a hundred thousand plus

that's right, this blog has reached one hundred thousand page views and now, the numbers move on... it is a momentus occasion, no doubt... this is not the first blog to reach the 100,000 mark and it took longer than it did for others and others had a whole lot more comments but that is because they were in communities (diaryland and livejournal)... i miss those days when there was an interactive audience out there (the millions of email and snail mail fan letters are great, but the friends, old and new, are missed... papa can you hear me?)... life is boring these days without the work i love... there is softball, but the leagues pause around the holidays so not so much after next week (thank goodness for atournament in new orleans coming up) and there are games and the insatiable cat to occupy time... jackson is hardly ever around so the lonely lonelies are powerful but in spite of the challenges, the fact is that hope still springs eternal, even in the fall... and of course there is facebook for distraction and as always, whatever... and did you miss curious?...

of course we are having fun, me myself and the rest of the voices in my head...

narf :)

lonelier

i'm so lonely
i could die
so lonely
you know the reason why

yeah, it is getting to me, this sudden change in lifestyle... no job and no roommate at the same time, seriously too much time on my hands and yet, not enough desire to want to trust anyone at the moment, so not going anywhere much... sure, dinner out three times last week with different friends and softball (but now softball is pausing, no more on sunday until next spring, skipping weeks for holidays, and seasons ending very soon)... gonna be a very lonely holiday season, especially since i don't like the holidays and prefer to avoid the pomp and circumstance with a friend who feels the same... but there ain't nobody like that in my life today... so the loneliness is growing in it's god-awful way... no comfort found in solitary games i used to play... why can't i find someone to share, someone who wants to stay... oh yeah i'm lonely... lonelier today... lonely... lonlier than yesterday... oh i'm so lonely... don't know whay else to say... lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely and to my great dismay... i am lonelier than i've ever been in any memory of yesterday...

and i no longer believe in yesterday...

narf :}

losing sleep on facebook

actually, i nodded off just before midnight and went to bed and woke about 130am and here we are, five hours later, five hours of just one more click... curious, our cat, is awake and meowing for food and attention as usual... jackson is gone until sunday or monday... i've got a thanksgiving dinner tonight so i need to get some sleep... but the mind is a terrible thing to waste, or something like that... curious stares at me wondering what i could possibly be doing that is more important than her... even after i got up and put food in her bowl, she's waiting here by my side semi-patiently for the scratching and rubbing she loves... i must have good hands, ego says while i laugh... and loneliness screams silently which is the primary reason i am awake and sleep so little... right behind it is work, or lack thereof, and all the stress that not having income brings... idle days do not help, but the foolishness of laziness has dominated life for some time not when i am not on the softball field... and i sit here checking websites as if the answer to my current wants will suddenly appear... the job... the friend... the roommate... the partner... the love...

facebook may be just another one of those wrong places i'm been looking, aye?...

narf :}

softball update (season almost done)

one playoff game left for the Monday League we already won the regular season championship but they have a playoff for a trophy and that will go to the coach and anything can happen in one game so the league championship matters more to me... still going to do our best to win the playoff game... and in the Wednesday League, we won the league championship and the first playoff game so we have one more to win... this league has a double elimination tournament so if we lose we play again for the final game... Friday's league has no playoff so we get second place there... Sunday we won the league and the championship game... pretty darn good season, aye?...

League---- Record .. Place/Rank ... RF ... RA ... RD ... ... Tournament

Monday------- 9-1 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 137 . 70 ... +67 ... Pending
Wednesday--- 9-1 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 150 . 60 ... +90 ... Pending
Friday-------- 8-2 ... . ... 2nd ... . ... 132 . 69 ... +63 ... None
Sunday------ 12-3 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 180 . 71 ... +109 ... Champs

Totals------ 38-7 ... . ... ... ... . ... 599 . 270 ... +329 ...

hopefully the season will end with a 40-7 record, which will be close to, if not the best season i've had in some time... at least one of my teams has taken a championship each season for the last ten years or so, but this is only the second time three out of four did... amd i still want to play more lol...

wanna make a team? :)

a champion softball season

the season of excellence continues... three league championships have been locked up and in the fourth league, second place is locked up... the playoff for the trophy in the sunday league was won 16-1 in a run rule in the fourth inning... domination of the second best team in the league who had four losses and three of them were to us as we beath them all three games we played them, two by run rule... they just can't hit me (at least not yet) and we seem to be psyched to hit well against them... we lost three games this season, so there is no reason to be suggesting we should move up into the higher division, but some sore losers are suggesting that...

