Being a fan means something. It gives you purpose. It fills a hole in your heart that you can’t explain. It offers an outlet for your passions to be released. Being a part of a fandom? Well, that can make you feel right at home. A fandom is like a family. There will be different levels of involvement. Some only show up for the main events, while others show up at everything. Some will irritate you and some will become closer than you could ever imagine. Some are sane, but there’s always those nutters like your old Aunt Alma who’ve cornered the market on crazy. Regardless, through thick and thin, if you’re a fan, you are not alone.

I, myself, have been a fan of many things through the years. Being a fan of anything can be as exhilarating and joyous as it can be frustrating, tiresome, and depressing (any Cubs fan will confirm this is true). Being a fan is also an investment. Whether it’s time or finances being sacrificed for the love of the game, television show, fictional character, political ideal, etc., one’s energy is being spent in the form of unadulterated devotion. This is meaningful. THIS is a big deal. However, after watching my Twitter timeline implode like Donald Trump during this week’s debate, I question what being a fan is really all about.

There are those that go with the flow, and then there are those that go bat-shit-crazy too far. i.e. The Steve Bartman Incident. The abuse he endured was unacceptable. Sure, I wanted to ring his neck like the rest of them, but that feeling eventually went away… after a few years (no really, I’m not bitter).

So here’s the issue – no matter how die-hard you adore whatever it is you adore, there are boundaries, but where is that line? Social media has allowed us to band together more easily. No more waiting for tailgates or water cooler moments with our nearest and dearest to share our excitement. Just last night I was following the Cubs versus Dodgers NCLS Game 5 on my Twitter feed and though I couldn’t be at the game, the interactions online made me feel like I was still a part of things. I could share similar sentiments with fans 3000 miles away, and when the Cubs clinched the win, I was jumping up in down along with every other Cubbies lover there is. It was glorious.

However, social media is a fickle thing and a double edged sword. Though it’s expanded our connections beyond our backyard, it’s also taken those (sometimes quite volatile and inappropriate) conversations, once limited to your best friends or close colleagues, and allowed those thoughts to be plastered across the web for anyone to see.

I’m all for being honest, but there is such a thing as being polite. There’s decorum. There’s a general respect we should have for one another that seemingly disintegrates online. My timeline was imploding over rumors about a storyline that may or may not happen on my current favorite show (Arrow). Did Ithe rumors excite me? No. Is that how I want my favorite story to be told? No. However, I am a fan, so I won’t just give up on it. At the end of the day, that show has endeared itself to me and has me wanting the best for it and those that make it happen. That said, I’ve witnessed “fans” taking to their keyboards demanding resignations from the writers, calling for boycotts of the show, threatening the producers, applauding lower ratings and essentially giving the fandom a bad name. Remember how I said fandom is like family? Well these “fans” are like the red-headed step children in revolt. One of my biggest pet peeves is a vocal minority presumptively speaking for the whole.

Those “fans” aren’t fans in my eyes. I wouldn’t consider them pink hats, either. Take it from someone who’s team hasn’t won a World Series in 108 years … patience is a virtue. Sometimes you just have to have faith. It can’t always be pennant wins and rainbows. Sometimes it’s sucking it up for the love of the game and holding out hope that the best is yet to come. Did I want to cry in a corner when Joey was with Dawson instead of Pacey? YES. Was I disappointed Mad Men never killed Betty? YES. Do I want to pull my hair out every time Michigan loses to Ohio State? YES. But such is fan life, right? It’s not taking the smack talk I shared with my bestie over beers and publicly ridiculing those that I claim to love with it. Some conversations should be kept behind closed doors. You’re in it for the long haul or you’re not. That’s what being a real fan should be. Just because there’s a platform which allows easy engagement, doesn’t mean you should always engage. Sure, knee-jerk reactions come with the territory, but hurling insults at your favorites and decreeing “being done” isn’t. Don’t kill the fandom vibe by being the drunk idiot uncle everyone hates. Walk away. It’s ok, though I can’t say you’ll be missed.

