I’m not pretending I’m not curious about what Tiger Woods will say in his big press conference, Friday. A statement of this magnitude, after all, needed to be announced two days in advance and I’m guessing that wasn’t done to make sure they had enough time to get extra bagels and coffee. So, yes, I’ll want to hear it.

But do I really require an apology, as all of us – fans, media, family, friends, sponsors, mistresses – are sure to get one? And if I do get one, does it mean anything? It kind of reminds me of when kids are toddlers, still in that biting/hitting phase (except for mine, of course) and no matter what a child does, up to and including taking a large chunk out of another child’s body, there is always the same reaction.“Say you’re sorry,” the mother or preschool teacher will implore of the biter.The little monster will dutifully comply, of course, usually with a big grin, until he gnaws on his next victim five minutes later.

So no, I don’t need to hear Tiger say he’s sorry unless, perhaps, it is accompanied by racking sobs and so convincing a performance that it moves me to tears as well. And somehow I don’t expect that.He does owe his wife an apology but sorry, I don’t really care that much about that either. Certainly, I do not celebrate another woman’s pain. But I have to wonder, aside from marrying a professional athlete in the first place, if there wasn’t some sign, some warning, some little indication before this past Thanksgiving that something was amiss. Say, I don’t know, the fact that your husband always spoke in a husky whisper whenever he answered his cell phone on the road.They are saying that Elin Woods’ presence or absence will be very telling, Friday. I’m not so sure. I mean, even if she is planning to stay with her husband, why go through the indignity of standing there next to him when she could be hanging out on the yacht or something? I’d be on the yacht in a heartbeat.Friday’s apology/statement (naturally, there will be no questions allowed) is really not as big of a deal as it appears.

Rather, it was inevitable unless, of course, Woods planned to live underground for the rest of his life. There was going to be a re-entering into public life and onto the PGA Tour and thus, there was going to have to be THE press conference. I just wonder if Woods is actually naive enough to think this will put the whole situation to rest.And I wonder if his fans are naïve enough to buy it.

Went for a massage today. I like to say that, kind of casually, as if it’s part of my weekly routine. Not that it wouldn’t be a part of my weekly routine if I had a little more disposable income and had not inherited my mother’s guilt complex.Whenever my mother tasted something or experienced something or was given something really extraordinary, she’d say, “That’s too good,” suggesting she was not deserving of anything as decadent as a piece of Godiva chocolate.That’s how I feel about massages.They are just too good.I went today because I have been more stiff and sore than usual and because my husband was starting to pressure me about using the gift card to a local spa he gave me two Mother Day’s ago. Rick hates gift cards.

He’s always convinced the place is going to go out of business before we use them, so this particular gift card was making him nervous.It’s not that I didn’t want to use it. It was easily in the top five gifts he has ever given me, ranking slightly higher than the TV he got for our bedroom last year. “I knew you wanted it,” he said, grabbing the remote.I remember the first time I got a massage. Well, I sort of remember. I was covering some team somewhere some time ago when I was stranded by a snowstorm and figured I’d give it a try. I remember afterward asking everyone I knew if they got massages and wanting to talk to them about how unbelievably great they were if they did. I got a lot of strange looks.But I didn’t get my second massage for years. And when I finally had another one, I did the same thing I did today. I talked through the whole thing and almost ruined it.I kept thinking about the poor girl giving me the massage. Wasn’t she tired from rubbing people’s backs all day? Her fingers and hands had to be in agony. Mine would be. And who did I think I was just laying there, enjoying myself, when I could be making it a less tedious experience for her?I know, it’s a sickness.The funny thing is, I don’t particularly like when strangers talk to me. On airplanes. In waiting rooms. And especially during massages. Once, I had a lady masseuse who kept yelling at me that I needed to breathe. I mean, the woman never shut up. Over and over, “Breathe, you have to breathe, don’t forget to breathe, it’s very important to breathe. You’re not breathing.”  I wanted to actually stop breathing altogether just to spite her.Today’s woman was fine until I started bothering her.It wasn’t like we talked about current events or our families, but we did touch briefly on her migraines and on whether her husband rubs her back when she points to an especially painful spot and begs for just a little help. I told her mine tries, for maybe 10 seconds, then begs off with the lame excuse that he’s afraid he’s going to do some damage, like he’s Lou Ferrigno.

