tackabery chronicle

I've moved

2006-05-06T11:06:00.000-05:00

I have set up a new site at my own domain name which is hosted by Yahoo Small Business. My blog is now available at:

michelletackabery.net

I hope you will head over there and subscribe to my blog feed. I needed more space and more options than Blogger could provide for my site going forward. I hope to have a pic or two from the NCSU press conference announcing the new coach on that site later on tonight. My husband is going over to the post-presser fan hangout to snap some with our new camera. I'll be home hanging out with the kitties, still recuperating from my hysteroscopic myomectomy which took place yesterday afternoon. I'll be home taking it easy for a few days. Ciao.

Archie's big brother approached?

2006-04-30T15:58:00.000-05:00

Tom Suiter has reported that NCSU has approached Sean Miller, one of Archie Miller's numerous siblings, Xavier's current head man and an incredibly smart and passionate coach. I am all for this one, and hope it's true, even if there is a Herb-hating backlash. I'm convinced a few games of Sean popping the trademark Miller bubblegum and hollerin' on the sidelines would cure them of that.

p.s. I have just registered my own domain name, michelletackabery.net, and am in the process of moving my blog over there. I am hosting it on Yahoo Small Business and using WordPress. It's going to take me a while to get everything moved over. Wordpress will enable me to add categories and search to my blog, and hosting my own site will enable me to add image-rich templates and other cool things in the future. I will get a lot more room over there as well. For the time being I'll be double-posting until I get everything moved over, then I'll keep this up for a while until I'm sure my posts are getting indexed under the new url, which might take six to nine months or even longer. I've been getting more serious about my blog in the last couple of months, and mulling over this step for a while.

Technorati tags: nc state wolfpack, sean miller, wordpress

I take back what I said about the NBA

2006-04-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Lebron James is just simply . . . amazing.

Technorati tags: nba basketball, lebron james

Some Steve guy

2006-04-22T21:36:00.000-05:00

I can't quite get my head around Steve Lavin. He looks like a hockey coach, seems to aspire to dress like Pat Riley, and is the king of bad cliches on that king of bad cliche network, the network that is now making up the sports news, ESPN. Sports guys down here are creaming themselves over his girlfriend, who looks, well, plastic. I'm convinced she's actually a Barbie doll. If this is going to be our guy, apparently most of the yahoos on the boards are going to up their season tickets to get a closer look. Which might be statutory rape. What is she, sixteen? The power of the airbrush never fails to astound me.

Yet . . . if he brings that record here and does it again, and again, and again, and manages to tick off Roy and K enough to make us a contender again, I will worship his hair-gelled scalp. But nah . . . it's so not going to happen. We're going to end up with the Herb look-alike. Let's be honest. We're going to get the guy who has an equipment manager named Bubba, so we will keep Werner and Horner. We're Wolfpack fans. It's our fate to be mostly disappointed. What would life actually be like inside the RBC Center if we weren't all yelling "Rebound!" during every offensive possession while the ball falls onto the lonely court, not one guy in white anywhere near the basket because they are all hanging out on the perimeter?

I can't remember . . . it's been such a . . . long, long time. I liked the Princeton/NC State/one heartbeat/communist party offense, when we were actually running it. I love those heart-stopping threes - nothing better than that moment when your stomach comes straight up to your throat and you are praying to Allah for that ball to fall in the hole! - but when it went cold this year, those iron bricks felt like nails. Bam, bam, bam.

Maybe I'm just in my usual basketball withdrawal mode that always happens at this time of year, right when the NBA playoffs start and the only basketball is being played by a bunch of overpaid pansies trying to muster some manufactured passion with a lot of loud beats and fireworks because they don't play, um, defense. It's only interesting when the Spurs play somebody and Manu is doing his flying Jedi maneuvers and Duncan is being Duncan, or Lebron is on the court; until I can see Jules or AG on tv, I couldn't give a darn what happens in that league. Sigh. Where's our Coach, Lee? Give us a break.

Technorati tags: nc state wolfpack, steve lavin, john beilein, nba basketball

The ad from hell got on the Today show

2006-04-20T18:46:00.000-05:00

The VW ad made the Today show this morning. You can catch the clip on Jalopnik's ad blog. It's fascinating to dope the ad wonk's comments on whether or not the ad is effective or not, but at least Today had somebody saying the ads missed the point. The point about the trauma. I am trying to figure out who gets my complaint letters. I am not going to stop screaming about this, at least here. My medication costs a lot of bloody money. Maybe as much as that damned ad campaign. At least as much as that stupid car that I am never going to buy.

