literally pains me

to write this: in case you thought i was dead, I'm not. BUT while in DC for my sister's Georgetown graduation, I somehow got some weird eye affliction called uveitus, which isn't conJUNCtivitis--it's not contagious, but it makes me hyper sensitive to any source of light, for the next 6-8 weeks. So I've been avoiding bright computer screens. I feel like I should be cast as an extra for Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something, because even though it's pretty cloudy out right now, I can't walk outside because it is still waaayyy too bright out. And my pupils are completely dilated to the point where you can't even see my irises. So I look like rosemary's baby on ecstasy or something. Which of course, was exactly the look I was going for. So hence is why I've been avoiding my computer like a garlic clove or crucifix.

Blame the drugs...

for my lack of writing anything remotely interesting in the last 29023 years. And by drugs, I mean the ones I'm researching for work. But if I didn't have a job that holed me up at a desk for 10 hours a day, I sure as hell would spend all day and night writing. That's like my dream: win the lottery and then do freelance drug copywriting and spend the majority of my waking hours writing about sports. (My friends always say, "You wouldnt travel?" But I hate travelling with a firey passion of 10,000 [phoenix] suns.)

So this is why I don't get why BS, who admittedly has definitely earned his cushy job, doesn't write every Goddamn day. I know his wife just had a kid and all, but please. It's not like his job involves a.) going into work, b.) any kind of challenge, or c.) a real stringent schedule. From now when I don't feel like making deadlines at my job, I'm going to pull out this brilliant "in the middle of writing my book so cut me some slack" pretense.

Anyways, you know that scene in Swingers that goes something like this:

MIKE
Haven't you noticed I didn't mention
Michelle once today?

ROB
I didn't want to say anything.

MIKE
Why?

ROB
I don't know. It's like not talking to
a pitcher in the midst of a no hitter.

MIKE
What? Like, you didn't want to jinx it?

ROB
Kinda.

MIKE
I don't talk about her that much.

ROB
Oh no?

MIKE
I didn't mention her once today.

ROB
Well, until now. Tend the pin.

MIKE
The only reason I mentioned her at all is
to say that I'm not going to talk about
her anymore. I thought you'd appreciate
that.

ROB
I do. Good for you, man.

MIKE
I've decided to get out there.

Well, I think you know what I'm not going to mention not mentioning.
I thought you'd appreciate that.

In terms of teams/sports I don't care enough about whether I'm jinxing or not, the dallas-suns game is tonight. I think the NBA finals and the MLB playoff race in the tail end of the summer are the only 2 times of the year I actually subscribe to that college-business-major/Diane Keaton-esque middle-aged corporate tiger catchphrase: There's not enough hours in the day!

This always killed me in college. But I guess I was an English and Theater major, so I had an unfair advantage of, well, never having anything that came close to resembling stress. But that whole "who has more work" competition thing was so aggravating, as if someone was ever going to capitulate and say, Wow! I thought my 300 page thesis on economic philosophies was daunting, but your 15 finals that fall all in one day definitely has the trump card!

Speaking of inane competitions, my Dad has been consistently cracking me up every single day at work. He discovered this contest the New Yorker just started, and he's become 100% obsessed with it. And I know if I was quasi-retired, enamored of the New Yorker, and creative like my Dad, I would be just as consumed with this. But my dad (like me) usually can't do things in moderation. I'm honestly surprised he hasn't developed a computer program that generates winning lines or something. Or has hunted down Salinger and enlisted him as his muse. Because my Dad calls me at work like, "So...did you think of any lines for this week's contest?" I think the one he came up with for this week is actually really funny. To the point where I "lol-ed" when he told me. And how many times can you say that about the New Yorker?

But so anyways, because just thinking of captions isn't enough (as they say), my Dad has decreed there's an intra-family contest between him, my mom, me, and my 2 younger sisters: Whoever wins one of these things first, everyone else in the family has to chip in and buy him/her dinner.

I see 2 main problems with this:
1.) It's 100% insane.
2.) More importantly, it assumes that it's basically a given that out of the millions and millions of dryly clever Americans who enter this every week, one of us will eventually win. Obviously.

I talked to my sister about this, and she was like, "Does he realize that they probably don't even read all the entries? That they probably pick a random sampling and pull a winner from that?" Good point.