I almost burned down the house thanks to Fantasy Football. Seriously, though. It happened on Monday. I had heated some oil on the stove to cook some frozen French fries for Clifford’s dinner. It was fast and easy and if you haven’t been paying attention, I’m not exactly Julia Childs here, so whatever.

When the oil was hot enough, I threw in the fries. I put the lid on and walked into the living room to grab my phone. Little Sis called right when I went to pick it up. We got whatever pleasantries needed out of the way and then we got down to business -Fantasy Football.

Our draft is Sunday, you see. We have 14 in our league this year which means we’re going to need to go deep. And as far as players go, they’re already dropping like flies. We started going through possibilities and strategies, the pros and cons of various players, our always in-sync thoughts on Tom Brady, team names, etc. You get the drill. The next thing I know I see smoke billowing out of the kitchen in a dark dense wave. I pause, staring at the smoke. I’ve never seen that much in an enclosed area in my life.

Me: There’s smoke coming out of the kitchen. Just a sec.

Little Sis: Why?

Me: I have no idea …

I got up from the couch and walked into the kitchen to see it filled to the brim with smoke, and now I could smell it, too. The repugnant odor of burnt oil choked the breath right out of me. This was well beyond toasted marshmallow territory. This was bad.

Me: Hey, I think something’s on fire. I need to go.

Little Sis: Um, okaaay …

I hung up and realized that though I could barely see, holy shit, I had had something on the stove! Consumed by football once again, I’d completely forgotten that I was even making anything at all. I ran to the stove and turned it off, watching as the dark grease-filled smoke ballooned from the small blackened pot, filling the open area with its oppressive stench, devouring any oxygen it could find left in the room.

I turned on the vent and opened the window trying to get the smoke to dissipate as much as it could. The entire time this was happening, Clifford was downstairs renovating the garage. I was thinking two things—-

1. I am so thankful we live like college kids as our detectors have no batteries (because that noise would have been annoying as hell and would have certainly alerted Clifford to what was happening upstairs).

2. He was absolutely going to kill me, and then proceed to lecture me about being oblivious to my surroundings.

The funny thing is, is that with all the smoke seeping through every vent in the house wherein he had to have smelled something was amiss, he never once made his way to my level. So maybe I’d get away with this little snafu after all …

About an hour later, Clifford finally emerged from the garage and it was time to play Deflect and Deny.

Clifford: What burned? It smells like something was on fire.

Me: (taking a whiff of the foul air while trying not to gag) I don’t smell anything.

Clifford: (skeptically) You don’t smell that? (he paused and then looked at me with one brow raised) Did you set fire to something?

Me: No. (it was the truth- kinda)

Clifford: (not buying what I was selling) Seriously. What burned? There’s smoke everywhere in the house.

Me: (innocently looking around, smoke burning my eyes) I don’t see anything. (I saw it everywhere)

Clifford: (pursing his lips) You don’t see the smoke?

Me: (shrugging) Nope.

Clifford made his way to the kitchen.

Clifford: No really. What did you burn? You did something. (he starts coughing because of the heavy smoke stagnantly suspended above)

Me: (casually continuing to sit cross-legged on the couch while watching Turn Season 2 and enjoying a bowl of ice cream to soothe my sore smoky throat, I quickly glanced his way from my periphery) I didn’t do anything. Why do you always think I did something?

Clifford: (walking out of the kitchen and giving me the look) Libby …what did you do?

Me: (pausing Netflix, sighing heavily and rolling my eyes) I may have tried to make some French fries for you and I may have left them on a little too long …

Clifford: Because you forgot about them? (he glimpsed the laptop on the coffee table before me)Because you were on your precious computer twitting or posting shit instead of paying attention?

