STATE CHAMPIONS!!!

My 2015-2016 basketball season began in East Harlem at the end of October and ended yesterday in Albany. And it ended with a mother fucking STATE CHAMPIONSHIP. That's right, East Harlem Pride won state!!! We won the New York State basketball championship. I can't even believe it. I thought winning City was unreal, but this takes the cake. This was something I have dreamed of since I was younger and had hoped it would be as a high school player in Illinois, but it's just as sweet as the head coach of a high school team in New York. I literally can't believe it. It's pretty surreal.

Following last Sunday's city championship win, this week was a bit of a whirlwind. It was a week of planning and organizing for the weekend in Albany with my team combined with the stress and excitement of preparing for the actual Championship game. This was major. If we were going to Albany, I didn't want to lose. I didn't want our perfect undefeated record tarnished and I wanted that State title. I was hungry for it. It's known that city teams don't often fare well in the State tourney (and for us the city title is really the big deal. State is just the icing on the cake.) Our team went three years ago (before I was the coach) and got smoked in the first round and went right back home. I definitely didn't want that to happen to us, but at the same time it took a lot of the pressure off me because that's kind of what everyone expected. Except for us. We knew we could actually win this whole thing. We believed we could.

We did It!!!

OMG, OMG. We did it. We won the chip!!!!!

This is a post I have been waiting to write since last year. This is a post that I deserve to write. This is a post that I am proud to write. And this is a post that caused tears to stream down my face as I wrote it. This is a HAPPY post! Finally!!!!! (So yes, for a first time in a long time, these are tears of joy. It's about damn time I had some of these.)

Today my basketball team won the mother-fucking New York City title. That's right, we did it!! After losing a heartbreaker last year in the same exact championship game, we had our redemption this year and pulled off a one point victory. We went 24-0 for the season and are going to Albany on Friday for the state tournament. This is so surreal to me. I literally cannot believe this right now. We did it!!!! (FYI, my Illinois peeps, I know where we grew up it was all about who won State and that's what everyone cared about. It's different here. Because New York is so big, the city championship is like the equivalent of winning state at home so this is kinda huge. We'll go on to state and play there, but it's not a big deal. We got that city chip and that's all that really matters.) 

Working on Badassery...

In all the time that I have had this blog, there hasn't been a single month where I didn't post and I am not letting February of 2016 be that month. It has been almost an entire month since I last posted and it's not that there hasn't been valuable stuff to write about, but its just kind of the same things in my life that I keep talking about and wasn't sure that I wanted to write about them yet again. They are the ones that take up the most space in my head, good or bad.

In the first two months of 2016, I have been focusing on things that I want and know will bring me happiness (my major goal of this year) and am trying to go after these things. For some, there have been improvements and that has made me happy, and dare I say, even proud of myself; but for others, there just seems to be a constant process of one step forward and two steps back. But such is life, right? I can only keep looking ahead and doing what's in my control.

Colonoscopies and TMI...

I woke up this morning feeling the skinniest I have felt in a very long time. I wish the reason was because my body finally realized that my exercise and eating habits should be externally shown, but nope, it's because starting at around six o'clock last night, I was pooping my brains out. Don't worry, no UC flare here, but instead, I was prepping for a colonoscopy. Don't be too jealous of my life right now. (Warning: Lots of poop talk below so read on only if okay with that. But really if you're friends with me, you are, so go right ahead.)

Anyway, today I was scheduled for a standard colonoscopy because I haven't had one in a long time. I've actually never even had one here in New York and I've never actually had one when I was healthy. so these were two new parts of this whole experience for me. My previous three colonoscopies were all in Chicago and all because of bad flares. And because this wasn't my first rodeo, I knew what to expect. (See below of a mini recap of past colonoscopies and one sigmoidoscopy.) If you've ever had one of these before, you know the prep for the actual colonoscopy is far worse than the actual procedure. If you don't know that, let me explain...

Thirty-Four, I need to Soar

I am not gonna lie, but I am glad the year of thirty-three is over.  It really sucked. I'm not sure why so many things didn't go my way, but I am ready to let that shit go. So today, I welcome thirty-four. Well, I welcome it as much as someone who is not a fan of birthdays can welcome it.

For the fifth time that I have celebrated my birthday since beginning this blog, I am writing my annual birthday post. I like to look back at the highlights (these were few and far between this year) and the lowlights (there were a lot more of these which is also why I didn't write all that much this year.) As I always do, I like to start with the lows and end with highs so I can build upon them.