Further reading: Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Also check out the official Livin' Large FAQ, Cast List, Flow Chart 1.0, Flow Chart 2.0 and the Livin' Large Epilogue: Part 1.

Sorry, folks. Once again, the epic length of this epilogue is forcing me to post one more installment after this one. Finishing this installment drained me.

Future NBA All-Star

Future NBA All-Star -- hereafter referred to as FNAS -- went on to lead our men’s basketball team to a 29-5 record, a conference title, and an appearance in the Elite Eight. That's where his dreams of a national title ended at the hands of a superior team with its own future NBA All-Star. FNAS had his worst performance of the season during that final game, and many people assumed that the opposing future NBA All-Star had shut him down. Not so. Did that guy play great defense against FNAS? Yes. Did the team, which really was comprised of superior players, have the defensive schemes and personnel to make FNAS work like hell for everything he got? Absolutely.

But what's less well-known is this: FNAS strained his back in the previous game, and that injury, more than anything else, held him down. I had season tickets that year, and I attended every home game but one. (In a painful bit of irony, the one game I missed was the one Larry Bird attended back when he was doing scouting work for the Celtics. The next day, there was this big picture of Bird on the front page of the school paper. I wanted to vomit.) I had watched FNAS do some truly amazing things. He really was the best college player in the country that year. I still have scars on my hands from all the high-fives I threw during those games. And let me tell you: FNAS was hurt during that Elite Eight game. He wasn't moving right. If you had watched him at all that year, you could tell he was laboring just to get up and down the court. Now, this is where someone (Cortez?) is going to call bullshit or faking or choking or something. But I will die believing that FNAS's injury is what doomed him that game. Not the team, necessarily. They might have lost anyway. But the Other Future NBA All-Star did NOT shut FNAS down.

Sure enough, FNAS left school after that season. He was unanimously named the conference player of the year. He won the John R. Wooden Award and the Naismith Award. He was also named the USBWA College Player of the Year. Not surprisingly, he went first overall in that year's NBA draft.

Like I said, FNAS was amazing during his final year in college. I honestly believed that the sky was the limit with him. Maybe he couldn't be the next Jordan, but I thought he could maybe be a better version of Dominique Wilkins. That didn't happen. Not even close. Don't get me wrong. He had one helluva career. He averaged a shade over 20 PPG over 11 NBA seasons. In fact, he ranks (yes I know this is a dead giveaway but whatever) 42nd all-time in points per game. That's right. All-time. He was named to two All-Star teams, and he won an NBA championship (although it was as a bench jockey).

Not too shabby, right? And yet when I think about FNAS, I can only think about what he didn't do. He never owned the league. Never even came close. He was never one of the top ten players in the Association. One year he ranked 16th in MVP Award Shares, so I guess you could argue that he was at least in the top twenty for a while. But, in my most humble opinion, that wasn't nearly good enough for someone with his talent.

Ultimately, I think the problem was attitude. The guy was a competitor. He wanted it. No question about it. He had some big games. In one matchup against the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls -- one of the great defensive teams of that decade -- he went shot-for-shot with Michael Jordan. Both men finished with 44 points, but MJ's team won 104-100. And that sort of defined his career: always coming up a little bit short. (It's probably worth noting that Scottie Pippen didn't play that night. Chances are, Pip wouldn't have let FNAS drop 44.)

Yeah, he wanted it, but not in the same manic, "I would step on your grandma's throat to beat you" kind of way that the great players do. FNAS wanted to be the best, but he just didn't have a bloodlust necessary to make it happen. Is that his fault, or is it a case of "either you have it or you don't"? We'll probably never know.

Taco Bell Jennifer

I have no idea what became of her. I called her once to check on her during the second semester of my freshman year, but nobody answered the phone and there seemingly was no answering machine. This was before Caller ID, so I doubt she was screening her calls. My guess is that, since she had dropped out of school to support Matt, she simply moved back home.

Cindy

Cindy eventually forgave me for leaving her dangling for a month after I decided to date Aimee instead of her. As Cindy put it, "How can I stay mad at you? You're my best friend."

A word of warning to men of the world: beware when a woman dubs you her best friend. In my experience, it almost always means the exact opposite of what you want it to mean. For instance, if you're completely head over heels for a girl and she calls you her best friend, she means "friend" in the most literal sense of the word. And your friendship is so valuable to her that she will never, under any circumstances, consider you anything more than that. On the other hand, if you're attached or have decided you absolutely don't want to date the girl for whatever reason, being named her best friend means she wants you and may be willing to do anything in her power to bend you to her will.

Anyway, Cindy and I remained friends. During the summer following my freshman year, Aimee and I got together and broke up and got together again and broke up again. Bad times. The end result was that I was single for most of the summer, and I ended up spending a lot of time with Cindy...which led to a little blowup with Aimee.

It was Fourth of July weekend and my mom was throwing a party at our new home. (She got remarried that summer and we moved into his house because he had a kickass in-ground pool.) Mom suggested I invite my friends, which is what I did. Including both Cindy and Aimee. I know that seems like madness, and it kind of was. But I thought I had it under control. Cindy was leaving for vacation the next day and could only stay until 1:00 p.m. because she had to back. Therefore, I told Aimee not to show up until 1:30 p.m. I figured that give me a perfectly safe half-hour window. What a sucker.

Cindy showed up around noon, by which time the usual suspects (Gauvin, Greg, Hornbuckle, Mikey/Statbuster, etc.) were already there. I greeted Cindy with a hug, at which time she told me, "Guess what? I packed last night, so I can stay for the whole party!"

Uh oh.

I barely had time to register that little nugget of brain lightning when Aimee rode up on her bike. Now, it's important to mention here that I had told everyone that it was a pool party. However, nobody showed up with bathing suits. Nobody, that is, except Aimee. And, since she figured she'd be getting right into the pool, her hair was tied up in a bun, she hadn't really put on any makeup, and she was wearing an old pair of athletic shorts and a huge t-shirt over her bathing suit.

Cindy, on the other hand, had dressed up and was in full makeup. This, of course, embarrassed Aimee to no end: her primary competitor for my attention was essentially showing her up not only in front of me, but in front of my entire hometown social group, all of whom were on the porch and watching with morbid curiosity.

Aimee was pissed. She dragged me into the garage and let me have it. "I can't believe you invited HER here when you knew I was coming! And nobody else is wearing a bathing suit! And I look like complete and total crap!" On and on. I got why she was upset, and under other circumstances I might have cut her a little slack. But repeatedly breaking up with me on a whim was one thing. Now she was screaming at me in front of my friends like I'd just eaten her puppy. No way could I let that go.

"You gave up the right to choose my friends," I said, "when you broke up with me. Again." And I had a few other choice words to say, after which she jumped back onto her bike and pedaled away in a huff.

When I returned to the porch, everybody took an unspoken vow of silence about what had just happened, but I could tell that Cindy felt that I had chosen her over Aimee this time. Which I kind of did.

After that, Cindy and I started semi-dating. I say "semi" because I refused to close the deal. We would hug, hold hands, wrestle around playfully, get in those little pre-foreplay tickle fights, etc., but every time her face hovered into the vicinity of mine, I pulled back. The bottom line was, in my mind, once I kissed Cindy, it was ON. I honestly wasn't sure I wanted it to be on. Sure, I'd spent most of my high school years wanting to date her, and she'd proved sweeter and more dependable than Aimee. But the spark was missing. And I was waiting for it to appear. The thing about sparks, though, is that they're either there or they're not.

