March 20, 2013

119.0: Time stands still and two hearts catch fire.

Dear Linc,

Well, now that I’ve got your attention with a Mariah Carey song — I am pretty sure that if you were really reading this, your attention would be drawn less to the romanticism of the song and more to the physicality which even I appreciate — here goes.

It’s been a roller coaster ride, not just since I wrote my last never-to-be-sent, but this entire year. Sometimes there are lulls and the weird, ironic thing is that I get bored during those lulls — like, I wonder why life happens so slowly. Yet when it rains, it certainly pours.

If only you knew about all the paperwork and all the e-mails that I exchanged today alone! It was my day off from work but some of that paperwork actually necessitated that I go into the store and talk to my boss for a few minutes. You know life is crazy when you have to duck into work on your day off. I haven’t done anything like that since my salaried days in marketing. Most of the paperwork had to do with school stuff. I did not expect getting together my finances for school to be a breeze but I am still astonished at all the red tape. As for the e-mails, many of the ones that required the most emotional investment came shockingly from church. You will not believe what an intense commitment church leadership is. I do not even consider myself a “leader.” At best, the semantic that I find most suitable is one that I just made up myself: I consider myself more of a “super-volunteer”. Did you ever see that episode of The Golden Girls when Rose had burnout from so many volunteer commitments to various charities and then she ended up having a near-death experience and became kind of a hippie and she had to move out because the girls couldn’t stand… well, I should probably know by now to never ask you a question that starts with ‘Did you ever see that episode of The Golden Girls…’

I used to think that volunteering was, well, quite frankly for old people, do-gooders, and people who want to make their resumes look good. I do like the idea that being so involved with my church is a good way to put me in touch with the larger community; and, of course, I do it for God. But I also must add that I’ve fallen in love with my church, Linc. I have fallen in love with the friendships, the faith, the music, and the food — the pastor’s husband recently whipped up an incredible chicken dish, which I devoured awkwardly flying in the face of my Lenten commitment to give up meat, an endeavor which has been (mostly) successful — however, unlike in the romantic comedies that I like so much, falling in love is actually a messy proposition and just because it is happening between me and my church doesn’t make it any less messy. It seems to me that the way I conduct myself both in church and with church business is destined to be the way I handle my future whenever-that-might-be marriage.

I have fallen into a pattern of reading YA novels. This popular book genre is best illustrated by, you know, the Harry Potter series or The Hunger Games trilogy. But there’s so much more to it than just the blockbuster stuff, Linc. Lately I’ve been checking out stuff by authors like David Levithan, John Green, and Rainbow Rowell. I would like to think this is merely an extension of my 2009 syllabus when baseball inspired me to revisit the likes of Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume but lately I have felt as if I am on a very different life track where baseball has become this distant, far away, background and even trivial thing. Oh no, Linc — isn’t that also part of falling in love? Not just burnout but growing apart. How do people do it, Linc? How do they keep their marriages going for a long time?

Today when I wasn’t dealing with the lofty business of life I was trying to sneak in some reading time. In the past few weeks I have devoured, among others, Eleanor and Park and Marcelo In the Real World and now I am working my way through the 2012 Time Magazine novel of year — novel of the year, Linc. Not just YA, but Time actually named it the best novel — for YA readers, and for old-A (ha ha, I just invented that) readers. Then I went with some church friends to watch Oz the Great and Powerful and it hit me that today has been a good illustration of my life these days: tackling the world and all of its worldly business while still trying to hold onto dreams and dreaming. When I get overwhelmed by checklists, calendar entries, and e-mails I forget that I was once a kid who actually dreamed of becoming the grown-up who might have to deal with checklists, calendar entries, and e-mails. I would like to remember joy.

Oh, Linc — how I do miss our conversations in Our Ballpark. They used to be real enough for me. Time moved as fast or as slow as I wanted it to move. Stars and galaxies floated in a nighttime sky clear of fog. We sat in those nosebleed view reserve seats while a chill blanketed the air even though we could sit there without need for jackets. I even used to imagine that someday the real you would walk in.

