MY LIFE - JULY

Sunday, July 14, 2002

In recognizing that it's been a week since I've written in this, let me start by saying that I would've written on five of those seven days had our computer not been on the fritz and I had not had to run back and forth to get the dogs at night.

Okay, someone's sitting there wondering why I could be online and not write an entry and I have an answer. My last entry, the super long one about my times growing up, took me five hours to write. Not because it took me that long to think of all that. No, it should only take me about an hour to write something like that. Our computer froze up on me six different times, three times before I could save after writing a long passage. The frustration level was highest on the first freeze. You see, I had the entry pretty much done, had written it very well, and was just about to save, then it froze. I had not saved once, so the whole entry was lost. I sat there in a stupor for a moment, then realized what had happened and starting cursing like a sailor.

I gathered myself back together and started to write again, carefully saving every few minutes so that I would not have to start over again. Well, I got really involved in a long passage and kind of lost track of things. When I was just about finished with the paragraph I was on, the computer froze up again. Once again, I sat there for a moment, the frustration returning to me as I tried to figure out what the hell it would take for this damn thing to work right.

A few hours later, I finished the entry, saved it, saved the pages that would be related to what I was doing (the previous entry, my life listing, etc), and I can safely say that upon reading the entry again, it feels like I rushed it, which is what I did. I can't really say that I like it that much, not because of the content, but because I feel I had to rush it, maybe skip some details, and not write it in such a way that I would feel suitable to be presented to you.

That in itself probably isn't true, but I have high standards for how I write and the last entry just didn't feel right. Yes, I reveal a whole lot about what I did that very few people actually ever knew about me, but there's probably some details missing along the way that I could've and would've put in if I didn't feel like I had to get it done before the system crashed again.

That made me hesitate to write anymore entries until my mom had a chance to look at the computer and try and fix what had happened, which it seems like she did. It's not freezing up as much as it did and it's moving faster, something I couldn't say a week ago.

I'm not overtly concerned with the lack of entries though. Not a whole heck of a lot happened over the last week. I worked, came home, tried not to think about how much my stomach's hurting at the moment, got the dogs, came home, went to sleep, and repeated the process.

Then again, not much ever happens and I still manage to write entries, so I guess I really don't know a thing.

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I've been doing something lately that I hadn't been doing previously ever in my life. I've been opening up to people I don't really know and telling them things that I probably wouldn't have told them even two weeks ago. I don't know if this is just another step in what has become a continuing evolution of who I am or if it's just something I'm going through, but I've been very comfortable talking to certain people about certain things.

One example is a girl I work with by the name of Heather. For starters, she's a very good looking girl, but she's the kind of girl that I normally can't stand to be around. It's not that she talks too much, but rather how she talks too much about things that really aren't important. She spent half an hour one day telling me about how she got ready for work. Not exactly the best way to captivate my attention.

Anyway, before anything else is said, she does have a boyfriend so I don't look at her as someone I'd consider to begin with. Yet she was asking me questions about how I grew up and I just told her about some of the things that I went through. I did this without even second-guessing myself and I did it without feeling weird.

The other thing is that I normally have trouble talking to a girl that's overly attractive like she is, but I have no problem with it. I think a lot of it is because I know she's taken and it's not like I'm trying to sell myself as someone she should consider. I'm just being me and I talk to her like anyone else I know.

It's with everyone I run into though. I can talk about things, talk to people without feeling all weird about it. I've never been afraid of people so much as I've been reluctant to trust people, but now it seems like I'm completely past that. I'm not wondering why they're talking to me anymore, which is a lot of what my problem was. Now I'm just trying to find out something about them and maybe go with that a little. It's weird still because I've never been a people person. Never. Now I'm starting to become one. I'm smiling more and I no longer feel as much tension when it comes to dealing with new people.

My only wonder now is how much I continue to change. Some of it's been very noticeable such as my hair, other things haven't been as obvious, such as how I feel around people. It's been interesting and I'm curious to see how it all turns out.

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I knew that writing this entry during the Indians game would be a mistake, not because I actually thought they might pull it out, but because I knew I'd watch anyway. I mean, they were down 7-0 going into the sixth inning for crying out loud.

Imagine my surprise when I turned it on during the start of the bottom of the ninth and the score's 7-4. Sure, they're closer, but I still didn't think that they could pull it out.

Then things started to go their way for the first time all season. John McDonald led off with a single. Eddie Perez followed with a single, sending McDonald to third. Chris Macgruder then hit into a fielder's choice, scoring Perez. Macgruder's at first with one out. Omar Vizquel follows with a single to right that allows Macgruder to go to third. Ellis Burks follows with a double to left that scores Macgruder and sends Vizquel to third. Jim Thome is intentionally walked to load the bases. One out, bases loaded for Travis Fryman, who's pinch-hitting for Lee Stevens. Fryman struck out on three pitches though and it seemed like Mariano Rivera might get out of it. Bill Selby came up and on a 2-2 pitch, hit a ball down the line that just went foul. Now normally, he'd strike out or pop out on the next pitch, but what happened next surprised everyone. On a 2-2 pitch, Selby hit it in the air to right, at first, I thought he had just popped it up, but then I watched right-fielder Shane Spencer keep running towards the fence and saw the ball land in the stands beyond the wall. Selby hit a game-winning grand slam and the Indians win, 10-7.

Since I'm such a big Indians fan, I've been sitting here listening to the post-game shows and just have the shakes right now. Not much good has happened this year, but this was as big, if not bigger then the Indians' win last year against Seattle, when the Indians came from a 14-2 deficit to win in 11 innings, 15-14.

Maybe things will start to turn around a bit now. At the least, the team hasn't quit and is still playing with a lot of heart. It was evident today.

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I had to take the dogs back to the house today and it was a little more interesting than I would've liked. First off, Shade woke me up by slobbering all over my face and then tried to play when I pushed him off. Second, upon waking up and getting dressed, he nearly yanked me through the door. Then, before I could get him and Anubis into the car, I had to make sure they did their business.

Of course, there were two dogs tied to a tree not far from where I was and they started barking, Shade and Anubis started pulling that way, Shade started barking, and I literally had to throw both dogs into my car and get out of there before they tried jumping out the windows.

On the way back, Shade decided that he needed to stick his head out my window. Fine, except when he sneezed all over the back of my head. Now, I don't know about you, but that's not exactly something that feels too pleasant. Of course, he's panting and the wind was also blowing his drool all over the place, so this became one of the more unpleasant rides that I've had with them.

All I can say is that Teresa and Dan better be getting them tonight because I need a break from it. Dog slobber is not something I particularly enjoy.