Stitch That on a Pillow

"I felt like I had a big hairball in my throat." Tobin Heath; 2008 U.S. Women's Olympic Soccer Team, 20-year-old Junior at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. (The word "dry" cannot be spelled in Chapel Hill at this time of year.)

I'm not sure when it happened, but I really can't sleep anymore without my pillow. I mean, MY pillow. The one that is on my bed at home, that I sleep on every night. If I go to a different part of the house to sleep, I take my pillow with me. Because, I won't be able to sleep without it. Not because it isn't my bed. Not because the temperature and sounds in the room might be different. No, it would be useless to go there without my pillow.


Pillows are in the news now. By news, of course I'm referring only to ESPN. The source of the only news that matters. Where sufficient human drama exists to keep me from wondering what other awful things could be happening around the world that I can't control anyway. I would like to think that I, too am ".....as cool as the other side of the pillow."


Especially since the calendar says July.


When the U.S. Soccer Women's National Team came to play against Brazil on July 13 in Commerce City (a suburb of Denver) at an expensive, dedicated soccer park, the ESPN announcers could not get off the idea that the place was inexplicably hot. Like, really hot. Like, about 110 degrees down on the field. Because it was probably -- at LEAST -- 98 or 99 in the stands in the middle of the afternoon on a cloudless, full-Mile High-sun type of day. In the middle of July.


And, dry! Just not to be believed, this hot dryness here in Commerce City. In July. At the height of the hot part of summer. Near Denver. Which, everybody on Earth knows, is only ever really cold with four feet of snow on the ground because it can't be Denver unless you are stranded at Denver International Airport. For at least three days. Long enough for the food concessions to run out of Whoppers and bottled water, and for the Red Cross to set up cots without pillows. Where you finally get on TV for the first time in your entire life, because someone from CNN wants to interview you. You're not sure how someone from CNN got to the airport, since all the roads are closed. But, you suspend disbelief while you're telling the terrible story about how you were supposed to be in Missoula, Montana yesterday -- supposed to be the Maid of Honor at your sister's wedding. And, now you've missed it. Turns out the wedding wasn't actually about you, but -- somehow -- they had it without you. And, NOW, you're got a terrible dress that's never been worn and will NEVER be worn. And, things couldn't get much worse. And, if you just had your pillow, everything might start looking up.


Oh, the humanity! Global warming must be to blame for this unbearable hotness of being -- too hot to even think about blankets or pillows. Maybe too hot for sheets.


And, can I mention dry again?! Oh, yes. Dry. So very dry. Take two 24-pack cases of Dasani with you wherever you go, and call me in the morning.


And, altitude?? Well, forget it. About 24 hours into your stay in snow-packed Denver, your nose started to bleed. I guess your body didn't have room for all that extra red blood cell production going on in your unbearable hotness of being; some of it tried to escape. OK, that's just gross. But, your nose really did start to bleed.


Note to self: If you're only stranded at DIA for three days, then your nose stops bleeding just about the time you're beginning to like the altitude. About the time when you must now leave and go back down the mountain to your loved ones.


So, every human with a heart can imagine how confused you have been about all this hot dryness ever since you landed at DIA, because you were expecting to be snowed-in. You sorta planned on it. And, you're pretty sure (based on the landscape), that your pilot actually dropped you somewhere in western Kansas. Where are the Rockies?? No, not them -- the mountains!!!

And, why is everything so FLAT? The canvas cover atop the terminal LOOKS like snow-capped peaks. But, you are stranded, without your pillow, in this vast stretch of brown nothingness.

Didn't John Denver sing about Rocky Mountain High? Why are you so low? Where is the chill of fresh, crisp alpine air for your smog-filled lungs? You were hoping to recover here...


Well, I have news for you. If you're on any U.S. Olympic team of any kind and are headed to Beijing, you better git yer popcorn ready. About ten minutes in that "air" will have you wailing in your pillow about how much you'd rather be in Commerce City. Coughing up hair balls, trying to fly.