Envy

This is my third attempt at starting a blog. The other two were miserable failures due to my lack of creativity every time I logged into blogger.com.

The main screen served as a complete emptying of all great ideas that were at one time swirling in my head. Fear of the blank page resulted in too many thoughts at once with none of them being the brilliant idea that urged me to blog. This eventually led to two poorly executed and uneventful blog posts that were not funny, had no importance on what I was doing with my life and were just too emotional (I hate that kind of crap). Who wants to read about some deep, life changing experience from the mind of a 22 year-old college student? Not me, not you and certainly not my mom (we'll save it for one on one time, mother).

Aside from my unexplainable mind-blank that arose every time I faced this very same computer screen, there were other failures--namely a minuscule level of readership (my mom).

I need no introduction, for those of you that will actually read this already know who I am, what I do and why I am writing. Scratch that, I probably would write a brief introduction because it seems like the right thing to do when starting a blog, but introductions on blogs suck and I am eager to write about what spurred me to give this thing one more shot.

With that being said...

Why the title "envy"? That seems weird for a first-post, right? No, this will not, and I promise, be some verbal diarrhea about my personal life. I refuse to write about being envious of that guy dating that girl (damn him) or that annoying girl that made more money that me at work yesterday (you just wait till tomorrow, unnamed girl).

Where does this envy stem from if it is not about a girl or money? For starters, I am by myself in a hot, quiet office with the smell of the next door pizzeria wafting through the window (too bad I have that lousy PB&J waiting for me in the fridge).

I am the intern at a sports marketing firm and everyone in the company has either left to walk around Portland and/or go home for the day. Me? I am sitting at my desk screening video footage of off-road desert truck racing (cool, but also not that cool at the same time). Although it is about to drive me out the door of the office, envy of my co-workers is not the envy that I speak of in the title of this blog.

In between segments of video screening, I allow myself a short, but sometimes long break to surf the web. Not much surfing actually takes place because I check the same five websites every time. Today that will change. I have added a couple of websites to my list and this will explain my jealousy: Lance Armstrong's Twitter page and my best friend Sylvan Ellefson's Twitter page (I hate Twitter). Connect the dots.

I am a cyclist. I follow the sport just like I follow my beloved Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics and New England Patriots (that's right, Mac. Six championships combined in the new millennium). In cycling I follow individual riders as opposed to teams. My favorites include the Luxumberg brothers Frank and Andy Schleck, the big Belgian sprinter Tom Boonen and of course Armstrong.

To say I have a man-crush would be fairly accurate. He is inspirational, has a Cinderella story following his battle with cancer and he is pretty much a bad-ass. He is the Godfather.

Still don't see the envy?

Simply put, I am sitting in my office while my best friend and former roommate at Bates College is riding his bike with Lance Armstrong. I do not consider myself a jealous person and in usual circumstances, I will keep my jealousy to myself. Not this time. No way.

Am I jealous in a bad/mad way? Hell no. If he were to have called me and stated, "man, I was invited to go biking with Lance Armstrong tomorrow. That really sucks," I would have scoffed and called him an idiot. But Sylvan did not do that. He could not believe it was actually happening.

You might laugh, but for all you rah-rah football players out there--picture you or your best friend playing a game of catch with Tom Brady (girls might like that opportunity as well). Or for you basketball fans, imagine you playing a friendly game of h-o-r-s-e with Michael Jordan. And for the baseball fans out there, think of you, A-Rod, and Ortiz huddled up in your bathroom shoving needles into each others' asses.

Sylvan was thrilled, scared and a little speechless. I was too, and I'm 2,000 miles away and not even going for a bike ride today.

For now, I can only wait for my phone to ring with a report of today's happenings. While it will surely be a leisurely ride for Lance, will my good friend hang on for the ride's entirety? I do not have the answer to that but what I do know is that you should never bet against Sylvan Ellefson. The kid knows how to hurt.

He might not ride much, he might not even own a bike and that miserable race weekend in New Haven, CT last April may have turned him off of bike racing for the rest of his life, but he knows how incredible his opportunity is today and he will do all that he can to stick with the old man as long as his legs will allow.

I will eventually eat my PB&J and give the pizzeria the figurative middle finger. The rest of the employees will return from their breaks and I will finally have someone to correspond with (this day really has been boring). Most importantly, I will keep screening video while eagerly checking www.twitter.com/lancearmstrong and www.twitter.com/sylvanellefson in hopes that The Godfather or (from here on out) The Kid put up a picture of their leisurely Thursday ride.

Sylvan, you are one lucky dog.