June 27th, 2002. Thursday
 

 

    This whole week, I've had trouble remembering what day it is.  I think it has something to do with my guitar lesson switching days for the last few weeks. It's odd that that is somehow what has been keeping my mental calendar straight. Maybe because it's the only thing that's steady from week to week.  Anyway, the rescheduling I've had to do has really thrown me for a loop. It feels like Wednesday today.

    Well, on Tuesday night after work I took the F train as I normally do, only this time I rode it all the way to the end of the line in Brooklyn, which put me out on Coney Island.  There, I met Jen K and her Parks Posse at Nathan's Hotdogs, and we got a few dogs and headed for Keyspan Park for the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball game.  I've long admired the park from the outside everytime I'm down on Coney Island, but this was the first time I've been in it.  It's pretty good for a minor league facility.  It was enjoyable for the most part, but the quality of baseball certainly left something to be desired.  The Cyclones are in the Class A New York Penn League, which is basically kids right out of highschool and 16 year-old Venezuelans and the like.  Anybody with any honed skills whatsoever would be in Double A.  My home town of Reading, PA is home to the Reading Phillies, the AA club, and the play on even that level was much better than this.
    I was very pleased with myself when, after watching the New Jersey Cardinlas take infield practice before the game, I predicted that the shortstop would make at least one error in the game, possibly in the first few innings.  And sure enough, around the third inning, he booted one that should have been a double play.  The old trying to throw the ball before it was in his glove.  He'll be baggin groceries in a few weeks I think.  Then again, they all will, since the season for them is only about three months.  I was talking to Jen K about this, and she said it'd be a perfect job for a teacher, to teach during the year and play class A ball during the summer, since the season is from June to September.  I've already been thinking about the pitching thing.  I wonder how much I'd have to do to be able to play class A ball.  Probably a lot.  Though after the game we went to the batting cages and I was making decent contact in the medium cage.  And the fastest the pitchers threw in the game was about 84 mph.  Most pitches were in the mid 70's.  I could do that.
    It bothers me a bit to watch a baseball game with people who don't know much about baseball, or know less about baseball than I do. I'm always disappointed when my wry insights go unappreciated.  Anyway, after the game, we went to the batting cages, then over to ride the Cyclone. We waited quite some time to get to the front car.  The ride was basically empty, but we had to endure these drunken buffoons who were in the front car and rode three times.  They let you ride again for 4 bucks after each ride, and these idiots found it fit to spend 13 dollars on 3 2-minute rides.  But it was worth the wait.  It's a pretty action-packed two minutes.  And best of all, the historical sign I wrote for the Cyclone when I worked for the Parks Department is finally there.  I was very disappointed whenever I went down there and the sign wasn't there. I didn't see it when I first got down there, which was odd, since they're celebrating the 75 birthday of the Cyclone this year.  But then as we were leaving we found it, basically hidden on the sloping side of the ticket booth, behind a white chain-linked fence. It's the least conspicious historical sign I've ever seen.  That was disappointing.  It's one of only about 4 signs I wrote that were made, and i think it's the only one that's actually up.  By the way, the Parks Department is being sued again, this time by the Federal government, over racist hiring practices.  Personally, I think i was hired because my boss thought I was cute.

    The writing class went fairly well this week.  Yesterday my story was read.  It was about why I would never buy Rodzilla fancy underpants.  But as I've said before, the underpants is just a symbol.  The papers are read anonymously, but I think just about everybody knew it was mine.  It even inspired some tears in one girl.  They said it was very emotional and honest.  Which is very atypical for me.  I was squirming in my seat the whole time, which I didn't really notice until a couple people told me after class.  But all in all I think it was a success, except one person thought it was a woman writing about a lesbian relationship. He obviously wasn't listening. Although at one point, when I heard a line outloud, I did wonder if someone might think it was a woman writing.  Only one person though I was objectifying women, but most people said they just felt sorry for me. That wasn't really what i was going for, and a lot was read into it that I hadn't intended.  Everyone said it was obvious how hurt I was.  But I didn't make it clear that Rodzilla and i had broken up almost two years ago. When I told them that, everyone was like, "Oh...that's a completely different story then."  So I'm thinking maybe I should just leave it how it is.
    The instructor said she like it very much, and commented about how much discussion it inspired.  That embarrasses me, but of course I like it. The one thing she was disappointed about she said, despite my using "too-colloquial" terms like "gonna" and "fella" in the same sentence, was my "lazy transition."  I began a paragraph with "So" and she doesn't like that.  I think more than any other word, "Anyway" is what I start most paragraphs with when I write here.  I've often thought about that as I write. But it's not going to stop me.  Which is unfortunate.

    Last night at work I had to watch a movie on CBS called Black and Blue. It starred Mary Stuart Masterson and Anthony LaPaglia as a brutalized wife and a wife-beating NYPD detective.  So I had to sit through two hours of that.  Every night, a few shows are pegged for quotes, and if your show is picked you have to find a good quote for their website to use on their front page.  The quotes are always funny quotes, so I was quite surprised when my show had a little red asterisk by it denoting that I must find a quote.  A funny quote.  In a movie about an abused wife who runs to Florida with her son, only to be tracked down by her detective husband and his private detective ex-partner, beaten severely, and having her husband run off with her son and disappear himself.  My prospective quotes included:  "I just love you so much, sometimes it makes me crazy," and "I hope you can forgive me for loving you so much."  These are things Anthony LaPaglia says when he's trying to apologize for beating the shit out of her.  Then there was "Are you not wearing a slip under that dress?  I can see right through it.  You look like a slut.  Do not leave the house dressed like that."  Sweet.  Needless to say, I saw no quote up on the page this morning.
 

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