League---- Record .. Place/Rank ... RF .. RA ... RD

Monday------- 8-1 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 124 . 59 ... +65
Wednesday--- 9-1 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 141 . 60 ... +81
Friday-------- 7-2 ... . ... 2nd ... . ... 114 . 66 ... +58
Sunday------ 12-3 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 180 . 71 ... +109

Totals------ 36-7 ... . ... ... ... . ... 559 . 256 ... +303

yeah baby, we dat good... actually, that is four different teams and the only thing they all four have in common is me so i can take credit for the pitching that held all four leagues to the lowest runs against in each league in spite of shakey defenses (opponents runs per game is a pretty amazing {for softball} 5.95 and if calculated a conservative estimate of my actual earned run average would be under 2, probably close to 1... that would shock anyone who knows the game at any level... it has just been one of those years)... of course i did not score all of those runs, a whopping average of 13 runs per game... though i've had better individual teams over the years (a few undefeated teams along the way), this was the best overall season and i played my best personal ball since i started playing again about ten years ago... softball is fun exercise and fun social life and winning just makes it more fun...

thank goodness for that, especially these days...

narf :)

reconnecting with friends

yes, that is the best part of the time away from work... while no income for an indefinite period is seriously stressful, reconnecting with friends is the reward... harpo is the most available since he has not worked a job since the early to mid-nineties... his detachment from the working world has definitely limited his social skills and unfortunately he offers weak support or energy as he is needier than i am, but he tries so hard and means so well i want to keep him around in spite of the energy drain he can be at times... and --(naes)-- called out of the blue to ask advise about something... maybe he heard i was not working or the universe gave hime a need i could help with... anyway, it was good catching up with him... i got a call from an insurance sales recruiter shortly after talking to him and he might have referred me, but i detest sales and will not work a commission sales job so it was not for me... --asil-- also called out of the blue using the facebook call feature (and we were both surprised it worked) for therapy and legal advice for someone missing out in california who has gone off her meds and might need involuntary mental health care... catching up was good for me and hopefully i offered some time and words equally as worthwhile for her...

and there was more... --sett-- called and we will be going to lunch later this week and she has money for me for the phone (she's on my plan)... and --ybba-- invited me to thanksgiving dinner with her family and though i turned down other offers, she caught me in a say yes frame of mind so i will be going there for the holiday (and i will do my best not to remember how much i do not like the holiday)... --ahsit-- reconnected recently through facebook as she does not live nearby and she still adores me for whatever reason (i must remember my worth, aye?) though somewhat like harpo, her adoration can be draining... and if any of you are reading, thank you so much for the love and i know i can be emotionally draining too but never doubt that your caring means a lot and i am so happy you choose to keep in touch in spite of my disappearances into a work life that leaves no time for anything beyond softball as i did the last two years... still others have been contacting me through facebook and phone and that is what life is about, after all, caring about people and being cared about...

it's a wonderful life when we remember that :)

dying balloon

i feel like a dying balloon... she tried so hard to cheer me up... notes on my door with positive affirmations... candy... a really big (like 20 inch diameter or more) helium ballon (not a cheap one, it's still floating more almost two weeks later) of a minion... everything she could do and give (except time, she doesn't have time what with two jobs, church nights, softball, and a serious newish girfriend... and though that may be what i need most, i, better than most, understand not having time... i am the one who isolated myself with work and softball over 80 hours a week and got this alone, after all)... yes, jackson is a lifesaver just as a best friend ought to be (except, as i said, for not having the time and i suppose that really is what i need from someone most, alas, as i keep repeating it into the void)... i just might actually slide into depression if she was not around, but even though she does not have time to actively pull me out, i am the giver and nurturer and will not let myself slide into the pits of despair for long enough to be in any sort of uncontrolled depression because it would hurt her... so she is keeping me safer as a child keeps a parent safer if you know what i mean...

