A Mystery of Physics

hello the internets,

There are a couple of things from the last couple of weeks that we need to catch up on, but I'm tired so let's keep it simple and start with something small and more recent:

I was recently talked into coming out of soccer retirement to play in an indoor league on Sunday nights. (Ok, they didn't really have to try to hard to talk me into it, but they should have had to, because I REALLY didn't want to do it. The last time I played I was so bad it was just depressing, and I didn't figure months of sitting on my butt and eating cookies had done much to help that. Plus, Sunday nights?? Really? The best time ever to be lazy?) But I decided to make myself do it, simply because I was so against it, I thought maybe I could use it.

Anyway, it's been a lot of fun, and I'm really glad I signed up and blah blah blah, oh! And I'm not even as bad as the last couple of times I played! And the even larger miracle? I showed up the first night and heard, "Get on the field, we're starting, and you have to play the whole game" and I neither puked nor dry-heaved during the course of the game! This made me happy.

So, last night I go out and what do I find? No subs is what I find. And people, I like myself some subs. This is coed soccer, and my friends that asked me to lay are some Englishmen I played with years ago and got to know quite well. It seems that two of them were having a soccer video game party, while the other simply said, "Last night was one for the record books, mate. It was legendary. I'm in no condition for athletics." and didn't show. (This is not so unusual - I used to keep up with them on occasion, but then I got old.)
And then our one girl sub didn't show. But even if I hadn't had a sub, even if we just had some guys to sub at least, I feel that I wouldn't have been quite so tired. Because when your whole team is tired, your tiredness shows more. If you can have some fresh man legs run in there, you can hope to be lazy for a bit and let them do some running for you.

So, this is my mystery of physics:
F=ma, right? Force = mass times acceleration? So how is the following possible:
Picture me, running down the field, like a soccer-skilled gazelle, when some dude hammers a ball in my direction, hitting me on my forearm, which I believe was up by my face, because apparently I run like I'm trying to become a windmill. For a moment, I am aware that both my feet are off the ground (maybe I was in mid-stride? Not sure.) All I do know what there was absolutely no doubt that my feet would be under me on the ground again in the next tiny fraction of a second. So imagine my surprise when instead of that, I feel myself falling through the air, and landing flat on my back, tail-bone first. That jank hurt.
I was still on the ground a few moments later when my team scored a goal (one of 5 we would get before losing 13-5), and still sitting there near the other teams goal when they all lined back up again for the kick-off. I wasn't sure I could get up. My butt, my butt hurt SO MUCH!!!

So the question is, how hard would a small ball have to be kicked to hit me with enough force to propel my entire mass into a horizontal position?? I think the answer is that I way about 100 pounds less than what I thought I weighed. This is the silver lining in my sore butt.

I had to sit on some ice last night. While my mom guilted me about not putting my ornaments on the family Christmas tree. So I tried. But she had very cruelly placed that box on the floor, and every time I tried to pick one up it was a whole process that looked like this:
Damnit! I can't find the video I want! If anyone saw SNL a week ago, I'm thinking of the skit where Kristen Wiig is the new sexy girl at work, until she's not. For instance, she bends down to pick things up with many sounds of pain, and she doesn't so much bend over as she does awkwardly squat, while holding onto her back and legs. That was me. And then I almost started crying. So I went back to sitting on my ice.

And that's my simple story - it's good catching up with you!
Hopefully more to come (insert inward grumbling against work here - work that I did not do tonight like I said I would... tomorrow should be great.)