But I'm being dead serious when I say I'd rather my dad win one of these things than pretty much anything else right now, including but not limited to: getting a promotion, getting a good night's sleep, and a bunch of sports-related desires, too. I guess this is how he felt when he and my sisters used to play softball, and my dad came to every game and he just loved when we got into clutch situations.

Or more aptly, when I graduated college and the morning of graduation I realized I didn't have any shoes to wear (not to mention my sundress was like transparent under the sun, but the gown took care of that--awesome foresight), and I had to borrow this teeny wedge sandal things that were basically narrow enough to fit in the back pocket of my jeans. So that was fun, walking up to get my diploma and blankly shaking the dean's hand, etc, and forgetting everything about that big life moment, because all I remember was concentrating on not falling. And then afterwards my mom says to me, "Congratulations! You know, the whole time I kept thinking..." (here I expect something along the lines of "how much youve matured, how proud we are, how profound this day is, etc") "...that I don't care if I die tomorrow as long as you don't fall wearing those shoes."

I love my parents, but I think they've engendered a propensity towards very skewed priorities in me.

Back to watching market research. It's kinda like watching doctors go on Blind Date. Like all this teeth pulling and awkward conversation. I keep expecting these little cartoony things to pop up on the bottom of the video streaming like, "Why doctors are lucky their profession is attractive enough to lasso women, in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..." (cut to Doctor mumbling some indiscernible one word answer about something.)

Ah well. I wish I was a tiger.

(A common lament.) TM Calvin and Hobbes

Why ESPN should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell

Would you like a cookie, son?

And they say that Yankee fans...

are fair weather?

Yes, they're both different writers. Yes, Yankee fans are finally feeling some relief after pulling our hair out for a few weeks. But as far as I know, Yankee fans never ever said, "Well that's it, the season's done for us." And then when we started getting a couple of W's under our belts, change our tune to, Let me back on the bandwagon!!

No one ever left. It drives me crazy that ESPN is billed as the sports authority, when really they are the equivalent of someone at a dog tricks show calling out specific commands to the dog as the dog is already doing it: ("Go chase that fly! umm..Walk towards the man holding the bowl of bacon!)--Yeah i know, my analogies are getting weirder and weirder. that's how I roll.

But seriously, ESPN will be all, "Hmm I have a HUNCH that Tejada is going to turn the Orioles around" but only when the Orioles are in the midst of a winning streak. They change their tune to coincide with the current trends, and then act as if they are clairvoyant when really they are just the worst kind of manipulative bandwagoners.

The Mavs are going to win the whole series. Now that I said that, of course, they will lose. But seriously, I like the Mavs. Despite the fact Stoudemire is just ridiculous and the suns have that whole MVP thing going on. (And by the way, he completely deserved MVP over Shaq. Shaq may be the most powerful force on the court, but Nash did more for his team than Shaq did. Meaning "most valuable" to me translates to things like assists.) If anything, on Miami Dwayne Wade was more valuable to Shaq than Shaq was for Miami.)

I'm just saying is all.

Also, this past weekend I went to Shea. Nice stadium, beautiful day. Less volatile than the stadium of the Yankee persuasion. No way jumped me for wearing a Yankee hat, and I didnt get vertigo sitting in the upper tiers, but I'll still take my Bronx home over it.

Saw "The Bachelor" aka charlie O'connell at a bar on thursday night. Had no idea who this guy was. Girls kept saying, Look it's the Bachelor! And i was like, "Who would have a bachelor party here?"

"No, no.It's THE bachelor."

So I thought that meant it was just like a really hot bachelor. But apaprently it's the guy from the TV show.

I slept til 5pm today. Last night was lunacy for a million reasons. I think a car may have exploded on my block or something because I heard the loudest noise I've ever heard in my life ever. Oh and this was about 10 minutes after I witness a car accident about 3 blocks away. Never actually SEEN a car accident occur in real time. Very scary. It was probably nature's way of telling me I should go to bed instead of get after it til 6am. Now I have to deal with that gross Sunday night feeling of having the weekend flash back in bits and pieces. Most of which involves me arguing with strangers about sports. The first sign I'm hammered=getting inexplicably fired up about sports issues I would normally not even care about. Apparently Craig Counsell was a hot topic of debate for me this weekend. There's something wrong with me.

It's also about 2302039423 degrees in my fine top story apt. Which is making this distilled Sunday feeling ever more lethargic. BUT on the plus side, I'm getting kind of fired up about taking a cold shower.