still, i feel like a dying balloon... alone and waiting for the end... if only my belly would deflate like the big smiling minion balloon soon will, all would be well with the world... sort of...

sigh, alas, and still, narf :}

laundry

over the course of months of working long hours and playing softball three nights a week and all day sunday with occasional extra games tossed in, laundry piles up... the softbal and work clothes get washed often enough, at least weekly, but t-shirts and towels and bedding and seldom worns items can piled up in bins because there are enough replacements for those things and that's why i spent a couple of days and at least ten washes doing the deed to get to the point where i had no dirty anything to throw in the wash... that lasted a whole day, but oh the extra space in the bedroom feels nice... there are still boxes stacked up to go through, but laundry, for the moment, is completely done... been done completed i say... and yes, this whole entry is about getting it done, so lefts clap for the clean clothes chorus as they sing they laundry is done song (i'll write it any day now)... but seriously, there are actually laundry songs, my favorite being the landryman (cuz these are not actually about laundry), but then, i am strange too...

laughing with the clean clothes :)

the dark side of softball teams

why are people group texting at 6am?... ok, so perhaps the title was a bit misleading, especially after daylight savings time, but hearing my phone blow up with multiple replies to group texts before 7am on a saturday morning is not good for the sleep patterns i need... saturday is the only day i can usually sleep in, or at least that was the case while i was working... i suppose the whole dark side point is moot at the moment, though i am sleeping very poorly as i process the traumas of the week and month and go through multiple overlaping grieving processes that make for disturbingly rough emotional seas... sigh... and blah blah blah... and another text message and then, after another minute followed quickly by an other minute, another... i think the mind is ready to slip into sleep mode now... almost 8am, not bad...

waking again with words pouring out, three more entries, maybe four... and the fact that i remembered a friend's birthday is a sign that i am not as foggy groggy boggy as i've been most of this week... i slept broken sleep, but stayed in bed for five hours and that is longer than any other time this week so this may be a very good thing, that i am a little clearer, memory wakes slightly, i am thinking of others as much if not more than myself, and i may be taking a break from the pity party instead of diving into the abyss head long because i am sitting here alone on the first weekend after... yeah, we can take this as a good sign... probably will... though i know the process continues...

so the dark side of softball teams is group texts, no wonder why i love the game so much... early morning softball tomorrow, double header against two of the best teams, hope the team shows up this week...

sign and narf :}

so as i said (softball)

yes, softball gets more time than anything else in the real life in the physical world these days (except maybe sleep, hopefully, though this week the sleep is coming in brief spurts at approximately three hours per twenty-four which is certainly a sign that the psyche and subconscious and unconscious are not very happy or settled at the moment, but that's beside the point which is to focus on the real moment to moment and let the deeper stuff digest and process and heal and all that stuff deeper stuff does), so here are the current standings as of tonight...

League---- Record .. Place/Rank ... RF .. RA
Monday------ 6-1 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 100 . 48
Wednesday- 7-1 ... . ... 1st ... . ... 127 . 59
Friday-------- 6-2 ... . ... 2nd ... . ... .98 . 61
Sunday------ 7-2 ... . ... 2nd ... . ... .97 . 49

yeah, so lately the losses have come (was undefeated in two of the leagues and had just three loses until about two weeks ago), but three wins this week so far is hopefull for a good finish to the season... Monday and Wednesday have playoffs and we locked up first place going into those... Friday amd Sunday do not have a playoff (unless there is a tie) so we are tied for second Friday (with a team we beat twice who should have a third loss after tonight) and we are second Sunday with five games left (the first place team has four games left and is 8-2 and we beat them twice, so win out and we take first... easier said than done)... all in all an excellent season that will get us at least two league champion t-shirts and a chance at three trophies...

not much else in life i feel like rambling on about at the moment (job hunting, resume refining, cover letter writing, tv, sadness, sighing a lot, loneliness, nothing much to inspire, aye?)... maybe i'll let facebook distract me more, but then, with a semi-chuckle of what might be wisdom, i kind of hope not...

so, narf...