So the summer passed. Aimee and I sort of got back together and then sort of broke up again, after which she told me she had no intention of having a boyfriend going into her sophomore year. She was in a sorority now, Delta Delta Delta, and she wanted to leave her options open. "Okay," I told her. "But know this: I'm not waiting around for you. I'm going to date around too. And trust me, I won't be single for long." Bold words, but I believed them.

Meanwhile, Cindy was still working on making her best friend her boyfriend. I actually had made a long-term date plan with her. Early in the summer, when Aimee and I had briefly gotten back together, she had convinced me to buy tickets to a concert featuring both Celine Dion and Michael Bolton. I know: gak. Love gives you The Dumb. Anyway, the concert got canceled and rescheduled for September, only Celine (thankfully) canceled and was replaced by Yanni (oh God no). Since I was stuck with the tickets anyway, I invited Cindy to the concert. She said yes without even thinking about it.

Leading up to that, I invited Cindy to my school for a day visit during my first full weekend back at school, the infamous Truth or Dare weekend. BadDave's memory of this was slightly askew, because I actually drove to Kokomo to pick her up and brought her back. We arrived right as Dave was leaving for Truth or Dare: Part II. Dave immediately liked her for whatever reason.

We had a nice, almost romantic day walking around campus and just hanging out. That night, we ended up back in my room, and we once again started wrestling and tickling and all those other little accidentally-on-purpose games that usually lead to something naughty. But once again, I pulled back. Cindy stood up and walked to the window. With her back to me, she said, "Do you think your roommate would mind if I spent the night?"

Whoa.

You have to understand, Cindy was a good girl. Like, God was probably her best friend more so than I was. The fact that she was suggesting, on her own, spending the night, was like a sucker punch to the nuts. And I realized in that very moment that I did not want to date Cindy. Not now, not ever. It just wasn't going to work. The only thing we really had in common was each other. We didn't like the same things. We didn't do the same things. And that wasn't going to change. In fact, those differences were only going to become more pronounced over time as we slowly matured into the people we were going to be. I had to end this.

"Well," I said, totally ignoring what she said, "I guess I should take you home now."

She didn't like that answer, but she complied. As we headed down the highway toward Kokomo, she broke what had turned into an uncomfortable silence. "I'm conflicted," she said.

"Huh? What do you mean?" Another word of warning men: if you don't want the answer to a question, do NOT ask it.

"Because," she continued, "at times, it feels like there are two sides to me: Cindy the friend...and Cindy the woman."

After missing a beat, I said, "So, how 'bout some music?" And I turned on the radio. We drove the rest of the way back to Kokomo in complete silence.

When the concert came around, I was dating Aimee again but didn't want to tell Cindy. Yeah, yeah, I should have learned my lesson. Only this time, it didn't really come back to bite me in the ass. Unless you count having to go to that concert. I tried to get out of it. I told Cindy I had an exam. She said she'd drive and I could study on the way. I told her I was sick. She said she'd take care of me. I offered to give her the tickets so she could take someone else. She said she wasn't going with anybody but me.

And we went. We had lawn seats, and I pulled a real superdick move: I laid out our blanket, laid down on it, and immediately fell asleep. I slept through the entire concert. Cindy got the hint. There was no romance in our future. Not together anyway.

But we remained friends. In fact, Cindy thought so highly of me that, when she got married two years later -- yep, she worked fast -- she demanded that I be in the wedding party. Eventually, I ended up being an usher. "I really wanted Scott to make you a groomsman, but he refused," she said. "And since you can't be a bridesmaid, an usher was the best I could do."

It was totally bizarre. I was single, owing to the fact that Aimee had recently broken up with me yet again. And here I was, ushering at the wedding of the girl whom I spent years wanting to date in high school...and whom I might have ended up marrying had things gone a little differently.

We kept in touch up until a few years after I had graduated. She even had me to her house for a family dinner once (by which time she already had two children). The last time I saw her was at Highland Park in Kokomo. She was there with her five -- yes, five -- kids and her husband. I was there with Gauvin. We chatted about what was going on in our lives and then we were left with...nothing. The years had stripped away pretty much everything we ever had in common...which, in the end, was only our shared experiences. That was the last time we ever spoke. I doubt we'll ever speak again.

Susan

Aimee and I broke up early into the second semester of my freshman year. As fate would have it, Susan became single about the same time. I figured this was my chance to make something happen. But, as was the case with women to that point in my life, I moved reeeeeaaal slow. But we were spending a lot of time together, and we even had become pledge parents in APO. Then came Easter weekend. My mom, who had just started dating a guy named Wally, had plans and actually told me not to come home for the holiday weekend. When Susan found out, she invited me to come home with her. I thought that was it. I thought I was in.

But when I showed up to her place for the ride to Indy, there was a guy in the front seat. It was this complete douchebag Australian guy who had recently moved into Susan's social group. His name was Stu. And he was apparently dating Susan.

Fuck.

To make matters worse, Susan and Stu were in the newly dating phase, which meant loads of PDA, and I was forced to watch. Temporarily. Because it was more than I could stand -- after all, I was still sort of reeling from getting dumped by Aimee, and now even my mom didn't have time for me -- I retreated to Susan's mom's guest room and spent most of the weekend reading The Big Three by Peter May. Meanwhile, Susan and Stu drank and partied and played cards with Susan's mom and brother. My hermit-like behavior earned me a reputation as stick-in-the-mud loser with Susan's family, and I can't blame them. Stu was the douche, but I was the one acting like a douche. Not my greatest moment.

After that weekend, Susan and I really didn't talk for the rest of the school year. I became a single pledge parent in Susan's absence, and our pledge daughter, Lisa, came to resent Susan. Which didn't matter, since Susan wasn't around, not even on initiation night.

Then, during the last week of school, Susan called me with news. She and Stu...were getting married. Apparently, Stu was having Green Card problems and would be sent back to Australia if he didn't get married. So Susan had agreed to tie the knot. I went apeshit and told her she was acting like a crazy person. She said I was being rude and asked me to be happy for her. I said no way. We ended things on a bad note and I honestly figured I'd never hear from her again.

Then came the Sunday night of the first full weekend of my sophomore year. This was two nights after Truth or Dare and one night after Cindy the Woman. BadDave and I were chilling in our dorm room when the phone rang. It was Susan.

Since she had been the bigger person and called me, I decided to be nice about her marriage to Stu. "So, how's married life?"

"Oh, Stu and I didn't get married," she said.

"What?! Why not?"

"Long story short, he was an asshole and I really shouldn't have been marrying him anyway," she said. "So we broke up and he went back to Australia."

"Wow. That's...news." It was all I had.

"So," she said, "Are you dating anybody?"

"No," I replied. "Aimee and I got back together over the summer, but we broke up again."

"Cool. You wanna come over to my place?"

And of course I did. I went over. We drank a few beers (which I never did at that time...only for Susan). She told me the full story about her breakup with Stu, which I won't bore you with since it's pretty boring. It got late, and she said she was tired. She walked me down to my car. I suggested we go on a date the next Friday, that I'd take her out to dinner. She smiled this special little smile and said yes. Her face floated up to mine...and I didn't kiss her. Why? Because, frankly, I wasn't really sure that she wanted me to. Ultimately, Aimee was my only real dating experience, and I didn't have the confidence in myself to take what I wanted. But I figured that, if things went well on Friday, we might end up doing more than kiss.

When I got back to the dorm, I was pretty high on myself. On Friday, I had been dirty-danced naked by two chicks, both of whom I'd made out with and one of whom I had gotten touchy-feely with. On Saturday, Cindy basically threw herself at me. And on Sunday, a girl I had crushed on for the entirety of my freshman year had agreed to go on a date with me. I felt like the complete and absolute shit.

