I’ve noticed a recurring tendency with these posts: I feel a strange allegiance to being negative. I’ll go to write something, anything, and it almost always feels too positive to be worth sharing. With everything going on in the world, and the title of this “project,” whatever that word “project” means, I often feel like I need to be excavating truths about the bad things going on in the world, or at least providing some sort of incisive cultural commentary referring to whatever big thing is happening in the ever-shortening media cycle, for these to be worth it. But the truth is, it’s been a good week, and I’m in a good mood, and I don’t want either of those truths to go to waste.
I spent way too much money to watch the Mets lose game 3 of the NLCS at Citi Field last week. Owen and I sang parodies of “Meet the Mets” while we sat in apocalyptic traffic on 678, which devolved into me just busting out with a fervent “MEET THE METS” in a stereotypical New York-adjacent accent in any gap in the conversation. Spirits were high. We walked up the stairs in Citi Field and immediately saw Jeter, David Ortiz, and A-Rod sitting behind the desk for MLB Tonight, which was pretty surreal—their celebrity, and the fact that I watched them as kids, made them almost look like wax figures. Hyperreal, celebrities that have eclipsed a combination of fame, nostalgia-tinged importance from my childhood, and sustained relevance that has morphed them into something beyond reality, to me. Then, I followed Owen’s aggressive lank through the growing crowds to find our nosebleed seats, the only tickets we could afford.
Of course, the Mets struck out like thirteen fucking times and they left a million runners on base, en route to an emphatic shutout trouncing at the hands of the motherfucking Dodgers (MFD for short). We got to see Shohei Ohtani hit a 3-run playoff home run which was, despite my seething hatred of the Dodgers, pretty cool, though. It also made me think that maybe Mets fans and Red Sox fans are spiritual cousins. Their teams frequently do well enough to inspire hope, only to lose in dramatic fashion. The heartbreak around me made me feel at home. It was pretty lame to see Mets fans giving up and leaving in the seventh inning though, especially considering how pricey even the cheap seats were.
Other highlights include that I witnessed a Drunk White Mets Fan (DWMF for short) ~racistly~ accost an Asian man about Shohei Ohtani while waiting in line for the bathroom. The Asian man stood behind us wearing a strange hat that had the Mets logo on one side and the Yankees logo on the other, which made me wonder if he was a tourist or something since sports fans generally tend to be so tribal and loyal to a particular squad, and never to two in the same city. An obvious example is the enduring hatred White Sox fans have for Cubs fans and vice versa in Chicago, but Mets and Yankees fans don’t seem too cuddly either. The dual Yankee/Mets hat made me think of that time Rob Lowe wore an NFL hat to the Super Bowl. Like, dude: you gotta pick one. But I digress, and it’s certainly not to imply blame on the Asian man’s part for what comes next.
“No, you’re with them, you’re one of them, did you bet the under or the over? You’re one of Ohtani’s guys I know it,” the DWMF yelled, while the Asian man grew in confusion and shrunk in stature, eager to avoid a conflict, I assume, pointing to his hat and saying “No, no, New York.”
All the while, full bladdered, I stood there, thinking “for fuck’s sake, am I gonna have to pull this idiot off this poor guy?” Plus, what the hell does that even mean, “one of Ohtani’s guys?” As if the best baseball player alive and maybe to ever live has goons in the stands, double agents posing as fans of the home team, like life is a cartoon. To, I’m sure, everyone in the vicinity’s relief, the DWMF then said, in true New York fashion, “I’m just breakin’ balls.” I hope the Asian guy enjoyed the game, and I hope the DWMF cried about the Mets losing, even if it disappointed me too.
We proceeded to stand shoulder to shoulder at the urinals. No time for shy kidneys, kid. Piss and move on.
Baseball, beer, hot dogs, and racism. A true American experience.
I got home way too late that night and took a PTO day from work the next day. It pays to have baseball fans for bosses. I made good use of it, sipping espresso at a bar at lunch with Brian, where we chatted like old men about bands of yore (specifically Pinegrove, who remain really fucking good [RFG for short]), nostalgia, youth, heartache, things of that nature. He’s good for that sort of thing. And that night, I made music, and so did my friends, at a tiny open mic in the middle of nowhere for me, or the center of everywhere, I’m sure, for someone else.
The weekend was full of a barbecue, hiking with Maddy, and an easy Sunday with her too.
Which brings us to last night, in which your correspondent met up with aforementioned friends again and yelled his fool head off singing vulgar parodies of songs, fueled by whiskey and two and a half cigarettes, and the enthusiasm that only comes from exhaustion and good times with friends. I got very little sleep, but I pounded water and woke up feeling like a spring chicken. And I made it to work. No hangover callouts for your correspondent; those days are decidedly in the past.
A not so sexy but very fun fact (and borderline non sequitur) about me is that I don’t have a large intestine, it having been removed for being diseased and decidedly shitty, pun intended and unavoidable. Amidst privileged friendly conversation last night that will not be expanded upon in a public forum, I was described as “all heart, no guts,” in a literal, comedic, not at all unfriendly sense.
I’ll take it.
Who needs guts anyway, if you have heart?
And this morning, driving in to work, I watched the sun rise over the awakening bustle of Waterbury from the height of I-84. The whole city was bathed in the kind of light that makes even decay look like it’s blooming. The clock tower stood alone silhouetted against the retreating night, and lights from tons of houses dotted the landscape in the distance. From there, it was impossible to see it as anything other than beautiful, which makes me think that half of perception is projection from where you’re at.
When I pulled up early enough to work to take a quick walk, I saw a bunch of birds sitting shoulder to shoulder on a roofline. I wondered what they were talking to each other about up there. That’s the only kind of news I’m interested in for today.
So the world might be ending, and we may be getting collectively dumber as a culture and species, and the problems the world faces may dominate many of our consciousnesses and fill the era with a unique but timeless dread. But I can’t and won’t pretend that it was a bad week.
I’m not one for good advice, but I’ve heard tell that a good mood is worth holding on to. I may aspire to an enduring allegiance to the truth and to honesty, and part of that may include situating my happiness (or lack thereof, at times) in a larger global context. But for today, for me, things are good, and I’m going to let that continue, and also stop here, before I ruin any of it.
matt nilsen 