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No, for real, ask your grandpa—can I have his hand-me-downs?
I have a cold.
I've had it for four or five days now. I have a fever, a sore throat, I am blowing my nose constantly, sneezing, and coughing so frequently and so hard that I had to duck out of The Night of the Hunter (1955) at the Coolidge with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rushthatspeaks on Monday because I did not want to be that one person in the theater who provides their own soundtrack (unless it's a picture about TB, it just doesn't go). I had to converse with adrian_turtle primarily by e-mail this morning because I was losing my voice. I have just wasted a box of Kleenex and cannibalized another from the kitchen.
Naturally, what I did with my evening was attend a baseball game at Fenway withderspatchel.
It was a hideous meltdown on the part of the Sox at the top of the ninth (no, seriously, I'm glad to have seen a grand slam over the Green Monster, but I didn't need it to go to the Baltimore Orioles*), but I think that's part of the joy of the sport. There was a rain delay between the fifth and sixth innings. I was so cold my jaw kept popping and my shoulders locked up—Rob, bravely trying to give me a backrub through corduroy jacket and sweater, said that I felt like shale. (That felt about right: stiff, ridged, faintly damp with blown spray. We were at the top of the grandstand seats, with one or two rows and then open air behind us; the wind came down our collars and some of my fingers went white-tipped numb. But under a roof, which is the significant thing. We had not brought umbrellas.) We had our hearts set on weird dessert after pre-game dinner at The Salty Pig and the whole debacle barely drizzled itself out of its misery in time for us to walk to Finale in Park Plaza before they closed. Because my sinuses are an even more appalling place than usual, I was very quickly out of the tissues I'd brought from home, the napkins I'd stolen from the Fenway concession stands, and I ran out of Finale's toilet paper on the train home. I cannot determine whether I am light-headed from general exhaustion or because blowing my nose this much is inducing a sort of hyperventilation.
I regret nothing. The park organist played David Bowie during warm-up and Kurt Weill randomly between innings. The rain delay was a beautiful Cirque du Soleil-like exercise in unrolling the largest advertisement for L.L. Bean I have ever seen. I do not actually care that much about singing "Sweet Caroline" with thirty thousand other people, but hearing Rob shout "SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!" at the relevant space in the chorus is really endearing. And I had not seen an actual baseball game at an actual park in years and my last set of interactions with the Red Sox were mentally fraught by now anyway; this was an effective exorcism. And the Salty Pig had a new presentation of bone marrow split lengthwise with a garnish of lemon peel and parsley (which I described as "meat butter" when the server asked for our reactions, since apparently we were the first people to order it) and a shocking ash-ripened goat cheese that had better stay on the menu and a cocktail by the name of Bloody Monks, yellow and green chartreuse with lime and lavender topped with Sangiovese. And Finale's entire block had lost internet, so we were at first told they couldn't take cards tonight (and they never accept checks, and neither of us could offer more than a couple of dollars cash without hiking back to the ATM at Boylston), and then it turned out they could run a debit card by hand after all. And I am going to take a very hot shower, after which maybe my shoulders will consent to rejoin the rest of my body as opposed to remaining a sort of sandspit micronation somewhere very cold.
I got to watch a classic baseball arc: friendly indifference to fragile hope to fingers-crossed superstition to holy Katie Casey, how did you fuck that up? Damn Yankees was quoted liberally throughout. Also, "Damn it, Mr. Noodle!" I was not expecting a microcosm of mythos when I went out this afternoon. In that respect, sadly, it was right in line with the one Red Sox game of my childhood, which they lost. Archetypally, though, it was pretty sweet.
* [edit] Rob has just informed me that we did not in fact see a grand slam, although we both thought so at the time: it was a wild pitch allowing a run home from third followed by a homer that brought in runners from second and third. Honestly, there are ways in which I think that is even stupider. At least it means we might see a Sox slam yet.
(Title of this post courtesy of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop," which Rush introduced to me on Tuesday as evidence that the hipster trend of dressing out of vintage stores is coming to an end, because the practice has now gone mainstream: they heard the song first on non-internet radio. It's been stuck on and off in my head ever since. I meant to post some other things of similarly unrelated interest, but they will have to wait till tomorrow. I am sneezing too much to stay at this computer, and besides, this post is about baseball. When I got up this morning, that was not how I thought my summary of the day would end.)