Joe

12:10am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLyghFAu2
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Mariah Carey Love Story LGBTQ Tim Lincecum marriage church Christian The Golden Girls YA lit David Levithan John Green Rainbow Rowell Francisco X. Stork Beverly Cleary Judy Blume Long Reads Oz the Great and Powerful baseball 
May 28, 2012
Escape this town for a little while.

He speaks with a tone that I don’t like: “There’s a game on, you know.”

It is not an infuriating tone, but one that does make me roll my eyes. “Not until two, fucktard. I’m not an amateur.”

His retort comes as no surprise. “Then explain BABIP.”

“Ah, shut up,” I say, swatting toward him. He laughs.

Linc, who was only called The Avatar back when he was nameless, leans back in the stadium seat and angles his face toward the unobstructed sun and the blue sky. The Ballpark is ours, as it always is in this parallel universe, this imagined existence. Linc is wearing a simple outfit of jeans and one of those grey tunics that has three buttons down the middle from the collar. If his real-life counterpart were hanging out with me in an empty ballpark, this is how I imagine he’d be sitting.

His eyes are closed as he soaks in the sun. “Who says ‘fucktard’ anymore, anyway?”

My own outfit is much simpler than Linc’s because it is a reflection of what I’m wearing in real life: faded running pants that ought to be replaced sometime soon, and a baggy t-shirt. It is not especially flattering, but I’m not leaving the house today, except to escape here.

“I’m detoxing,” I reply irritably. “I’m here to decompress. You’re not helping.”

In this world, there are always sounds of traffic in the background and the city is exactly as it appears in reality, except that no one’s around and the streets are actualy empty. It is an interstitial reality born from selfishness and yearning.

“Do you think anyone ever sneaks into AT&T Park like this?” Linc asks, sleepily. 

“You tell me. You’re the one who works here,” I say with a shrug and a yawn. His somnambulism is contagious. 

I lean back in my seat the way he does. We’re in the nosebleed section, called “view reserve” in the terminology of AT&T Park. The dugout is just beneath us. This is the kind of day that Jon Miller would find some lyrical way to describe as the perfect day for a ballgame, and as Linc has mentioned, there actually will be in the ballgame here, in the real world. But this is Our Ballpark, and though related to its counterpart, baseball here exists in its own form and dimension. 

“The heart of baseball,” proclaims Linc. His hand, which had been draped over the arm rest of his seat, moves to drape over my own hand, except that there is no contact. I cannot feel the warmth of his flesh nor the electricity of his touch because I have never experienced them in real life. The appearance of Linc is a cruel manifestation of hologram and apparition, yet I reach for him in return, in yearning.

“Yeah,” I reply with a labored, cynical sigh. “‘The heart of baseball.’ Fat load of crap that’s gotten me.”

“Hey. Don’t talk like that. I thought you were detoxing.”

In the real world, my cell phone is turned off and my calendar is clear. I have a book to read, a story to write and some movies to watch. Perhaps I’ll even listen to the game.

If I think hard enough, I can perceive Linc’s hand over mine as the breezy wake of a ghost that has just spirited away.

“I am.”


12:43pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLyMJInxr
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: Love Story Taylor Swift baseball ATT Park Jon Miller 
February 12, 2012

It saddens me that one of my good Tumblr buddies is not a Taylor Swift fan. “Love Story” was the anthem of my magical 2009 baseball season. Well, it wasn’t quite so magical for the Giants, who didn’t win the World Series until the next year, but it was magical for me because that was when I got into this whole baseball fandom thing.

I saw Chronicle this weekend. It wasn’t “appointment viewing”. The trailer looked interesting for two reasons: I like super hero movies, and I also like Michael B. Jordan of All My Children and Friday Night Lights fame. But I only ended up seeing it because Spencer and I were bored the other day, and it turns out that she was mildly interested in seeing it as well. This time last year, my first favorite movie was The Adjustment Bureau. In 2012, I did not expect for my first favorite movie of the year to be Chronicle. The marketing for that movie did not do it justice. It was full of surprisingly powerful storytelling and acting. I’m so proud of Mr. Jordan, but his fellow cast members all did quite well, too.

