One Blog 3-parts

To prevent your eyes from glassing over or your entire work day from disappearing, I highly reccomend breaking this blog into three separate entries as separated by the XXXes

July 15, 2007: Today I sold out by going to the driving range. Sure it might not seem like a sell out, but let's stop for a minute and think about all of the other things I could have done.

I was up and about by about 9:15 this morning, so I could easily have dragged my ass up off the couch and headed downstate for a hike in the Midwine Wildlife refuge and stopped off for refreshment at the Flossmoor Brewing Station on my way home, but today was Sunday, and I didn't really want to spend all day buzzing around in my car and not get home until late because I have a big day ahead of me at work tomorrow.

So instead of going hiking, I just kind of sat around and watched Outside the Lines and the Sports Reporters on ESPN and thought about what I wanted to do. Of course it was kind of hard to follow what was being said because my cable has this annoying habit of constantly cutting in and out, or pixelating itself or just not working it all. But the odd thing is it only happens sporadically. And it happens on random channels, like right now I can't get 2 of the 5 HBOs or two of the Encore channels, TNT, USA or the History Channel.

It's been happening since about January, and I have called Comcast about it repeatedly, but basically they keep sending people out here, and making me miss work or give up a weekend to come out and explain to me that they can't find anything wrong because it never happens during the time they come to fix it, or they don't stay long enough and just tell me to call back if it happens again.

Well, usually that's what happens, except for the first guy they sent out to fix it. He may have had a Comcast truck, but I am pretty sure he works for the government and was sent to gather intelligence on me for the Patriot List. He was much more interested in my Copy of The People's History of the US and my Hunter S. Thompson books than he was about fixing my cable. We talked for an hour about Guns, Germs and Steel and my Mycology book.

It was fun for a few minutes but after a while I started to get a little overwhelmed and scared, so I kept getting up and walking to the door. Finally, he decided it was time for him to stop talking and go outside to check the settings going into my apartment.

Releived, I quickly shut and bolted the door as soon as he walked out, only to trip over the tool belt he had "accidentally" left behind when he went outside. I was not about to let him back in, so I tossed it back into the hallway as fast as I could and relocked the door. When he came back for his tools and to get my signature, I told him I was naked and to just slip the receipt under the door.

In retrospect, maybe I should have let him back in. Not only did he sound genuinely hurt that I he was not going to be let back into my world, letting him in would also have given me a chance to explain to him that whatever he had tried to fix my cable hadn't really accomplished anything except fucking up my Internet, which now cut out about every 5-minutes as well.

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So anyway, that's pretty much how I found myself sitting on my couch this morning swearing cause my cable and Internet weren't working and wondering why it only seems to happen on weekends or when there is something on TV I really want to watch. I was just about convinced that maybe there really was nothing wrong with my cable and that maybe just maybe all of these problems were being caused by my aura, which I must admit has been a little cloudy and heavy ever since that fateful day not so long ago when the Man and I agreed to a price for my soul. But then I remembered that ever since that day, about all I ever do when I am home alone is watch TV, so there is pretty much always something on that I really want to watch.

So yeah, Comcast is shitty and my Cable isn't working. And I was still sitting on my couch wasting the day while I tried to think of the best way to spend it.

Finally round about 10:30 or so, I got sick of all the network News shoes, so I roused myself and got some laundry together to drop off at the laundry mat. I was outside for about 2-seconds before I realized today was the most perfect day we will have this summer; blue sunny skies, nice cool breeze and a temperature of about 80 degrees. The perfect weather to do anything.

So I decided I was going to wander up to the European style coffee house near my apartment for breakfast on their terrace, but then I remembered I didn't have any cash on me, and it would have been way too much effort to go two blocks south to find an ATM before walking another 3 blocks North to get to the coffee shop. So instead I just headed back to my apartment and thought some more about just what I wanted to do.