Then, late that Sunday night, Aimee called, inviting me to Indy to hang out with her and some friends. And I went. And things happened. I went back to see her again on Wednesday. And things happened again. So, just like that, Aimee and I were seemingly back together. Not that we openly agreed on it, but, well, I had to assume.

On Thursday night, I called Susan and canceled our date. I explained that Aimee and I had gotten back together, so I couldn't take her out. She said it was fine, but I could tell it wasn't.

It didn't put a damper on our friendship, though. We still hung out a lot. We went to APO parties together. She even went to an APO party with me and Aimee, who was in APO at Butler and wanted to find out what our chapter was all about. Boy, that was awkward. Once again, I showed an inability to understand that girls who are sweet on the same guy shouldn't be in around each other.

During my junior year, Aimee and I broke up yet again. Unfortunately, Susan was dating this schmuck named Dave. (Not BadDave.) Fortunately for me, he was enough of a schmuck that they broke up during the second semester. It was my time to move in. So one night, after Susan had aced a really difficult Organic Chemistry exam, I took her out to celebrate. We hit all the campus bars and were having a really great time. I really felt like things were going in my favor until Byron showed up. Byron was in APO with us. He was kind of an enigma. He was black and powerfully built. He kind of looked like a pro athlete. But he had a high-pitched voice and was the biggest, most socially awkward nerd you're ever likely to meet.

He was out at the bars by himself and looking for someone to hang with. Susan was always one to pick up strays, animals and people alike. So she adopted Byron, who proceeded to follow us around from bar to bar. I was livid. So much so that I ended up punching a wall in the bathroom of Kazoos (which, sadly, no longer exists) and hurting my hand. We closed out the bars. Susan lived in an off-campus apartment, and I said I'd walk her home.

"I'll go with you guys," Byron said, "then you and I can walk back to the dorms together, Matt."

Fuuuuuuuuck.

So we end up back at Susan's place, where Susan introduced us to her fish. I couldn't even pretend to be interested, so I announced I was leaving.

Susan said, "Nooooo, don't go yet." So I stayed, but I was so pissed Byron had cockblocked me that I just stood there, sulking, while they chatted in the near darkness. (Susan didn't turn on the lights because she didn't want to bother her roommate.)

Byron announced that he had to use the bathroom before we headed to the dorms. As soon as the bathroom door closed, Susan gave me this look, walked up to me, and said, "Is this what you've been waiting for?" That statement immediately trumped Aimee's "You don't have to sleep on the floor" as the sexiest thing anybody had ever said to me.

Then we started kissing like crazy until Byron came back out of the restroom. "Well, you ready to go?" he asked.

"Wait," she said, "I have to show Matt something in my room."

As we walked into her room, I flipped on the lights. She closed the door, smiled at me, then turned the lights back off. Then she knocked me down and we started kissing and grabbing in the dark. I don't know how much time passed, but things came to an abrupt halt when Susan, seemingly out of nowhere, said, "We shouldn't be doing this. You're just going to hurt me."

"What?" I was totally confused. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yeah," she said. "You are. We should stop."

So we stopped. I tucked her in, kissed her lightly on the lips, and left the room closing the door behind me.

Byron was long gone. I walked the long, long walk back to my dorm in a stupor. By some strange twist of fate, I walked up to the building just as BadDave was getting dropped off by someone. I don't remember who dropped him off, or what he had been doing. I just didn't care.

BadDave knew something was up. "Dude," he said, "you okay?"

"Yeah, fine. Just tired." It sounded like a reasonable excuse. It was, after all, past 4 a.m.

If things had ended a little differently, I would have told BadDave everything. But I was upset and unsettled. Had Susan and I taken The Next Step, or had things gotten worse between us? I had no idea. So, rather than telling BadDave the story, I went to bed without a word.

Susan avoided me for a few days. She claimed she was sick. I didn't believe her. I passed through those days in a state of heightened anxiety. I was terrified that I had ruined something special. When we finally got together, Susan was as friendly as ever. With an emphasis on the "friend" part. And despite furious efforts on my part, she didn't want to talk about or even acknowledge what had happened. But I wasn't prepared to go down without a fight.

We went out for dinner the next week (she insisted on paying for her half...a bad sign). She had driven, and as she dropped me off at my dorm, I said, "Look, Susan, I know you don't want to talk about what happened a while back, but I think it's pretty obvious we're attracted to each other. We've been close for years. We're both single. I think we should date."

"I don't think that's a good idea," she said. And nothing I could say that night changed her mind. But still I was determined.

A week or so later, we were out at the bars with her roommate, Laurel. At one point, while Susan was in the bathroom, I asked Laurel to tell me whether she thought I had a shot at dating Susan. "I don't know," Laurel said, "you guys are pretty close. Maybe. I don't know." Not exactly a stirring endorsement.

The bar we were in was, as always, backed body-to-body. And although it usually took people forever to return from the bathroom, Susan had been gone way too long. I went looking for her and found her talking to some guy I'd never seen before. I walked up to them.

"Everything okay?" I asked.

"Yeah," Susan said, "This is Torrey."

"Hey man," Torrey said, sticking out his hand for a shake.

Susan spent the rest of the night standing there talking to him. Even when the bar closed and they were kicking people out, they stood there just talking and talking. As we walked out, I said, "Well, I'll walk you girls home."

"No, that's okay," Susan said. "I think Torrey's going to come back to my place for a while."

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.

Just like that, Susan was in a relationship again. I was beyond crushed.

The thing was, Torrey graduated at the end of that semester, after which he moved to Seattle. I figured that was a good thing. After all, long distance relationships rarely last. But it turned out that most definitely was NOT a good thing, because Susan had decided to move to Seattle too. Not until after the first semester of the next school year, though. She planned to enroll in pharmacy school in Seattle, but she had to get some of her core requirements out of the way first. Suddenly, I had a deadline.

Aimee and I got back together briefly near the end of the school year, but she broke up with me yet again and started dating some foreign exchange student. She then spent the summer in Mexico...where this guy happened to be from. I spent the summer in Kokomo working for a furniture moving company, hanging out with my friends (including Dave D., who had just returned from the army), and spending my weekends with Susan. Usually I'd drive down to Indy on Friday night, pick her up, then drive to the town our college was in, where we would party and then stay with her roommate (who was going to summer school). Several times there was some semi-sparkage, but I didn't want to put the moves on Susan while she and Torrey were still a couple.

Aimee returned at the end of the summer and we once again got back together briefly. In fact, she came to my school for the first full weekend and stayed with me. I was now an R.A. in the school's nicest dorm, so my room was pretty sweet. Oddly enough, Brett was visiting from Phoenix the same weekend. In one of the truly odd experiences of my life, Aimee, Brett, Susan and I went out dancing together. Brett ended up crashing at Susan's place while Aimee and I went back to mine.

Aimee spent that semester as an exchange student in Washington D.C., so we broke up again and I turned my attention to Susan. We slowly eased into...something. I don't know what it was. It had all the qualities of dating, but we never talked about it and she was still officially with Torrey. I wanted to have a conversation about it, but I was afraid that if I brought it up I would kill this special thing that was developing between us. So stupid. I should have spilled my guts. But I didn't know that at the time.

Susan visited Torrey over Fall Break, so I went to D.C. to see Aimee. It wasn't a good trip. More on that in Aimee's section.

As the semester progressed, the non-relationship Susan and I had got more and more intense. But still I remained silent, even as she prepared to move to Seattle. She had already been accepted into a PharmD program. So it was over, then. She was going to leave me.

One cold Decemeber night after Finals, we were sitting in her living room talking about nothing. Finally, I said, "Susan, don't go. Please, don't move to Seattle. I'm in love with you and I don't want you to go. I'm begging you. Don't move to Seattle."

