Gathering Thoughts

Perhaps it is gathering storm clouds and perhaps it is gathering weaponds of mass destruction and perhaps it is a gathering that might emerge from a clown car, but thoughts have been gathering lately and as I mentioned somewhere in the backwards catch up of the past week, the thoughts have been inspired in large part by an email from J and a journey back through the Diaryland blog Behind The Candor which was the primary daily blog (diary, at the time) from September, 2003 through February 2007 (though it had some sort of mini-ressurgeance in 2008-09, likely as I reached out everywhere for any sort of literary human contact as I was living alone without a TV and had a lot of time on my hands, kind of like these days in the current now). There would be some overlap with the daily blog that followed it, RealTime(tm), which started in May, 2006 (current entry), but that has nothing to do with this entry because that was not part of the journey I took this past week even if it's current entry is kinda cool. Alas, if only there was a Medicine Man and a Sweat Lodge and some great drugs, this might have been amazing.

A-hem...

My specific journey this past week focused on several months at the end of 2005 and beginning of 2006 and the oodles of caring and glowing and strange comments that were there. This previous entry in this blog provides some links to some of the pages I was reading and as I mentioned in it, I actually did start an entry remembering the people I miss from those days at Diaryland as well as this rhyme that I guess tries to express the reasoning behind retaining all the connections to all the blogs and people I've know. Kind of like To all the girls I've loved before but to everyone and the universe too. I miss music.

I really must come up with an inexpensive way to get all my CDs back out of their boxes and into some sort of order, perhaps back to alphabetical, so I can find music I want to hear as it comes to mind. Of course that will increase the lament over the music stuck in storage in northern New York for twenty years (yes, twenty years) and the music lost in Toronto when my stuff was held hostage for love, or something like that, but it's worth the risk to see if music will reawaken enough hope in me to bring me back from the mostly dead where I apparently have been for the last nineteen years since looking over the edge of the bridge over Niagara Falls and deciding not to jump.

What?

Oh yes, back to whatever this entry was becoming about (slippery little bugger when I want to be, aye?) and that was something about sharing... something about always... la da da da da da da da da da da da da... love, love, love... did you get all that?... did you get any of it?... are we not emo?... squirrel?... ok, start again.

Perhaps all that should have gone into Paragraphs, but here we are. Today I went to sleep somewhere around 10am and woke somewhere around 4pm and spent a little more time gathering thoughts and writing that summary of the journey (so far) and then I headed out to softball. We played well and each team scored 4 runs in the first inning. We took a lead 5-4 in the sixth and they came back to take the lead 7-5 in the top of the seventh on a few errors and bad throws. We tied it up in the bottom of the seventh and could not get the winning run home from third, so we went into extra innings with the one pitch rule in effect. That is one pitch is all the batter gets. A ball is a walk, a strike is an out, a foul is an out. It is meant to move the game along as extra innings usually cuts into the next game's time frame. They scored a run in the top of the eighth to go up 8-7, so we came up in the bottom of the eighth needing a run to tie and two to win. We tied it on a triple that scored a runner from second. Runner on third, tie game, two outs. We got the winning run across with two outs on a line drive over the shortstop, exciting. We won 9-8.

Yay us.

After the game I hung out and watched the next game with friends. We watched a team that does not belong in the league win another game by a huge margin. They were 2-0 coming into this game scoring 42 runs and giving up 1 in two games. They won this one something like 17-1. They won their first game on a forfeit. They were mocking the other team in the last two innings and then taunted the other team after they won. They are also known for deliberately hitting up the middle to rattle a pitcher and a couple of balls buzzed the pitcher's head. Our coach decided we would not play them and will accept a forfeit next week as we have a double header so we will show up for the second game only. That protects our players and makes a statement to the league that they should think twice about putting a team in our league that is so arrogantly dominant that they will sooner or later either hurt someone or start a fight. Macho morons really do suck at life.

It doesn't help that they openly drink alcohol (from beer cans and bottles, not trying to hide it at all) on the field so their judgment is impaired (hence the lack of class or sportsmanship) and the Field Director had to go over to their dugout before the game to caution them about that. They ignored him at first, which is even worse arrogance. The Field Director could have simply banned them right there for violating the county law of drinking alcohol at the park. If a cop was present he could have made an arrest or at the very least issues an expensive fine. They are definitely trouble waiting to happen, so I support our coaches decision to forfeit for safety and as a statement that we might look to move to another place to play if teams like this are permitted to play in a league well beneath their ability level. Personally, I would really love to play closer to home on better fields with two umpires for the same money (we only get one ump there).

On the way home I debated about heading the Excel and the Commodore's to play cards but decided to stop at Taco Bell instead and pig out at home. TV is definitely missing as it was companionship when eating alone at home, but I turned on radio music and made the best of it. The taste buds and belly were very happy. Then I gathered enough thoughts to actually upload the entries linked above (babble and rhyme) and I came here to provide you with the all important dirt, drama, and details of the day.

Tomorrow I really should get a load of laundry done (3 loads are left, sheets, towels, and regular colors - as opposed to softball colors), take the car for an oil change, check the tires cuz the tire light comes on when the temperature drops below 60 degrees, stop for Vitamin B Complex cuz I am out, buy more water, buy a few more outdoor lights for the front and backyards, spray bug spray out back where I park the car, rake/sift the ground out back where we picked up the fence to check for nails or screws, move a few big items from the other room to the garage, empty stuff out of the car and if I get to Curly's clean it (he has a good vaccuum and area for washing, though cleaning will likely wait until next Tuesday when I play cards there) and I believe I am forgetting one or two things that were going to be put on a list of things to do tomorrow but I did not get around to making that list. We shall see when I wake up (not before noon, it's after 5am now) and how much of that I get done before heading to the Thursday Night card game.

So what's the dirt, drama, and details in your life today? :)