Goin' Back To Cali, I Know So

Sashial wanted me to thank everyone who voted for Nick Swisher. As you can imagine, she's absolutely thrilled that he won the vote to become an All-Star.

"So where are we watching the game?" she asked.

"Let's go to Anaheim," I said. "It's an American League town, I think it'll nice to actually be cheering with crowd this time."

"Fuckin' A, let's rock that place! And I'm impressed with you too, wanting to embrace instead of hate."

"You think there might be hope for me after all?"

"I always knew there was hope for you, and you made the team. But now you're turning into an All-Star." She had kind of a proud glow when she said that.

"You goin' soft on me?" I asked.

"Shut the fuck up and get to work. There's a guy who just found out his crush is getting married."

"On it." Gotta run.

Swishalicious IS A Word. Because She Said So, That's Why.

"Sometimes it fucking sucks to be good." Not a surprising sentence coming from Sashial, but it still begged an explanation.

"You're not thinking of doing something bad, are you?" I asked, with confidence but caution.

She smirked and shook her head. "Don't be stupid, of course not. It just makes me mad. You know who my favorite Yankee is, don't you?"

Without taking a beat, I said, "Nick Swisher."

"Good boy. Now that he's in this final vote to make the All-Star team, it started me thinking. You can vote as many times as you want. If I wanted to, I could just create a computer and ring up a jillion votes. I could do it with a thought."

"And you're worried about the temptation?" I asked.

"Are you even fucking listening to me? No! The very idea of that is sickening. To bend the limits of fairness, how fucking greedy do you have to be? And some people live their lives that way. I just hate to think about it, you know?"

I know. Please vote for Nick Swisher. This is Sashial in a good mood. You don't want to see her angry.

VOTE NOW

TIM, SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!

Yesterday, I found Marley staring at the big LCD TV in my living room with a worried look on her face. "Do you like TV more that people?" she asked.

That I did not expect. "What?"

"I mean, is a TV, like, a substitute for a person, or human contact? I've never had my own one."

I saw where she was going with this. "It can be. But not by choice, at least for me it wasn't. When you're lonely it can be a good distraction, or an escape. And sometimes, I don't know, when things are at their worst, the people on tv might be the only ones you see or hear."

She frowned. "That's really sad. Then again, when I think about all that time I spent in that tiny room . . . I mean, I don't want to think about that. Maybe it would have been good to have something to focus on."

"What about your drawings?" I asked.

"That's about all I did," she answered. "But I didn't always have the stuff to do it with."

I tried not to reflect on that too long, so I just asked, "Is this about that guy Suzanne's working on?"

"Yeah. He got the big screen TV last week, now he hardly does anything but watch it and go to work. And of course he'll never meet anyone if that's all he does. She's afraid he's trapping himself."

"Well, I wouldn't panic yet," I assured her. "He just got it, it's brand new, he's gonna go through a period of initial amazement. Tell her to wait it out for a week or two, it should be easier for him to tear himself away from it by then."

"OK. I just he's not too far gone by then."

"He'll be fine. No one can replace human contact with a TV forever. Seeing and hearing people on a screen never is enough. If he starts talking to them, that's when I'd get worried."

"What about when you yell at the announcers when you're watching a game?" she asked.

"Um, that's different."

"How?"

"Just humor me, please?"

Grab Me A Moosehead Between Innings, Eh?

Last weekend, Sashial asked me, "Don't you ever get tired of seeing the Yankees in New York?"

"Not really."

"Oh yeah, Mr. Ethno-fucking-centric. I think we should branch out."

"We did that," I reminded her. "In Anaheim. It was sickening."

"That was the fucking playoffs," she snapped back. "That was tense. For fuck's sake, let's just go to a fucking game!"

As much as I maintain my New York City arrogance and prefer not to leave, I do enjoy traveling every once in a while, especially to places I've never been. "They've got a series against the Blue Jays."

"Then let's go to Toronto!"

Unfortunately, the Yankees lost the game we went to on an extra-inning walk-off base hit. Sure, it's not the playoffs, but I tend to intensify everything emotionally. On the one hand, that's what makes me a good angel. On the other, for things like this which should be insignificant can seem like the end of the world. Every time the Yankees lose, I think it's the beginning of a downward spiral that will lead to complete and total failure. I must have thought that forty times last year and they won the damn World Series. It's no wonder I spent my lifetime in misery.

But at that moment, it was hard to see my overreacting anxiety from the outside. "Listen to them cheering," I said with a healthy dose of venom. Then I lightened up and added, "I mean come on, what do they really have to get excited about? They're still just Canadians."

It'd been a while since I'd seen Sashial that mad. "HOW the fuck could you say something like that? That's ignorant, prejudice bullshit! Can you really be that fucking vain to degrade an entire country?"

I defended myself with the calm that comes from familiarity. "Sashial, it's just a joke. Canada's kind of like our little brother to the north. We Americans may take a jab at them every now and then, but it's only because, on sort of a global scale, they're kind of like family." One such Canadian who overheard that gave me a little smile and nod before walking off.

Sashial put her hand on my my neck. "Yeah, I figured it was something like that, honey. I know you well enough to know you don't have ignorant hatred like that." Then she held my head in her hands, gave me a gentle shake, and with a smirk, said, "Just don't ever fuckin' do it again," and still smiling, gave me a light but firm upward slap on the side of the face.