We had been talking by candlelight, and it was so dark I could barely see her face. "Are you serious?" she asked very, very quietly.

"Yes."

After a brief silence, she said, "Why did you wait until now to tell me that? After I'd already gotten accepted into pharmacy school, after I'd already made plans to move?"

"Would it have changed anything?" I asked.

"Probably," she said.

Then we finally talked. Not about everything, but about enough. It all went back to the "You're just going to hurt me" comment she had made years ago. She believed in her heart that if she started dating me, I would break up with her the second Aimee came back into my life. She was completely and totally wrong about that, but I have to admit, it was a reasonable assumption on her part, considering how often Aimee and I broke up and got back together.

"Why did you wait until now to tell me that?" I said.

"Would it have changed anything?" she asked.

"Probably," I said.

And so, after a few more bittersweet nights together, Susan moved to Seattle. It hurt me in a way I hadn't hurt since the first time Aimee and I had broken up. It might even have been worse, because now Susan was effectively gone forever...and it was in large part my fault. If only I had said something.

The first weekend back at school, I went on a drinking binge. My buddy Jeremy, who had recently come out of the closet, had a couple girl friends visiting from Kentucky. I decided I was going to have sex with one of them. The cold was horrific that Saturday night. We're talking -15 wind chill. But, being idiot college students, we made the mile walk to the campus bars without coats, because you didn't want to be wearing a coat in hot bar.

Jeremy's friends: one was hot and a bit of a prude, one was barely average and kind of a slut. Obviously I went after the slut. A few hours in, we were both tanked and making out on a dance floor. This girl, she kissed with her teeth. It was the weirdest thing. It was like she was trying to eat my mouth. At one point, she whispered in my ear, "When we get back to your room, I'm going to give you the best blowjob ever." I shivered at the thought. If her blowjobs were anything like her kisses, I was going to wake up a eunuch.

When the bars closed, we had to make that long walk back to the dorm in subzero temperatures, only this time we were soaked with sweat. Halfway back, I said, "Screw this" and literally sprinted back to the dorm without them. I did, however, wait for them in the lobby. Jeremy was an R.A. on the fourth floor and I was an R.A. on the eighth floor. The slut was pretty much holding me up on the elevator trip, because I was blitzed out of my mind.

When the elevator stopped at the fourth floor, the slut said, "I'm going to take Matt up to his room."

"Oh no you're not," Jeremy said. "C'mon, Matt, let's go."

When we walked into my room, I slurred, "Fucksh you, Jehremy, You cosht me a blowed job."

"No," he replied, "I kept you from doing something you'll regret tomorrow. Now...bed or bathroom."

I considered the question. "Bathroom."

So Jeremy sat me by the toilet and leaned my head on the seat, which is how I woke up the next morning. Then I began the process of pulling my shit back together.

Susan and I remained friends. She eventually broke up with Torrey, who was an abusive asshole. She also eventually earned her PharmD. She still lives in Seattle, where she has a young son named Gabriel whom she adores. I visited in Seattle a year or so after I graduated. We also saw each other a few times when she was visiting family in Indiana. We drift out of touch, and every four or five years I hear from her again out of the blue. Maybe it'll always be that way. Maybe it won't.

Epilogue: Part 3

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90 Comments:
Anonymous Anonymous said...
you should stick to talking about basketball and not your life in the past, to be honest no one really cares and you were good at the basketbawful stuff.....what happened to it man

Anonymous Anonymous said...
"fuck me"

dude, this was awesome

holy hell it brought me back to my college days...then again i just graduated in december 08...but that no jacket in the winter thing is so damn true

Tri-Delts? That's the whorey house at Illinois...though they kind of all are, to be fair...ps delta gammas tend to have the nicest/largest asses, if that's your thing, though chi omega's have some borderline fat chicks (i.e. if they put on 15 lbs they'll be fat but if the drop 15 lbs they will be the belles of the ball...and my balls) with very nice asses

At any rate, this was incredibly well written and provided me with a nice half hour diversion from preparing for an interview tomorrow morning with a department head of a neighboring city, much appreciated, but still DAMN! killing us with the updates on Big Mat and Aimee still looming large in the future...well done

Blogger Karim Mourad said...
I nearly teared up when Susan said you should've said something before she starting getting her plans together for Seattle. Emotional Stuff.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
who is this Anon #1? If you don't like it, go read some other blog, shit.

livin' large has been great, bawful. can't wait for the season to start!

Anonymous FarmerTome said...
I agree with the first anonymous. For someone who likes to talk about how "awful" things are, why are you telling us this awful story? Basically, its the story about how you went from a loser nerd who can't talk to girls (which really isn't that bad a person to be) to an absolute dick. Congrats. Although, if what you and your colleagues say about your basketball skills is true, I have to give you props. It is sad, however, that you don't really even come close to dunking. I am under 6' and white and I can dunk- so its a safe bet I would beat you on the court (not just the dunking, but everything else described about your game, too).

Blogger Matt said...
<3 Livin' Large, bawful. If only my textbooks were so easy and fun to read.

Blogger Steve Lee said...
This was pretty much worth wait Bawful. Anonymous doesn't know that we've the READERSHIP have been clamoring for more of these entries before the NBA season started.

Blogger XForce23 said...
Huge kudos for you for writing all of this out. I can't imagine how drained you must be after digging through your past.

Anonymous Pok Flice Lice said...
Is that a semi-cliffhanger I saw with the last sentence? Or is it you once again confirming ur still regretting it till now? Are we all having a case of sympathy for the devil (heh)?Is that pun further enlarged by your finger-horn pic?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Fellow Anonymous, the only reason Mr. Bawful is doing these Livin' Large stories is because there isn't much bad basketball in the deary Preseason. He's just milking these stories so he has material to get people checking Basketbawful every now and then before the actual season starts.

And yeah, goddamn, you were such a lady killer.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
lol at The Weekend. all livin' large roads intersect at that point in time, and it kinda made a major turning point for you.

also, do any of the people involved in LL stories, have a slightest idea that they are featured in your blog?

Blogger Don Ebay Mølse said...
I simply dont get it. Why the hell did you get back with Aimee all the freakin' time... The things you could've done, the experiences you could've had. It blows my mind!

Anonymous MidBoss said...
I face palmed when you got back together with Aimee the third time and every time after that. My head hurts.

Where was BadDave and why didn't he beat some sense into you?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
fucking hell man....aimee has a lot to answer for. But then, so do you. Tell me you learnt something from all these fuckups....

Blogger Basketbawful said...
FarmerTome -- To you I say: Bring it. Back up your words. I can be found in the Chicago suburbs. I would me more than happy to set up a game of one-on-one with you. I'll even have EvilTed record it and I promise that, whoever wins, we'll post the video on this site.

Anonymous eebumssuk said...
I do think FNAS would've done much better under today's "no hand-checking" rules. His game and body-type is very very similar to Carmelo's, and early in Carmelo's career, it seemed that he was destined to average FNAS-type numbers. But then, in his third year, Carmelo lost some weight, bought into George Karl's offense, and then started driving to the hoop...

Just compare their stats: FNAS and Carmelo averaged almost the EXACT same number of free throws their rookie year (6.2 and 6.4 respectively). However, FNAS's free throw numbers start declining from then on, while Carmelo's rise during his first three years, with a huge FTA jump during year three (2005-2006), when the effects of the new rules really became solidified across the NBA game.

Playing under the grind-it-out conditions of the 1990s, FNAS simply just took many jumpers, tried too many meaningless post-ups, and simply stopped taking it to the hoop the way he did at college. Yea his weight-gain contributed to his loss of speed, but I really think, he's a case-in-point for understanding what the mid-2000s rule changes have done for NBA swingmen and point guards.

