smitten: My Heart Beats in Dribbles

 I am introducing a new thing I am doing on my blog: smitten. The world is absolutely on fire, and we all need some joy and something maybe inconsequential to care about. So I want to write about the things I love that maybe might be a surprise to people that I am absolutely, ridiculously, deeply in love with.

First up, women's basketball.

Anyone who has known me for a while knows that sports has never really been my thing. I followed the Cubs because my husband is a Cubs fan (and I think it's the law if you were born in Illinois that you love a Chicago team and they are mine), I get excited about some sports sporadically (because Olympic curling and break dancing are awesome), but I never really followed anything.

Then in early 2024, Tabi decided they wanted to take a basketball class at our local rec center. She loved it. After a couple weeks, I said, 'hey, have you heard of this Caitlin Clark chick? She's on the University of Iowa's women's basketball team, and she's supposed to be really good". To which Tabi said that they did not and we agreed to check out an Iowa game because why not?

I don't recall which game was our first, but it wasn't our last. I remember Molly Davis getting hurt on March 3 and having to miss the rest of the season due to a fractured/dislocated knee, so I am going to go with that one being the first one. We watched the rest of their season, and post season and we were hooked. Tabi liked it but I LOVED it.

I devoured everything I could about women's basketball, and laughed myself silly at the Iowa Hawkeyes Women's Basketball team social media, and really developed a deep love for Kate Martin (which remains to this day).

We watched the draft and cheered for Caitlin when she got drafted to the Fever, and I went to bed early because I had to work and missed the rest of the draft. So it was only about 20 minutes later that I was scrolling socials and screamed because Kate Martin had been drafted to the Las Vegas Aces.

I subscribed to the W so I could watch all the games. Tabi and I had an unfortunately terrible experience in Minneapolis seeing the Fever play the Lynx that year (it had everything to do with Target Center being very vertical and we were at the very top), and I was able to meet my friend from college, Michelle, in Indianapolis for my first Indiana Fever game against the Dallas Wings (the game where Arike Ogunbowale got fouled out of the game--Arike is another of my favorites). 

We watched all the summer Olympic games we could and Tabi and I both screamed and absolutely lost our minds when USA beat France by a point.

We watched the first two seasons of Unrivaled, and are making plans to hopefully go to Miami in January in order to see a game.

Gainbridge Fieldhouse is a vibe--it's fun and upbeat and probably the best place to see a basketball game (outside of McLeod Center on the UNI campus of course).

Last summer I got to see the Fever play the Golden State Valkryies at Gainbridge and I finally got to see Kate Martin play in person. We weren't planning on going to any games this year, but we got an opportunity to see the Fever play at Gainbridge for the second to last home game of the season against the Mystics, and Tabi and I are going.

So, what's the deal, Toni, you might ask. Why is women's basketball your total jam?

First, it's insanely fun to see such strong amazing women play sports. I feel this way about seeing any women's sports at this point (women's professional baseball is starting up this summer and I am stupidly excited about it). 

Second, the personalities are so fun. Social media is great for this. The teams do a lot of behind the scenes where you get to see them practice, and answer silly questions and do silly things.

I realize I am an atypical women's basketball fan. I am fine with watching games after they have aired, even if I know the score already. It's not the score that is important to me, it's the story of how they got there. I also have multiple favorite teams and players. While Kate Martin is my overall favorite, I feel the need to cheer for all of the players. I would be hard pressed to find a player I don't enjoy in some manner. I will say that I think the Connecticut Sun and the Chicago Sky are boring, so I am less likely to watch them.

I am also a baby fan. This coming summer (if there's a season) will be my third WNBA season. I am, due to life reasons, not planning to go to see any games this summer, but I am definitely going to be watching. I am learning a lot--I have been devouring books and documentaries and Wikipedia pages. 'Coming Home' by Britney Griner was beautiful and sad--I am glad that she was able to come home and continue to play basketball.

There's a lot of amazing life lessons too--not giving up when things are hard; rely on your team; love your people through good times and bad.

Like this clip of A'ja Wilson talking, because if she has a hard time being who she is, as great of a player as she is, I don't know, it makes me feel better somehow--not that I feel good that she might have struggles, but that someone as good as A'ja feels like that too makes me not feel alone. 

And I know that of all the things going on in the world that basketball is not important. But it's nice to have something that isn't so life and death to love with all my heart. It gives me a break, a place where I don't have to be a mom, I don't have to deal with mental health challenges, the amount of existential dread at the moment and I can just cheer for my team.

Somehow, basketball has saved my life in the last year, and I am eternally grateful for it.

And I can't wait to see where Kate Martin ends up next.

A Scream of Love

 On Saturday, I went to the Hearst Center for the Arts and attended the first event for their 2025- 1016 Writer in Residence, Felicia Babb Cass, called "Quiet Power, True Fans". It was a really cold day, and it was surprising how many people showed up; more chairs had to be brought up to the tables and we all smooshed in a bit.

The room was filled with people who are creatives, not all of whom were writers--some of us want to be or are working toward it--but everyone there had done something creative. There were photographers and artists of all stripes there. It was an energetic room.

Felicia created a space where we could learn some basic things about figuring out marketing, which is the side of this whole writing thing I am not good at. For some one who almost went to college at the Art Institute of Chicago for music P&R, back in the day when you could get a degree in something like that, you would think I would know more about how this works. But I didn't go there, I didn't get the degree, and while I feel icky about promoting my stuff, I feel less icky about it after Felicia's program.

Felicia gave us exercises to do, questions to answer, and it all felt a lot less about demographics in terms of audience, and was more about the psychology of the writers you are trying to attract to your work. There was discussion of finding your sweet spot--the thing that is your passion and your expertise; content tilt; and audience pathways--taking a stranger to curious browser to engaged reader and finally a true fan.

It was fascinating to hear what other people thought, and while some of the people in the room are already published, some were in the process, we discovered that we all are in the same boat here, so we might as well just stay in the boat for the ride and learn from each other.

Felicia suggested that we do a 90 Day plan. She suggested choosing small concrete steps, with 'a gentle rhythm outlasting heroics'. The 90 Day Plan has three parts, visibility, engagement and deepening, and we are supposed to choose one action per category and do it. So here I am, writing about this as part of one of my actions.

I had an idea about talking to people about what they deeply and truly love, even if it's something weird or unusual that people might not think that person would be into that, or be an expert in that, or whatever. Like me with basketball. I may start there and just write about the things that truly bring me joy.

I was having a problem with a throughline from BE AUTOTELIC to smitten (which is what I am temporarily, permanently, whatever calling this), and as I was driving along this morning, from therapy to go get coffee before I had to pick up my son for his therapy, I realized the through line is love and joy, like Chuck Tingle said in a post early today 

BE AUTOTELIC is about loving what you do so much you do it no matter what. And smitten is about talking about what you love so much you are into it or do it no matter what. Love is the through line.

And based on how the world has been lately, love is going to continue to be the thing that gets us through.