back to winning ways

while life really sucked for a few days over the weekend (as if premonition, or precognition, saturday and sunday were two of the most depressed energy days i've had in quite a while and we lost a softball game we should have won, then monday my first ticket in years with a second just cuz the cop was arrogant and would not accept my car was registered proven by the tag on the plate and the computer he looked me up in, then a win monday night and the hope the downbeat was turning around, then no job as of tuesday, pow, traumatic life changing event number {if i was counting, probably a dozen, at least}, and dragging the rest of the week as the process of resolving trauma takes it's own bittersweet time), but at least we pulled out wins monday, wednesday, and friday and while we head into the softball weekend with a 7-2 record thanks to last sunday's give-away, we still control our own destiny and will finish first if we keep winning... since softball is now the most consistent activity i will experience in this life until i find another job or the one shows up, i'll use the positive distraction it can be as i reach for reality for this blog...

something tells me we are in for a whole lot of random distractions for a while...

narf...

bad day, sorta

yeah, so the weekend mostly sucked because i let is suck and this morning got even worse because some people with power have a mental illness or perhaps substance abuse problems... it would have been comedic if the idiot didn't draw his gun... anyway, then work got dumped on me again by my new supervisor who really doesn't seem to know what she is doing and i spent a large part of the day trying to solve her problem without the information needed, information she was supposed to have, and i'll need to get to work early tomorrow to continue to try to solve her problem... when i called her to update her on her problem, she didn't have time to listen and simply cut me off... so her facility may fail a statewide emergency management drill because she dumped the drill on me when i have no information about the facility in tampa that is supposed to participate in the drill... i did have two excellent meetings with two on my new managers today, but the third problemmatic manager did not show up for work...

getting out of the office late, i had no time for dinner before heading to the softball field... the first inning started off terribly, but we settled down and won 16-6, run ruling the other team in five innings... finally getting home for dinner at almost midnight, here i am after 1am and i need to be awake at my desk solving someone else's problem without the information needed to solve it before 8am tomorrow... even if i was not in a whiney complaining mood lately, today was definitely a bad day, except for winning another softball game... even this must have been better (and the rest of the past 66 entries nobody noticed)...

so how was your day?...

snack binge

not a massive one, but i did run (ok, i drove) out to the store (and had to go to two because the 7-11 did not have sour cream or dip, but cvs had dean's dip which was not my first choice but i didn't want to go find a third store open after midnight that sold sour cream) so there is ridged chips and french onion dip and there is scooped tortilla chips and sweet salsa and there is (is the lack of are annoying you?) bbq pistachio nuts (impulse buy( and there is a pack of ho-hos (see how i matched tense there?) and there is chocolate milk and there is a toll house cookie ice cream sandwhich in the freezer and there is yummy yummy yummy in by ever so bloated tummy cuz i ate a ton (eggagerated by weight) of cheesy spaghetti just seven or eight hours ago and am, as usual, pacifying my loneliness and lack of exercise with food... wonderful, aye?...

earlier we won another softball game and though i went 0-3 i got up a fourth time and hit a solid line drive single through the 6 gap (a very arrogant and provoking shortstop did not have time to move, which was exactly what he needed to bring him down a notch) to knock in the winning run... cheers all around... i might wake up to do a walk for something, breast cancer (i forget the cause), perhaps, tomorrow morning but i might not... i signed up and gave a donation (trying to set a good example at work and it did inspire others to sign up and give some money), but i have been giving up way too many sleep-in days lately and this body really needs a sleep-in day off regularly now that it's getting older... so many good things to do, so little time... that's why i don't hang out late playing cards or partying anymore, just not enough sleep time... meanwhile, pigging out on junk food is quite counter-productive...

fun alone is not always healthy, but i do need more sleep...

narf :)

good softball season so far

i am playing in four leagues regularly, pitching in each, and this is one of the better seasons i've had... on average, my teams win a championship a couple of times each year and have two (that i remember) this year so far... this season there is a chance for three more and the standings are below...