I could have gone for a bike ride, but I was still pretty tired and sore from my adventures in basketball and bike-riding yesterday, including the dude at the bike shop near my girlfriend's apartment who practically yelled at me because I didn't like any of the grocery baskets they sold for the back of a bike. (This is how I know I must have some bad karma. I could have bought the basket I wanted from a store on Friday, but I decided instead to try and throw these guys the business because they had been so helpful last summer when we got my girlfriends bike there. I asked the guy if he knew about the larger collapsible canvas baskets like the one I had seen the other day, and he basically told me, "This is what we have, so buy one or get out of my store." So much for trying to help out a little guy.)

So the bike ride was out, which basically left me three choices: 1) Pick up a bunch of beers and head down to the lake and just hang out drinking, doing the Sunday Crossword and watching the beautiful people sunbathing; 2) Heading out to the driving range to get all pissed off because I can't hit a golf ball like I used and I am not even sure I like it anymore, but I feel like that since my father is so good at golf and it is such an important part of my family history, maybe just maybe if I get back to being good at golf, I will once again have that same connection with him that we had when we played together all the time when I was in college. 3) Going down to the Old Towne School of Folk Music Festival.

Now, if I weren't a sell out, and if I had remembered that it was going on, or if my friend had bothered to call me and invite me, I would have chosen 3, the Old Towne Festival. But since none of those conditions were true, I chose option #2, and that is how, relieved to have finally found myself something to do, I dragged my ass off the couch at about 2:30 and headed over the range.

I'd like to tell you that it only took me a few minutes to get warmed up and that pretty soon I was blasting balls all over the range, but the truth is, these days when it comes to golf I am just about like any other hack, with the possible exception being my swing looks a lot prettier than most hackers swings , which really just makes it that much more annoying to play with me as I have somehow become one of those people who thinks he should be better than he is, so he takes it way too seriously, and gets those rare occasions when he does summon his old swing for one brief moment confused with having unlocked the old secrets of the game. But like I said those occasions are pretty rare, so after about an hour and half of getting progressively more frustrated, I took a break for a second and walked away from the ball on the fake grass mat.

As I stood leaning on my 5-iron and looking out over the range, I suddenly remembered what a beautiful day it was, and that despite my frustration at not being able to hit the ball, for the last 90-minutes, all I had thought about was my club, my target, my swing and the ball. All of the other things that had been weighing me down all day, job, money,family, friends and future had all just melted away and despite fighting with everything I had to avoid the urge to slam my club in the ground, I suddenly realized that I was actually quite happy to be somewhere, where despite being surrounded by weekend hackers on two levels, I could finally find some peace and quiet.

This was when I understood just why it is that I still play sports. Basketball, Raquetball, Golf, Biking. It doesn't really matter that I am not the athlete that I once was or that my knees creak for two days when i get done playing. What matters is just that I get the chance to play them. In fact, as I get simultaneously older and worse at sports, I am suddenly beginning to appreciate them so much more. As I see my prime slipping away, I finally understand why it is that Athletes like Jerry Rice hold on so long or why a guy like Barry Bonds can keep hitting home runs while the entire world collapses around him or even why my dad still plays 36-holes a day even though his legs have gotten so bad he now has to play out of a cart and all he ever does is complain to me about how he can feel himself losing distance every day.

Sports really are nearly as effective a way to escape reality as the six or seven beers you drink afterward to numb the pain in your deteriorating joints.

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A wave of calm entered my body as I walked back up to the ball, and I am sure it will suprise no one that on my next swing the ball exploded off my club and vanished off into the horizon.

Sure it would be great to tell you that from then on everything just melted away as I slammed one perfect shot after another out onto the range and I experienced some sort of zen enlightenment that would carry me through the upcoming week. But the truth is that within about 5-minutes I was back to being frustrated, and by the time I got back to my apartment all I could think about was all the shit I still had to do to get ready for work tomorrow and wondering just what I was going to do without my Sunday night HBO.

I ended up finding the Bob Dylan American Masters on PBS which lasted till 9:30, but I can pretty much guarantee that if RCN had come today to replace Comcast instead of tomorrow, I would definitely be Veged out right now, eyes glassed over and mindlessly laughing at Flight of the Conchords and looking forward to Wednesday which will be the next chance I get to go to the driving range and get myself good and pissed off.