I can imagine students interspersing their knowledge of teeth with facts about pH levels and salt concentration. The species of fish seem pretty standardized as well. They're probably given a formula sheet. For a tank of size x, fishes y and z are required in a 4:3 ratio, but only if fish q is included and the water is changed every other week.
My reverie is broken when my name is called, and I realize that, yet again, the tank has done exactly what it is supposed to: distract me from my visit. For all the trepidation that accompanies the scheduling of the appointment and the days leading up to it, the few minutes closest to the moment of truth never seem so bad. And it's all due to these stupid fish tanks. They won't even let me wallow in my stress. As I walk by the tank, I give the blue fish a dirty look. He seems pretty unconcerned.

Me:
I was the victim of a crime yesterday, which was a new-ish experience for me. I've had my bike snatched from bike racks before, I guess. That was actually kind of amusing, since the bikes I ride around town are usually pretty junky. My dad throws them together from a combination of garage sales and whatever he has lying around, which usually means their net worth is around ten dollars. And the person who stole my bike left my sixty dollar helmet. So I was less disappointed than one might think. I guess the people stealing bikes aren't the sort who want their heads protected anyway, so it worked out for the both of us.
But today I had my stuff stolen out of a locker while I was playing handball, which was a much less fun experience. I had employed a similar strategy as with the bike case; I didn't have anything I thought was worth taking. But they took it anyway. So I went and reported it, and they said they'd been having problems with this sort of thing. There's a fake camera-looking thing in the hallway, but I guess the thieves found out it was fake or just didn't care. The person I was reporting the theft to told me that they had found other stolen stuff around the building after the thieves had abandoned it, so while I filled out the form, one of my playing companions, Piper, went out searching. Sure enough, it hadn't gone far. In fact, the thieves had returned it to the hallway. They had decided my team biking coat, bright red puma shoes, phone, and driver's license weren't things they could effectively commandeer, as they were all things that could readily be identified with me. One thing I am confused about is why they bothered to return it to the hallway. Now, I do appreciate the fact that it was easy to find, but it seems like a terrible idea from the thief's perspective. Where is the one place he/she knows the person missing the stuff could be? Answer: that hallway. What are thieves never supposed to do? Answer: return to the scene of the crime. It would have been really funny if they had been caught returning my stuff.
So I wasn't in a very bad mood as I left. I was surprised someone would actually take all of my stuff from the hallway, especially when I knew there wasn't really anything worth their while. I had just assumed they would go through the pockets wherever my stuff happened to be and then leave, hoping I didn't notice anything amiss. But I had my coat, so I wasn't too upset. Then later I realized I didn't have my iPod, and I was a lot less content with my coat. The thing I missed the most? The picture I had been drawing on my sketchbook application. I had spent hours on that. I can replace the music, apps, etc. for free, but the pictures on there were unique. And if you recall, I just cracked the screen. So even though I didn't ever mean to have it in my pocket, it still wasn't something I thought someone would steal. I'm not sure what I'm going to do in the future. I still don't think I have anything someone would want, but I guess that doesn't matter as much as I thought. So maybe I'll get a lock.