I also felt it was only polite to ask her about the various muscles to which she was causing such  deliriously exquisite pain. She seemed to appreciate this and shared some very interesting information about where the tendons attached to the bone, something that should come in handy next time I am taking my masseuse exam.Of course, there is the slight possibility that she might have been annoyed that I was talking and throwing off her concentration while she was trying to find my scapula, but this never occurred to me at the time.  And so I killed the next few minutes conducting a survey on the gender preferences of most massage clients. Apparently, both men and women prefer to have a female doing the massaging. I can’t speak for everyone, but I do know that the one time I had a masseur, the pain was not the good kind but rather the painful kind that made me want to call for help and had me cursing him for the next two days.I am guessing men, much like George Costanza, simply don’t like other men touching and rubbing and I can understand this. But what does that say about women who prefer a woman masseuse? It’s kind of like the theory among t
he uninitiated and really stupid that women sportswriters are in the business so we can ogle naked men in the lockerroom. If that’s what they think about sports lockerrooms, what does it say about the male sportswriters in there?You can see now why I can’t completely relax and enjoy my massage with such deep thoughts.Like I said, it’s a sickness. 

Anyone still out there?Re-entering cyberspace, I think, might be more challenging than entering it the first time. Technically though, I never really left, going from the  Chicago Tribune to my blog, which kept me sane after being laid off from the Tribune, to ESPNChicago.com, which saved me.

I began my blog in the weepy hours after being pushed out by the Tribune last April and kept writing as I stopped crying and started to see the hope and humor again, through my first months with ESPN. And then I stopped.I still do not know exactly why I stopped. But I am flattered by the handful of you not including those directly related to me, who noticed. I hope you find me again. And though I can’t promise anything, I hope not to take a three-and-half month break again.

For a while, I know I felt that if I was not doing something productive every waking hour that I was a slug and would never be gainfully employed again. Then, when I was gainfully employed again, I discovered the utter sense of comfort I got from taking a few hours off and not feeling guilty.At about that time, I also re-discovered our couch in the family room and how much I loved it – and the furry purple blanket my daughter Amanda brought home a few years ago as one of the truly great bat mitzvah giveaways. And then I remembered why my husband rarely rents movies as I drifted off to sleep each night, a deep, almost drugged-like state in which I could hear myself snoring but I could not do a thing about it.

It also was then that I couldn’t imagine how I would ever find the time and energy to write a blog again.But I did miss it.  Like an old friend who you stop calling for no particular reason, then a few weeks turn into months and you reach that uncomfortable stage when you’re almost afraid to call, not remembering who called last and if it’s your fault so much time has passed, I am hoping that as I do start again, I will find that my friend(s) are still there for me.Writing columns again on a regular basis for ESPN has been a joy I thought I might never experience again. I do it now with a light-heartedness, even for the heavy subjects, I have not had in a very long time. Maybe it’s because I am no longer under strict space or time restrictions. Maybe it’s just because it’s a terrific positive atmosphere. Or maybe it’s because no one really writes to me anymore.There is no e-mail address at the bottom of my columns and I have made no effort to correct that. While I have always loved hearing from readers, even critical responses, the advent of blogs and the increase in Internet traffic has lent itself to people who can spontaneously reply from their desks – or dark caves, as the case may be  — anonymously, of course, and with spewings of racism, sexism and just general hatred that I really grew tired of reading.I just figured I’d cut down on that a little and it seems to have worked and I feel much better. In fact, e-mails like the one I got this morning in response to my [U.S. Olympic speedskater] Shani Davis column calling me a “barren lesbian freak” hardly ever happen anymore. So things are great.But I do love hearing from people who read my blogs, particularly since they seem only to be nice, normal, literate people who would never think of calling a writer a “barren, lesbian freak” even if somehow that was an appropriate response.The other thing is that I find I am talking to myself much too much without a blog, particularly in the shower when I am a literary savant, every story flowing through my brain with just the right touches of humor. Of course, by the blow-drying stage, I’ve lost it. But where else but here can I talk about Amanda’s turnabout dance (I called it the “Sadie Hawkins dance” recently and she looked at me as if I was wearing a bonnet and hoop skirt), my continued eating problems (I bought a Valentine’s Day cookie cake as if we were having a party – we’re not. Cake is now gone), my 11-year-old son suddenly caring how his hair looks (I can cry), the new Superdawg grand opening (like a drive-thru bar mitzvah), and many funny facets of my life that have been lost forever in this three-and-a-half-month black hole.So I’ll be back, promise.  

