I don't know when in my life I have felt more inept: in my microeconomics class in college or when I play basketball.

I played last night. I'm horrible. Well, maybe not horrible, but I'm not what you'd call "good" or "average" or "not bad". I'm OK when I'm just shooting around, and I've won a game of HORSE here and there throughout my life, but put a defender on me and it soon becomes apparent that I don't know what to do.

I've always adapted well to sports. Baseball, fine. I spent most of my teenage years playing roller hockey. In football, I could always hold my own. In high school, I was on the "good hands" team. This had nothing to do with the appearance of my hands, but the fact that I would catch almost everything. I was always too small and weak to play regularly, though, so the only opportunity I ever got to get in a game was for an onside kick. Close game, late in the fourth quarter, kick off? "Get Toole in there!" the coach would yell. Then everyone would say, "Who?" Coach would say, "You know, small, skinny kid, big noggin. He wears number 80-something. Toole. I think that's his last name, isn't it."

Anyway, I played football this past Saturday. My hands probably can't be classified as that great anymore. I'd be on the "Eh, not so bad hands team". But I played well. Nothing to be humiliated by.

But basketball. Good Lord. I feel like a baby learning to walk, with slightly less poop in my pants and much less smiling. And no one is there to say, "Good boy!" when I get two steps. It's more like, "Come on! Damn!" Granted, I never played enough to get better, but you'd just assume I'd be a little better. I can't even hit a lay-up. Then guys start yelling things at me, like "Pick and roll!" I don't even know what that is. I've heard it a thousand times. It sounds like a country music term.

I'm a broken man today. I was already sore from football, and then after running up and down a court many times last night, I'm ready to call it a life. At one point, my body started participating its own roll call of injuries.

Left ring finger.

Here and jammed!

Right calf.

Here and cramping!

Right ankle.

Present, just let me roll over this other guy's foot first!

My right thumb was apparently tardy for class, but when I got home I picked something up and realized it was bruised. You could say I was playing like I had my thumb up my butt, so maybe that's where the injury came from.

On an unrelated note, why was Oprah sitting with all of the people from Mystic River?