At this point you must be in a state of shock. You contemplate to yourself, "am I dreaming? Can it really be true? Is this the feeling of euphoria I have missed by not having senseless ramblings to read?" Well, I guarantee nothing of any educational value will follow, but after a much needed hiatus, I have decided to continue my virtual musings.
These past two months have been a blur of music festivals, friends, good times, and work. I have found momentary peace sitting on my couch listening to Jack Johnson and letting the words spew from my mind to this post as a college freshman would empties his stomach from the nights keg party. Caring little for literary eloquence or even a coherent thought, I will write till I fall asleep. So I hope you are in for a good long distraction.
Have you ever realized, after the fact of course, you have gotten yourself into something over your head? My most recent cause for disapproving head nod was agreeing to play softball. A buddy of mine called the other day and asked if I would be interested in playing in a summer softball league. I quickly answer yes as I if I didn't have enough to do with work and all the other extracurriculars I was doing. As he got off the phone with me the only info I new was I had a game on Monday. I also new where it was, but not the field or any other information. At this point I so use to flying by the seat of my pants, I have had to get my mother to sew and patch my britches. But, I stand ready and look forward to the summer sporting.
I show up on Monday night, now knowing that we are suppose wear white t shirts, until we can get jerseys with our names on it (fancy...I know, but hey at some point I have to expect the best). I stumble around the park until I can find the diamond we were on. I frantically look around for a familiar face whilst memories of freshman year enter my head. Fortunately I find a buddy of mine and we start to talk. As we wait for the rest of the crew to show up we causally notice the team we are going to be playing.
Decked out in full baseball apparel, from authentic team named jerseys to those tight baseball pants, the feeling of "Oh Crap" comes over me as I look them over. Everyone matches, all have batting gloves, baseball cleats, and freshly oiled gloves. The rest of our team shoes up and I compare them to us. Half of us are wearing soccer cleats, wearing old fraternity shirts, and trying to decide which side of the one bat we have is the side to hold. At that point I knew we were in for some embarrassment. I wish I could say I was wrong, but that just wouldn't be our style.
With little to no warm up, we amble onto the field, me playing the catcher. As I am the third oldest person on my team, I feel my knees twinge with pain as I assume the crouched position. My fancy new knee brace creaks as my knee bends. The fat man in blue standing behind me, makes judgmental comments about our team...he made almost enough to get a piece of my mind, and not the good piece I reserve for family and friends. However, I manage to stifle my comments and hold my mouth shut. The first pitch is thrown...Illegal pitch, whatever that is. The next 13 pitches all balls. this has pretty much loaded the bases. Then the hitting begins. I managed to some how knock some guy in the face with my elbow. He stares me down...I laugh...he looks harder...I laugh harder...he walks away. That's my kind of confrentation, you know, the one that ends up in me not getting beat up. We struggle through the top of the first inning and get three outs with only a score of 12 to 0. Not our finest moment. However, the two fans there for us decided to make us feel better by pointing out the team next to us was losing 19 to 1...so here is to bright sides and them being our Mississippi (you know the one state/team/person who is always worse than you...thank MS).
We fight through the next few innings trying to get runs in...alas we score a unaffective six to there total 15. Not enough to win, and just short of getting made fun of forever. At the end of the game there was mention of maybe getting together to practice. An idea that was quickly shot down for a better one of just sneaking beer in before the games. Now that's a strategy I can agree with.
Tomorrow night is our second game. I am anticipating better play and more comfortable cohesion. But, I will keep you posted.
I am too tired to finish, in fact I am not even going to check this to see if it makes sense. I am just going to go to bed. But, I will try to keep more stuff on here and Keep you guys entertained...if I can. But, for now, I can hear my bed calling my name. Peace out.
