Oh God

Water Polo

Last year I went to Texas after a lot of obsessing over the state and how I thought that I would really be happy living there-this was based entirely on theory. And when I got there a dozen things became readily apparent that I had NOT anticipated and which meant, in fact, that I would not be happy living there and I would be crazy to move. I basically viewed the whole endeavor as a colossal flop but my friend Katie pointed out that I would never have known those things had I not visited so really it's a good thing that I visited and figured them out. It's better to conduct the experiment than to try and perfect the theory.

Intellectually this makes sense but in my hard-wired inner self I want to get the theory right before I put myself out there.

So I thought I had sussed out a good chunk of the water polo stuff. Lots of endurance required (working on that), found a gay team that was happy to teach a newbie, not that many experienced people, all good stuff. I wanted to come and observe but Juan, the captain, said I should attend a practice.

The pool where the team (Chicago Riptide) normally practices was unavailable so we went to a pool in the Pilsen neighborhood, where Juan actually learned to play water polo. One of the guys drove down there, that was my ride back.

Pilsen is kind of isolated geographically from the rest of the city...it's served by Mass Transit but not so much in the evening. I'm not sure what time the trains stop running. Anyway this is how I am evaluating my evening-I did not get out of the pool, put my clothes on, and go out into the night attempting to make my way back home. God knows I wanted to and even spent a moment calculating the cost/benefit ratio of such a move.

Nice, nice guys. If you were going to learn a sport, it's a good group to learn with. All adults and no one trying to make anybody look bad or anything.

I have basically played no sports whatsoever. In gym class I would just take a posture of passive disobedience...those people who wanted to dive for the ball should dive for the ball. Me? Nuh uh. And what this means is that not only do I not know how to play water polo specifically, I don't know how to play sports in general.

This, it turns out, matters. Like I have a clue about stuff on a stage...if someone said "Drew, you're upstaging yourself." I would know that I am not facing the audience. If someone told me to Project I would know to speak louder and from deep in my chest.

However I have not the foggiest idea what it means when someone explains a drill by saying "you're cherry picking that guy as if he has a defender and then setting up for his pass"

I should mention here that everyone is wearing lycra (you grab onto players in an attempt to gain advantage although we came nowhere near anything like this) and everyone has remarkably good bodies. These were not the lumpy-yet-athletic bodies of the Welles Park pickup team. These were extremely well-maintained gentlemen. Except me of course (lycra trunks, thanks, not a speedo bikini thing).

We started out just playing catch. Water polo is a one handed game, touching the ball with both hands is a foul. You are expected to catch and throw with one hand. And it's, you know, wet. And you are treading water while this is happening. Juan and I got to one side and threw back and forth. I got to where I could almost always throw it properly and catch it maybe every one out of 30 times.

"Juan?" one of the other players asked,"uhm how much longer do you guys need?"

Well, we could have taken the whole evening (the whole 105 minute evening) and I might have gotten catch down but I was going to have to go forth not really getting it. Which sucks. That's one thing about gym class, I could always rationalize "well I'm gay, hell, what do they expect?" Here it's a different matter, here in water polo I'm a sissy who can't catch the damn ball.

Then a drill which I kept watching and participating in (the aforementioned cherry-picking was going on) and I finally figured out what the hell I was supposed to do but then of course you had to throw and catch while doing this stuff ("elbow Drew!" meaning Use It While Throwing)

Finally time to learn offensive plays and, since I was new I went to play goalie so I could observe these plays. Like I say, nice bunch of guys and going to the goalie is apparently crappy, like being chosen It for tag. When of course the real truth is "woo hoo! Goalie! Watch! Woo hoo!"

The remaining six guys arranged themselves in two lines, there were wings and three different manouvers, red, white or blue. Someone was to throw the ball to the hole (is the hole me? The goal? or someone else in front of the goal. never did figure that one out) and Juan would call out one of the colors and players would splash to new positions, and pass the ball. Okay there's only three combinations, red, white or blue and not only was I there observing from my goal position but each one was explained in detail and I still have no fucking idea what happens on each one.

"Drew, you want to rotate out of goalie?" one of the guys asked.

"Nah I'm good, thanks."

How could I rotate out????? I literally had no idea what was happening. It wasn't even that I felt confused between red, white and blue, I had no idea what any of them was and, seeing others start the pattern didn't help any.

I think it's within the realm of possibility that I could learn water polo. And certainly, a good-natured group of fellows. But I didn't leave thinking "man that was hard but I felt so alive!!!" I left being proud that I stuck out the whole goddamn thing and got my ride back up north instead of storming out like a weirdo.

I really Went To Texas on that whole water polo thing.