Heard from Marty Biviano. This made my sister nearly choke when I called. I’d like to say, being the communications professional that I am, that I was not surprised. But I choked a little too.

I mentioned Marty Biviano in a blog I wrote several entries ago on coed dorm rooms now being allowed at the University of Chicago.

I was trying to illustrate how much dorm life has changed from when my sister attended Lincoln College in the late 1960s and men had to sign in with the dorm mother. Men like Marty Biviano, my sister’s boyfriend her freshman year in college.

I did not have to mention Marty by name or really talk about him at all. But I liked the story about her having to rush their goodnight kissing to make it in by the 10 p.m. curfew, another feature of dorm life in the 60’s.

And I liked his name. Marty Biviano. I mean, it’s a great name and I thought it gave the story a little added color and credibility.

I called my sister back to tell her this and she thought I was a little more nuts than usual.

“You’re writing about Marty Biviano?” she asked. “Are you sure it’s OK to use his name?”

“Why?” I asked. “Was he secretly married as a freshman at Lincoln College? Was he leading a double-life and really part of a religious sect that did not permit kissing?”

“Fine,” she said, only a teeny bit exasperated.

And then Marty Biviano e-mailed me.

From another state nowhere near Lincoln College, nor his hometown.

My sister was blown away.

I was also astounded, as if this was the first time I have ever written anything that appeared on the Internet and was seen by real people I did not personally know who did not live in the Chicagoland area.

Marty could not have been nicer. If we were surprised, imagine how he felt, he wrote, when his son sent him a link to a blog referring to his life more than 42 years ago.

He remembered what my sister had described and he remembered visiting our house and my parents lending them their car for his first drive into Chicago. I’m not sure he remembered my sister trying to pass him off as being Jewish to my father, who cared about such things in 1968 and was clearly easy to fool.

Sadly, Marty didn’t have any stories about the adorable little sister but it must have been a brief visit.

He updated me a little on his life, I updated him a little on my sister’s and now we’re e-mail buddies.

But there was one thing I still had to know. Though I’d like to think this website/blog of mine gets around, and I know it has moved beyond my immediate family, how did it get to Marty?

I wrote him again and he responded that just by chance, his son had Googled his name and it was in the top 5 hits. I was suddenly proud. Top five, wow.

Googling yourself  is not a new phenomenon. It even has some nicknames, like “egosurfing” and “egogoogling.” No name that I know of when you google your loved ones, but I’m sure it’s in the works.

My daughter Amanda once googled herself  and was shocked to learn that she was the author of two “books” – one on the tennis player Anna Kournikova and another on Allen Iverson. She was about seven at time and didn’t recall having written two books. So I had to come clean and admit that I was not all that proud of the rush-job I did for a European publisher (I mean, Anna Kournikova? Need I say more?) and decided they would be ghostwritten by Amanda.

“Oh, great,” my husband said at the time, “now she’ll never get into a good college.”

So amusing. At least she can buy them all up for about eight cents each.

Marty said he’s sure he’ll never hear the end of it from his family regarding his brush with fame. He also told me he was a retired public school band director, which gave me the perfect opening to e-mail him all about our son’s budding music career.

Funny, I haven’t heard back from him in a while.