It's Not Easy Being Me

This will be quick. I think.

I sat here on the couch tonight watching the Devils play the Panthers. I had a to-do list a half page long, but ignored it. I do that a lot lately. It's nothing BIG that I'm ignoring, it's just all the little trivial things that pile up along with the normal things.

It's worse when there are three games in one week with this condensed schedule. Oh sure, Marty Broduer is tired from having to play so many games and travelling. But what about me??? You have any idea what it's like to be me?

On home game days I have to get up at 6 am (like I do every day) and feed the dog, wake the teenager, make her lunch and throw in some laundry. Once the non-communicative child is out the door, I fire up the computer and catch up on what happened while I got my six hours of sleep.

By 7 am, I have to be writing something, ANYTHING, because God Forbid I shouldn't have something posted on game day! OOOOOHHHH BloggerFail! By 8 am I had better have my fat butt in the shower or I will be even later than usual to work. By 8:15 am I've already thought of two other things I COULD have written which would be far better than what I DID write and head back to the laptop dripping wet to change the posts.

By 8:30 am I am dressed and now packing for the day. I live like a gypsy. I run out the door with an overnight bag with a full set of clothes for the night, two cameras, one laptop, a package of batteries, two notebooks and a recorder. Oh, and two meals. One for lunch and one early dinner in case I don't want to eat what's in the press box.

By 8:45 am I should be in the driveway wondering what I forgot and heading out on my 45 minute drive to work. Hello traffic. Yep, just one more annoyance.

At work I replay Canadian sports radio podcasts while I'm doing invoices and waiting for NHL Live to come on at noon. I have my phone set to receive Tweets from certain reporters just in case news breaks while I'm working.

There are no less than five windows open on my computer at all time. I'm just a multi-tasking maniac. But should something break, I waste no time dashing off a quick entry. I don't care if I'm first, I just care that I'm there. It's as if I feel a strange sense of responsibility to report. Foolish perhaps, but real.

Tick, tock. By 5:15 pm I'm anxiously waiting being able to go clock out and take my overnight bag into the ladies room where I get to play superwoman and quick change everything including straightening my hair. I always worry that hot iron will cause a breaker to blow and the mac lab will go down. How do I explain that?

By 5:45 pm I'm shutting off everything in my office, grabbing all my belongings and heading out to the Coliseum. By the time I arrive, the primo spots up front are taken and I'm parking by the fence and running in heels toting 35 lbs of hardware across the parking lot, across the lawn and down to the media entrance. A quick peek in the purse and the brief case, a new color tie to go with the others that I never take off until the end of the season and then I'm in.

A quick run through the concourse to the elevator upstairs, double check the seating chart (It never changes, but I check it any way), toss all my stuff on chair #39, grab my camera and head BACK down stairs to take photos by the glass.

Twenty minutes at pre-game skate, rush through the concourse again, back to the elevator and back to the press box. The wonderful gentleman at the lobby on floor two smiles at me and says "you spend more time in the hallway than I do." It's a shame, he's right. I'm always running somewhere. So I run back to my seat to fire up the laptop. I bang my leg on the arm of the chair. No, I do it EVERY SINGLE FREAKING time.

Game notes, coffee, green tea, popcorn and cinnanuts. If I ran around the coliseum for the entire time the game was on, it still wouldn't be enough to counteract the time I spend on my couch writing and the amount of sugar I eat in the press box. In two years I've gained back 20 lbs of the 25 I lost in 2005. I blame the cinnanuts. (Because they don't talk back.)

If I am lucky, the game doesn't go into over time and a shoot out. I Cart everything I brought down three flights of stairs and then down a rats maze to the lower level locker rooms. The reporters hit the locker room, I hit press room six so I can dump it all on the floor and then hit the locker room while I am struggling to locate that damn recorder of mine.

Ten minutes in the locker room, ten minutes back in the press room, 25 minutes standing around the hallway asking and answering questions and then back out to the cold for the half mile trek to the car and the 45 minute drive back home.

The house is dark and the family is in bed and I am writing by the light of the 11 o'clock news. Midnight rolls around and it's pumpkin time for princess. Done or not, I'm done.

That's my game day. See? It's not easy being me.

And now, it's time to go to bed so I can do that all over again tomorrow.