with six games left in the Sunday league, it is still anybody's championship but we control our own destiny... if we go 4-2 the rest of the season we should lock it up... it will not be easy as we still play Mojomen twice (they have the best hitting by far and we will have to play without errors and with our best hitting to beat them, we do that very inconsistently and so fdar, i've been able to pitch our way out of bad games {all but one} and i've been hitting well well above expectations, picking up a lot of slack)... we also play Onslaught again and we just barely beat them the first game... and we play Riots again and they are much better than their record this season (beaten by us, Rage, Onslaught, and Savoyeurs - four of the top five teams)... we win those four games and we are in... it is not the World Series season (that is the Spring season and we finished fourth after starting 7-1 and then falling apart with several players dropping out the second half... those players joined Savoyeurs and beating them 20-0 was the goal... we reached that goal in spite of them having a very good team... motivation works sometimes)... we can hope our teams holds it together this season and improves next season... anyway, if we win three of those four and the other two, we should have the championship as well... gonna take a lot of paying above expectations on most of our parts... stay positive, right?... one week at a time...

with four games left on Monday we tripped and lost our first game of the season this week so we need to keep winning to finish first... the season doesn't decided the championship however as there is a single game elimination tournament for all four teams that decides it... the wins were not always easy, so we need to show up to the tournament and play our best...

with two games left on Wednesday, we locked up first place, but there is a two game elimination tournament that decides the championship... we play the second and third place teams in a double header next week so that should keep us sharp...

and with three games left on Friday, we tied for second with the tiebreaker in our favor so we need to keep wining to stay in second... our two loses came against the first place team (who almost broke my leg the last time we played them and pretty much reduced my pitching and hitting effectiveness by at least 50%)... unfortunately, there is no playoff in this league so the best we can do is second...

and the standings and stats each league provides are below (click on the image to see it bigger)...

so what did you miss?

me?... hey, i am hopeful, in case you forgot... of course the few who actually check this writing space regularly have dwindled so it is possible no one noticed i was gone for a couple of weeks, but as we know, there's always hope... there was a softball update... and a facebook update (maybe more than one)... and a marathon rambling series of entries (like maybe twenty in one long long night)... not so sure about anything profound, but definitely a lot of entries... maybe fifty or more in all... see, i've been writing, just not completing entries and uploading them... but now (since you are reading this which means the uploading happened), it's a wonderful world of suddenly appearing entries that will all too soon slide into the past (history, even) and then they will have seemed to have been here (and there) all along, so experience the thrill of more than fifty entries uploaded in one night all for yourself while you can... don't tell the secret, but tell everyone, m'ok?...

curious is needier than ever, hopping up on me and the keyboard more often lately... she misses happiness... i do too... and jackson does too, but she spends all weekend up with her girlfriend since he's gone so curious only has me in her time of neediness... distracting, and one of the reasons i have not actually been completing entries and uploading daily, but mostly lovable... softball, work, and the cat, that's most of life these days... so maybe you didn't miss much after all...

narf :)

a game of inches

centimeters, even... and when an umpire gives pitchers an extra couple of inches on either side of the plate as the umpires have done in this series, it is up to the pitchers to recognize that and use their control to hit those spots and the mets pitchers have done that and the cubs pitchers have no as the mets pitchers moved the ball side to side and the cubs pitchers moved the ball up and down and that's just the nature of the game and i see it all the time pitching softball and yet the announcers just called out the ump for calling the game differently for the mets than they are calling it for the cubs flat out saying the ump gave the mets a bigger strike zone which is ridiculous at this level of play and why the leagues do not reprimand umpires when unbiased sports announcers call the ump out (not to mention electronic measuring machines prove it physically) is beyond me except that people in charge are ok with mistakes by umpires deciding who wins the world series just as mistakes by referees decide superbowls and and basketball championships or worse, the people in charge of sports all umpires to decide outcomes so they can make more money gambling, but then, it's still up to the pitchers to hit those spots that the umpire is giving and it is up to the hitters to stop taking pitches in those spots even though they are actually balls as called out by the unbiased announcers and cameras...

the team that reads the umpire best almost always wins, and records are set...