I'm so adept at trotting out the whole optimism thing. No joke.

been slacking ((teaser))

..on sports articles as of late, been trying to focus on the Yankees but am now inexplicably distracted by the suns-dallas series. But I have a feeling that a lengthy diatribe about Dirk Nowitzski, his role in Punkd, and some unfounded claims about how the two are linked will soon take up my early morning hours.

About how I feel today

This is the type of thing that I shouldn't be watching at work. For a lot of reasons.

But there is, of course,good news. This journalist is pretty fast and loose with the phrase "good news."

NOT WORRIED. Just...tired- like a disillusioned youth sans emo.

The Yankees are a mess.

This news, of course, is about as breaking as Britney's bun in the oven. But what IS stop-the-presses noteworthy is that the fans- who have thusfar been desperately clinging to a battle cry of "The season's young!"- are beginning to slowly and listlessly accept this immobilizing truth. That our team, our revered immortal pinstripes, the apple of the eye of the Big Apple, the essence of my being and the blood running through my veins...is a mess.

And when I say "mess," I mean I've see fraternity basements on a Sunday morning look better than this.

The Yankees, their cesspool of unanswered paychecks, and their sputtering engine are, quite simply, breaking my heart. And before I launch into the Anatomy of the Nosedive Worse Than That of Goose, the top signs the Yanks have propelled me into desolation...

--I watched America's Next Top Model on Wednesday. While a game was going on. Moreover, one girl's 12-pound weight gain was more riveting than said game.

--The maintenance men in my office building heckle me every morning I come in wearing my Yankee jacket. (What's worse is the fact they jumped down my throat when I didn't wear it one day, so now whether it's 80 degrees out or snowing, I have to wear that damn windbreaker to prove my team loyalty. To the maintenance men.)

--After winning a 15-2 softball game, a friend whose knowledge of baseball is limited to the fact it involves a bat, said, "Well, at least you have one team in your life that can score."

--I used to get mauled when I went out to bars with my hat on. ("Yankees suck! You suck! Buy their team! A-rod's gay! Stupid Jeter!" etc etc ad naseum infinitum.) Now I get pity drinks.

--Hideki is sporting the lowest batting average on me and my sister's fantasy teams. My sister's boyfriend is begging her to trade him for Shea Hillenbrand. They fight about this.

--Are the Red Sox still a Major League team? I haven't heard one word about them in weeks. I guess when Tampa Bay is banging out double-digit runs against us, we have bigger problems to tender.

If I wanted this kind of aggravation, I'd have thrown my energies into the Knicks.

Now here's how it is. I feel the same way I did in high school when I had to watch this Spanish soap opera "Destinos" for class. I would sit through class technically watching this bizarre drama, but my eyes would glaze over. I had no idea what was going on. Then I figured if I just dialed in and concentrated on it, I could understand enough of the dialogue to make heads or tails of the plot. But no. Even when I mustered up all the Spanish fluency I had in me, the show still was more indecipherable than "Vanilla Sky."

The Yankees are playing in a different language. And something is clearly getting lost in the translation because even when Steinbrenner authoritatively identifies the "real problem with the club," the team is still playing like they are experiencing an existential crisis, are stoned, or think they're all tenured college professors, just going through the motions of showing up to class.

Most Yankee fans are apopletic. Spitting nails. I wish I could endorse this kind of fervent emotion. But since I have never and will never be able to bring myself to this violent aversion, I'm just quietly discouraged. Like how the father in "The Wonder Years" would yell and scream when he got upset with little Kevin Arnold, but the real blow was when the normally reserved mother would deadpan, "You've just really disappointed us."

And like those doting parents, I only say all this because I care. I don't feel as though I'm betraying my team, but since they so severely govern my life, I feel like a part of me is disintegrating away with them. (Mom's sidebar: "God. You need a boyfriend. Or at least a hobby.")

As much as it pains me, I'm acting like someone who just found out she has a rare and incurable disease: reading everything I can get my hands on for answers, even it means uncovering a horrifying truth. And despite this somewhat manic research, I can't find a single sports writer who can explain this Bronx Bombing with any degree of lucidity.

The pitching? How much can you really say about Randy, Pavano, and Mussina? They're not dominating, but despite bad games, it's a safe bet that they'll ultimately slip back into place. (Mussina was shaky at the beginning of last year, too, but his ERA in September and October was just anemic.)

