Baseball Season is Almost Upon Us

I love the smell of a baseball game. Dirt, sweat, leather gloves, popcorn, hot dogs, beer, cotton candy, peanuts, the list goes on. Nothing is better than a good baseball game. I come from a family of ball players, and at any given moment you can find us throwing a ball around in our front yard.

We all started playing in organized baseball/softball in grade school. My parents coached my siblings and me over the years, and I thank them for that. I thank them for showing me how great the game really is. With Opening Day only 10 days away, I just had to blog about baseball.

One of my favorite memories involves baseball. Last semester I was sitting in the library trying to read for my British Literature class when I decided to get off topic (of course) and write a poem. If you know me at all, I'm not a big poetry person. I don't do emo poems, or romance, or death stuff. It's very conversational, like I'm talking with a friend. Anyway, this is what I wrote.

---

To My Dad

The floor lamp glows over him
on the couch. It's the only light in the room.
I walk past with my hair loosely dangling
in a ponytail and softball socks unevenly pulled up
on my twiggy twelve year old legs.

The newspaper crinkles and there he is, my dad - my
coach, in shorts and no shirt. Perched halfway down his
nose are his glasses. He bends down the paper to view the television.
The game is on - Milwaukee Brewers versus
some other team, it doesn't matter.

An announcer's voice and the crack of the bat
mumble quietly from the speakers of our television. Someone
hit a double, or a triple, someone popped out, someone
slid into home plate. We invite "Mr. Baseball's" smooth calls
from our garage radio into our home, because he is baseball.

The summer breeze sneaks through the front
screen door trying to cool us as night begins to take
hold. My mother's voice sings from the kitchen as she
talks with a friend or a relative over the phone.

I find the chair and sit with my sweaty shirt
sticking to my skin. My black ball cap lined with mocha
colored field dirt rests over my cold forehead
and damp hairline. The game is still on me. It lives on me.
We won. We lost. But that doesn't matter.

There we sit. Without words. This is my summer.
This is what matters. Just a father and his daughter
sharing a night of ballgames.

Thick Walls Make Good Neighbors

I live in a huge house with 6 or 7 other apartments. There are three apartments on the main level - one of which is mine. My bedroom shares a wall with another apartment. Needless to say, thick walls make good neighbors, and thin walls, well...don't.

I swear, the people living next to me have watched every episode of The Office more than once. They had to have, because they've been watching it since this summer! I love that show, but come on! I've come to the conclusion that they don't have cable.

For awhile there, they started watching Sex and the City. That didn't last long, I heard them humming annoyingly to the theme of The Office by the next day. I can hear it so well that I can pick out which episode they're watching. Have I mentioned that I love The Office just as much?

Anyway, my roommate has told me to pound on the wall, but I refuse. If I can hear them, then they can hear me laughing boisterously at The Golden Girls. You heard me right, I think Rose is a hoot!

I know the house I live in is older than old, but the walls are incredibly thin. I bet the apartment next to me is wondering why I laugh sporadically throughout the day or yell at random moments. If they only knew that I think most things in life are funny, and that my roomies are hard of hearing ;) Just kidding, the living room is pretty far from my room.

So as I borrow from Robert Frost's popular poem Mending Wall, "Something there is that doesn't love a wall," I can't help but think he was referring to the builders of this big old house.