Fenway Park: A Life

Every Bostonian knows the Red Sox suck right now.  But at least we do have something to be happy about: the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park.  (Unless you've been living under a rock, it'sthis weekend.)  As a long-time fan and as someone who has been to the place many, many times, I thought I'd write about it a little.
I attended the Open House they had the other day, and despite it being packed with people, it was a great experience.  We walked the Green Monster seats, went though the press box, walked in some sections that I'll probably never sit in, and generally soaked in the atmosphere.  The line for the dugout and stuff was really long, but honestly, I never pass up any opportunity to go into Fenway Park, so just being there was enough.
The thing is, no matter how disappointing the team is, Fenway is a place unlike any other.  Yeah, you could say it's just a place to watch baseball (and hockey, and see concerts...)  But there is no place to watch baseball like it in the universe.  I would like to think if I was born in Pittsburgh and was a Pirates fan, I would still like Fenway Park.  And it would be easy to complain about the cramped seats and the poles blocking your vision, and the high prices and disgusting restrooms.  But even I can't do that,  It's Fenway.  That is part of its character.  It's like in life and relationships.  Nobody is perfect, and accepting someone for who they are is part of being in the relationship.  Fenway is not perfect, but you accept the faults as part of the place.  If not for these things, would it be the same?  Okay, maybe the high prices can go, but the rest?  No way.
Over the last 30 years or so, I have some great memories of being in Fenway Park.  I remember sitting in the bleachers for my first game, and really expecting a home run up there.  I remember the second game of their big winning streak in 1988, when Kevin Romine won the game in the bottom of the ninth with a home run.  I remember watching the roided-up Oakland A's take batting practice and just launching balls over thw wall and onto Landsdowne St., and I remember my favorite player at the time, Jose Canseco, signing an autograph for me, and almost getting crushed agaist the wall by home plate getting it, but I still have that card.  I remember the clinching game in 1995, when literally 35,000 people erupting in unison when Jeff Reardon got the final strikeout.  I walked out of class in college to go be an extra in John Travolta's "A Civil Action," which was filimg at fenway.  The scene was eventually cut, but it marks the only time i got paid to be at Fenway.  (Man, I would have paid them.)  The epic night in September 2003, when I was 11th row for Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.  Then, probably the greatest game I've ever been to, Game 1 of the 2004 World Series, an 11-9 red Sox win en route to their first Championship in 86 years.  Coming off the huge comeback against the Yankees, the place, the whole city, was perhaps never more alive than it was that night.      
When I saw Springsteen there in 2003, it was like being in Mecca.  Even Bruce, a Jersey-ite, felt the energy of the place.  Before playing "My City of Ruins," he said, "There aren't too many places when you walk into, and even when it's empty, you can feel the soul of the city,... it's one of those places that's always full."  It's not just a place to watch baseball.  It has a spirit, a soul, a life.  It is the last ballpark, and it is one of the few places that hasn't been given a ridiculous corporate-sponsored name.  Fenway is a piece of history, and it's a really cool thing, baseball fan or not, really, to be a small part of that history.  Even if it's just by being there.

A Year Later...

On March 24th, 2011, just about a year ago, I wrote this post regarding being hospitalized for severe anemia.  If you don't feel like clicking over, the gist of it was that it was so rare that someone be that anemic and still walking, that they had no idea what was wrong with me so did not send me home.  It was also the first of many House references on this blog.
Point is, that was a year ago, when everything basically went to shit.  Like, really severely down the crapper.  I was hospitalized for most of April and May, give or take a few days when they thought they had fixed me, and then spent June going in for infusions, being treated by a visiting nurse and treating myself with antibiotics that I injected into a PICC line dangling from my arm, which went nicely with the portable gunk-catching chest tube I had dangling from my side.  Like a purse that matches your shoes, eh?
But that was then, and this is now, and yesterday at about 3:00 (after a rough day), I decided to buy a ticket to see Bruce Springsteen at the Garden, a few hours before the show actually took place.  I think that's a pretty good illustration of how I'm feeling now as opposed to a year ago., or even a few months ago.
Bruce, first of all, was incredible.  I've seen him live several times now, in different venues and different incarnation (solo, Seeger Sessions, Fenway, etc.) and I think that last night's show may have topped them all.  I mean, the dude is in his early-60's (truly, as he sang in Thunder Road back in 1975, he "ain't that young, anymore."), but he can still go.  Hell, I was tired near the end of this three-hour show last night, and I wasn't putting forth nearly the same effort he was.  The cool thing is, I don't know how he is in other cities, but he certainly seems to love Boston (he did kind of get his start here back in the day), and Boston certainly loves him, so I'm not sure which came first, but he seems to add a little spice to his shows when he plays here.  Sliding across the stage, crowd-surfing, running all over the stage... I can't even do that, no matter how good I'm feeling.  It was, as one fan put it on facebook, "a religious experience."
And so it was, as just a year ago, I could barely breathe.  I am still on a small dose of steroids, and a "kidney vitamin," which I'll probably have to take forever because my kidneys were permanently scarred, but last night, for the first time in awhile, I felt like my old self.  I woke up yesterday thinking it would be an ordinary Monday, and ended it with an amazing Bruce Springsteen show.  I feel like that could have happened to me five years ago, but not in the last year, certainly.  Physically, I have felt okay for awhile, but it took a little longer than I anticipated to get back mentally.  So long that I didn't really even know that I wasn't there yet.
But now, I know I am.  Thanks again for the inspiration, Bruce.