Blogger bahisay said...
This comment has been removed by the author.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Here's the vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RjnAjgwwG8&feature=player_embedded

Matt Waddell

Anonymous Anonymous said...
This might be Matt Waddell. Check out the first pic on the page.

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&safe=off&um=1&sa=1&q=matt+waddell+purdue&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&start=0

Anonymous Boudicca's daughter said...
Wow, what an episode!! You really are a helluva writer; I was totally glued. So gutting about Susan but, a hint of maybe? And here's me thinking you and "RunBoilerRun" might meet up at one of your College reunions, fall in love and live happily ever after on the proceeds of your multi-media deal:-).

This episode must have been so draining to write but thanks for doing it. Livin' Large has Loomed Large this summer, will so miss it when it's gone.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
So who is FNAS then?

42nd all time in the NBA is Gail Goodrich

http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/pts_career.html

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Anonymous said: "So who is FNAS then? 42nd all time in the NBA is Gail Goodrich."

I said points per game, not total points. You're looking at the wrong list. Hint, hint.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
eebumssuck -- You make some very good points. Sorry I had to edit your first comment.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Oh, and for the record, "Mat" is most definitely not Matt Waddell. But, as always, thanks for playing.

Blogger jce said...
As a fan of the team that drafted FNAS, I can't tell you how excited I was when they won the lottery that year. "This is our game changer," I thought. Fast forward a few years when he missed a easy put back lay-up in Game 5 of the Eastern Finals that would have put his team up 3-2 and heading home for Game 6. I thought that kind of typified his career - a very good player...who was just short of being great. But he seemed like a likeable guy, not a bad attitude or anything.

Also, your stories about Susan and Cindy really take me back to my college days and how relatively random events become life changers. Not to bore you with details, but if the chick I really wanted in high school breaks up with her college boyfriend two months earlier, my entire life is probably different. Strange to look back on it that way.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Hahaha. Matt Waddell was a 4.0 Pharmacy student. Actually, he was one of my quasi-heroes, because I couldn't and still can't figure out how an athlete in an intense sport, especially in a big-division 1 basketball league could excel in one of the school's most demanding majors. He was the anti-Mat.

I hope you all appreciate how much I suffered through this horrible process. What Bawful left out was the five-times a day verbal ass-kicking I dropped on him for missing his opportunities and staying with Aimee. Kinda. Or whatever it was.

As for why I liked Cindy? Four reasons. 1) Not Aimee. 2) I like brunettes. 3) I was a college male. She was female. Giggity. 4) She actually talked to me a little. It was obviously not my conversation (which I passed the bro test and realized, and left), but recognized that I qualified as a Friend of Bawful.

I'll say it again to you Bawful - what the FUCK were you thinking?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Bawful - Do you still hold some regret over not saying anything to Susan?

I was looking at FNAS's career, and early on he had a 20/10 player by his side, but no other scorer, and later on he had his small scorers, but no 20/10 or even 15/9 big. Anyone think that had he had that one more complementary guy, and thereby had more team success, we would look at him differently? (I wouldn't know since I only remember the last couple of years of his career, including when he came to my city for his final year, and that wasn't exactly his best year ever.)

P.S. From ESPN:
5. Superstars emote the darndest things

While 2K's player models have traditionally been industry leaders, there was always one thing missing -- emotion. To rectify the situation, game designers tapped special effects giant Image Metrics (the creative force behind Grand Theft Auto IV and the Black Eyed Peas' "Boom Boom Pow" video) for help adding smiles and frowns to the on-court action. The first step in this process was cataloging video of each player's emotions after different types of plays. LeBron James, for one, puffs out his cheeks when he heads back upcourt after a big dunk. When Tim Duncan is called for a foul, he'll lay both arms over the ball, then put his head on it, while he gets all droopy-faced. Then there's Kobe and his new signature pout. "The way his jaw juts out," says Park, "it's one of my favorite things." Once all those emotions are assembled, an Image Metrics program does the rest, measuring each player's video image -- from the eyes to the teeth to facial creases -- then mapping them onto his computer face models. "You can see them breathing, getting mad or sad, even chewing gum," says Park. In the case of Kobe, sometimes all at the same time.


The Duncan Face goes digital!

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
The literary term for the section on Taco Bell Jennifer shall henceforth be known as a Taco Bell paragraph.

You could have made up every word in Livin Large. I still wouldn't care, it's compelling as fuck.

And for some reason, I now see John Cusack playing your role in the livin Large movie, after that "would it have been different" "probably" sequence, because I swear that movie exists already.

Anonymous Dakar said...
Excellent installment. I always forget how incredibly stupid so many girls were at that age. (And how clueless most guys are too)

The part about not wearing coats to the bar is a great detail about college life that gets forgotten by time.

Blogger Unknown said...
- About the FNAS : I honestly believe that he was never a good enough athlete to be taking it to the hole in the NBA. Without mentioning MJ, players that could do it : Grant Hill, Eddie Jones, Penny, Stackhouse, Vince, T-Mac, ... Players that were all better athletes than FNAS. He could shoot the lights out though.

- About the rest : love the stuff. The confusing dating days. BTDT. The weird situations you end up in, all because the hormones are raging, and your brain is transforming, and you don't know what the F is going on.

Blogger Dan B. said...
No wonder writing all this drained you, Matt. I feel drained just having read through it and experiencing it second-hand. You had to not only write this, but go through it the first time, and relive it all again through your keyboard. What a story. I can't wait for the truly final installment. I like the way AnacondaHL described it -- even if this was fiction, I'd still be loving it. Having it actually basd on your life just pushes it over the top.

And I simply cannot get over how many times you and Aimee broke up, then got back together. Do you have an official count? If not, can you piece it together? I need to see the final number to really process how amazing it is.

I'm just so glad I didn't listen when my first love and I broke up. She tried to rope me back in, but I stood my ground because I knew our relationship couldn't work in the long term, and it wasn't worth the heartache of trying any longer. She even outright gave me the offer of calling her up any time for a booty call, for lack of a better way to describe it, but I flat-out rejected it. While yes, continued sex would have been nice, it would have been really awkward at best, and at worst would have sucked me back into a relationship with her. I stood my ground, and stayed away from her, and damnit, I feel good about myself for it, even if it meant not getting laid. Wait a second... rethinking this... No, I still feel good about it. Kind of. Argh. College was such a mess of emotions.

Cindy the Woman gotta be one of the best nicknames for a girl you have a crush on. Especially after hearing the story behind said name...

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Mr. Bawful - Since you're wrapping everything up with these here, I'm curious to know, did you end up losing your virginity to any of these ladies you've been blogging about? Also, will we hear more about Year Five next offseason? Tell us the saga is not totally finished just yet!

If you're going to post videos of yourself playing some ball, might I suggest doing one like players put together before being drafted to show off their skills. I think a video of you going one on one against a chair a la Yi Jianlian would be proof enough of your skills and would put an end to these silly challenges in the comments.

Blogger the differential said...
dude, FarmerTome, you do realize how stupid what you just did is, right? you don't even know how good Matt is, and you wanna run it? that's a good way to get embarrassed, plus it'll get uploaded if you guys play.

Everyone who doesn't like this can stfu, this stuff is great. especially since, according to Matt, it's true.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Was it just my imagination or did bawful state in an earlier post in the Livin' Large series who he was married to? If so, can someome please tell me the name, am kind of curious.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
To anyone who doesn't like Livin' Large -- Sorry, dudes. That's a bummer. But most Web browsing software provides several buttons that can take you away from this dreariness. However, there are many people who have asked me to finish the story and I have promised to do so. I intend to keep that promise.