I said, "See? I'm like your Canada."

She thought for a second, grinned and said, "Fuck. You always have to be right, don't you?"

Well, Since Your Life Sucked . . .

Much to my surprise, I got a call from Suzanne the other day, saying she wanted to pick my brain about something. She asked me to meet her at this place called the Prairie Grass Cafe in Chicago. "I know you love burgers," she said, "I'm telling you, BEST in the state!" Not that I needed much prodding to help a friend, but it was clear she knew how to guarantee my participation.

"So this guy I'm working on," she said, "I'm having trouble helping him, because he doesn't seem to want it. It's like he doesn't care, like he's given up."

"What's his problem?" I asked.

"Well, he's in his early forties and he's, like, you know, single. And he's all, 'I'm past the point of no return, I missed my chance, how can I find anyone, how's it gonna happen, I'm gonna live alone for the rest of my life.' He even bought this huge hi def big screen tv he can barely afford. I asked him why, and he's like, 'Well if I'm not gonna get pleasure from anything else in life I might as well have a great tv, I'm here all alone watching tv most of the time anyway, might as well make it the best experience I can.' It's so sad. It's like he's too bitter to even try anymore."

I knew where she was going with this. "So you need the advice of someone else who was just as bitter."

She seemed ashamed of the truth, but relieved she didn't have to come out and say it. "What would you say?"

"Well, he's not gonna respond to basic words of encouragement, like, 'Oh, I'm sure there's someone out there,' or, 'It'll be there when you least expect it.' It's gonna sound like an empty promise, or since he's like forty already, he'll think if that was true, it would have happened by now. You're better off doing this anecdotally, stories of people it worked out for. That'll make him more likely to think that it's actually possible. It's worth a shot."

She smiled. "I'll give that a try. It's a start at least. Oh, THANKS! How's the burger?"

I shook my head with delight. "Outstanding."

I Don't Think I Want To Work At Douchebags 'R Us Anyway

Had a really simple job today; just a guy who had a job interview that didn't go well. We'll call him Ken. So Ken ends up in a bar, drowning the sorrows, or at least holding their heads down in the water long enough to scare the fuck out of them. I think that sounds like a more appropriate metaphor anyway. You can never kill your sorrow completely, just contain it, hold it off or drive it away. Think of every beer as one head dunk, like in the war movie torture scenes. And be reasonable, because if you do it too often, you'll become a monster.

Anyway, that's a nice segway, because he described the interview like it was torture. No questions about his experience or skill, just a lot of figurative stress questions, scenarios he had trouble speaking to because they didn't really relate to his his experience. "Give an example of how you handled a project going awry because of an internal mistake."

"He wasn't being very specific," said Ken, who writes for a travel magazine. "And every time I would try to answer, like, 'Well, one time a tourism company wouldn't approve the fact check on a coverage article by press time-"

"No, I mean something internally."

"We just don't have issues like that. We sit and write. And every time I tried to think of something, he'd go, 'No, that's not the sort of thing I mean.'"

"Look at it this way," I said, "Would you want to work for someone like that?"

"Actually, no. I'm just really unhappy where I am."

"Yeah, that happens. But that doesn't mean everywhere else you go, it's gonna be better. You're better off holding out for a better opportunity then working for that fucktard."

"Yeah, I guess so," he said, not a hundred percent sure, but at least in a better place than when I found him. I still felt bad for the guy. Not everyone can have a dream job like I do.

Enemies: A Functioning Mutual Respect Story

Sashial and I went to see the bombers today for the first time this year. It was against Chicago, so Suzanne came with us too. I made sure to sit between them because I was afraid Suzanne would agitate Sashial. Sashial doesn't really hate anyone per se, but I think Suzanne's bubbly demeanor is the sort of thing she'd avoid if given the choice. When Suzanne showed up wearing a Chicago shirt, Sashial looked a little annoyed. "Isn't it insulting for her to walk into our house with that on?"

She was still learning ballgame etiquette. "Not if it's for the guys we're playing. If you're just supporting your team it's ok. Wearing rival colors for no reason is out of line."

Later on, Sashial kind of turned the tables on me when they made the safety announcement. At the beginning of every game, they give a warning that sections close to the field may susceptible to balls and various equipment flying into the stands, so stay alert. I said to Sashial, "If I made that announcement, it would say, 'If you have enough money to be sitting in a section close enough to be hit with a ball, then screw you, you probably deserve to get plunked in the fucking head every once in a while you rich motherfucker.'"

She wasn't laughing. "That's a fucking horrible thing to say. Having money or a better seat doesn't make you any more or less worthy of existing without misfortune, you know that." I told her she was right and apologised, and just then Chicago made a strong defensive play that got a cheer out of Suzanne. Sashial leaned in and asked, "Is she gonna fucking do that the whole time?"

"Well, she is from Chicago," I said, "it's her prerogative."

She shook her head. "Fuckin' 'ell."

Turned out it wasn't much of an issue because the bombers went on to destroy Chicago in a big time blowout. The big surprise was at the end, when Sashial, buzzing from the victory, said to Suzanne, "You should come with us next time!" When I gave her a confused look, she said, "What? She brought us luck!" Well, Suzanne is an angel, after all.