i remember...

when i was young, i used to get scared in bed when dad yelled in the living room. he wasn't angry--in fact, they were generally yells of elation--at basketball. i guess "scared" isn't the word i'm looking for. i believe it was "shock." of course, the volume was part of the shock. there was hardly anything that would ever get that loud in our apartment (the place was real brick, though, which means the sound insulation was pretty good. we just weren't a loud family...) part of the shock, though, was that daddy never expressed himself that way in any other situation. it's not like he bottled his emotions... just... like i said, we weren't a loud family.

when i watch basketball, i'll get loud. i'll scream and yell and make funny noises at the tv (wimpering, perhaps?), but never in a public place.

i shocked myself last night.

matt and i went to glory days for dinner. i, of course was watching basketball. matt, surprisingly, was also watching basketball. the hockey game that was on wasn't one he was interested in, and... the end of the mavericks game was on. and everybody knows that matt loves the mavericks. nobody knows why.

fourth quarter. three points down. nowitzki drops a beautiful arc of a trey. swoosh.

i erupt. some group at the bar erupts. some asian girl (not me) looks scared.

what happened? i don't do that in public.

***

okay, so we kinda know why matt likes the mavs. it started out when nash still played for them. nash was canadian. nash looked like a hockey player. it was a natural fit.

when nash went to the suns, i thought matt's aliances would follow. i was wrong. he'd gotten attached to the team.

i don't know why, but i like it.

***

update (5/4/06): funny how things go... i found out on sunday (as in the sunday of my post) that michael gets startled by the same thing.

hmm... startled. that was the word i was looking for in the first place...