Technorati tags: Ad, ptsd, vw

Debilitation

2006-04-19T19:44:00.000-05:00

Since being shocked by the VW ad last night, I have been in something of a state that has grown progressively more debilitating all day. This morning my husband tried to make love to me, but my orgasm was no release. Like a viper uncurling from its nest, the firing of those muscles unleashed a strike of terror that began a chain reaction in me: anxiety, racing heartbeat, constricted breathing, uncontrollable crying, shaking, rocking.

Hell of a way to start the day. Thank you, VW.

I managed to get some marginal control over myself after a while, but then I had an appointment with Dr. Steege to discuss my upcoming surgery and I was anxious about a possible pelvic exam. I didn't get one, but all day after, my nervous system has been firing and firing and firing. My head is pounding from nervous exhaustion and adrenaline that isn't being used for anything. My eyes hurt. My neck is sore. My stomach is full of acid. And I can't get that fucking commercial out of my head.

Living at this level of anxiety, with all my nerves on high alert, is impossible to sustain for very long. I need to call my shrink, but I'm afraid I'll end up back on nefazodone (Serzone) or some other SSRI. Nefazodone damps down the neurons. It's as effective as a nuclear bomb at stopping that response cold. The last time I was on it, though, I gained 40 pounds, a fatty liver and high blood pressure. That being said, the alternative -- the inability to shut down my nervous system to a manageable level -- might be worse. When I get tuned up like this, I can jump at every shadow. On the way home from work tonight, a Corolla pulled out in front of us as we were changing lanes. I think my heart stopped as I grabbed the God-almighty bar and tensed up like all hell was about to break loose. Now my back is aching.

All of these physical reactions are torturous. They make me want to rock myself into a coma after I drink half a bottle of Stoli. Or shoot myself in the head.

Technorati tags: Ad, ptsd, vw

If I ever was a VW fan, that bird has flown now

2006-04-18T21:19:00.000-05:00

Thanks to their recent “Safe Happens” ad campaign. As someone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder that has been effectively re-triggered by car accidents, those two ads are so graphically realistic and horrible that they caused me physical pain to watch. I disassociated for a moment, and then everything came slamming back, just like when the eye of the storm in the middle of a hurricane passes over, and the wind rushes into the vacuum of silence that is the storm center. All is chaos in my body and my heart. I feel like I can barely breathe from the fear and I can see that crash from the “Movie” spot whenever I close my eyes. I can hear the fiberglass meeting fiberglass and the glass breaking, and the terrible stopping of breath. It scared me so much, I didn’t ever realize until I started researching the spot on the net that the people riding in the cars were alive at the end.

I work for a personal injury lawyer, and a few moments later, I started thinking about what I could do about it. I understand what VW is trying to do with this shock approach, but it’s a fine line. It’s such a fine, thin, razor-sharp line, I need medication to blur it down. Otherwise, it cuts.

I cannot believe the blatant disregard for public safety VW and their ad agency (whom I believe is Crispin, Porter + Bogusky, the same people responsible for the brilliantly artistic, but most likely ineffective, anti-smoking Truth campaign) is showing by not warning people about the consequences of car accidents and that what they are portraying is a basic promise that one cannot get hurt in a car crash that takes place inside one of their vehicles. I can probably find a few thousand car accident reports that prove otherwise, just in the Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville metropolitan area.

Fair warning, i.e., the disclaimer that VW won’t give you. The links below direct you to a media site in which the linked ads begin playing as soon as they finish loading in your browser. They contain graphically violent depictions of car accidents and the possibility of serious personal injury.

VW-Movie (2 couples discussing a movie)

VW-Like (2 guys backing out of a driveway)

Technorati tags: Ad, ptsd, vw

Delirium, then the darkness

2006-04-13T22:42:00.000-05:00

Today I had a physical therapy session, and during a breathing exercise I had a lot of trouble relaxing into my breath. Breathing - you know, that involuntary thing we do many times a minute - is not something that is easy for me to relax into. I have been trying meditation to get a handle on it, but I have knots on the knots in the muscles in my diaphragm. I know that this stems from my childhood night terrors: the terror of my father coming in to my room, and the terror of my parents fighting. In my child's mind, to avoid the former situation, I imagined that if I could pretend to be asleep, regulating my breathing and not making a single sound, my father wouldn't hear me and forget I was there. My room was the first door on the right just inside our apartment in the projects, and what I wanted more than anything was for him to keep on walking. I would screw my eyes shut, and try not to breathe. But he would creak into my bed anyway, his enormously large frame weighing down my mattress so that it scraped the floorboards.

