Hello out there in cyberspace. In what is beginning to be my habitual manner I will begin by apologizing for the interval between my previous post and this current one.  The ephemeral nature of my relationship with this blog this year has been both a direct consequence and perfect example of the up and down, the push and pull, that constitutes not only a minor league season, but a career and in fact the entire minor league experience.  This season has been, for both better and worse, an adventure and at some of the more trying moments I have wandered off of some of my oft-tread paths to seek solace in other areas.  One of the casualties of my sometimes absolute frustrations with baseball or its affect on my other pursuits has been the consistent authoring of blog entries, but I will rely on your understanding and consideration in this regard.  The state of frustration I devolved into had a lot to do with bad luck, but also aggravation at my own marginal effectiveness.  I had a string of appearances in which I allowed a lot of both earned and unearned runs, which was a bit of a mixed blessing.  It was frustrating from the perspective of giving up runs when I feel I pitched well enough to not allow runs to score, but at the same time it made me come to grips with the fact that the real issue was me not performing up to my own standards and not anything else.  Since having buckled down and made a few adjustments with my pitching coach, I have gotten back some confidence, had a few good outings, and feel much better about things on the field in general.  More of the same to come hopefully.

 

Away from the field of play, I have been devoting my time to a number of pursuits.  Foremost among these has been attempting to breathe life into the two year old giant sequoia that I have been growing, but it would appear my efforts are for naught and I may be forced to start over on that front.  I am fairing only slightly better with my other plants, a venus flytrap and a sundew, so it looks like I’ll have to pin my botanical hopes for the season on the monkey puzzle seeds whose germination I am eagerly awaiting.  Also, for the first time in a while I pulled the ol’ brushes out of the boxes I packed in Akron two months back and spent some serious time working on a new canvas, which I must say I am delighted with given my meager allotment of talent.  The planning of a trip to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to hike Slaughter Canyon and tour the wilderness cave of the same name before continuing on to Guadalupe Mountains National Park to hike either the Devil’s Hall or El Capitan/Salt Basin trail has also been far more involved than I had initially planned on.  The headline for the pas week, however, has to be arriving in Corpus Christi on the previous road trip just in time for myself and Ryan Edell to see our good friend and fellow ex-resident of apartment #123 Erik Stiller off after his recent release by the Houston Astros.  The situation is obviously a difficult one to see a friend go through, especially twice, and especially when his only backup options are a Princeton degree and an acceptance letter from Columbia Law School.  Anyway, I’ll call that good for now and leave you with the customary poem.

 

A Quick One Before I Go

by David Lehman

 

There comes a time in every man’s life

when he thinks: I have never had a single

original thought in my life

including this one & therefore I shall

eliminate all ideas from my poems

which shall consist of cats, rice, rain

baseball cards, fire escapes, hanging plants

red brick houses where I shall give up booze

and organized religion even if it means

despair is a logical possibility that can’t

be disproved I shall concentrate on the five

senses and what they half perceive and half

create, the green street signs with white

letters on them the body next to mine

asleep while I think these thoughts

that I want to eliminate like nostalgia

0 was there ever a man who felt as I do

like a pronoun out of step with all the other

floating signifiers no things but in words

an orange T-shirt a lime green awning