narf :)

bottom of the fifth

yes, we are coming to the bottom of the fifth and hope remains stronger than ever cuz that is what hope is supposed to do and far be it for me to prevent hope from doing all it can to be all it can be in spite of what might be going on in the world around me cuz i live in the world inside of me where it is much safer and happier and more optimistic and wonderfully wonder filled than anywhere else even if it is mostly (or even completely) unbelievable and lacking in common sense to the rest of the world and normal people cuz i've been through the reality of scoring ten (and more) runs on two outs and even in the bottom of the ninth (relative to softball) more than a few times and it is sweet and possible so there ain't no way i'm gonna make yogi a liar by giving in to the folly that it may be over before it's over if you know what i mean cuz it really ain't over till it's over no matter what ever anybody might think and this young cubs team really is so very young and so very talented and must believe and never give up and never surrender and finish with a bang no matter the outcome of that bang regardless what the other team might do to foil the miracle that could still happen so help us babe and the other baseball gods...

religion comes in all flavors, after all...

narf :)

what are the odds?

so the talking heads on tv are doing their best to sound intelligent and meaningful but they bore me as most talking heads on tv do because they are so monotonously repetitive and really, the wind blowing out of wrigley ought to be favoriting the cubs because they've hit so many home runs but it didn't yesterday and they are sticking to their story today as if the failure of their hypothesis yesterday never happened but what is truth is a team that depends primarily on the home run to win will fail more times than not, especially when the other team has hot excellent pitching because great pitching usually beats power hitting and whatever the masses want, i prefer watching teams that known how to adjust their games to win rather than a bunch of players swining as hard as they can for home runs even though that is the best way to fail against power placement pitching and i see it so often on the softball field that it is frustrating and i am so happy that this year more players on all of my teams are finally listening to me as i've repeated season after season that a lot of hits will win softball games more often than swinging as hard as you can so this year my teams are winning a lot more than most years and i am, merging all of my teams, currently on a seven game winning streak and if my next team loses their next game (which is the friday team which is the last of my teams to lose a game cuz they play in the toughest league and have the most wanna-be home run hitters who don't seem to be able to or interested in having any control their swings) then perhaps the whole jinx concept could be asserted, for what it's worth...

aye?...

narf :)

softball fever

wednesday's team is 5-0... we've won 20-0, 22-7, 13-1, 19-0, and 18-17... we've got three more games and if we win two, we lock up first place and then, there's a two loss elimination tournament... there is one team who can beat us if we let them, so we need to play smart against that team... the sunday team is 6-1, which is a surprise as most are new players, with 8 games to play... we won 7-6, won 9-1, lost 7-6, won 8-2, won 12-9, won 16-4, and won 19-0... seven of our fourteen games are against the top four teams and we are, so far, 3-0 against them... monday's team is 5-0 with 5 games to go... we won our games 17-7, 13-3, 16-15, 20-0, and 9-3... we need to win 2 to lock up at least a tie for first place and three of the next five to lock up first place... there are just four teams in the league so we play all a single elimination tournament at the end... friday's team is 4-2 with 4 games left... we lost 14-7, won 12-5, won 14-9, won 14-1, lost 16-12, and won by forfeit... there is not only much tougher competition in this league, but this team has so many hitters who want to hit the fences and not a lot of speed, so there are a lot of fly outs and not enough rallies and because the other teams hit well, there are a lot more errors... it's also the only usssa league which makes for a much harder ball and more compressed bats which make for much tougher plays... this is the league that almost broke my shin almost three weeks ago... i filled in on a thursday night team last week and we won by a run coming back from way behind... so it's been a pretty good season so far at about the halfway point with an overall record of 20-3... i like winning...

but i love playing the game... more, more, more :)

busy weekend

yummy food at a new italian place on saturday night... softball monday, wednesday, thursday, and sunday (friday's team forfeited)... we won 20-0 today... that makes a 7 game winning streak since october 9th and an overall record of 20-3... yesterday i took two friends to see la cage aux folles and they both enjoyed it a lot... the cast was excellent from the first row... i started a couple of rhythmic clappings and i started the standing ovation when the two leads came out... sitting in the middle of the first row center is a power place in a theatre... powerful performances all around and the stars make it worth seeing again... jackson and i are going to see it next thursday night... she's been gone all weekend, too happiness's ashes to her parents house to spread some in their backyard, then spent the next night with her girl... i was quite not well all week and wish i had a nurse, though i make for a terrible patient, but i survived and feel a little better... stayed home a couple of days and wandered facebook a whole lot and sort of wrote a blog entry there...

having fun, wish you were here :)