Me: (confidently) I was NOT on the computer. (because I wasn’t)

Clifford: So you were on your phone then. (much more of an accusatory statement than a question)

Now this is where it gets a bit murky, I know. For some reason when Clifford challenges my life choices, the instinct I have as my hackles rise is to unequivocally prove him wrong. There’s just something about him that turns me into a rebellious 16 year old (or a petulant pre-teen, take your pick) when his criticism kicks in. Now if we were being all technical about words and their meanings, I guess to some that means I lie. However, I choose to think of it as diverting Clifford’s attention to lesser offensive possibilities that could have happened just as easily. Also, he would have been super pissed to know I almost burned down the house because of Fantasy Football.  He already thinks I’m a little too involved…

Me: (maintaining eye contact) I was not on my phone.

Clifford: (huffing) So where were you? The bathroom?

Me: (hey, when supply demands …) Yes.

Clifford: (taking a deep and totally judgmental breath) So let me get this straight. You light a gas stove with oil on it and then go to the opposite side of the house to go to the bathroom?

Me: (still maintaining eye contact) No, I used the closer bathroom.

Clifford: (sighing and rolling his eyes) But it doesn’t matter. You left a pot of oil burning unattended. Do you know how dangerous that is?

Me: (rebellious teen in full force complete with eye roll, indignant groan, and broken eye contact as I reached for my phone to tweet) Yes. (not looking up) And it won’t happen again.

Clifford: (sharply) You better not be twitting this.

Me: (snorting) It’s “tweeting” not “twitting” and I totally am.

Clifford: (letting out a frustrated grizzly bear like growl) You drive me nuts! You almost burned down the house!

Me: (simply, still tweeting) But I didn’t.

Clifford: (forcibly trying to make a point that just wasn’t going to take) But you could have.

Me: (quickly looking his way) But I didn’t! And I won’t do it again.

The expression on his face was the standard expression I receive from Clifford when I promise to never again do something he deems completely stupid. Aggravation mixed with pure incredulity. It rolled off my back along with every other look like that he’s given me over the years; I just kept tweeting.

So, Fantasy Football almost burned down my house. It’s four days later and it still smells like 85 bags of burnt popcorn. It’s SO bad.

Anyway, I can’t wait for the draft! Though my Rendevous Reaganites came in second place last year, this year’s team, Stop! Hamiltime, is going for the gold. I can feel it.

I am back.

Big BYE week for both of us and we need substitutions.  This is a week for bold moves.

Move #1: We’ve both been talking about the Cardinals defense, hardly waiting till today to pick them up. I may have set my alarm for 3:14AM to secure them. That’s 14 whole minutes I gave Clifford as a head start. He chose to sleep. Nothing I can do about that.

This.

To be continued …

Which means I am super psyched about Fantasy Football. I’ve never played in a Fantasy league before, but I love football. That was the biggest disappointment in attending an art school – there wasn’t a team. And being stuck in the South with SEC lovers, watching games just isn’t the same. Sure, I can appreciate other regions because when you enjoy something, you enjoy it across the board, but again, it’s not quite the same as a Big Ten mashup in my book.

Though I typically take collegiate anything in sports over pro, I’m all in on this one. So I have a team. I am the owner of the Rendezvous Reaganites (formerly the Suburbia Reaganites). Though I prefer playing sports to watching them, there is something intriguing about owning a team, making the trades, deciding who plays – you know, being the Big Cheese. It’s strategy, and a little bit of luck (like Andrew Luck who is my top draft pick, Chelle, and the quarterback you will not have – just saying.) It’s why I prefer doubles to singles now; it’s like a chess match. Well, a chess match that relies entirely on outside forces affecting my team and plan beyond my control such as my players remaining unharmed, making wise decisions of their own accord and not doing anything stupid to ruin the offensive and defensive lines I’ve carefully constructed prior to game day. So not like chess at all really …

Our  league’s draft day is Labor Day. I’m pumped. An entire season of trash talking and winning over other adults in the name of football is truly appealing to me on a number of levels. Let’s hope I get my lineup right.

Do you play Fantasy Football? If you have any tips and tricks, I’ll take them because I fully intend on winning this one for the Gipper.

                                        My team’s logo.                                         (all credit to http://gifsgallery.com/ronald+reagan+gif)