I am going to have to be a basketball fan now.

At no time in my entire life have I ever been good at sports. Only this year did I finally grasp and become excited about football. (Don't even start me on the Giants winning the Super Bowl...I almost tattooed XLII on my person in celebration.) But even for years, I will almost always sit down and watch a basketball game. The stats make me a little dizzy and I'm in it mostly for the lean arms, but after watching Kobe Bryant and Team USA beat down everyone in its path at the Olympics, I may seriously have to pick a team and follow them.

Like football, watching basketball is as entertaining as watching an amazing ensemble of actors play off each other to tell a story. Something I'm picking up in acting class is "playing a scene to win." Currently, I'm in a scene in which I think I win, but I ultimately am quite a huge loser. But when my scene partner and I are up there watching, listening and waiting for the other, it feels exhilarating and crazy. I have to think that players on basketball and football teams have to do the same exact thing - watch, listen and wait. Then react. There's an awareness of the outside without connecting to things external to you and your team. While my scene partner and I are both playing to win and one of us loses, we are both competing for the same goal - telling the damn story the way it bloody well should be. The same way a sports team is competing to top their opponent. It's awesome. I don't get it from baseball as much, but I do get it from hockey. I definitely don't get it from golf. I really can't take golf.

Sounds like I just discovered the freaking thing, doesn't it? Welcome to Earth, Jamie. By the way - it's a sphere.

But it's official: I love basketball. I may never, ever, ever be able to play it and I may never learn the stats, but in the meantime, I'm going to sit back and watch some amazing teamwork. And sets of arms. (I'm talking to you, Dwight Howard.)

He's 23. It's wrong...

Also, I have the same birthday as this awesome fellow, Dwyane Wade:



Go USA!

But I really hope this means I don't have to be a Knicks fan. I'm a New Yorker all the way, everyday, but the Knicks just suck. Maybe I'll just be a Knicks fan because Madison Square Garden is so convenient, and after all these years as a non-jock nerd/dumpee, maybe I should just be used to rejection and defeat. What do you think? Help! I can't make a decision!