An anonymous commenter asked: "also, do any of the people involved in LL stories, have a slightest idea that they are featured in your blog?"

Yes. BadDave, Gauvin, Greg, and Brett have read parts or all of the LL stories and discussed various facets with me, filling in blanks where necessary, etc. As for anyone else, I have no idea.

Pok Flice Lice said: "Is that a semi-cliffhanger I saw with the last sentence? Or is it you once again confirming ur still regretting it till now?"

No cliffhanger, and no regret. I've made peace with the decisions I made all those years ago. It was more a statement about how the people who are all-important to you at certain stages of your life become bit players or disappear completely as your life goes on. It's just kinda sad. The thing I hate most is that, as you get older, certain friendships devolve into mere "life updates." You hear from people when they get married, or have a kid, or move, etc. There are no new adventures, no new memories. Just ghosts of the past.

To everybody who wants to know why I kept getting back with Aimee -- I will try to explain that in the next and final installment (really final this time).

eebumssuk -- You know, the more I think about what you wrote, the more interesting I think it would be to see FNAS play into today's league.

Boudicca's daughter -- No hints, sorry. For good or ill, it is what it is.

jce -- Yeah, I thought that your team was on its way to a major resurgence when they landed FNAS. And they must have too, considering the contract they gave him. But that money disappeared into the same vacuum that Orlando's "T-Mac and Grant Hill" money got sucked into.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
BadDave -- Fair enough. Let it be known that Dave often voiced stern disapproval of Aimee, which I ignored. But then again, he never took my advice as it pertained to his love life, so I think we're square on that count. As for missed opportunities, here's a real conversation BadDave and I had during my junior year.

Me: "Yeah, it was weird. She took off her shirt, we made out for a while, and then I left without really figuring out whether she's actually interested in me."

BadDave: "Are you fucking insane?"

NarSARSsist -- No regrets. I mean, too much time has passed to keep regretting those things.

As for FNAS, look at it this way. Even when Kobe was surrounded by schmucks immediately after Shaq left, he was still Kobe. Well, FNAS would have some similar things regardless of who was around him. Sure, if his team had won a title, and he'd played really well in the Finals, we might think of him differently. But I tend to think that, had his team ever won anything of significance, he wouldn't have driven it.

Digitial Duncan Face! Yes!!

AnacondaHL -- I think Cusack would be a good choice.

Dakar -- Man, people would do stupid stuff to avoid having their coat in the bar. I knew one guy who would wad up his coat and jam it under a dumpster because "nobody is gonna take a coat jammed under a dumpster!" Brilliant.

Cubee -- No, trust me, the dude was wicked athletic and could absolutely take it to the hole at the NBA level. Let me put it this way, during his rookie season, he was aggressive enough going to the hoop to earn 6.2 FTA/game. That was more than guys like Anfernee Hardaway, Clyde Drexler, and Tim Hardaway earned per game that season...and those guys could get to the hoop.

Dan B. -- I know. It's crazy. It seems even crazier now that I'm recounting the tale. I don't think I ever really considered how often we broke up and got back together, probably because it would have busted my brain pan.

Dude, you did the right thing by avoiding ex sex. It sounds great on paper, and it actually can be kinda great as a one-off opportunity. But it's never that simple, and the post-coital emotional costs usually surpass the greatness of the sex.

Blogger Basketbawful said...
Yams -- Not to ruin the story, but yes, and it was with Aimee.

I would kick a chair's ass so bad it would be begging -- literally begging out loud -- to face Yi.

Blogger Unknown said...
Bawful, first off I would just like to say that I think FNAS was potentially 1 injury away from being the stud we all thought he was going to be (sometimes forceable not being able to do something that you want to do can make you not reevaluate things and we could have finally seen what he was made of)but that can only be talked about now.

Secondly I will make sure to be there when you take down FarmerTome, as someone that respects people that dont talk a bunch of smack, instead simply let the actions speak for themselve, you will dominate my 6foot dunking white man, take it from me the 5'10" white guy, that only has "white boy hussel".... (gotta love the word of the day area)

Blogger Unknown said...
Hey Matt,
I'm not sure how I stumbled on your website this summer ... there was some reference somewhere about how great your Livin' Large series was ... and I must concur. You're a great writer and know how to tease out a story. I'm looking forward to seeing what basketbawful looks like during the season, but the past couple months have made for some great reading. And I don't think I have to tell you this, but you should really be turning your story into a book or screenplay, something. I think a film would work best, kinda like Almost Famous ... just built around basketball rather than music.
I'm a journalist in Toronto, (Go Raps Go) I make radio documentaries for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, but I also write on the side (working on my second book) and in film (have optioned a film script.) I hope you've got an agent, producer and are well on your way, but if you ever want to chat .. i'd love to help out in any way I can. You can reach me at john.chipman@gmail.com. No need to post this, just wanted to get in touch. Best, John

Blogger Michael Hsu said...
Hey Bawful,

I don't know if your married or not, but seeing as how close you were with Susan, have you ever considered trying to find work in Seattle? I realize there is no basketball in Seattle, but in the older years i'm sure women are more important then basketball.

I don't think that would be regret, but rather going after the things you really want. Not that Susan is a thing or something. Unless you turn out to be an abusive douche too, which oddly seems to be a running theme for poor Susan.

However, I'm still sad that the worsties were taken over by LL.

Anonymous Luca Barattoni said...
I am a professor from Clemson University but I do scouting on the side for Italian teams (I'm from Italy) and that's why I ran into your site, from Henry Abbott on ESPN: I was going to say basically the things that Mr. Chipman from Toronto said in the previous comment, that is you should seriously think about a book at this point. There are some intangibles, style-wise, that you don't find at every corner so to speak.

If you don't really care about the book for different reasons, I just want to mention that the amount of material you have provided and its quality can help redefine "blogging" in a way that enhances its best qualities, its positives in an ocean of information that can be useless, insulting or, worse, deceiving.

So thank you for everything and can't wait for the last instalment and the season to begin.

Luca Barattoni
Clemson University

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Mr. Bawful in particular will get a kick out of this video of British announcers with little to no knowledge of basketball calling a recent Jazz-Bulls preseason game. The highlight is definitely one announcer saying that because Larry Bird was apparently 5'11 or shorter, that he (the announcer) could probably play (via BDL).

Blogger receivergloves said...
Now that you've dug deep back into your previous conquests(failures), I'm curious, what does your current wife think about all this? Love the blog, as a an alumn, you've nailed so many that I forgot about said school. Have you been back to check out the new dorm or dining halls? They're pretty sweet. PS... I once got alley-oop dunked on by a denfensive back on the football team during a pick up game at the co-rec... painful basketball reality set in quickly.

Anonymous K-Man said...
You need to write a book...about basketball and life. Not just this tale, but a tale about growing up, from a "regular" point of view. I'm a university student and I have an idea similar to that floating for a book I want to eventually write.

Your experiences are very common, and hearing you describe things that I'm going through (i.e - a girl calls you her "best friend", which is the worst thing that could possibly happen if you're trying to get with her) really struck a chord with me.

The familiarity of your experiences are the reason that you've gained such a wide readership. Fuck the haters, and do your thing.

Also, I'm trying to transition to go from a nice guy (began the transition after the 3rd girl I REALLY liked took me in as just a friend) to a guy who's nice...but not nice enough to prevent himself from getting laid.

It seems the worse I treat women...the more I get. Wierd how that works huh? It only took me...oh...3 years (17-20), 4 rejections, and 2 girlfriends to figure that out.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
It should be noted that FNAS was listed as his conference's best player of the 1990s during a top 10 countdown on said conference's network.

