i may be a bird in a cage but at least it's your cage

fact: my current active fandom is baseball. yes, i've been reading some baseball rps, but mostly it's just -- the game itself, both college and major league. and i approach it the same way i approach my media fandoms. i spend a lot of time reading articles, both game recaps and feature articles, i spend a lot of time searching for pictures and rearranging the photos on my harddrive. i read a lot of books about baseball. i spend a truly, truly ridiculous amount of time talking about baseball with onthecontrary (uh, i mean a serious amount of time, like, embarrassingly large).

i'm watching plenty of stuff this summer -- the 4400, burn notice, psych, to name a few -- but the only thing i'm feeling really genuinely fannish about right now is baseball.

and so, because i know some of you kids are the same way, some recs -- baseball books i have known and enjoyed: ( baseball books )

this year i've seen two games at the yard and 7 and a half-ish at boshamer stadium in chapel hill, and i'm adding a nats game at rfk in two weeks and maybe another game or two at the yard if shep. and i haul up for the last yanks series with oriolegirl at the end of september. wish i'd seen more college ball, wish i'd seen more (any) minor league ball, but this is the best baseball year i've had in a while. there's nothing quite like the lights on the grass of the infield after dark. a baseball field -- full of players, empty, lit by false lighting, in the sunlight, in the rain, in the dusk and twilight of summer -- is one of my favorite things in the world.

so. talk to me about baseball. unless you're a brewers fan who is not febrile, in which case sid and i might have to set you on fire. i was going to break up with the cubs this season, and then they got good and acquired/brought up from the minors/purchased on the street somewhere two adorable louisianan middle infielders who have played together since LITTLE LEAGUE and i fell hard for them all over again. baby cajun double play combination! my heart, it swells. and now i spend a lot of time saying "FUCKING BREWERS, WHY WON'T YOU FUCKING LOSE?"

and if you can identify the quote in the subject line without a) google or b) me having told you who said it, i'll ... share my favorite pictures of baseballers with you.

and if baseball doesn't do it for you, pls to be enjoying my new shoes. they are sketchers with FISHES on them, and i want to wear them everywhere. (shep. helped me clean out my closet monday night -- which mostly involved me standing around without pants on going "WHY DO I OWN THIS?" -- and a measurement technique we used in determining what i should keep was "can i wear this with my fish shoes?")

in other news, i should have spent morning working and packing, and instead i watched sportscenter four times in a row and wrote 2500 words of college baseball rps. my life, man. (and apparently my "not being around" was a total lie. nothing like having to pack your apartment to make you want to post to livejournal.)

(i am through abusing parentheses now.)

minnesotans, check in. head count, pls, for yourselves or anybody else. i worry.

carls wot are no longer minnesotans, pls check in if you've heard from any of the minnesotans.

uninitiated: went to college south of minneapolis, still have many friends there, cannot raise anyone on the phone but east coasters who have also not heard from anyone out there. this is ... i know that bridge, guys. i drove that bridge. people i love very much still probably use that bridge on a regular basis. august, you promised not to suck as much as july, this is not a good start. *frets*