Post number forty-six, Everything's Not Coming Up Roses.

Things I learned tonight, sitting on the 45 yard line at the Rose Bowl game:

1. I hate to lose. Really. I am not a player or coach, just an alumn and fan. And still, I feel like someone just killed my dog.

2. A narrow margin makes for the highest high and the lowest low. I remember how sad I was near the end of the Notre Dame game this season, followed by a huge rush of excited high when USC improbably won the game. Instead, I sit here, unable to turn on my television for fear of highlights. Unable to visit espn.com as I almost obsessively do. Unwilling to call sympathetic Trojans. I can’t believe I feel so lousy.

3. Arrogance is the surest way to humiliation. Up by eleven points, I was making plans for next year, wondering who the quarterback will be, hoping that Pat Riley would let USC use “3-peat” for free on t-shirts. And Matt Leinart thought he could drive the length of the field in less than a minute.

4. Vince Young is a great athlete. I hope he comes back next year. Really. He’s fun to watch. (He’d be more fun to watch lose to USC.)

5. I’m a bigger sports fan than I’m willing to admit. I’m crushed right now. I wouldn’t talk to anyone on the drive home. I insisted that the radio be off. When I got out of the car to find my own way home, I didn’t even say goodnight. Yeah, I even felt a lump in my throat. A goddamned lump in my throat over a NCAA football game in which I had nothing invested other than my stupid college pride---which I didn’t care at all about when I was actually in college. Of course, when I was in college, USC rarely won a game.

What does this all mean?

USC lost.

Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart will have great careers in the NFL and make more money than I can imagine.

I’ll go to work tomorrow and bear the slings and arrows of a hundred people to whom I’ve bragged and talked smack.

Fight on.