I've had it for four or five days now. I have a fever, a sore throat, I am blowing my nose constantly, sneezing, and coughing so frequently and so hard that I had to duck out of The Night of the Hunter (1955) at the Coolidge with
rushthatspeaks on Monday because I did not want to be that one person in the theater who provides their own soundtrack (unless it's a picture about TB, it just doesn't go). I had to converse with adrian_turtle primarily by e-mail this morning because I was losing my voice. I have just wasted a box of Kleenex and cannibalized another from the kitchen.Naturally, what I did with my evening was attend a baseball game at Fenway with
derspatchel.It was a hideous meltdown on the part of the Sox at the top of the ninth (no, seriously, I'm glad to have seen a grand slam over the Green Monster, but I didn't need it to go to the Baltimore Orioles*), but I think that's part of the joy of the sport. There was a rain delay between the fifth and sixth innings. I was so cold my jaw kept popping and my shoulders locked up—Rob, bravely trying to give me a backrub through corduroy jacket and sweater, said that I felt like shale. (That felt about right: stiff, ridged, faintly damp with blown spray. We were at the top of the grandstand seats, with one or two rows and then open air behind us; the wind came down our collars and some of my fingers went white-tipped numb. But under a roof, which is the significant thing. We had not brought umbrellas.) We had our hearts set on weird dessert after pre-game dinner at The Salty Pig and the whole debacle barely drizzled itself out of its misery in time for us to walk to Finale in Park Plaza before they closed. Because my sinuses are an even more appalling place than usual, I was very quickly out of the tissues I'd brought from home, the napkins I'd stolen from the Fenway concession stands, and I ran out of Finale's toilet paper on the train home. I cannot determine whether I am light-headed from general exhaustion or because blowing my nose this much is inducing a sort of hyperventilation.
I regret nothing. The park organist played David Bowie during warm-up and Kurt Weill randomly between innings. The rain delay was a beautiful Cirque du Soleil-like exercise in unrolling the largest advertisement for L.L. Bean I have ever seen. I do not actually care that much about singing "Sweet Caroline" with thirty thousand other people, but hearing Rob shout "SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!" at the relevant space in the chorus is really endearing. And I had not seen an actual baseball game at an actual park in years and my last set of interactions with the Red Sox were mentally fraught by now anyway; this was an effective exorcism. And the Salty Pig had a new presentation of bone marrow split lengthwise with a garnish of lemon peel and parsley (which I described as "meat butter" when the server asked for our reactions, since apparently we were the first people to order it) and a shocking ash-ripened goat cheese that had better stay on the menu and a cocktail by the name of Bloody Monks, yellow and green chartreuse with lime and lavender topped with Sangiovese. And Finale's entire block had lost internet, so we were at first told they couldn't take cards tonight (and they never accept checks, and neither of us could offer more than a couple of dollars cash without hiking back to the ATM at Boylston), and then it turned out they could run a debit card by hand after all. And I am going to take a very hot shower, after which maybe my shoulders will consent to rejoin the rest of my body as opposed to remaining a sort of sandspit micronation somewhere very cold.
I got to watch a classic baseball arc: friendly indifference to fragile hope to fingers-crossed superstition to holy Katie Casey, how did you fuck that up? Damn Yankees was quoted liberally throughout. Also, "Damn it, Mr. Noodle!" I was not expecting a microcosm of mythos when I went out this afternoon. In that respect, sadly, it was right in line with the one Red Sox game of my childhood, which they lost. Archetypally, though, it was pretty sweet.
* [edit] Rob has just informed me that we did not in fact see a grand slam, although we both thought so at the time: it was a wild pitch allowing a run home from third followed by a homer that brought in runners from second and third. Honestly, there are ways in which I think that is even stupider. At least it means we might see a Sox slam yet.
(Title of this post courtesy of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop," which Rush introduced to me on Tuesday as evidence that the hipster trend of dressing out of vintage stores is coming to an end, because the practice has now gone mainstream: they heard the song first on non-internet radio. It's been stuck on and off in my head ever since. I meant to post some other things of similarly unrelated interest, but they will have to wait till tomorrow. I am sneezing too much to stay at this computer, and besides, this post is about baseball. When I got up this morning, that was not how I thought my summary of the day would end.)
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Hope you feel better soon.
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"Thor's walk-up music is 'Immigrant Song,' because of course it is. VALHALLA, I AM COMING."
Heee. Thank you. I am amused.
Hope you feel better soon.
I am less viciously sore-throated today, but sneezing even more, which I wasn't sure was respiratorily possible. So long as my head is draining, however, I'm happier than if it backs up. Sinus infections are disastrous for me.
(Have my uninvited medical history!)
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Nine
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I am trying! The thing about the cold is that unless I'm completely laid out with fever (in which case I'm immobile and all generalizations are off), I won't actually feel better from staying in bed all day: the inactivity will make me worse. So we planned on museums; we wound up with a ballgame; it was good. Today was less hiking, but still going back and forth from apartments, restaurants, churches, bus stops. Tomorrow I have no idea, but I will not sit on a couch all day. There are other days I can do that. I need places to walk, and I also need quiet.