The hitting? What is there to say about a line-up boasting Sheffield, A-Rod, Jeter, Matsui, and Tino? We're trotting out a roster littered with future Hall-of-Famers, but we're either scoring 329 runs off David Wells or letting BARRY ZITO keep us to 3. Mind-boggling. I'd have an easier time making sense of organic chemistry,

Every team's got their weak links. But we're the only team in dead last.

And I'm still trying to get my head around why Bernie's arm has won the honor of being Scapegoat-of-the-Week. Last I checked, we weren't losing any games because the ball is dribbling to home plate.

In fact, last I checked, we were losing games because Posada was throwing to an unmanned 2nd base. Or our farm pitchers were tossing out the batter instead of the lead runner. Or our infielders were bobbling routine double-plays. Dropped pop-ups. Erratic base-running. Icy slumps. Poorly aimed throws.

We don't need to re-rack our line-up. We need a Little League Baseball Clinic.

And that right there is the reason that I'm left feeling dejected and defeated after every game. While I felt like I got left at the altar after game 7 of last year's ALCS, this is exponentially worse. At the risk of sounding like a 3rd-round losing college basketball coach, the Sox just out-played us. I could get past the famed collapse/choke/Yankee-hater Utopia because it was just a tough loss at an inopportune time. To put it lightly.

I'm not writing them out of the playoffs like certain ESPN writers, because despite the blitz of "last start this bad..." statistics, last year demonstrated that stats are Page-A-Day Calendar fodder and not steel prophecies.

But this here is sheer pain. Cringing. Sometimes tears. To borrow another page from the Bible of Go-to Sports Cliches, they don't look like a team. They look like the walking embodiments of everything Yankee-Haters purport.

And it's killing me one loss at a time.

But in these trying times, it is important to put a positive spin on everything. So maybe it's better to die this way, rather than via the mass homicide that will ensue should the Boss's pony not win the Kentucky Derby.

I'm putting 12-1 odds on him blaming the bullpen.

Like my feelings on CT from the Real World

I know I should find him incredibly offensive, (especially since he likes New York City about as much as a kick in the face with golf shoes), but instead I have to admit, I think he's hysterical.

Honestly, "I'm still a millionaire and you're a piece of shit" has just sprinted to the top of my List of Favorite Ridiculous B-List Celebrity/Athlete Lines. Right beneath the following dialogue from The Real World, Paris:

Ace: I think i need some alone time
CT: With who?
Ace: With myself, man.

The Yankees have all but brought up Scarlett Johanson to play right field. Can't they find a way to move this guy into the roster? I swear this would produce dynamite results.

Yankees=Job

Not Job like a career. Job like that guy from the Bible.

I haave roughly 2398472394 things to say about the way the media is covering the Yankees lately. But I'm apopletic right now, so I'm going to calm down first, put in a few calls to some Italian relatives, off ESPN, and then we can talk.

I am so Goddamn sick of these "last start this bad" statistics...

That's what I hate most about yankee-haters. They are hypocrites. They will contort their logic so that it coincides with their asinine loathing. If the Yankees were on a 20 game streak right now, everyone would be saying that "April and May means nothing." But instead, because they're losing, it's indicative of the outcome of a 7 month season.

How do people like this write for ESPN? Can you honestly put faith in someone who's actually written off a team 25 games into the season?

I'm spitting nails write now. Seriously. As soon as I gather my thoughts and take a brisk walk around midtown, I will properly articulate myself.

Til then...

Scientology

I'm so confused. All these celebrities, you'd think ONE of them would be like, "Scientology my ass." Sounds like a job for Curt Schilling.

If for no other reason than the fact that EVERYONE is jumping on the Band Wagon. I want to see a celebrity roll up with something like, "Yeah I've gotten really into this new religion called Catholicism. It's awesome. Strict, old fashioned teachings. Morals. Totally novel, you know?" That would be better than Kabbalah mumbo jumbo. Or even better, if someone trotted out a completely invented religion (which isn't a far cry from what Scientology is): "Um yeah I practice Cubism. What? No, not the art form. The religion. The practice of finding all of life's answers in office supplies in a your work cubicle. Every object represents a different element of the soul. Scotch Tape is man's penchant for human relationships. A pencil signifies our fear of committment, as well as our fear of making mistakes, while a Sharpie represents permanence. And well a corkboard? That, quite obviously, is a reflection of whats inside us."

