Obsessions, from the Cavs to shoes

I never thought I’d have to compete with a guy named James for a boyfriend.

I’ve only known Brad for about a year. I knew he was a Cleveland fan, and that Mr. LeBron James is his savior. I just didn’t realize that Brad was obsessed. For the past few weeks, his life has revolved around the NBA playoffs. I was relieved when the Cavs lost to the Pistons in the final and seventh game of the second round.

Everyone has his or her obsessions. Sometimes they’re short-lived. Sometimes there is more than one at a time. For me, one has always been shoes. I am a woman. But there have been others, like the 30 pairs of sunglasses I collected one summer to match all of my shoes. For a while, I collected paperweights. Recently, my fascination with dill pickle flavored potato chips has receded into a nagging urge now and then.

When I was a child, YMCA soccer was the thing. My freshman year of college it was Ohio University club hockey. But all of my flaming obsessions have burned down into interests or mere memories. Except for the shoes. I can’t figure out how and don’t really want to get rid of that.

The spectrum of obsessions across the human race ranges from alcoholism to Zen. Some obsessions turn into addictions. And from my brief case study of Brad, I conclude that as a Cleveland fan, the Cavs, the Indians and the Browns are exactly that — an addiction.

I can see the signs, the first of which is denial. Most Ohioans know that Cleveland professional sports seem to be cursed. The last time the Indians won a World Series was 1948. The last time the Browns won the Super Bowl was 1964. And the Cavs? They’ve never won an NBA title. Ever. This year was the first in 13 years that they made it to the second round of playoffs. Brad’s not in denial of the so-called curse. He’s in denial that he lets his livelihood depend upon the yearly fates of those teams.

The second sign: he has missed work to watch a game. He called off last Friday to watch game six of the second round. It was only by chance that I know (his friend Dan informed me, unaware of his betrayal), and I only know of this one instance. I was afraid to ask if there had been more.

Other signs include impaired judgment of the performances of the players, a preoccupation with each upcoming game, withdrawal from family and friends, and changes in personality, mood and behavior. Though usually those symptoms only occur from limited amounts of time, they have potentials for becoming obnoxious problems.

OK, so maybe I'm exaggerating ... a little.

But, should it bother me that some of his friends planned their Fantasy Baseball draft strategies more meticulously than their own weddings, husbands and wives included?

Should I be worried that the conversation of our last dinner date consisted of Brad quizzing me on my professional sports knowledge (of which I have very little) and then of him trying to teach me the names and positions of the Indians’ starting line-up?

Should I study the line-up so when he quizzes me again, my response doesn’t go something like this:

“Okay, I can give you Victor Martinez. Catcher. I think. Then there’s the guy all the ladies love, Mc…um. Mc…um. McGrady? Oh no, that’s his first name, Grady. My bad. I forgot. There’s only one other guy I remember talking about, the designated hitter. Well, crap. I can’t remember his name either.”

Honey, I’m trying to understand, I swear.

I just don’t get it. And it’s not that I don’t get sports. I love basketball and soccer. I love playing sports. I even enjoy watching college sports. But there’s just something about professional sports that doesn’t click. I don’t mind watching a game every now and then. I don’t have any trouble understanding the games. I’m just not interested.

But apparently, if I’m going to keep dating Brad, I’m going to have to learn to love Cleveland sports.

At least a little bit.

“I don’t live here anymore.”

That’s what I said to my sister when she asked me to answer the telephone during my visit “home” last weekend. I almost made my mom cry.

I hate going home.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. But going home is like crawling back into a box from which I’ve just escaped — no light, no fresh air, no room to breathe or to stretch.

I don’t live there anymore. I don’t get phone calls on the landline. There’s not any food in the refrigerator that I like. I sleep in the guest room. My sister lives in my bedroom, and my brother parks in my garage space. They’ve rearranged the furniture and bought a new television.

Sure, I keep my off-season wardrobe in a closet and my childhood memories shoved in the attic; it isn’t the material things that matter anyway.

What does is that my brother and sister don’t need me anymore. My parents treat me like a guest in my “home.” I’m welcomed as a visitor at my church and at my high school. I haven’t been gone that long.

I’m only 20 years old. I’ve gotten a gleaming glimpse of growing up. Sometimes my friends and I reminisce about elementary school “so long ago.” It was more like yesterday.