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Thank you. I thought it was just the traumatic amnesia.
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I really like that park organists still exist! It's not like cinema organist is so much a profession anymore. That reminds me, I need to watch A Canterbury Tale (1944) again.
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You will like the Pig.
(The Salty Pig is also the home of the Bitter & Alone, one of my favorite cocktails that isn't from the 1920's: Becherovka, grapefruit juice, honey, and Peychaud's. I recommend this on general principle.)
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That's the bitters: it's gentian-based, I believe, and beyond that a closely guarded recipe. The whole drink is spice-sweet, savory, herbal, and neither as astringent as the grapefruit nor as sticky as the honey makes it sound; it is an incongruous pastel color and comes with a little slice of orange peel dropped among the ice, but it tastes like mulling and winter to me. You would like it very much, I think. The next time you're in Boston, we will go to the Salty Pig and get you one, even if there is probably nothing else on the menu you can eat.
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I look incredible
This is this is fucking awesome
...I went to a film in the theater on Tuesday for the first time in a long time, and two different silly movie previews used this as their theme song. I bet none of them will ever be as fabulous as the music video.
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That's fair.
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Seriously? What were they?
I bet none of them will ever be as fabulous as the music video.
The music video has a DeLorean.
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The music video also has a grown man in footie pajamas. I approve of the DeLorean too.
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So I have a small handkerchief collection, and I love them all very much, they all have their own wonderful and unique personalities (psst blue one with my name on it, you're my favorite, don't tell). I love the idea of hankies. So earth-friendly and a little crankish.
But jeebus, one bad cold will really highlight their weaknesses.
"So yeah, I'm just going to put this cotton bag of snot ... in my ... pocket. Great."
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It is a great restaurant. I ate there first with
I love the idea of hankies. So earth-friendly and a little crankish.
I gave
"So yeah, I'm just going to put this cotton bag of snot ... in my ... pocket. Great."
Yeah. I cannot have owned enough handkerchiefs to survive this cold unless I was going to start cannibalizing bedsheets. And even then, I'm not sure.
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(As another Cardinals fan I question that rating for the 2004 series, but I realize it's seen in some quarters as justice for 1967.)
I hope your shoulders, like Newfoundland, have decided to join the confederacy.
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Seriously! Monty Woolley with snot!
My sister & her husband discovered the natural result of raising children in Maine is that they become Red Sox fans instead of Cardinals fans.
Huh. The nature-nurture sports question! I don't know if it's universal: I didn't inherit my native New Yorker grandparents' love of the Brooklyn Dodgers (my grandfather refused to recognize their existence after the move to L.A.) or the Yankees, but I didn't glom on to the Red Sox, either. I care about them more than any other team except the Portland Sea Dogs, but that is a very low bar. On the other hand, because of my family's historical support for the team, whenever college football crosses my radar I root for OU. And I don't even like football.
My shoulders have at least stopped being the Principality of Sealand.
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Your description of the baseball game is wonderful. I nearly said "the best sport reporting I've seen in years," but I have to admit that I know nothing whatsoever about sportswriting, so I suppose I'm not able to make a judgement in that matter.
I hope you'll be feeling better soon, or at least that the shower did the necessary diplomatic work to reunite your shoulders with the rest of your body.
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Heh. Thank you. Read
I hope you'll be feeling better soon, or at least that the shower did the necessary diplomatic work to reunite your shoulders with the rest of your body.
Much of my body is not currently on speaking terms with the rest of my body, but at least the alliances keep shifting.
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What is it? Mine's my flat cap.
[edit] It is a prince among oilskins. Go, you.
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Ripened in containers made of ash? That sounds somehow sacred. How was it shocking?
I liked the song "thrift shop" after just one hearing on the radio. (Like Rush, the non-Internet radio. I love listening to the radio in the car!)
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Tree ash, apparently. The results are delicious.
How was it shocking?
It was that good! I like goat cheese; I eat it a lot. I had never heard of Bonne Bouche. I am considering seeing whether they sell it at Dave's Fresh Pasta now.
(Like Rush, the non-Internet radio. I love listening to the radio in the car!)
Someday I will have a car with radio in it.
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A wonderful entry, though I'm too drunk for more coherence.
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Thank you. This is hell-cold 2013. Last year's didn't involve anywhere near this much sneezing.
A wonderful entry, though I'm too drunk for more coherence.
I hope it's a good drunk. I look forward to more conversation when you cohere.