Anonymous Dr. Conrad Murray said...
All I can say is, Aimee must have been amazing in the sack.

And Bawful, how could you not give Cindy the Woman "the business" even once? You know how freaky religious girls can be. And if the chick ended up having five kids you know she likes to get down.

Would it have killed you to spin a little "Jesus wants you to take it in the butt/participate in a three way" nonsense when she was hammered and see what happened?

Come to think of it, Sluts For Jesus would be a great porn series. It's probably already taken.

Anonymous chuckwagon05 said...
First of all, it wouldn't have mattered if [edit: your school] made it to the final four or even the championship game, because my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks would have beaten them.

Second, I've loved every second of this series.

Anonymous CUMBA said...
absolutely love the LL stories.. two questions

1) from what you've stated, none of these ladies are currently a part of your life... are you going to go into an update of yourself (are you dating/married now?) if so, what does she think of these stories?

2) at 28, i'm by no means too old for basketball, but athletically i'm definitely a shell of my 20 year old self. esp since at 5'10" a lot of my game was predicated on quickness. as i've gotten older, my shot has improved significantly to balance out my athletic decline (i always wonder at how good i could have been if i had the shot i had now back at age 20). from what i've read, you're a decent baller, but from your stories, i put you at at least 33. has your game changed drastically between now and college? it must have right? nobody can do the things at 33 that they used to do at 20...

Blogger MandoBruin said...
omg...this IS epic. I don't know how you'' top LL, but i'll continue to read your blog...

Blogger jce said...
CUMBA,I'm 40 and I still play basketball two or three days a week. Oftentimes against kids right out of college...who played HS or low level college ball.

I am a much better defender than I was before. At 6'3", I can defend anyone unless they are really, really quick. Also, like you, my shot is much better now. My range is basically one foot in from the HS three point line. Some of the guys I play with are 15 years older than me, and they can still flat out play ball. If my knees make it til then, I will still be playing too.

Blogger AnacondaHL said...
Dr. Conrad Murray: Actually, they are called Strippers for Jesus, or JC's Girls, and are real. You can find out more about Heather Veitch's Las Vegas based ministry with a Google search, but for obvious reasons, being at work, I cannot provide a link.

As for questioning the existence of religious themed porn: uhm... this is the Internet...

Anonymous dadamstein said...
Dude, you were one dumb f***.

The Livin' Large series was great at the beginning, but ended up fizzling out like every one of your Aimee induced boners.

But finally, back to some funny business. I laughed out loud at this one: "If her blowjobs were anything like her kisses, I was going to wake up a eunuch."

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Holy cow! The banner changed.

It makes me proud to be a Spartan now that Zach Randolph commands top billing in the banner.

Mike S

Blogger lordhenry said...
Wow, yeah, I gotta know what your wife thinks of all this. I also have to agree with whoever said, "are you thinking about a job in seattle?" cuz it sure sounds like you and Susan have unfinished business. I had a girl that I could just never get together with, but I saw her a few months ago after not seeing her since I was 23. Needless, to say, I did not hesitate, and it might lead to some good things for me. I think you have hesitated long enough, don't you?

I really hope that some of these people that want to help with a book are legit, because that means someone other than the 'Bawful universe appreciates your work. It's awesome that you are doing something you enjoy and you are actually good at it, AND people are starting to recognize. Good for me, since I thought you were a great writer long before you "sold out" with 'Living Large!

Somewhere in L.A......
The Dark Lord sits on his throne, fingering his newest ring of power, contemplating what lays before him: a new season. Last year, all his plans bore fruit; his plans to use T-Mac's weakness as a serum to weaken the Jedi Knights went perfectly, as many of his greatest enemies fell to decline and disease. He even succeeded in winning that elusive title, breaking Emperor Jackson's tie with the hated Master Auerbach. Now, with the his newest Sith Lord, Darth Crazy, a new and heinous Dynasty is on the horizon. But still, Darth Mamba has cause for concern; whispers that Padawan Howard has teamed with Obi Von Carter, rumors that young Padawan Jefferson is training with Knight Duncan,and that the Mighty Garnett, once thought defeated is hobbling around somewhere, still worse, that Sith Heel O'Neal has joined the chosen one, Lebron. At that, the a smirk appears on the Dark Lord's face. "Yes, they still call him King, but a King can only rule those he has beaten, and you haven't beat anyone yet."

Anonymous Wormboy said...
I hereby dub thee Matt "the Dither" McHale. Dude, you have GOT to be more decisive around women!

:D

Anonymous cam said...
Read most of the LL series, appreciate all the time you have spent entertaining us during the blackness that is the NBA offseason.

Anyone who is bitching at Bawful for this stuff, don't read it and write your own blog. damn.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Calbert Cheaney is the FNAS

Blogger chris said...
I'm about to head out (out of town for the weekend) but just HAD to get my Livin' Large fix. Wow. What an ending.

:O

I want to see a "aftermath flow chart." Get on it, AnacondaHL! :D

Blogger Dan B. said...
NBA-related news: apparently Stephen Jackson managed to pick up 5 fouls and a technical foul in the first quarter of last night's Lakers/Warriors game. He played a whopping 9 minutes before Nellie took him out for the rest of the game. Unreal.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Awesome wrapups bawful....the whole livin large has been amazing

Blogger Nick Flynt said...
Eff me. I'm the last post. I hate being this late to the party. Anyways, epic as always Bawful, and I'm sorry I can't bring my repetetive and obvious commentary to the posts as often as in the past.

Someone earlier said they teared up over the Susan thing

...I teared up when I heard you missed out on Larry Joe Bird.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Holy shit, are you STILL a virgin? Cause it fucking sounds like it, jesus damn.

Blogger CassavaLeaf.com said...
The slut had an STD?

Blogger Steve said...
eebumssuk's comparison between FNAS and Anthony is bunk. So Anthony's free throw rate increase is only because of the hand check rule? And players in Robinson's era just had too rough of a time on the perimeter that they couldn't get to the free throw line? What? Throughout all eras there have been players who were able to get to the free throw line at will. Jordan averaged 11.5 one year. Domnique was in the 8 and 9s for his career. Grant Hill, as close a contemporary to FNAS as possible, averaged 7.3, 8.1, 7.9, 8.0 his first four seasons. Those are only a few but players managed to deal with hand checking rules and get to the basket fine.

What distinguished FNAS from Carmelo was his lack of physicality. It was reflected in how he let his body go soft in what should have been his physical prime. He didn't like to take the punishment in the paint necessary to get to the line. That's why his scoring efficiency and volume were never good enough to make up for his passing and defense deficits. If he made four more free throws a game, he would have averaged around 25/26 points a game and put together with 6/7 rebounds and 3 assists, he would have at least been a borderline elite player. I recently watched a playoff game FNAS played against the Charlotte Hornets and I was astonished by Robinson's complete lack of effort on defense and how much he loafed around the perimeter on offense. He had no one to blame but himself for not reaching his potential.

