In about twenty minutes, the free-skate portion of the 2010 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship will begin.  I'll be watching with a great sense of conflict, actually multiple conflicts.  

For one thing, ever since the 2002 Olympic judging scandal, I have known just how fixed competitive skating is.  Yes, everyone who's ever come in even the briefest contact with this sport always knew, but after 2002 we really knew, and nothing has ever been the same.  The crappy umpiring of the last two MLB post-seasons* has me simply counting the days until baseball has its 2002 Olympic Pairs moment.  What will I do then?  Devote my life to the Philadelphia Eagles (until the NFL has its 2002 Olympic Pairs moment)?

For another, I can't stand Sascha Cohen.  The very mention of her name makes me want to throw things at the television and run from the room.  She's just one of those women with an "I'm a bitch who thinks I'm better than you" look permanently fixed on her face.  Am I the only one who sees this?  I even confess to having rooted against her in international competition a time or two, despite the fact that she's American.  I just can't stand her.  However, as a past medalist and non-child, she'd probably be a better Olympic bet than the interchangeable children that comprise the rest of the US competitive skating field right now.  A tough choice. 

For yet another, this sport has done everything possible to break my heart as a fan.  There was Debi Thomas's implosion in Calgary, the death of Barbara Underhill's infant daughter, the realization that my first-ever sports crush (Brian Boitano) would never love any girl, the Tonya Harding attack followed by Nancy Kerrigan's totally fixed (and now I know it, see above) Olympic loss to that hideous wench Oksana Baiul, Sergei Grinkov's untimely and preventable death, Scott Hamilton's cancer, the judging insanity that made both of Michelle Kwan's** Olympic medals the wrong color (stupid Horseface Lipinski, can't trust anyone with her first name, mumble grumble) . . . these are just a few.  I have more.  Figure skating judges make baseball umpires look like a wise, impartial bunch of King Solomons; the sport also attracts way more than its fair share of external tragedy and unpleasantness. 

For one last thing,  Bitchface Cohen is "the old one" in this field.  She's twenty-fricking-five.  I'm going to be thirty in just over three months.  Figure skating, baseball, the NFL.  With all my sports, I've gone through the years from watching them and thinking, "Wow, they're 22" to "Hey, I'm 22 too!" to "Oh my God, they are children of 22."  

Watching sports has gone from a way to dream about the future to realizing that the future is now.  Sometimes, like 2004 (Sox), 2007 (Sox), 2008 (Phils), and 2002 (Sarah Hughes!  Yet sad for Kwan.  What a night.), sports are everything I could ever hope for and "the future is now" is the most glorious statement I could ever dream.    Others, like 2003 (Sox), 2007 (Phils), 2008 (Sox), 2009 (Phils), Super Bowl XXXIX (Eagles), and all the figure skating disasters above, sports are a hot poker in the heart and "the future is now" is the cruelest of jokes.

One nice moment in all this, though.  More than nice.  Golden.  Better than golden.  No words.  I was talking to The One earlier today.  Again, I'm pushing 30.  I don't exactly keep house.  I don't have an eating disorder.  I'm not sweet and smiley all the time.  I have nagging, inconvenient health problems.  There's no reason on Earth for any man to hang around in my life.  Yet for some reason he does.  And this afternoon, among other things, he discussed figure skating with me.  If I needed another sign that he's for me . . . well . . . 

He's the only shot I have.  More, he's the only shot I want.  The only shot I could dream of wanting.  If I woke up tomorrow anorexic, blonde, in a perfectly neat house, with all my nagging health problems cured, he'd still be the only shot I want.  Ever.

He doesn't know this (yet), but he makes me feel how I've felt twice before.  October 27, 2004--Boston Red Sox win the World Series after 86 years.  October 29, 2008--Philadelphia Phillies win the World Series after 28 years.  Many, many moments big and small from 2006 to now--I share moments I won't elaborate here with The One.

What all these moments have in common: a clear, super-rational, absolutely peaceful certainty from my deepest soul to the tiniest nerve ending that--against all odds, all logic, and all past disappointments--things are how they're supposed to be.  For me and mine.  For real.

 Now I'm feeling all sentimental and might actually cheer for Bitchface Cohen.

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*Particularly the "foul" ball in the  2009 ALDS between the Twins and the Yankees.  If there's no fix in, the Twins organization makes a lot more noise about that call.  Around that same time, I found out in researching some other topics that the 1919 World Series was very likely not the only fixed Series of that era.  The 2002 Olympic Pairs moment is coming to MLB.  I can only pray that it harms the Yankees and no one else.

**Michelle Kwan (who is also younger than I am, but only by a couple months) is right up there with Ted Williams for Greatest Athletes Who Never Won The Big One.