  

  

I Believe

I don't usually believe in jinxes and curses, because if i did, I'd also have to believe in their opposites; luck, karma, fate, pretty much all that.

Since rejoining the dating world in 2012 (well, late 2011.  Wanted to hit the new year running.) I have met five women: Leslie the Lesbian, Gums (from last week's post), Mira (who I adored but has not gotten back to me), Stone-Face, and now the latest and greatest, Amelia.  Four out of five really shitty endings, and one annoying disappointment.  But you can't win 'em all, right?

Sure, sure, but before you get all philosophical, let me tell you the story of Amelia, the latest and greatest.  She and I had been emailing back and forth for several days, she seemed to enjoy my pictures, she seemed to have a good head on her shoulders, and at 40, she was presumably mature enough to know how this dating thing works.  We agreed to meet for a drink Sunday night.  She even sent me an email on Saturday night telling me she was excited about it.  We were even chatting on google hours before the date and she said she loved me already.  I know it was kidding aroumd, but still...

So, she arrives at the bar, we hug, sit down, she orders wine, I order a beer.  We start chatting.  She drinks her wine, takes out ten dollars, says, "It was nice meeting you.  I'm gonna get going," leaves the ten bucks and walks out.  The whole "date" lasted all of ten minutes.

I'm willing to wager none of you have ever experienced anything quite like that.

And it's not like I told her she had nice tits, or sure had a purdy mouth, or anything.  I just told her about my life.  And not even the "I collect Jokers" thing.  I told her about my job, my college days... the usual stuff.  Up and left.  Drove all the way to Brookline (because she told me she lived in a "boring suburb"), spent ten minutes with me, and walked out.

Now, some of you might want to believe that I cursed this from the beginning, because before leaving my apartment, I told my roommate, "It can't be worse than the last one," the last one being Stone-Face, which is not a remark on her looks, but her rigid personality.  She basically refused to talk to me.  I mean, you're on a date woman!  Make some conversation!

But we're getting off-topic.  The topic isn't really curses.  The topic is why anyone would treat another human being this way, after several back-and-forth emails claiming that I was cool and she was excited to meet me.  Not sure if it was the hair (although she had seen the most recent photo of me), the beard (again, seen the photo), the shirt, the nose, or whatever.  Possibly the comics, but I'm pretty sure, looking back now, that she had made up her mind within moments of ordering the wine.  They say a woman knows within minutues of meeting a man if she will ever want to sleep with him, and I think this woman probably knew within seconds.

Still, I've been on a lot of first dates over the last few years, and all of them lasted longer than ten minutes.  My biggest gripe has always been that people aren't giving you chance after just one date, and this woman didn't even give me that.  And I honestly don't believe I cursed it, or that I'm somehow paying for sins past, because I would hope I've long since paid for those.  And I used to believe in karma, but really, I'm not that bad a guy, am I?  I know you get it back three-fold, but Jesus, I've never killed anyone.  And yet, this is the shit I'm getting back.  I fought my way back from the brink for this?

Anyone redaing this is probably saying the same thing everyone else has been saying; "That sucks, but you probably dodged a bullet there.  She sounds crazy."  Yeah, she probably is crazy, but she's probably saying the same thing right now to herself.  Or worse, she could be saying, "Great guy, just didn't sense the connection."  That's what everyone else has said.  I mean, where does it all end?  Personally, I'm tired of "dodging bullets."  I can't keep writing these people off as crazy and thinking that I'm okay.  Clearly, something is amiss, and I have no idea what it is.  And I'm not sure I want to bother to find out.

This whole dating world is just ri-fucking-diculous, and I'm pretty much done.  I know my friend has been saying that I shouldn't give up, but I'm not sure what else to do here.  I mean, would you continue to bang your head against a wall?  Of course not, because eventually, it just hurts too much.