To avoid the latter situation, I imagined that I had to stay awake, to bear witness. To perhaps prevent my father from hurting my mother, because the fighting between them scared me. My father's voice was deep and he was a large man with large, bearish hands (he called them his paws) and, at 6 feet 4 inches, an imposing physical presence and strength leftover from Marine Corps training. I don't know what I thought I would do, but I think I learned that if they knew I was listening, they would stop.

Enter insomnia, and paralysis of the diaphragm. This morning when I was having trouble, I managed to share something of the reason why I was having problems with my therapist, but as I was telling her about it, all I could think about was being locked in the closet. In the dark and the heat, with my terror, soaked in my own fear and urine. Later tonight, Richard and I went to see Delirium, Cirque du Soleil's latest musical show, which was weird and wonderful and moving, and the show relaxed me to the point where I was thinking of nothing but music, and motion, and the magic of people working together - the strength routines Cirque does are my favorite parts of their shows - when during one of the last numbers, I was suddenly back in that closet, four or five or six years old again, and the music and the community of artists on stage was far away, and I was separate from humanity again. I could feel an overwhelming urge to rock, and hyperventilate. The flashback was coming. I tried not to hold it back, but it came. I managed to tell my husband we had to go. The last number, an encore of the title song from Alegria - one of my favorites - began, but I was in the bathroom. Trying to catch my breath.

Technorati tag: ptsd flashbacks, cirque du soleil

Calipari Come Here!

2006-04-09T17:44:00.000-05:00

The net is aflutter here in Raleigh with the news that Fowler, Oblinger and the boys (plus the Mrs.) just popped off a private plane at RDU after chatting with John Calipari in Memphis. Anybody with his own .com is fine with me. My husband tells me that Coach Calipari set up a fund to help his former players graduate from school with his own money and has a sky-high graduation rate. Plus he's a snappy dresser and has a degree in marketing, which just touches my heart. Wouldn't he look good in a red Wolfpack power tie? I can dig it. Crossing my fingers . . .

Technorati tag: John Calipari, nc state wolfpack

Posttraumatic growth

2006-04-08T20:33:00.000-05:00

Found some interesting stuff on the web today about ptsd, namely the changes in psychiatry in the treatment of it. The work of philosophers like Victor Frankl and psychotherapists like Irvin Yalom, plus the overwhelming evidence that not all abused children become psychopaths or otherwise victimized past the point of being able to function in society, has led to what can be termed the "positive" focus of ptsd treatment. In this approach, instead of merely focusing on the negative aspects of ptsd, the therapist attempts to facilitate posttraumatic growth.

The article I read by Drs. Richard G. Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun in Psychiatric Times XXI:4 (April 2004) had one section in particular that really struck home for me today:

A central theme of the life challenges that are the focus here is their seismic nature (Calhoun and Tedeschi, 1998). Much like earthquakes can impact the physical environment, traumatic circumstances, characterized by their unusual, uncontrollable, potentially irreversible and threatening qualities, can produce an upheaval in trauma survivors' major assumptions about the world, their place in it and how they make sense of their daily lives. In reconsidering these assumptions, there are the seeds for new perspectives on all these matters and a sense that valuable--although painful--lessons have been learned.
As the individual comes to recognize some goals as no longer attainable and that some components of the assumptive world can not assimilate the reality of the aftermath of the trauma, it is possible for the individual to begin to formulate new goals and to revise major components of the assumptive world in ways that acknowledge their changed life circumstances.

I can only remain hopeful that the seismic shifts I'm undergoing now will lead me to substantial growth in the immediate future. The word "seismic" does scare me a teeny bit, however.

Technorati tag: ptsd

Shrink Day

2006-04-07T19:13:00.000-05:00

I see my psychiatrist every three weeks, and today we talked about my emotional meltdowns and the continual anxiety attacks, abdominal and pelvic pain, headaches, insomnia, suicidal thoughts, crying spells and other symptoms I've been experiencing since I started my vaginal physical therapy. He suggested gently that I may want to discuss with my gynecologist the possibility of stopping my PT altogether. The main topic of discussion was the utility of knowing the whole truth about what really happened to me.

There's an aspect to culture that admires the hero who perserveres despite physical pain and anguish. The athlete who plays through pain. The soldier who takes a hail of bullets and keeps running. The platoon leader who stands up in live combat and rushes in to save the entire outfit without any sign of fear. But perhaps fear is the right response. Imagine you are walking in a forest in the semi-dark, and you are approaching low thorny branches in your path. Instinctively, you duck your head. As you proceed through the thicket, your head crouches lower and your stance changes to avoid any more branches. This is your animal instinct, protecting you. This is the ingrained, brilliantly-designed mechanism of your body, saving you without your having to stop and think about it. You don't need to activate any software - you're hard-wired to protect yourself. Small animals play dead, but your heart speeds up and your adrenaline kicks in and you start running when you are attacked. Your body, of which your brain is a part, is protecting you. Fear in this instance is a rational response. It might be the irrational thing - perhaps also the human thing, but not necessarily the right thing - to stay and fight.

