I should be packing.
See, I"m on vacation.
That's what you're supposed to do, right?
Pack?
Instead, tonight I went to the game, and while I watched the worst Cub performance of the year, something happened that ended up being strangely uplifting.
I realized I can... let go.
The sun's gonna come up tomorrow.
The mail will arrive, the tomatoes will still try to grow, and best of all: I can get in my car and drive to a cabin up in the Great North Woods and continue my battle with the Musky that made me squeal like a little girl 3 years ago.
Here's how the day started...
It was as pretty a morning as you could ever hope for.
The sun shot thru a hole and spot-lit my neighbor's plants.
It was breathtaking, and I hadn't even had coffee yet.
Then, I went to work and worked.
At 5 something, I got in my car and drove up to Wrigley Field.
Lots of people came to this, the worst game of the year.
Then I met Sutter at "Mike Morgan's", where we had a beer next to ex-Cub Tim Stoddard.
He's a huge man...
These are just his calves.
Holy Mother of God!
Compare his to the calves around him!
Sutter said, "His calves are as big as my chest."
He's right.
When we got inside, there was Big Z.
He looked ready to reclaim his Ace status.
My expectations were this: THE CUBS WILL KICK SOME MAJOR WASHINGTON ASS TONIGHT.
It was absolutely gorgeous out.
Just the perfect night to, once again, give in to hope.
But soon, in a scene reminiscent of the last game of the 2003 Cubs season, Carlos Zambrano hit one out.
Just like Kerry Wood did, the day he gamely tried to carry a whole city on his back, but couldn't quite do it.
In both instances, you knew something was all wrong.
Pretty soon, the Nats were up about a hundred to three.
And this is where I started to...give in.
Then Lou came in to take out Zambrano.
I have no explanation for this photo.
You shoot blindly with a digital camera, who knows what it captures?
Maybe this season really has given people a rash.
But here's what I do know:
The Washington Nationals came to Wrigley Field to play a game that was so absolutely necessary for our Cubs to win you could...
Well, you could hang a season on it.
And now, the Cubs are 9 games behind St. Louis.
You can talk to one thousand people on the streets of Chicago and maybe find one more fan who has more hope and faith than I do.
But I give.
When I was walking out of the stadium, there were all these big screen tvs hanging everywhere, and although this photo is so bad you can't tell - the tvs all had a shot of a camera pointed at the black chair with the microphone in the small room in which Lou Piniella would soon be talking about the game.
In advertising, this is called the "HOW COME" room.
As in, "HOW COME you pinch hit that twit Aaron Miles?"
Anyway, walking out, that room was empty, but it reminded me of a story...
When I was in 6th grade, there was this kid in my class.
Dark hair, jeans - a regular kid - lets say his name was "Richard".
I sat next to him, sort of in the back row.
One day, after we'd all been sitting in class for a half hour, Richard suddenly jumped up from his seat.
We all looked at him like, what the hell, dude?
"SOMEBODY PEED IN MY CHAIR, AND I'VE BEEN SITTING IN IT THE WHOLE CLASS!" he yelled.
And then he ran out of the room.
What did he just say?
I looked at his chair and sure enough, there was golden liquid in his seat.
We all looked at each other, us students, and knew immediately what had happened.
The teacher, after regaining her composure, said something like this:
"Well class, apparently Richard...had to go to the bathroom. Lets all try and be kind to him when he comes back because obviously he's embarrassed."
Anyway, that came to me when I was looking at those tvs: Lou has had to explain that exact story about a hundred times this summer.
And you know what?
I'm over it.
So the Cubs pissed in the chair in the middle of class in front of everybody.
There's still about a month and a half of nice weather, and for sure I'll head to Wrigley a couple more times - it's still summer.
I'm just... not having anxiety about the Cubs getting in the playoffs any more.
It's kinda nice.
Right now though, I"m gonna go catch a fish.
ps: there's actually more to this game to come I wanna tell you, after I get unpacked and do a couple paintings.
Gimme a day or so.