Springing Ahead

So I’ve substituted my nightly ritual of watching Sex and the City and sipping a glass of red wine before bed for watching countless baseball games (yes, I purchased the MLB EI package as soon as it was available) and drinking Crystal Light lemonade.

Despite what the New York weather might be trying to tell us, it’s spring. And spring makes me happy. And among the many things that make me happy about spring, baseball and lemonade rank quite high on my list.

And despite the fact that watching the end of a Red Sox game (already, only one series into the season) is enough to make any good fan reach for a beer to quell the inevitable “how will they blow this” nerves that start piercing the stomach like an automated, well-trained response, I have made my choice. There’s nothing I can do about what my friends through the glass box will do, even if I physically change my shirt from my Ortiz jersey to my Ramirez tee, at times with the quickness of an actress changing her costume between scenes, between their at-bats. I can do that, I can yell at the screen, I can dissect Francona’s managerial decisions (by the way, and this has already been dissected and lauded by Sox fans, so I won’t harp on it, but thank you for putting in Papelbon last night instead of Foulke), but ultimately, I am a fan of the game and the game itself and I have to enjoy what I enjoy about it, which is the illusion (it snowed yesterday in New York, okay?) of spring and sunshine and the realization that I will be able to enjoy this game, and what it means to me, and the people who play it and epitomize it for the next six, almost seven, months.

Here it is an off-day for both the Sox and the Evil Empire – I mean, the Yankees – and so I am watching Detroit vs. Texas, loving what I am learning about each player and the teams’ various strategies, loving that there are different announcers for each team, each with their own flavors, and loving the local commercials because they teach me so much about the variety that exists within American culture, depending on the location of the home team.

Okay. We’ve all (for the most part) “sprung ahead” with our clocks; it’s time for me to spring ahead in my mentality. Darkness into light, winter into spring, solitude into solidarity. Happy spring.