Sunday, Apr. 10, 2005
long day, posted at 10:19 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com This is the day that would never end, a 9-5 day at the restaurant, working a mammoth Sunday brunch. After counting my tips at 5:20, I headed over to Lulu's Off Broadway for a veggie burger and a beer for dinner. Then it was off to see Danielia Cotton at the Patterson Theater. She was good, channeling not-quite-as-good-as Joplin with her vocals. But she towered over her material, which only matched her vocals when she covered others, like Jimi Hendrix and Patty Griffin, or when she sang her one recognizable radio hit. I thought a lot of her songs sounded alike otherwise. Still, she was a gracious performer and I liked the show, but I was fiercely exhausted and it's good to be home. I went with my friend Kris and her 7-year old son Nick, because a couple other people cancelled at the last minute. It was good to bond with them; Nick is a cool kid and Kris is a great person.Returning home - something I was anticipating with pleasure from about noon onwards on this very, very long day - wasn't without some pressure, though. Both my neighbors mowed their lawns today, meaning the pressure is on to mow mine. But I tried mowing yesterday, and the piece-of-shit lawnmower that I bought for $20 three and a half years ago from an old man on Southern Avenue will not start. I probably am going to try to find another $20 lawnmower to get me through the next three years, but I don't really know how to check on them until the weekly local classifieds comes in the mail on Thursday. It may be a forest by then; I might ask a neighbor to borrow their lawnmower for once. But that's kind of weird, isn't it? My lawn takes all of ten minutes to mow, so I don't want them to think I'm just being lazy. I love mowing the lawn, and working in the yard in general, but have not been able to this year yet, and now that I can (or at least, I could yesterday), I can't.
Trying to get to bed early because I really want to go to the gym tomorrow, as I think I've gained some weight because my pants are awfully tight. I hadn't been in to Bally's in over two weeks - since Good Friday - until yesterday, when I ran a couple miles. Today I feel it, which is a testament to how out-of-shape I've let myself become in two weeks. Thankfully, it's only two weeks, and I can tell myself it's part of a cycling program I'm on, where I cycle in and out of workout programs every few months. I'd really like to get myself into beach shape in the next couple months; I'm not feeling so great about myself at the moment in that department. A former student of mine told me I was looking pudgy last week; the Polish girl today poked my belly when I reached for something and then kept asking me if I was cold or if I was excited because my nipples were showing through my shirt (I swear, I should sue that girl for sexual harassment). My plan in the winter was to be in good shape by the time baseball season started. It worked, but I've lost some of the relative leanness I had in early March because even though I'm out with the team every day for a few hours practicing, I'm not getting the kind of exercise I'm used to getting from the gym. Because while they're running, I'm yelling.
My team has home games on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week, so it should be a pretty baseball-centric week in my updates, which during baseball season feel like missives from a really long, great, and exhausting trip. Wednesday is against the team we've never beaten in the four years I've been here, and I'm expecting to go into Wednesday's game sporting a 3-0 record (Monday should be a victory).