Does this happen to you?

Any time someone EVEN THINKS there might be actual practicing happening, it is Team mayhem. Like I look at a table and MAYHEM! they are all up on the table. Any table! Even the one with the ipod plugs on it! Don’t run over Timmy when you all go running for toys on the And Go! Really there is never genuine agility practicing at my house, but I guess it is the funny little pretend parts that sort of SEEM like agility. And Gustavo has his own personal weave poles (channels with wires, agility fans amongst you) in the driveway (mock me neighbors, but no stone throwing from people who hang toasters in their trees and still have the easter eggs scattered about their trash heap) and I am liable to stick his little contact board any old place for a target. Which to the rest of the Team, SEEMS enough like agility to cause mayhem of Excitement!

Non agility fans amongst you, this driveway business is sort of like the canvas priming, hard drive digging, brush cleaning, hammering and programming part of agility. Like you just have to keep doing it and repeating it when you are training the skills, before you can get to the totally RAD part of running around out there like a bat out of hell.

Like, I am not a rockstar, but I play one in my mind, and I think rockstaredness is like this. You have to practice and practice and practice and no one sees this or knows about it. Everyone sees the fun and glamorous part with the leather pants and on the stage and you’re drunk and it is so FABULOUS, but most of the time it is the practicing and practicing and practicing. And making sure you practice right so you don’t screw up later. Like Johnny Depp practicing to be a Keith Richards pirate. How many times did he have to apply that eyeliner and do the british mumbling to get it right?

At the art opening, no one knew about soldering the 50 gazillion LED’s or the hand cramps from the tiny brushes or stabbing wounds of 10 million sharp pieces of fake Christmas tree branches. You just have the super cool outfit (ha!) and you are waving your arms about with the fame of it all. And you are probably drunk again. No one knows how many times you had to rip out ALL the stitches and start all over or the projector was crooked and you had to reprime the wall and start all over. No one knows you had to invest all the money for REAL then have the stock market Actually Crash!

Yes, the fame and the glamour of the Steeplechase Finals comes and how many of you know how many damn times we had to run through those weave poles and be so very patient and keep the wires on and stand so still for the entry and throw the frisbee and figure out why is the popping happening at pole 10 and rethink and refix. How many times on that table and making sure when the judge says And Go and the dog waits til then and is not leaping off that table so let’s just use the patio table again, all of you together and sit there for a nice count of 5. And then maybe if we win big enough, Johnny Depp is there at the finish line to hand over that icy mojito. The glamour of it all.