Bringing the funk back

Some of you may remember a time when I was weird. OK, fine, I'm still weird, but I used to look weird.
Weird may not be the entirely right word, but at least I looked interesting. You could easily pick me out in a crowd, and there was a time where someone once said 'you can go into a store, find the ugliest thing in it and that's what Nicole would like,' and that person was right.
Not so much anymore. These days, you can go into a store and see a black t-shirt and say 'yup, that's Nicole.' Frankly, I'm tired of it. I've been saying this for some time, but I really am on a mission to bring back a little bit of character, and hell, colour, to my wardrobe.
I've started small. I bought a red belt in Toronto, it's funky. Then I bought a wicked purple hat that I'm currently addicted to, along with a crazy blue belt with a big-ass silver and rhinestone belt buckle. I know, it's not much but it's a place to start.
I don't remember when or why I decided to start blending into the background, but I'm done. Or at least I want to be done.
Wish me luck.

There's something about tennis

Ya, ya, ya, I'm sure you're all sick of my tennis rants. But I love it. And the U.S. Open has been on for the past two weeks and as always I'm hooked. I truly love watching that ball fly back and forth across the net, the grunting, the slamming rackets and the upsets.
But I think there's something else in it that I love. (And no it's not when Andy Roddick wipes his face with his shirt showing off his abs, though I do love that)
I think it's pure athleticism at its best. In few other sports can you tell from moment to moment how a player is doing physically. You see them panting after a long point, or not running to net when they're tired, and sometimes they just get sloppy. Or you watch a player like Amelie Mauresmo jump into the air after winning a hard point, set or match, now that's an athlete.
The other thing that I love about tennis is that it's the only time that I get to be the fountain of knowledge amongst my sportsfan friends. Even the guys in the sports department have been known to cave in to my nerdy tennis knowledge.
My official picks: Sharapova and Roddick (Call me crazy, but he's playing better than ever and is on his best surface)