I am a bit of a sentimental person, so Chronicle made me appreciate my friends a lot, especially my guy friends. Which is not to exclude my lady friends, but because Chronicle is about three guys who stumble across super powers, I immediately thought of Ray and Wolfie, minus the super powers. Maybe friendship is our super power.

I am not watching the Grammys.

Is it “Grammys” or “Grammies”?

The house that I’ve been living in for the last two years does not have a TV, but even if we did, I don’t know it if I would be watching the Grammys. When I was a kid, I used to live for that stuff. One of my best friends growing up used to rely on me for the latest scoop. Nowadays, although I use social media quite a bit, I’d make a pretty crappy social media professional. I only live on the outskirts of popular culture. I witness it but I am not a part of it. I am not “in the know,” so to speak. I usually find out about stuff five minutes later. Just ask my good Tumblr buddy, the one who is anti-Taylor Swift. I’m always the last to know about Giants gossip.

If I ever become an important writer, I wonder how closely these blog entries will be analyzed. Let me just now state for the record that they don’t require too much scrutiny. What is written here is all the open book you need to read: I’m a baseball loving, Trekkie warping, Taylor Swifting soap opera fan with a moderate to liberal sociopolitical predilection.

I’ll never become an important writer. Besides, no one ever “becomes” an important writer. You do what you can, and one day, something amazing just happens. Or not. The important thing is to try.

My room is nearly empty. I’m almost done packing. I paid a little extra money to move out of here early — next Sunday, to be exact. I’m finally getting out of this crummy neighborhood. I’ll be living with Wolfie, who is finally moving to San Francisco, except without Lisa. She got a promotion, and one of the conditions of her promotion is that she has to live in Barnaul for a year. She’s a civil engineer and apparently she’s supervising some important construction projects over there. What Wolfie will never tell anyone is that, for someone who is six feet tall, burly and a Krav Maga master, he is actually as sentimental as I am. You’ll need a lot of cheese to go with the whining he’s been giving me about how much he will miss Lisa. It’s all very sweet, though.

I sometimes like to flatter myself by comparing my life to that of a journeyman baseball player who goes from team to team, who is never a star but gets the job done. Such thinking helps me get through another day.

8:45pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLyGLINaz
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Love Story Taylor Swift Chronicle Friday Night Lights San Francisco Giants 
December 26, 2011
apfmh: believe…. Off they go, roller coaster rideUp and down and around, twisted‘all out they minds And then his friendsSaid: “It’s too soon to settle down” And then her friends Said: “He’s a playa’, slow it down” They couldn’t be who they was’ Cause it just seemed like love Wasn’t on they’ side…  Originally re-blogged: October 28, 2010

apfmh:

believe….



Off they go, roller coaster ride
Up and down and around, twisted
‘all out they minds 
And then his friends
Said: “It’s too soon to settle down” 
And then her friends 
Said: “He’s a playa’, slow it down” 
They couldn’t be who they was’ 
Cause it just seemed like love 
Wasn’t on they’ side… 







Originally re-blogged: October 28, 2010

8:39am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLyDp0Ewp
(Notes: 141)
  
Filed under: Tim Lincecum World Series Love Story Mariah Carey 
January 28, 2011

Hey Linc,

Damn, I’m having a lazy day. The fog came back with a vengeance. For at least over a week, San Francisco has been fog free, at least in my neighborhood and, amazingly enough, throughout most of the city that isn’t typically foggy places like the Outer Sunset and the Outer Richmond. Also, I’m slightly perturbed that Tumblr is fucking up again. I know, you probably don’t care about my blogging problems, and really, I shouldn’t complain because Tumblr is a free service. But good customer service is about setting expectations, and when Tumblr falls short of expectations, it’s really fucking irritating.

So, today is my free day. I ain’t got no classes, no shift to clock in for, and also, I waited around in the house with Mary for her FedEx shipment — her entire life packed into five enormous boxes — to come in. Which they did, by the way. Miraculously, everything was delivered early this morning, and it even looks like nothing was lost, which was something Mary was fearing.

