Life is...

My camera never took good pictures on perfect days. Sunny, warm, fluffy obese clouds. It just couldn’t focus, and my pictures always had a purple-red glow emanating from them. I just couldn’t give it up though. I was always entranced by the blue up high.

“Azure!”, said the voice beside me.

He was mumbling Italian words before, but I never heard him clearly because the stinking sweet of Amaretto filled up the space he occupied. I quietly enjoyed it. Covered my face in disgust so he couldn’t participate in my delicious delight. I once loved Amaretto, and I miss its soft burn in the bottom of my belly.

“Azure, bella, azure…toe-day deh sky, it breze.”

I turned around and looked at him straightway, and his head was high in the cloudiness above. Smiling this ridiculous smile as the wind guided itself across his face. He breathed it in as one would lap up water after a midday’s jog. He was talking to me but he didn’t even have his eyes on me. Much less open.

“Bella, toe-day you see juss how much azure can fill yourrr pam!” and he held his hands high, attempting to reach its impossible heights, but his determination almost made me think that he could.

He stretched for a long time, stopping short of a breath.

Then he decided to climb down and slump. Looking ahead in an almost dead stare.

“I hold deh key to life, you know, miss…I hold…deh secret toe all living tings.”

I started to gather my things. Clearly, this man was lost from his permanent psych ward residence. How he landed in the middle of Thornhill was a little disturbing.

“No, no!! No leave! I give you…look, look! Look, miss, I give you!”

I calmed down and sat back down. Looking at this old, dingy Italian man, rummaging through his little paper bag of God-knows-what. He was digging for gold it seemed. Rapidly, fast paced and breathing as if it was his last, he crumbled that bag in and out, upside down, rightside up and in and out again…and then, he smiled. He grinned and laughed aloud. So loud the men at the full service gas station across the street took a second glance at his commotion. I was mesmerized and a little weirded out by this dingy old man in his linen beige top. He wore brown pants, with one distinct hole right above the left knee. Black sandals, black socks. A fedora hat, but half of one, almost. Looks like part of it was burnt off. And there he was laughing his might away, clutching this unseen object in his little paper bag.

He was laughing for a good 2 minutes, until I decided someone needed to say something. As I was about to politely tell him where to go, he stopped abruptly and looked at me. His eyes were blacker than before and he held out his palm, stretched tautly into a fist-full of his God-knows-what-secret-of-life-and-all-living-things thingy.

He asked me in the softest, most paternal voice “You shure you want to see it?”

“Yes, geez, just show it to me already!!!”

He slowly moved his hand close to my face, opened it up finger by finger…and then, I saw it…

…in all its mystical glory…

I beheld the key to life.

And it was a…

Sports. It is life!`

Gabi is a hater. She wishes she could understand what roughly half the general population of the world roughly understands - Sport is Life. No, sport does not give life. Neither is sport a substitute for life. Sport acts as a metaphor for life, and sometimes as a catalyst or outlying picture for life.

Friday evening I went to see my co-workers at a smoky bar with about a dozen TVs, all turned to the third of the Sox-on-Sox tourney. One of the my associate/friends is a big Boston fan. We've been able to laugh at it, but I know it's eating him up inside. So, of course, I take every opportunity I can to get at him. Why? Because the White Sox represent the new-old way of playing team ball - as a team.

Look around, folks. Despite the whole fantasy league disease going around (yeah, and I'm losing at the thing), US teams are looking less for that superstar and more for that ever-elusive team chemistry. The Cleveland Indians will probably dominate in the next few years, not because they have - or could get - superstars, but because they worked hard to scamper and get a young squad that's hungry and work well together. The White Sox are doing well this year because of sacrifice. They got rid of their biggest hitter (Magglio Ordonez) and have scrounged around for every available hit, bunt, steal, movement of the plates. They have combined that with some wizardry from the mound to make a Carnival Cruise-load of one-run wins this season, the best record in baseball this season, one of the smallest budgets in baseball, and their first post-season series win in almost ninety years.

And it never hurts to have a Dye on the squad, I'll tell you what!

Take the Bulls. Usually, I would follow that with a lame Vaudeville joke, but they've become a team to reckon with and with no sign of a superstar in sight. The closest we have is a young man who actually fuctions as a closer. What has worked is team chemistry. In this case, as well as with recent past champions Detroit Pistons, New England Patriots, and San Antonio Spurs, it is a group of men willing to forsake their numbers, figures, highlight reels and published names in order to grab that championship ring. They want to win. Tracy McGrady can keep his face on ESPN the Magazine, TO can talk about TO all day long, Atlanta can keep their non-passing QB all year long, but they are not going anywhere. This new breed of sport has rediscovered what the old teams knew all along, teams win together and lose apart. They are in constant need of each other. No superstar ego is worth the health of the team.

It's community all over again.

My own bone to pick. (Read Timi's post below)

You know, I was bumping around on the mule today (a mule is a glorified all terrain golf-cart) on my way to milk the cows. For those of you who don't know, I'm having some relationship issues. I have my OWN bone to pick about the seemingly raw (or at least slightly undercooked) deal I've gotten in the whole man-woman game.

To what extent am I supposed to put up with the fact that women are "the weaker vessel"? Because I am not necessarily into weak women. I'm no pushover, but I don't like having to babysit adults. I don't like having to cover every possible emotional base and then sit trembling wondering if I've left some sensitive 't' uncrossed. I don't like unexpected irrational drama. I hate much ado about nothing. I sound rather coarse right now, but that's just an honest thought I had today. I was complaining to God about having to be the big man in the relationship. Hold your obvious cheap shots at that comment. And WHO is the person who's been perping the lie that women are sexually passive nobodies and vicitms? In my experience with flirting and physical intimacy, women have out-aggressed me everytime. What a piece of work...

I think "gender roles" are a big issue. Let's just forget homosexuality for a second, okay? Cuz gender is all jacked up among the hetties now...is that part of "the curse"?

Another question to ponder is this: "How "equally yoked" can you be with a partner who's a "weaker vessel"¿?


In direct response to Timi, I say "Welcome to the club."