In some circumstances, facing fear in some attempt to conquer and remove it might not be the right thing to do.

Consider another example. Sickening and evil memories can be described as tumors or cancers, as festering abcesses that must be ferreted out, opened; their pus expelled, rinsed with sterile saline, packed with dressing, treated with antibiotics and sewn up to heal. If you are operated on, say, and your gall bladder is removed, your body adjusts to that removal. You're not the same anymore. Your body is not what it was. It's going to adjust. It's going to build scar tissue, and when you touch it there, it's going to feel different. It's going to be a little bit tender, so that you always protect that vulnerable area that is now missing what it once contained. This is a natural process.

When I was in session I recalled for my doctor a recent cold medicine commercial. The actor in the commercial gets out of bed, takes the cold medicine, and goes to work. He goes on with his day as if nothing happened. Yet his body is sick. Maybe he should be resting. Maybe he shouldn't be infecting anyone else. Maybe he should be letting his body heal, and then maybe he should leave the wound alone for a while.

My physical therapy, while the sessions themselves are not at all stressful, is causing me free-floating anxiety that then attaches to pieces of my life that I cannot afford to stain with anxiety, like my job and my marriage and my health. Where my sexual trauma is concerned, there are memories buried that might be dug up and rinsed away, much like cleaning an abcess. But what would be the utility? What good would it really do? To know the truth, such as it is? My father, who perpetrated the crimes, is dead, and my mother and most of my family is estranged from me. There is no court or body that can give me a fresh brain and new memories and take away what I have, which is post-traumatic stress disorder. Perhaps it should just all be left alone. Sanity is a bit more precious than knowledge to me right now.

Technorati tag: ptsd

"Signs, Symptoms and Injuries . . .

2006-04-06T19:13:00.000-05:00

. . . consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted." That's the evidence from the search warrant application (posted on the Smoking Gun site) that was unsealed yesterday in what is known in these parts as the Duke lacrosse rape case. There are so many issues surrounding this case - white privilege, student athlete privilege, hazing, rape, male on female violence, hate crimes, rich vs. poor, Duke vs. NC Central; oh, and then there's lacrosse, a game given to us by the natives we burned out of this country and now the property of rich white landowners. If it weren't about the saddest thing in the world, the irony might make you laugh.

I couldn't sleep so well last night - my nightly cocktail of sleep-without-dreams-drugs didn't kick in per usual, so I watched the movie Boys Don't Cry, which I had never seen. The rape scene at the end is particularly horrific. The movie is extraordinarily well done and superbly acted - I realized Hilary deserved that little naked gold man - so much so that I was thinking of the main character as a him, even as I'm staring at her obvious lack of manhood when it gets brutally revealed. In these situations, outsiders tend to lay more blame on the so-called victims of the deception, for wanting to be loved so much that they willingly walk into being deceived, but they forget how much work went into the hiding of the truth, the lying, the deceiving in the first place. I know, because I've hid so much in my life, even from myself, that I can walk around amnesiac, with no real memory of the truth of some situations in my past because I have so effectively blocked them from my memory.

The brain in these situations can seem like blessed relief. It gives us the gift of passing out when the stress is too much, of blanking out, of being unable to function when the stress becomes unbearable and unmanageable. Yet even the brain can deceive us, because the truth is never hidden. It sticks around. It gets remembered in the body. The body bears the "signs, symptoms and injuries" consistent with the traumatic event. At the end of Boys Don't Cry, when Brandon is shot dead, I found myself relieved, because I knew her body was not going to forget that trauma, even if her mind succeeded in convincing her that it had never happened, even if her mind succeeded in convincing her that she could have a happily ever after, even if her mind succeeded so well that she forgot it ever happened. Because one day, there might be another penetration in the minefield, and the mines would go off.

Setting free the signs, symptoms and injuries. Proof of ptsd. There might be false memories, but there are no false mines.
Technorati tags: ptsd, hilary swank, movie:boys don't cry, duke lacrosse

Minefield

2006-04-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

Sexual trauma leaves live mines buried in the surface of the psyche. Last night and today, some of my live mines went off and innocent people in the blast radius got peppered with shrapnel.