My thing with Carmelo is that I think he's packing on too many pounds. At Syracuse and in his rookie year, he had such a quick first step and explosiveness around the rim. Then he gained around 20-30 pounds trying to step up his game and I think to keep up with Lebron who was also gaining a massive amount of weight though not losing athleticism. As a result, he has zero hang time anymore. He's still a good player, but I think he could be more.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I hate to break it to the anonymous, but it FNAS is definitely NOT Calbert Cheaney. You're in the right state though!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Bawful -

Are you going to give up any details on the Future NFL Star? Was he the running back who had a slew of Pro Bowl appearances? Since you went to the university of the corn fields during a decent time for football, I've been wondering which NFL star you referenced.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
FNFL Star is either the All-Pro Running Back mentioned above or a certain gun-slinging QB of the team formerly supported by paperbag cladded fans.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Steve mentioned the FNAS' name a couple posts back, though he mostly said FNAS it did slip in.

and to whoever is above me, pretty much half of the Big 10 schools can be dubbed "the university of corn fields"

wv: vializ, as in, this hybrid viagra-cialis has made my dick harder than ever

Anonymous Wormboy said...
You know, something that has struck me is that a good chunk of the viewer comments on LL are drenched in testosterone. Yeah OK, most of us are guys and we've seen more than enough of the fronting. Enough, OK? 1) Banging everything that moves is not exactly the sign of a real man, and 2) "the bigger the better" is not necessarily true of breast size. Jeez, you can tell that these guys were not breast fed as infants.

Matt messed up often enough, but I get the impression that he was more honorable than most guys in those situations. Think about that, gentlemen.

Anyway, impressive stuff, Bawful. Great stories, fun humor.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Speaking of FNAS, I've always wondered if there was "something else" going on in his last collegiate game. In addition to his generally poor play (which could have been explained by the back problem), he also turned the ball over TWICE by stepping over the end line while inbounding the ball. Rare to see that at all beyond grade school but twice in one game? Makes you wonder.

Tim P'75

Anonymous Anonymous said...
This is my first comment after reading through the whole Livin' Large series.

Totally epic, and reading about the dorms, the roommate/dormmate issues, girl troubles and hijinks with friends made me reminisce fondly about my own college days. I attended a college on the West Coast at about the same time Bawful was at his school, I think I may be one year older than him, and I remember FNAS and his merry crew of shot and a beers dominating what was a very basketball-rich conference.

I hope Part 3 of the epilogue will include a portion on Big Mat himself.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Dear Mr. Rogers:

It sounds like your mother didn't teach you how to meet girls. In epilogue 2, she gets remarried and moves into her new husband's home with the kick-ass in-ground pool. Then, in you sophomore year, she begins dating a guy named Wally.

I hope this is a typo, or she is clearly a better closer than you!

Anonymous Anonymous said...
I don't think Calbert Cheaney ever made an all-star team, but he did manage to have a long NBA career. However, he never reached the success of FNAS.
Also, Calbert Cheaney was, I believe, the sixth pick in the NBA Draft when he was picked by the Bullets. Bawful already stated FNAS was the No. 1 overall pick.
It shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
FNFS is definitely not the gun slinger down in NOLA. Dude graduated about a decade after Bawful was in college.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Great stuff bawful. I've loved all the stories and can't wait for the finale.

Blogger Ian said...
Man, I have been waiting to hear what wound up happening with Susan since she was first introduced, and then when I finally get the whole story... fuck. Truth is indeed stranger and more painful than fiction. This has been great, bawful, eagerly awaiting the final part.

Anonymous Boudicca's daughter said...
AnacondaHL: "....John Cusack.. film already made"; are you thinking of "High Fidelity"? I think Bawful's version of chicklit for blokes is similar to but superior to Nick Hornby's work.

Bawful: please see above cos I've read all Hornby's books inc "Fever Pitch", about a man's relationship to Soccer and in partic, "The Arse". I've also bought most of em and paid to see the films and will def repeat this in your case cos your stuff is loads better.

I'm far from your probable "Target Market" but good writing and page turning you have in spades. I really hope to hear that you're giving it serious consideration and that Hornby's agent gets in touch. Real talent that crosses vaious boundaries is rare. Thanks once again for all the hard work.

Blogger chris said...
You know what the next epilogue needs? An update on you that will...make us look forward to "Fifth Year."

:D

Blogger Wild Yams said...
Dan B. - "NBA-related news: apparently Stephen Jackson managed to pick up 5 fouls and a technical foul in the first quarter of last night's Lakers/Warriors game. He played a whopping 9 minutes before Nellie took him out for the rest of the game. Unreal."

It actually was much worse than just that. Capt'n Jack wasn't just taken out of the game, he got into a verbal argument with Nellie and was sent to the locker room before the end of the first quarter. With all of his demands to be traded, look for this to get much worse up there in GS. Jackson was suspended for two preseason games due to this altercation, for what Nellie deemed was "conduct detrimental" to the club.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
To the Anonymous above -

Bawful would have caught the first year of the gun slinger down in Nola if he was on the five year plan, but there's no way that said QB would have been hanging around with the FNAS.

I guess that leaves us with the running back that nearly partied himself to death in the Pros.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
running back that nearly partied himself to death? no idea who that is. didn't bawful say he was on one of the super bowl teams this past year? this article pretty much narrows that down:
http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/012709aaa.html

the timing certainly lines up, and he looks like the kind of guy that enjoys a good party and beating women

Blogger Cortez said...
"Now, this is where someone (Cortez?) is going to call bullshit or faking or choking or something."

You have me confused with Wild Yams. I rarely, if ever, accuse players of "faking" injuries. I don't even think Paul Pierce was faking.

About the player in question I simply stated that I didn't like his overall game to the degree that most people did. And sure enough, his true colors came shining through. Good but not great, and certainly not driven to be great.

I have no problem accepting that he was hurt in the previous game and it greatly affected his performance.

Was FNAS "wicked" athletic?

I doubt that anyone in a scouting role would describe him in such a way.

His high number of free throw attempts signify a willingness to go to the hole coupled with a sufficient, not exceptional, level of athleticism.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Great blog. Just wondering, what does your mom think of it? Especially the part about the girl wanting to give you a blow job.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
You never mentioned who the naked chicks were that danced on you? I'm assuming they weren't cindy, susan or aimee... Will we find out about them in epilogue part deux?

Anonymous Anonymous said...
to last anon that part of the story is in the comments section of the first part of the epilogue

Anonymous Anonymous said...
Great story man... I've been anxiously waiting for all the installments and to get to the end well kind of sucks... A couple questions though? did you ever see mat anymore? and what would you of done if you had to room with him another semester.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
FINISH IT. This is getting stupid.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
When you first started Livin' Large the story was very tight. It focused on the ridiculous nature of Mat and it was well written. You were able to write yourself in delicately and didn't force anything.

However by the end of it you simply got sloppy. You forgot the story you were writing. Instead of focusing on only the interesting, you started talking about your relationships.

I'm going to be frank about this. You are not good at writing about your relationships. You are an idiot about relationships at best, infantile at worst. You occasionally write a nauseating "truth" that you think can sum up what women are thinking, but you just come off looking like an asshole. The worst of all it's boring.

It's boring because it's unnecessarily. A LOT of it is unnecessary. Who fucking cares about your grade on a history test where you seem to be bragging about how smart you think you are? Who fucking cares about dorms? Who fucking cares that you were able to "outwit" a football player who honestly just wanted some more food, but you pedantically stuck by the rules.

I'm not sure you know what an Epilogue is either. You ended the story without any real conclusion. An epilogue shouldn't be this long or have this much responsibility. Your story should have had these important conclusions.



Here is the main error in your writing of this: you forgot what you were writing. Your writing started off very strong, but you got caught up in boring tangents.

You should rewrite this because you do have a good story here. You start with your relationship with Mat and for some reason end it mostly with your relationships. It doesn't add up because that's not what the story was about.

Start with Mat. End with Mat. You constantly built up how he was terrible basketball player, but in the story there was no climax to it. At all.

You can put yourself in there, but don't turn this story into your childish relationship. It didn't start that way, it shouldn't ed that way.


Bleh, there is just so much wrong with it. You really should talk to an editor.

Anonymous Anonymous said...
wow, the anonymous above should stay anonymous.

what a self-important douchebag