Friday, May. 28, 2004
Baseball, beer, and beautiful weather, posted at 2:13 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Good times at the Orioles game, despite the 18-5 drubbing the team took. I met up with three friends at Thirsty Dog at around 5:30, where we drank their excellent 2-for-$3 beers until 6:30. I think I was able to get down six at that point, but, to be fair, they're sort of tiny. But my crazy, somewhat annoying friend J thought it would be a good idea to buy a six pack and sneak beers into the stadium to save money. We stopped off at the liquor store on the corner of Charles and Cross, and, to our surprise, J brough out a 12-pack of Miller Lite instead of a 6-pack. So, we had to drink the beers on the way. It was stupid and fun. And sneaking in cans in our pocket was no problem at all.(Apparently I'm 20 years old.)
We had nosebleed seats, but that was fine. It was a good game until the 5th inning, when the Yankees scored 8 runs off our "Ace." J became the type of obnoxious drunk my dad used to warn me about at baseball games when I was little. He was out of control, screaming about Baltimore's official flower for the New York Yankees over and over again. He'd yell, "I want tulips," and then point to his crotch and say, "on these nuts" and laugh and be amused with himself. The other three of us sort of scooted away while he sort of hung out with another group of people. Still wondering if he hooked up with that big girl he was dancing with.
I can't say that I acted maturely, either, though. This guy down at the concession stand whispered to me after I bought a beer that if I brought back my cup and went to his line, he'd give me a refill for $3. Pretty ballsy move, but I can respect it. I took advantage of that offer twice, and that's in addition to the first beer I had at the game. This, of course, was in addition to the blueberry beer I'd quaffed at Thirsty Dog and the cans of beer I guzzled on the way to the game from Cross Street market.
Luckily, this was over the course of seven hours or so, and was with good friends who did the same, so nothing was over the top or out of control. We forgot about the game after the fifth inning, talking about politics and teaching and life afterwards, and all in all it was the kind of night that I don't get to have often enough. We left J to his dancing and cicada catching and walked back across Federal Hill to get home.
****
My day in school has been incredible. The kids are in great moods, probably because I am. We're reading Fences, a raunchy, funny, moving play written by August Wilson. It's part of the curriculum - I didn't even add it - and it's one of those books that I sometimes can't believe I'm getting away with teaching. I guess I live in a world so far removed from the conservate and censoring types like I hear about on Howard Stern every morning, and have heard of protests about books in other parts of the country, that I'm just happy I can read a play with my students that has a joke about how having sex with a big woman is like riding on Goodyears because the cushioning is so good. I've never had any protests of books I've taught, and I don't even choose the books that I do teach (I wrote the curriculum, but the books were pretty much there; I've recommended others that have been added, but most were in the curriculum already). Troy Maxson is such a cool character, though, and today I had a kid who read him better than any kid I've ever taught has read him; he had impeccable timing and tone. It was just a good day. Any day when I can laugh as much as I did today on my job is a good one.
I'm concerned about getting through everything by the end of the year, but otherwise life is good.
I added a comments feature. Like it?