I left “home” years ago, not just the two since I’ve been at college. I left when I was nine-years-old and I realized there was more to life than long division and spelling tests. I was studying for the geography bee, and that’s when it hit me. “Hey, there are other countries in the world that don’t speak English.” It hit me when I was 16 and my first boyfriend told me he cheated on me. “Hey, love isn’t easy like in the movies.” It hit me when I lost some childhood friends over a high school spat, just weeks before graduation. “Hey, even if you know someone, you might not really know them.”

It kills my mom when I say “I don’t live here anymore.” And I learned this weekend that it’s one more thing I’ll keep to myself when I go “home.”

My parents are good people. But they are not open-minded. I hate going home because they expect me to be what I was, not what I’ve become, not the changes.

And Lord, have I changed. I want to consider a religion other than Christianity. I want to share my new political views with them. I want to tell them I have gay friends. I want them to meet my boyfriend, and I want to ask my mom questions about sex. I want to tell my siblings what real life is like and how just saying “no” isn’t how it works.

As I drive past the cornfields a few miles from the house, I start to get that cozy warm feeling. I’m escaping from work and school for a few days. It’s a safe feeling. And then it’s gone. The coziness is replaced with emptiness, a reminder of what was missing in my life before, when “home” was the only place I knew. But instead of subsiding after a few minutes, maybe hours, the feeling stays until I leave again. I don’t hear the country music and the pick-ups rumbling by that I want to remember. Instead, I hear racial slurs, sexist comments and expressions of homophobia. And it burns in that emptiness. Instead of giving me that warm cozy feeling, going home scorches my heart.

I wonder why my family doesn’t see it too.

Some would say, love will be enough; it won’t matter how I’ve changed. Goodness, it’s the 21st century already.

But what if they don’t accept me? Even if they do, they might say, “Oh, it’s a phase.” They might “accept” me, sure — but not the new way of thinking I own, not the real me. And that’s what matters. I just want them to listen, to really listen and to think about it. I just want them to try to understand. I could live with that.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It hit me when my mom asked what I did last weekend and I couldn’t tell her because, “Hey, my mom still thinks I’m 12 years old.”

I should be grateful that I have a family that loves me and cares about me. But what’s it matter if I can’t be who I really am?

I hate going home.

Yes, I need to pay attention — In a million little ways.

I’ve been duped, tricked, schemed, scammed, bamboozled, hoodwinked and hoaxed.

And, well, OK, so I’ve discovered that I live inside a self-inflicted bubble of ignorance.

I know I should watch the news, read the papers, browse the Net, or do anything that’ll at least give me the headlines for the day.

But there are those days I don’t. And somehow, I learned from “South Park” of all shows, not only that I’d been made a fool but that I could have avoided it altogether.

Recently, I read “A Million Little Pieces,” and I believed every word of it. Which wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t four months after the book was exposed as false.

In case there’s someone out there who did the same thing I did, at least now you can be comforted by the fact that you’re not the only one.

And for those of you who haven’t heard about it (please God, let there be someone) here’s what I’m talking about:

The author of the book, James Frey, wrote “A Million Little Pieces” as a memoir of his struggle with drug and alcohol addiction. He said he meant to create hope for those struggling with similar afflictions and to share his story with the world.

Oprah Winfrey picked it as one of her favorites and the book topped best-seller lists, becoming an instant favorite of many who read it.

Then in January TheSmokingGun.com, a popular investigative Web site, exposed Frey as a fraud. After further investigation, he admitted that he had in fact “embellished” parts of his book.

So why am I writing about this now? Because I’m one of the idiots who fell for it. But mostly, because I fell for it after all that had been publicized. It wasn’t until last week when I was watching a “South Park” rerun in which the incident was referred to, that I even had a clue.

And I still didn’t get it. I asked the friend I was watching the show with. She didn’t say anything for a little while. At first, she looked at me like she thought I was joking. And then, then she said it out loud. “You’re kidding, right?”

Those were NOT the words I wanted to hear.

I completely fell for Frey’s heroic story. He endured a root canal without anesthesia or any other painkillers for goodness sake! Even if I hadn’t liked the book, how could that not leave an impression on me, true or false?

Of course, now that I think about it, a root canal … without anesthesia … or painkillers … and if I remember correctly, he stayed conscious through the entire thing.

