I'm Becoming the Woman My Husband Married...Again.

Yes, folks, I have changed.

My dear husband loooooves to talk about how "all the guys at work" warned him that his beer-swilling, sports-loving, foul-obscenity-at-a-hockey-game-shouting girlfriend would, within 3 months of the wedding, shrivel into a ball at the other end of the couch, engrossed in a magazine with a mug of hot cocoa and look up slightly annoyed at him when he asked her to watch that play again. I used to scoff. I mean, really, I was the one that talked my husband into spending the $1500 we planned to use on a honeymoon to Europe on Stanley Cup Finals tickets (and it was worth every.stinking.penny). I was the woman who made sure that if there were ever a day that her Sunday evening was clear, it was definitely Selection Sunday.

It was my idea to fill his brother's office with orange and blue balloons when the Tigers beat the Yankees in the playoffs. It was I who stayed up until after 1AM watching Dave Roberts steal a base and jump start the Red Sox on their way to coming back from a 3 game deficit to win the ALCS (shame on him for falling asleep, who DOES that?) I was the first one of us to participate in a Fantasy League (and win), the girl who bought a one-way ticket to DC a few hours before the flight on a whim to go watch NCSU play in the NCAA tournament, the girl who was excited to win a bus trip to an away hockey game on a dial-in radio show, the girl who once peed in a parking deck in Philadelphia.

Okay, I'm not sure what the last one had to do with sports, but you get what I'm trying to say, right? I was a guys' girl.

Only they were right. Fast forward a little way into our marriage. Fights ensued over if we were watching Grey's Anatomy or the hockey game. I stopped watching the NFL playoffs, lost interest in the World Series unless the Sox were playing (or the Yankees were losing), and stopped requesting off the Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament. Over time, other things have grabbed my attention, seemed more exciting. I've become entranced in my world of blogging, literature, and let's face it, tabloid magazines. I will admit that a few times this season, I missed an entire NCSU football game, even once due to choosing to take a bubble bath. I have not owned up to my end of the "sport's wife" bargain.

But this week, something changed. I don't know if it was my husband's excited reaction when one of "The Bachelor" contestants mentioned that her entire life revolved around sports, or if it was watching our college basketball team annihlate an ACC opponent for the first time, um, ever, but my love for b-ball has gotten a swift kick in the rear. What has happened to me, I asked myself? I used to read the sports page, used to know who was in the top 25 in college basketball and football, who the points and goaltending leaders were in the NHL, who the Chargers had to beat to make the wild card (unfortunately, I know what the outcome of that one was this year). Whatever it was, I have found myself excited to watch basketball this weekend. More than excited...I left my family at the dinner table at my parents' house tonight to watch the Kansas-Michigan game go into OT. I am trying to wrap this post up as fast as possible so that I can go hopefully watch Duke kick some serious Maryland ass. I can tell you who the unbeaten teams are in the NCAA b/c I looked it up as soon as I got some internet time this weekend.

I'm already thinking about March Madness. And who will be in my Final Four. Madness. We call it that for a reason.

I have to go now, but my husband thanks you for sparing me. Despite the fact that I'm female and therefore will never know quite as much about basketball as he does, he appreciates having his sports-watching wife back. Sans magazine.