Like These Girls I Knew in High School

This season, my baseball team, the Cardinals, is killing me. At the beginning of the year, at first blush, there was nothing wrong with this team. They were rolling along, winning and then came the injuries, the abysmal hitting, and one stupid trade and here the Cardinals are now, they just look pathetic. I mean, tonight, Randy Winn was batting fifth. Randy fucking Winn? You know he has never been the playoffs? Anybody ever wonder if maybe Randy Winn is cursed? Just saying.

Anyway, back to my analogy in the title because this years Cardinals reminds me a lot of these twin girls I knew in high school, the Flautists (not their real name). They were identical in every way, always seemed cheerful, friendly, and wholesome in that Fellowship of Christian Athlete / chorus (or glee club, I suppose) kind of way. And also, at my first viewing of them, I thought they were okay looking young ladies. That is not to say that I believed they were among the hotties I ogled and nicknamed with friends (oh, the nicknames we had), but the best I could hope to achieve, on the pretty side of things.

But they Flautists were always kind of derided and made fun of, though I didn't understand why, I mean, they seemed all right to me. Then I got a closer look. They sort of clomped when the walked, like their ankles didn't bend. They were a little thicker than some, but I didn't mind that, that's no big deal, I mean I was (and am, thank you) fat, so whatever, no judging there. But...they had arm hair thicker than mine. A kind of starter kit uni-brow. A dark-haired lady mustache.

So, I thought....Oooohhh, I get it now. That's why people didn't think they were pretty at all. How could I have missed that? I mean, they've been wearing short sleeves all year long, why did it take me so long to notice? Huh.

A better person would have maybe reevaluated their concepts of beauty. I, at the time, lacking a sense of enlightenment was just disappointed in myself for being fooled. How dare I think they were good-looking-enough-to-be-attainable-by-fatty-pimply-me...they've got mustaches!...what was I thinking. These Flautists are hideous. Sure, I never actually talked to them, but still...I had duped myself into believing something that's not true about these girls. And sports fan, there is no enlightenment or betterment through reevaulation. There is no higher plane of wins and loses. It's all hormones and id and junk like that. It's wins. It's losses.

Which leads me to the Cardinals. What was I thinking that Loshe would be good this year...that Molina, Ryan, & Schumaker would repeat their performances....that Matt Holliday wouldn't wilt like hot spinach when he's needed to perfom...that Brad Penny would stay healthy...that they wouldn't trade Ryan Ludwick for Jake Westbrook...how could I have missed all that? How could I have missed that mustachioed lady? It's all just so ugly.

Tom Petty Has It All Wrong

The waiting, in fact, is not the hardest thing. It's the starting over that's the hardest part, especially after seeing how poorly these past few times my starting over has gone.

I've tried the theme blog about weight loss and writing, and I have very little to say about either of them it turns out. At least lately. Probably because I haven't been doing a lot of either lately. My weight hasn't changed, but I'm around 215 to 218 which is okay. I want to be lower, but I can handle where I am. I just need to lay off the Amish pies and junk like that. Seriously, Emily and I split a mini Amish-made cherry pie tonight...it was amazing, but probably a billion fat calories. And working out regularly hasn't been happening either, even though there's very little reason why I shouldn't be able to work out all the time, except for the fact that it takes up too much time. As for writing, well, I have a 500 dollar machine in the other room that I'm currently not using that I bought for the specific purpose of writing more and for a while I had down a good routine and wrote a few thousand creative words, though nothing has come of it yet. Then I move and for a month now, I've been struggling to find a rhythm at this place, and it's been about a month now.

It seems that everyday is spent scrambling from one task to complete to the next. The one other thing we have to buy, or assemble, or store or move or paint or clean. Weekends have been nuts as well, always moving around. I haven't had one quiet or thoughtful moment in my head aside from maybe three bathroom constitutionals, which isn't all that quieting because the toilet is sub-standard here (very low and one of those awful cushion seats, but you need the cushion seat for the extra height, otherwise it would feel like you were shitting while perched on the heels of your feet).

And it's that, that constant attempt to arrange and place that's driving me nuts lately. Right now, I'm looking at about a dozen things on my desk that need to be rearranged and therefore puzzled over as to where they actually go. Like, what the fuck is going on with these two coupons? We don't even buy egg beaters...and that pile of blank VHS tapes....what the fuck do I do with them...and the paint samples...and the Learn Italian audio CD, and come to think of it, that whole fucking milk crate of CDs and shit...

I just want to burn it all if I think it would make a difference because even then, I would have the ashes to contend with.

Living here, so far, as been the most agonizing puzzle where each time one piece is pressed into place a different piece is broke in two.

There just more clutter here than a Kansas graveyard. What? Too soon? Oh, you don't get it. In Cold Blood...family's name was Clutter then they got blasted by those guys...and they lived in Kansas...there ya go.

And each time I straighten or purchase or move, it's just not right...like I could be doing one more thing to get it right, but I can't somehow. And I then get distracted by all the things I should be doing, like writing. There's just a lot of noise it seems. And clutter...and misplaced coupons and a fucking stamp set that's never been used just sitting there for who the hell knows what reason...

I gotta take care of these things.