Being forced to perform sexually, awakening responses your mind can’t deal with; those memories don’t just get entrenched into neurons and dendrites. They get written into muscle groups and nerve endings, and they can be prodded awake. I’m undergoing intra-vaginal physical therapy. What this means for the uninitiated (hey, I was uninitiated until a few weeks ago), is that the muscles in my vaginal area are stretched and pressed and manipulated to relieve muscle tension and stress in the same way that other muscle groups might be stretched and pressed and manipulated. But those particular muscles are my minefield, and the mines they hold reveal trauma that arises, free-floating, into anxiety that has no place to rest.

Enter the unsuspecting spreadsheet or administrative assistant or husband or boss, and boom! Emotional meltdown. Lucky for me, I have an understanding boss and a mental health day available.

Now if I could only find some mental health . . .
Technorati tags: ptsd

Friday he was here, now he's gone

2006-04-03T17:33:00.000-05:00

I'm too connected to my basketball team, because I've been thinking about them all day. I feel like a sister just got divorced, or something. I'm not personally affected, but there's something missing, like a tooth that's just been pulled. You keep tonguing the hole, feeling strange. I felt like this after my gall bladder surgery, especially the day I got a CT scan and watched on the monitor as my gastrointestinal tract was slowly revealed to be missing a little piece. There was just a black empty space, and things are never the same again. I had five or six people at work ask me how I was doing today, now that we are without a basketball coach. Yesterday I was just feeling ashamed of us. Now we just have the aftermath.

I was reminded of just what we lost - thanks, Arizona State, for that. Coach Sendek accomplished a lot. I would hope none of this sours what any of his players achieved this year, but I know what my heart says. For them, it's now bittersweet forever. Something missing, something a bit off, something a wee bit sour. Something not quite like regret. More like a scar.

Technorati tags: nc state wolfpack, herb sendek, arizona state

Weird day to be a Wolfpacker

2006-04-02T08:04:00.000-05:00

According to Ned, we all got what we wanted. I feel uneasy though. One of my two favorite players (Evtimov) is leaving to take his chances professionally this year, leaving Atsur on his own. Sendek is going. If he takes Phelps and the rest of the guys with him, that's everyone Engin came here for. Those are crucial relationships and this is his last year. I had a hard senior year where I felt I was essentially alone because I was separated from my friends. It still hurts. I know he's a resilient person, but we ask enough of them as it is.

Change is going to be hard, a lot harder than I think any of us know. All those Herb haters who are rejoicing because they feel like they put enough pressure on Sendek to want to go, are going to have to deal with a basketball team who had that pressure put on them as well. It wasn't just Herb who got our particularly nasty brand of the fan shaft. It was them. One of the lessons they just learned is, winning isn't everything. Neither is conducting yourself with heart, determination and grace. Sometimes it doesn't amount to jack.

I hope they learned the other lesson, the one Sendek just got this year. Some people do notice when you do it right.

Technorati tags: nc state wolfpack, herb sendek, ilian evtimov, engin atsur, arizona state

Playing Dead

2006-03-23T19:58:00.000-05:00

Small, helpless animals play dead if they are sense attack by a larger predator and see no way to escape. One of the many tricks nature gifts the animal brain in self-defense, children learn this neat trick too, if they find themselves under attack before they can process what is happening to them. I figured out the other day that I learned to play dead so well, I nearly become paralyzed with an inability to break free of my play-acting.

I am currently undergoing physical therapy for pelvic pain, among all the many things physically wrong with me right now. The pelvic pain appears to be caused by a chain reaction of events: scar tissue from my last two surgeries, stress making my deep vaginal muscles tense, and oh yeah, there's that PTSD thing from being a victim of early sexual trauma. I never realized that there was such a thing as intra-vaginal physical therapy, but there is. I have a very gifted therapist, but my first session with her, as wonderful, caring and patient as she was, freaked me out for days. After my first session I was in a great deal of abdominal pain (GI symptoms kicking in), my head was killing me, and I found myself getting teary-eyed for no particularly good reason. During the session, when she was poking around inside me, I felt fine.

Two days later I had to have a sonohystogram. Dr. Steege at UNC-OB/Gyn wanted to see if my fibroid or fibroids were partly inside my uterine cavity. If so, he would consider recommending a kind of procedure in which he can cauterize the fibroid, a much more welcome option to me than a partial hysterectomy, which is what my regular gynecologist was offering. I felt fine during the exam. Not stressed. I am a big girl. I can take anything. Nothing can hurt me.

The fact is, though, that I was not fine. I was in some hard and even severe pain during both examinations, but I did not tell the examiners that. I was unable. Physically unable, because I was playing dead. Lying there. Taking it. Because that was the only option when I was three, or four, or five, which is about how old I think I was when my trauma started. I couldn't say it hurt. I couldn't even move. I could only nod, even smile!, and be compliant.

