I don’t know about you, but that ball doesn’t look to me like it’s going anywhere. Here I am, three months after hitting my first “homerun” (that word is in quotation marks because that day in Vegas the blue called me out at home plate, after the catcher turned to tag me and we collided and I broke my wrist).
Though I’m batting against the league’s top-ranked, undefeated team, it doesn’t even look like I’m playing softball. It looks like I’m golfing. Like I’m going to knock that ball a few feet, send it skittering across the shallow infield, maybe to land right back where it started, in the pitcher’s lowered glove. It looks like my three teammates on the three loaded bases will just have to wait for the next batter to get them moving. It looks like I’ll groan again in frustration, trudge back to the dugout, where I can resume sulking in the company of my outsized expectations, sure that I will never again regain my softball mojo.
It doesn’t look at all like the ball will sail over the pitcher’s head, over the second baseman’s head, and over the outfielder’s head too, landing somewhere deep in right-centerfield, giving me plenty of time – this time – to run my little ass off around all the bases, chasing my teammates all the way home, where I will touch that plate and let out a primal scream that will vent every frustration of the last three months, before I remember that I’m from the Midwest and that I should just fade politely into the background.
I mean, that’s just what it looks like.
Greetings from Palm Springs, where The Manly Fireplug and I have spent the last few days celebrating my 40th birthday. Two nights ago we stopped by my gay dads’ condo for a little party that featured three gay male couples in their fifties and sixties in tropical shirts who winter here and who have, after a few decades together, grown to resemble each other. This happens no matter what your chosen demographic (as in, really, how many more gay dudes with muscles, buzz cuts, and tattoos could the Fireplug and I possibly know), but it’s usually easier to spot in a different demographic.