Debilitating flare-up of adult onset ADD this week has left me thoroughly unable to ride even my own train of thought to its ultimate destination.
So all we've got are re-heated, odds 'n ends leftovers. Yeah, it's a tuna casserole type entry kind of evening. Little of this, little of that.
- People will come Ray, people will most definitely come. My new BF, Huston Street, is at it again. Latest installment of his ESPN column (which I suppose he has time to write as the save opps he has are so few and far between these days. Though they did just win their first road series since April. I can go either way on that: Either it is nourishment for the seed of hope that the season is not an entire loss, or Huddy felt sorry for them and had the new team go easy on the old one. Leaning conspiracy theory at this point - probably the less painful option in the long run.) Anyway as I was saying, Huston has written again, and it is brilliant. Fresh-faced, sincere, poetic, and expressive. Our fave section:
I was once asked what I enjoyed most about baseball. I quickly answered, "Every day." I can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon than chasing baseballs around a big field of bright green, perfectly cut grass. It is the feeling of a well-executed slider, and watching the ball fall just below the bat. No matter what happened yesterday or is happening today, I know tomorrow when I wake up I'll have a new opportunity to
play.
Shortly after the first question, I was asked what I least enjoyed
about baseball. I thought for a moment and then replied, "Every day." The grass isn't so green when you're 0-for-your-last-25. I can't explain how frustrating it is when I throw my best slider and watch it get crushed into the gap, and two runners high-five after crossing home plate. The worst part of it is that tomorrow when I wake up I will have to do it all over again. How can the same response answer and give meaning to two exactly opposite questions?
This game is simply about timing and perspective. A home run in the first
inning that provides the go-ahead runs doesn't display the heroics of a
ninth-inning blast that delivers the same outcome. Similarly, a booted ball followed by a double play doesn't draw even close to the condemnation of a booted ball followed by a homer.
During my short two months in the majors, I've been told numerous times (and been forced to realize myself) that the only way to remain sane is to remain the same.
Ups and downs will happen. A hard-hit ball needs to be thought of as a hard-hit ball regardless of the outcome. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap because big-league hitters hit big-league pitches.
Love him.
- Abs. So. Blooming. Lutely. A wee bit more about the "pretty" men (of the A&F type, not RuPaul type). The argument is often made to me about this preference (fetish? obsession?) of mine, that a "pretty" man is lacking in depth, in other/many/all areas, other than his looks, and therefore is not worth my time. A completely Pretty-ist and discriminatory point of view, if I must say. Then again, my lust may bias me.
While I generally disagree with this P.O.V., I think there is at least room for discussion about the topic on couple of fronts:
The distinction between having been pretty your whole life versus having gone through that awkward stage and then evolved into that "nerdy boy makes good by uncannily impersonating greek god at his high school reunion" type. One can make the argument that having been pretty your whole life, you never had to "struggle" for social acceptance and overall popularity. Your looks were enough, so you never had to really work on developing anything else (intellect, artistic talent, a knack for witty repartee, a generosity in intimate matters, what have you...). Thus, by relying on your looks your whole life, your other talents/abilities withered and atrophied from lack of use. On the other hand, the "nerdy boy makes good" type (aka the male version of Rachel Lee Cooke in She's All That, or any other teen movie for that matter), like a person born without the aid of one or more of his five senses, must learn to compensate with the remaining senses he's got and therefore they become acute and amazing in their strenth and depth (think the ear that Ray Charles' blindness granted him, or the perspective and talents that Helen Keller's dual loss of hearing and sight brought to her). Or, in a less euphemistic way, being ugly meant that you had to have some other schtick for getting people to like you - you had to be the smart kid willing to tutor others, you had to be the pop culture whiz, the amazing music prodigy, the convivial joker at every party. Now that you have grown up, you are still all of those things, and, hosannah! hallelujah! and amen! you are also a total hottie. Perfect package.
On a surface level those arguments seem all well and good, but here is the problem. No accounting for insecurities - on both sides of the fence. The always pretty person may have an easier time of it socially, but he also carries the dual crosses of (1) the scars of being continually underestimated because no one has ever been able (has ever wanted to?) see beyond the pretty package, and (2) the insecurity that everything he has is tied to his looks, and when the beauty fades, as it all eventually does, that he will have nothing left to offer, and thus his life as he knows it will fade as well.
The nerdy boy made good, oddly enough, shoulders a dual-burden which is the fraternal twin of that which the always pretty boy does. The nerdy boy made good must carry (1) the scars of being ignored, made fun of, disliked, discarded and/or deprived before he grew up, all based on how he looked, and (2) the insecurity that the attractiveness that is now, in his adulthood, finally his, will melt away as quickly and stealthily as it appeared, and then he will have to go back. Back to when it was harder. When he was ignored. When it hurt.
The always pretty boy looks in the mirror and is perpetually afraid of what he may become. The nerdy boy makes good looks in the mirror and is perpetually afraid of what he was.
At the end of the day, everyone's just afraid.
Shaking off one's inner fat kid, or one's Dorian Gray, is harder than one thinks.
So the point of all of this rigamarole: Don't hate them because they are beautiful. An ass-hole is an ass-hole and a mensch (sic?) is a mensch, whether the package comes with a bow and shiny paper or a brown wrapper. While we all have personal preferences as to what the package might look like, all we are really looking for in life is the right person to help us with carrying around our luggage. And truth of the matter is, no one is flying footloose and fancy free, checked or carried on, everyone's got luggage baby.
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