I've heard some women say that if they were ever raped, they'd fight like hell. They would kick and claw and scream. I realized, after a few days of percolating thought on what was going on with me during those exams, and after talking to my shrink about it, that I would not fight. I would lie there and play dead. I'm going to be scheduling a hysteroscopic myomectomy in the near future, and I will thankfully be under anesthesia. So I won't have to worry about having to play dead in case I get hurt.

ptsd

More Sendek Saga

2006-03-21T20:47:00.000-05:00

First of all, Chip Alexander's article in the N&O today was unconscionable, full of rumors and half-truths. I think it is completely unfair to talk about Cedric Simmons' father's employment. I think it is ridiculous to make speculations about why Coach Sendek walked across the court with an upset look on his face after the loss Sunday (duh, we lost, and badly. We were all pissed. I wasn't even watching. I was so upset, I was cleaning my house with a vengeance I usually only reserve for breaking down boxes previously full of marketing tchotchkes. But I digress). Our season is not defined by failure, Brackman's pitching arm, Herb choking on his tie, or any of the other straws currently being grasped at to be tossed on the fire of our discontent.

Secondly, thank goodness for David Glenn, who reminded us today that certain beloved coaches of the past failed to attain NCAA titles in their first 10 seasons, among them: Dean Smith, Everett Case, Norm Sloan, Dave Odom, Terry Holland, and Mike Krzyzewski.

And thirdly, to my point (and I do have one, thank you Dennis Miller): what we have here is a failure to communicate. I am blaming this one squarely on Lee Fowler and his Media Relations staff, because they don't get new media. They may be earning some nifty awards for their media guides (totally useless BTW; they could make so much more revenue if they were smarter about it, but again, I digress), but they have missed the boat. Hell, they've missed the whole damned armada. The Wolfpack Nation is full of people so committed to their teams, so in love with their university, so bloody passionate, that they are posting, blogging, and clogging up phone lines bitching their heads off and coming to blows with each other. Fowler blew it last football season with the Amato fiasco, and he's ignored them now to the point that they've turned the Sendek Saga into a Scylla monster. No doubt we are about to be dosed in the warm bath of another Lee Fowler press release . . . which is so last century. They need to get with the program.

I believe, as I posted yesterday, that there is still a vast, silent pro-Herb minority. They may not be so silent, how would I know? I think they want Herb and the basketball team to succeed. I think they want the football team to succeed under Amato. Yet I continue to be disheartened by Fowler's inability to engage in dialogue with the fans. He leaves them to dialogue with each other, and fights break out between the Coach and the fans. Fire Herb websites go up.

Frustrated people will only get more frustrated. Louder. Drunker. Stupider. They've already lost all perspective; it's already gotten ugly, it's already too late. But, maybe not to0 late to get rid of Fowler, or for Fowler to get rid of his Assistant AD. There are professionals who know how to massage the media. There are marketers who know how to produce and syndicate content. There are professionals who know that facing your audience, looking them in the eye, and engaging them in honest dialogue is the way new media works. It's the way organizations succeed now. It's the way the NCSU Athletic Department is failing now. In PR terms, they've lost control of the conversation, but it's really not about control in the new media world today. It's about changing people's perspective. It's about making people see your point of view. That's the job of a good marketing/PR/advertising team. And we just ain't got one.

nc state wolfpack

A marketer's perspective on the Sendek Saga

2006-03-20T19:11:00.000-05:00

First, let me say I'm not happy about losing, especially the way we lost. Man, that hurt. But I know the hurt I have is nothing compared to the hurt of fourteen guys who are going to be living with this game for the rest of their lives. Especially Ilian, my hero. I hate like hell that was his last game for us. I really, really do. But, onward and upward. The posters are on a rampage and the media is following merrily along: will he or won't he? What will the university do? Should Herb Sendek be fired? Is this the stupidest discussion you have ever heard, or what? Other universities would be licking our ice-cold court (there is a hockey rink underneath there, you know) to have the season we had, but not the Wolfpack Nation. It seems most of us want to fire our head coach. Or do we?

An article posted in the Economist and written about by Jakob Nielsen in his UseIt newsletter, which I received today, gave me some food for thought. The words from Nielsen refer to posters on internet message boards who complain about company websites, and the time and energy companies spend trying to track down and fix the problems these posters pose with their ire. To wit, the Economist discovered, according to Nielsen, that:

90% of company website users are lurkers, not posters, so the companies concerned about "public opinion" vis-a-vis the internet are only hearing from a vocal minority.
Given a +/- 5% standard of error, that means that vocal minority is made up of about 5% of users.
Of that posting 5%, posts occur on a Zipf frequency distribution. Data that follows a Zipf frequency distribution will have a very few data points that score very, very high (i.e., posters who post with great frequency) and a great many data points that score very, very low (i.e., posters who post with very low frequency). Which means that the actual complainers may represent about 5% of 5%, or 0.025% of users. Nielsen calls this tiny sliver of users a "super-vocal micro-minority."

