Hello again out there in cyberspace and sorry to have made my absence between blog entries so extended.  It was my genuine intention to keep everything updated on a weekly basis, but as the time to post an update rolled around I was put on the disabled list and wasn’t much interested in getting on and writing about it.  It has been a frustrating period of time since I last posted and I allowed myself to get bitter and didn’t really feel like talking or writing much about the experience.  In any event, I’ll make it a point to get on here and post updates regularly from now until the end of the season, my midseason resolution if you will.  Since I last posted my head has finally stopped spinning and I am finally pretty settled into the routine of daily events that happens everyday in the A’s organization.  This has actually been harder than it would seem at first blush.  Baseball players are creatures of habit and one of the most important elements of being successful is developing a consistent daily routine to follow for every day of the season. Changing organizations means a change in when and how some things are done, which means adjusting a routine I’ve done every game for the last five seasons.  I’m finally getting pretty comfortable with everything though.  I have also reached the point where most of the loose ends from my time in the Indians organization have been tied off and the concomitant scurrying around appears to be a thing of the past.  The combination of these things has allowed me some time to get out and explore…**pause to find proper adjective**…err…warm?… Midland, TX.  I haven’t really (how do I put it?)… found a whole lot yet, but hopefully with a little more poking my nose around I’ll find some points of interest (I refuse to count either he Petroleum Museum or George W. Bush childhood home).  There are three national parks within four hours driving time and I am planning on taking in one of them over the all-star break.  Also, in what might be the least surprising development of the decade for anyone who has read this blog before, I managed to locate the Midland Public Library and obtain my 8^th different library card for those of you keeping score at home.  While it certainly isn’t the Akron-Summit County Public Library (very, very few are), hopefully it will have enough reading material to keep me occupied, although the way I’ve been crushing books lately it might be close, haha.  Recently I have gone through Richard Russo’s Bridge of Sighs (excellent), Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (outstanding, but a definite chore), Jack Kerouac’s On the road (very good) and a few poetry compilations.  My next undertaking is How Rome Fell, which I’ve had for a few months now and am excited to get underway with.

 

I think that should be sufficient for now, but be sure to check back soon for updates on the on-field action and all the off-field goings on.  Until then I’ll leave you with the customary poem and an extras to help get caught up from the hiatus.

 

Be Drunk

by Charles Baudelaire

Translated by Louis Simpson

 

You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it–it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

 

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

 

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”

 

Born Late

by David Dodd Lee

 

A block of soap

carved to look like Pan

 

and that’s just what came in the mail

 

a volcano under those flip flops

 

kisses spilling off the water-wheel

 

Green becomes a stillness leftover in the late-born effluence

of a decade’s worth of smoke and flat beer

 

(I can’t get any air)

 

because there was no acoustic guitar

 

just dust scraped off an anxious moth’s wings