Is my first amateur bout going to take place on 11/24/12 in Grafton, ND?  Coach Alex approached me tonight and firmed up the date and explained I could register the day of the fight.  Earlier at the gym, D’arcy and I worked out a plan for light sparring taking turns on offense and defense, moving around and practicing getting hit (aka defense).  Also hitting I suppose, but the getting hit part is far more memorable to me.

As a child, I read a lot of Andy Rooney essays (also dictionaries and the phone book, I was a voracious bibliovore of a boy).  He taught me the importance of forgetting to all human endeavors, and it is a lesson I keep to this day.  If we remembered how hard relationships are, we would never recover from the break-ups.  Without the convenience of amnesia, we would attend far fewer family gatherings, or at least be more realistic about traffic and behavioral expectations.  If YOU are trying to get out of town on the weekend of the 4th, so is everybody else and if YOU are a bit grumpy from time to time during the holidays, so is everybody else.  Mr. Rooney’s example was his weekend “getaway” that involved huge amounts of stress and maintenance, a real distraction to the peace of his everyday routine.

Over the next two months, I plan to hone my amnesia to a razor’s edge, forgetting the fundamental laws of gravity and aging in pursuit of my dream:  to compete (and win) as an amateur boxer.  I will  forget the pain of training, the inconvenience of the inevitable injuries, and most of all I will attempt to forget about the other guy, and the fact that he is busy preparing for me.