Or maybe he didn’t? I can’t remember. Let’s pretend he did. It’s easier to prove my point, just like Frey claims he did.

I should have known at that point. Even if I do live in a bubble. Without the Internet. Or television. Or newspapers. Or ears.

But no, I spent $14.95 at Target that I could have used to buy three pairs of underwear or an automatic jar opener or enough stale Easter candy to give me six cavities instead.

It was just sitting there on the shelf, such an honest-looking sky blue — what’s with the hand covered in sprinkles on the cover anyway? I was just going to let that go, but now that I know the story isn’t true … oh, excuse me, “embellished.”

I was inspired by that book, and, no matter what defense Frey gives, it was every element of that story that sold me. It made me believe that no matter what I came up against for the rest of my life, things could always get worse. If he could do it, I could too. Classic.

All the while, I’m searching for something or someone to blame.

The publisher? Sure, in part. Frey? Of course.

TheSmokingGun.com and others have criticized both. And poor Oprah? Well, ha ha, I say. I don’t like her anyway.

As for me? The only person I can point a finger at is myself. What can I say, I’m a sucker for a good story.

The worst part is, I don’t even really like “South Park”.

Duke and Durham: The Structure of the United States

The shout of racial slurs. A 911 call. An exotic dancer and 47 lacrosse players.

Duke University and Durham, N.C.

But no DNA matches. No DNA matches.

The highly publicized accusations of a black exotic dancer, who said three of Duke’s white lacrosse team members raped her, have not been formally filed as charges.

The situation has spurred conflict between the university and surrounding community where a history of tension between black and white has never been resolved. It has also fueled discussion that underneath the racial aspects, the alleged crime is ultimately a sex and sexist crime of man against woman.

Think it’s not? "I plan on killing the bitches as soon as the[y] walk in and proceeding to cut their skin off,” wrote one of the players in an e-mail sent around 2 a.m. just after the time of the alleged attack. He expressed a desire to invite strippers into his dorm room after the events of the night’s “show.” Most papers didn’t publish the whole e-mail because it was so explicit. Whatever the content, it was enough to cause the coach’s resignation and cancel the rest of the team’s season.

This situation is in no way just about racism or just about sexism. Both are embedded in the crime and in the way the media handled the news.

It disgusts me that the media covered so poorly these problems that are inherent in our society. What if all of the lacrosse players were black or if the alleged victim were white? What if the race roles were completely reversed?

What if the alleged victim were a bartender rather than a stripper or if she were a student at Duke? What if the lacrosse players were fraternity brothers or gang members instead?

The media made it seem as if the lacrosse players had already been convicted and jailed. It seemed like the pending results of the DNA tests were just going to be a confirmation of what was already etched into the playbooks — Duke had lost the battle. But that wasn’t the whole story; it was just what the media irresponsibly suggested. Now two of the players are on trial, and the evidence doesn't look good for their accuser. It wasn’t until later that anyone began to wonder if the allegations might be false, because subconsciously most of us know it wasn’t such an improbable incident.

All white people are racist. That is so in the same sense that all men are sexist. We live in a society whose structure supports both these notions. And each in his own remains so until he decides to fight to change the system.

And now that the tests have come back negative, that it seems each of the charged has an alibi? In retrospect the whole situation was sketchy.

I’m not denying that race was a factor here. But in theory, if the allegations are true, the woman wasn’t raped just because she was black. She was raped because she was a woman in a stereotypical role of objectification further dehumanized, in some minds, by the fact that she was black.

Research shows that rape is a violent crime about power and control — in rape the victim is usually a woman indicating that it’s most often about power and control over women. For this to occur, the victim must first be dehumanized in the mind of the attacker. All rapists are misogynists, and one cannot deny that a man who rapes a woman does not have respect for her.

Add to that the issue of racism, which is also about power and control and the dehumanizing of a group of people. Add to that the issue of class, which, surprise, surprise, in this capitalist society, is about power and control and the dehumanizing of a group of people. Then we have a clearer picture.

The media should not have focused so exclusively on race. Even though that is an obvious issue, sexism is the underlying central factor.

And if the allegations truly are false? I can’t even imagine the ramifications against the black, the female, the poor and all oppressed groups fighting for equal status in this country.