I can 100% see someone like Billy Crystal coming out with this, and then all the other celebrities--not sure whether or not he's kidding, but too stupid to know otherwise--enthusiastically run with Cubism. Like Lindsey Lohan billing Cubism as "the religion of the youth generation."

God, if I were a celebrity, I'd have so much fun with it. You'd think for all their complaining about the papparazzi and the travelling and strain on their love lives, that they'd find something entertaining to do with their status, other than booze it up at the China Club.

But that's me.

Ichiro saga continues...

So when I joined my fantasy league, I tried to guise my female identity and pretend to be a guy. Like during the online draft, I used words like "dude" and ended sentences with ", man" and didn't write in full thoughts. Because I figured if they knew I was a chick they'd propse trades like "Benitez for Johnson" or something. I dont know. But I think the gig is up because this one guy in my league has proposed bizarro trades for Ichiro for like the last 3 days. The latest is Jim Edmonds for Ichiro. Which isn't wholly terrible. Better than the guy who proposed Austin Kearns, Uquina, and Jose Mesa for Radke and Huff, I guess. But still. So I emailed him back and said the only guy I'd be willing to take for Ichiro is Jeter.

I just picked Brown off waiver wires. Just wait. You guys will see.

My goal is to get as many Yankees on my team as possible so my whole problem with Fantasy Baseball can be mollified. My problem being best exemplified by the Anaheim/Yankees game that pushed me up to 4th place from 2nd the last, since I have Scot Shields and K-Rod on my team. In other words, I hate being in the position where I'm not 100% into backing my boys. Even a fraction of me is like, well at least I got some fantasy points out of this, I still feel guilty. It's kind of like that Seinfeld episode when George is like, "I bet she breaks up with me," and Seinfeld says, "That's a bad bet. If you win, it means she broke up with you, if you lose, well you lost the bet." Or something to that effect anyway.

This upcoming week at work is going to be worse than drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth.

In other news, I watched Big Daddy this weekend, and there's this part in it that makes me crack up without fail, just by thinking about it, a la the scene in Dumb and Dumber that gave us this champion: "His head fell off? Yeah he was pretty old."

In Big Daddy: when Adam Sandler is trying to see if his kid is hanging with "the bad crowd." He goes to the playground and he's talking to these 6yr old kids:

Adam Sandler: Man this Yoohoo is good, you know what else is good, smoking dope. I ain't gonna rat you out. You know, puffing the cheeba, go by the see saw smoke a j. You know what I'm talking about?

Kid: I have a belly button.

AS: You have a belly button, well we all have belly buttons. You know what? We all love Yoohoo, especially Yoohoo with a little rum. What's rum? You don't know what rum is?

Kid: Rumplestilskin?

AS: Rumplestilskin. Rumplestilskin's a good man. So are you guys. Hey, stay clean, stay focused, stay strong. Frankenstein, have fun with your friends.

******

Rumplestiltskin. Awesome.

Good night, bedtime for Bonzo, man.

a few pre-sleep thoughts

1.) the yankees win.
2.) the aflac trivia question: "Who was the last Yankee to win his debut at Yankee Stadium?" I guessed wrong with Brad Halsey. It's Duque. They got me on that one. Good for Alfac.
3.) I go out tonight to some random bar in the west village. The assclowns from the God-awful party I went to last weekend were all there. So weird and unfortunate. Manhattan is supposed to be too big for this crap.
4.) In Silence of the Lambs: the senator's daughter at the end of the movie, when she's free and walking out of Buffalo Bill's house... she's carrying the dog "Precious." If I was holed up in a well in tortuous anticipation of my sadisitic death, I would probably not bring home a momento of that experience. Probably would stray from taking the psycho's dog home with me. But that's me. This part always confuses me. I don't care if it was Snowflake the Dolphin. Any remnant of my time at the hand of a serial killer would be most likely be discarded swiftly.
5.) The yankees win. But if we're being honest, my favorite part of watching that game was the fact the pitching matchup was WANG vs. BUSH. There are way too many jokes to come from this, and all of them would probably too harshly implicate me, testifying to the fact that indeed I am a 5 yr old. I'll write the NY post in my will if the backpage headline tomorrow is WANG STICKS IT TO BUSH.
And I won't look back. That's how I roll.