From a customer service investment perspective, trying to satisfy this micro-minority is a huge waste of marketing dollars, when you actually have 90% success, albeit silent. So what does this have to do with the Wolfpack Nation?

I believe strongly that the discontent being expressed on message boards and talk radio, and that has now splashed its way onto front pages and other coaches' (Barnes, K) press conferences thanks to the helping hand of the Raleigh News & Observer, represents the micro-minority, and that there is a vast silent majority that supports Sendek. Fowler, Oblinger and the entire university would be completely stupid (or, as Ilian so aptly put it, idiotic) to make a coaching change based on the micro-minority.

My $0.02, do with it what you will.

nc state wolfpack
Herb Sendek

We won and I'm damned happy!

2006-03-18T11:14:00.000-05:00

To quote Forrest Gump, that's all I have to say about that.

What's getting missed: 14 guys

2006-03-14T21:42:00.000-05:00

The Sendek talk has officially jumped the shark, in my opinion, with Caulton Tudor's article today. The Wolfpack Nation has lost all perspective. We have no idea what we are looking at any more when we can ignore the 14 guys who have to get on a plane, probably tomorrow, and prepare to play a game in Dallas that's not just the first game of the dance; it's now the first game in what might be the last gasp of their head coach's job. That's far too much for any of us to ask.

It's too much to ask 14 18-23-year-olds save a program, a university and an entire fan base from itself. They lost their last four games; it's over. I'm so sick of hearing about it. They have to be sick of hearing about it. They are beat to bloody pulp, and they probably have no chance of winning. Who expects it of them? They got into the tournament on the strength of all the games before their skid, but they got in at their current seed because of that skid, and it was much more than a fall from grace. It was closer to a free-fall parachute jump from 40,000 feet into enemy territory, and the enemy is us.

I'm depressed for them, and sad, but I'm sadder about us than about them. I'm sad that we have wrought this upon these young men. I really wish my January-early February team was here. I really wish the team I saw play at Clemson was here. I hope that team gets on the plane to Dallas. But most of all I hope they don't take the baggage of a hundred thousand Wolfpack fans who just can't stand to be good and even a little bit great, and want to be perfect. I hope they can see themselves as their opponents see them: a dangerous basketball team. I hope they can see themselves as their coaches see them: a capable basketball team. I hope they can see themselves as I see them: my basketball team. I'm going to miss them when they go, but I wouldn't blame them if they didn't want to come back. I wouldn't want to play anymore for this bunch of losers, either.

nc state wolfpack

Bad Wolfpack mojo

2006-03-12T07:30:00.000-05:00

Even though I was reminded how good-looking Vinny del Negro is this morning (sorry honey), the news was disturbing. Scary rumblings made me realize that my shiny-happy post from yesterday might really be blowing smoke up my own you-know-where. The aforementioned (well, previously linked I guess) N&O story quoted an unnamed NBA scout who said it seemed at least two guys were playing "outside the structure of offense." Perhaps its the same guys who weren't catching Atsur's passes on Friday or ignoring him when he went around for the back-door cut and was wide-open for the three about twenty friggin' times. Bennerman's quote in the Foul Shots column ("some guys on this team haven't even figured it (the NC State offense) out yet'') was pretty telling. But for me the ugliest part was two words in Ed Hardin's column in the Greensboro News & FishWrap (as my friend Marvin so poignantly calls it): "players' families." As in, and I quote:

All of Friday stories circulated about secret meetings and outside suitors inquiring about Sendek. Influential boosters and the players' families didn't bother trying to hide their disdain behind his back as State was then throttled by the lowest seed in the tournament. The game was an ugly display of fans wanting something too much.

When it ended, not a sound was heard from the Wolfpack legions. They simply walked away.

I don't feel too good. I'm taking some Tagamet and going to a baseball game.

nc state wolfpack
Cameron Bennerman

Okay, I'm back, faithful again.

2006-03-11T20:17:00.000-05:00

Pack Pride posted some great pictures of our, um, game (for lack of a better word) yesterday. I'm feeling a little better since BC kicked the shit out of Carolina. In times of adversity, getting a little bit of your own off of your enemy is allowed. I'm sure that team is full of very nice guys. I'm just very happy those nice guys went home tonight. I couldn't bear a Duke-Carolina final. I just couldn't. I would have had to leave the house while my husband watched it and gone to a state park or something, far, far away from wired civilization. I am so sick of listening to accolades about ballers dressed in blue I want to vomit. But I am digressing. Sorry.

