Wednesday, Mar. 16, 2005
There's mustard by my keyboard, posted at 11:18 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com The days are as long as they are satisfying right now. We practiced for a hours this afternoon, in what was the nicest afternoon of the week for baseball. The kids eventually began to ask what time it was, and I would answer, "I'm not sure, my sleeve is covering up my watch right now," then I'd look down and show them that I couldn't see my watch. We played until it was almost dark enough to be dangerous, then we turned in. I feel confident about the team right now, and am really interested in what will happen on Monday. I'm assuming all other city teams had as bad a preseason as we did, with the weather and all - although I wouldn't be suprised if our chief rivals had dirt heaters underneath their swanky infield to prevent snow from sticking or the field from turning to mush.The field is in pretty bad shape, but I'm hopeful it will be fixed by the city before we begin playing. I'm also hopeful that uniforms and equipment will come in soon. The Athletic Director pays little attention to the baseball program, and there are good things and bad things that go along with that - the good thing is that I have plenty of freedom to do whatever I want (like keep more players than I have jerseys), and the bad thing is that sometimes I feel like he orders things as an afterthought. It's impossible to be upset about it, though; he's a really quintessential nice guy and our girls basketball team, which he coaches, came within nine points of winning the state championship this year, against a team of girls that I'm willing to bet had way better facilities, equipment, and money than our team.
I just got back from the bloggers Happy Hour. The amount of people there was a bit overwhelming, and that's a cool thing; our little blogger community has exploded. It was good to see old friends, and my roommate, and I kicked myself for considering not going. I had a bad Internet week that made me think about password protecting this baby again, but things are better now. I arrived at nearly eight o'clock and stayed a couple hours, long enough for a tuna melt and a beer and some conversation. I did my best - and succeeded, for the most part - to avert awkward pauses, which are my unfortunate specialty at these things, and, frankly, in life, unless we're talking books I've read or baseball or mid-nineties rock or 2000s hip-hop or teaching or working out. If you stray from those, good luck, I tell myself. Drug use? Does pot, once, count? NCAA Basketball? Embarassingly enough, as I'm a Spartan, nah, I don't really know one collegiate basketball player right now. But I can tell you what Carlos Pena's OPS was last year, or why Luis Matos will never duplicate his 2003 numbers, or that Mrs. Grace Merriweather was created to depict the religious hypocrisy of Maycomb in To Kill a Mockingbird. Or, if I can always bring up cat piss and the dangers of changing kitty litter brands when I can't follow another conversation in a group.
Anyhow, point being, I didn't feel like I couldn't contribute today, never had that horrible feeling where I wonder if I have anything to offer in a conversation, or if I wonder if everyone is noticing just how quiet I am. Tonight, people made me feel like Atticus made Walter Cunningham feel at dinner on Scout's first day of school - they talked about things I can talk about and helped me avoid the darkness of silence, which is becoming another of my obsessions. Along with being obese (BMI: 30.7), I'm terrified of not having anything to say.
My point in saying this right now is that I didn't feel this way tonight. In fact, I almost felt comfortable, after a spell.
But about the obesity thing, my co-worker (a sweet older woman who is a health nut) heard me talking about obesity and she brought in this chart, ostensibly to prove to me that actually I was not obese. Lo and behold, though, we plugged in my numbers and it showed that I am obese. She was embarassed, but then grabbed my bicep and told me I'm too muscular to be obese, then I got embarassed.
I'm half kidding here. In fact, I just read that Shaquille O'Neal is obese. When told that he is classified as obese according to the BMI scale, he answered, "Oh yeah? Well, as an athlete, I'm classified as phenomenal. You can look it up." So that's what I can tell myself. I'm not obese; I'm phenomenal.
Or, better yet... I'm not quiet, I'm phenomenal. I'm not actually struggling to find things to talk about and desperate for a lifeline, nope, I'm actually phenomenal. My armpits don't stink right now, they're phenomenal.
***
Today, during group work, I asked a group why they didn't seem to be doing anything. Jewel answered, "We are, Mr. E. We're brainstorming."
"Seems more like a light drizzle."
I laughed and laughed and laughed.
***
On the way home tonight, I yielded for the first time to my Cadbury Egg craving. Except when I yield, I yield. Three Cadbury Eggs later, I'm feeling a little ill and wondering why I did this to myself knowing that I'll have to run double tomorrow.
I literally threw the fourth Cadbury egg out the window (sans wrapper) so I wouldn't eat it.
By the way, did you know they now sell Fruity Pebbles with 50% sugar and only 110 calories a bowl? Crazy. The last time I bought fruity pebbles, I had left the bloggers meetup at Holy Frijoles. Something about Blogger Happy Hour just mades me gotta have fruity pebbles.
I'm such a rambling idiot sometimes. I have to sleep.