Technically, we should be unpacking, sorting out everything and flattening boxes so that the house doesn’t look like a war zone, but Mary is chillin’ in the living room with her laptop and here I am, writing you while my room is bathed in gray foggy dimness. My iTunes is in the background playing a random selection of songs and, for the most part, the songs that it — as in iTunes, as in the computer — are choosing seem to be startlingly appropriate to the mood of today. For example, right now, it’s playing a track from the score to Away From Her, this quiet little indie movie from a few years back. It’s based on an Alice Munro short story about a woman suffering from her Alzheimer’s and her philandering husband who finally gives up womanizing so that he can take care of her and, in the process, he realizes that she’s the one he’s really loved, after all. All right, so I may have oversimplified and even romanticized the story a bit. But hey, if it turns out that you actually wanted to marry me, maybe when I come down with Alzheimer’s you will also realize that cheating on me wasn’t all that cool.

Anyway, now the computer has decided to play “Love Story” by Taylor Swift. Oddly, this is the second time it has played “Love Story”. The first time was the pop version; the version playing now is the original album cut, with a banjo. At least, I think it’s a banjo. It sounds enough like one. Man, Linc, you know how dreamy my first season as a Giants fan made me? I listened to this song for nearly that whole summer. Through 45-plus games and almost three months of first fandom, “Love Story” was constantly on loop and, in fact, iTunes says that this is currently the 1,755th time it has played this song pour moi.

Hmm, I could make a big deal about the number ‘55’ being in that count. I could also make a big deal about how, on the day of my group job interview, we were counting off to get organized in smaller groups, and I ended up in group number five. And then when I had class after the interview, the teacher also, coincidentally, broke us into groups and not only did I end up getting the number five yet for a second time that day, I happened to sit in a desk that, for some reason, had a cutout of the number five. Even one of my classmates noticed it. He has long hair, just like you, and wears a beanie over that long hair of his just like you do over yours. “Hey, you’re sitting on a five,” he merrily told me.

And I will try not to make a big deal about how, two weeks ago, after coming off the high of what I thought was a job interview gone well — I never heard back from them, alas — I was walking around the neighborhood of said job and I accidentally typed ‘55’ into my phone. How does one accidentally type a number into a phone? When it’s a crappy, low-grade, non-Apple smart phone and it doesn’t lock even though you told it to lock, and mysterious things happen like the keypad materializing out of the blue, and while you’re holding the piece of shit, your thumb hits the screen at exactly the angle required to type the number ‘55’.

Joe

2:13pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLy2njxQI
Filed under: Tumblr error fog San Francisco Love Story Taylor Swift FedEx iTunes Away From Her Alice Munro Apple Android 
December 13, 2010
Intolerable winter

[ photo source: themostbella18 ]
[ quote source: slaughterhouse90210 ]




While I can’t have you, I long for you. I am the kind of person who would miss a train or a plane to meet you for coffee. I’d take a taxi across town to see you for ten minutes. I’d wait outside all night if I thought you would open the door in the morning. If you call me and say “Will you…” my answer is “Yes”, before your sentence is out. I spin worlds where we could be together. I dream you.
—Jeanette Winterson, “Desire”

The Avatar doesn’t share my appreciation for the photo on the scoreboard. Also, at the same time that I’m smiling fondly at his apparent confusion, if not outright disapproval, I’m rubbing my forehead because my headache, although it has died down, refuses to go away and exists in lesser forms that reactivate when the weather gets chillier in the real world, or if I shake my head too hard. I hate epic migraines.





“So, today is her birthday?” the Avatar asks.

In the real world, it’s cold enough that my corner of the Maryland suburbs has been dusted with snow. This meager dusting is the most accumulation of the stuff that we’ll see today, although after last year’s snowstorm, I’m a little paranoid. My return flight to San Francisco is booked for January 8, and who knows what Mother Nature will throw our way? Although maybe it’s time to realize that Mother Nature has her hands tied behind her back these days, what with everything humans have done to ruin the planet.

“Yep,” I tell the Avatar, grinning harder than I should as I make the effort to ward off the headache. “Thirteen is a good number.”

“Are you thinking of Cody Ross?”

I raise a brow. “Are you thinking of Cody Ross?”

Read More

11:04am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZzzsLy29GSnX
(Notes: 3)
  
Filed under: Jeanette Winterson Taylor Swift Cody Ross Denis Leary Love Story 
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