Looking at these pictures, first I was struck by the flagrant friggin' fouls. Hands in the face, arms on arms, all kinds of shit. Dirty, dirty dogs. But as my husband said, they weren't called and the game is over. We lost. We're all aware of it. The post-mortem in the paper was particularly painful, especially the huge picture of Sendek collapsing to the court on the front page of the special ACC section. Just like tiny bamboo shoots up the fingernails. I'm sure the Herb Haters creamed over that one. Whoops, that wasn't very ladylike, was it? Balls, who cares, I'm depressed.

Yet, looking carefully at these pictures, I don't see any desperation, I don't see any lack of concern, I don't see mediocrity, and I don't see inability. I see the exact same damned hustle I have seen all year. Bennerman and Grant put up 23 and 24 points respectively, for Pete's sake. There's so much analysis going on, it's driving me crazy. I don't want to analyze. I'm feeling like a Mom right now. I want to give them milk and cookies and a warm blankie and hugs. I'm telling you, this team does not deserve their treatment from our fans and I'm going to refuse to dwell on it or join that particular party. I'm depressed. I'm upset that Sendek doesn't seem to be able to coach his way out of the last 45 seconds of a tight game. But dammit, I am not going to put this team under the bus. I am refusing to listen to bullshit about our lack of stars, lack of personality and lack of heart. It's all smoke from the wrong fire. None of us have any perspective whatsoever. I'm sadder that I may not get to see Ilian Evtimov. Cameron Bennerman and Tony Bethel have a few more heart-stopping, balls-to-the-wall basketball games. There might only be one more. That's the only thing I am going to feel bad about. If that puts me in with the shiny happy people, pass the Prozac.

nc state wolfpack
Cameron Bennerman
Tony Bethel
Ilian Evtimov

In other news, we won the baseball game.

2006-03-10T18:27:00.000-05:00

At about 4:30 p.m. this afternoon, the Wolfpack Nation received absolute confirmation that our basketball team had been kidnapped by aliens and replaced by exact replicas . . . exact in everything except their ability to put the round ball in the round iron hole. They looked like our team, they hustled like our team, they didn't give up . . . just like our team . . . and it was not enough. Ced is apparently sick and now walking around with ice on his hand, Cam limped back into the locker room, Ilian had a pained look on his face before the game even started, and Coach Sendek looked like he hadn't slept in about a week. I wish I could say a nice long week would help this team pull it together. Trouble is, I don't think this is our team. There is just no way these are the same guys I saw a few weeks ago and sighed in amorous affiliation over.

It's over 70 degrees and the grass is green. Time to be saved by baseball season.

nc state wolfpack
college baseball

Wake won their game, now we have to deliver payback

2006-03-09T18:48:00.000-05:00

The Wolfpack knows all about payback. Ilian, Cam and Tony know all about it from last year. They did it before, they can do it again. They have to know that nothing is going to matter unless they beat them tomorrow. I'll be watching. I believe. Go Pack. Everything stops at 2:30 EST tomorrow. Then we'll see.

nc state wolfpack

Parental conflict leads to child insomniacs; in other news, water is wet

2006-03-08T18:56:00.000-05:00

A study published in the journal Child Development has proved a link between parental conflict and behavioral and learning problems in children. The link is poor sleep, which is more pronounced in homes with higher levels of parental conflict. Researchers monitored children's sleep with a special device. In homes where children perceived that the conflict between their parents was ongoing, frequent and unresolved, children slept less, woke up more often during the night, fidgeted, and tossed and turned in bed.

Of course they did. When I was a kid, I would stay awake at night, watching and waiting. For some reason I thought staying awake was important. I had to witness what was going on between my parents. I couldn't stop them from fighting, but my fight-or-flight response was so kicked up that I couldn't sleep. I was anxiously awaiting the fights, and then anxious during the fights, and anxious afterwards waiting to see if the fights would re-occur. The trauma in the house was like a low, never-ending hum of anxiety, like someone who is sitting next to you shaking their leg under a table (thanks boss, this means you). The table just subtly shakes, and you can't be comfortable. You can't stop their behavior, and you can't do anything about it, so the anxiety level just . . . hums along. Shaking. Waiting. Watching. Until you wait and watch at night. All day long you yawn and find yourself distracted by clouds and stray thoughts, but at night, you are awake. Distinctly aware of every sound. Anxious. But now you are just waiting for sleep. The blessed relief you never learned to love, because when you were small, you practiced pushing it away so hard that it can never be a welcome guest.

ptsd
insomnia
sleep disorders