Scene: 8:00 AM this morning, teammate Aldo’s apartment, Bihorel, France. Our hero awakes to the realization that he is suddenly 27 years old, sleeping on the dining room floor. Enter, Conscious & Subconsci0us. SC: Jesus F-ing Christ! What the hell is wrong with you! You’re 27 years old and sleeping on someone’s floor! You used […]
Scene: 8:00 AM this morning, teammate Aldo’s apartment, Bihorel, France. Our hero awakes to the realization that he is suddenly 27 years old, sleeping on the dining room floor. Enter, Conscious & Subconsci0us.
SC: Jesus F-ing Christ! What the hell is wrong with you! You’re 27 years old and sleeping on someone’s floor! You used to bill your employer more in cab fare reimbursements every week than you currently get paid each month! WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?!?
Conscious (looking like the kid in 5th grade who was hoping the teacher wouldn’t call on him): Uh… um…
(Enter, Superconscious)
SupC: I don’t really have a lot to add to this conversation because the author has no idea what the superconscious mind does, or if it actually exists. Sorry. (swills from beer can)
Conscious (suddenly revitalized): What am I doing? I’m playing French baseball, that’s what I’m doing, and that’s exactly what I want to be doing, so shut your mouth and stop being such a whiny little girl. Besides, we’re going to move off the floor to a studio in Rouen tonight, no thanks to you, you ungrateful weasel. Oh, and by the way, if you actually want to help around here, how’s about you stop trying to pull outside fastballs, you frigging idiot. Who do you think you are, Kevin Millar?
{end scene}
I bring this to you as part of part 6 in an ongoing series: Existential Crises Resolved By Shouting Down The Subconscious With References To Failed Red Sox Sluggers, by Evan Meagher.
Other miscellaneous happenings…
-Kudos to Montpelier, who surprised everyone by toppling Savigny 9-3 in the Challenge de France final on Sunday. They were a decided underdog entering the tournament, as they were in 6th place or so, missing a few starters, and were the only team in the tournament without any foreigners. Sort of like the 2002 Angels, however, it was a case of the entire team getting hot at the right time and riding that to the finals. They dinged up Gaetan, Savigny’s starter, then tacked on three more against Savigny’s new Canadian pitcher. Good for them; one of the most distressing trends in French baseball- aside from the elimination of baseball as an Olympic Sport, meaning that the French baseball program will no longer be welcome at INSEP and will not receive nearly the same Federal funding in the future- is the increasing concentration of the few good players on three good teams: Rouen, Savigny, and Toulouse. It’s like there are 3 good teams that have huge budgets and everyone wants to play there. Sound familiar? The fact that Montpelier came in, stomped on Rouen in the opener, and then managed to squeak by Senart in the semis before pouncing on Savigny is great for, as Bud would say, competitive balance.
-I’ve learned that the French love gossip, maybe even more than the Americans, and French Baseballeurs (as they call them) are no different. Everyone’s always chatting about which foreigner signed in Rouen, who’s not getting a lot of playing time in Savigny, and so on. The rumor mill therefore exploded the day after the Challenge, when Toulouse’s Canadian centerfielder disappeared in a puff of smoke. He played on Sunday, when Toulouse was jobbed (in my ever so humble opinion) in the semis, and then on Monday- {poof}- he was gone, Kaiser Soze-style. I try to avoid the use of capital letters for emphasis, but this guy was YOKED. Insanely yoked. He looked like a body double in a Vin Diesel film, and he made his XL t-shirt look like an underarmour stretch top. It was borderline ridiculous. He hit an absolute seed home run to straightaway center at Rouen, and then hit a smash off Pierrick in the semis at Bois-Guillaume, the remainders of which landed just shy of the soccer field, the rest having apparently burned up in re-entry. The guy was just a monster. Of course, his rapid departure has the league abuzz. In any case, the HBWT legal department (a crack team of legal eagles) has informed me that speculation on my part would be inappropriate, so I’ll just reiterate how INSANELY RIPPED this guy was, and leave it at that. Perhaps he got called back up, as he was previously in the minors back home, in which case, good for him.
-Lastly, tonight, and last night, and come to think of it, the three or four nights before that, have all consisted of a Groundhog Day-esque constant replay reel of me going to Rouen with the intention of taking a studio in order to get off of Aldo’s floor, then some ridiculous administrative interference preventing me from doing so. Last night, literally five minutes before we were to sign the contract, we were forced to stop by the insistence that we take a look at “another option,” which turned out to be a few rooms in what appeared to be Tyler Durden’s house from Fight Club. Throughout the whole process, my mood has varied wildly, ranging from “consumed by rage” to “blind with rage,” occasionally swinging all the way over to “toxic with rage” and “paralyzed by rage.” Today, I think I even managed to reach “glowing with white-hot rage,” which was something new for me. As you can tell, it’s been quite the emotional rollercoaster… if that rollercoaster was named the “Rage Express” and consisted of a single car moving at an obnoxiously slow pace around a flat, circular loop under the hot sun in the Angerland section of the Fury World theme park.
Today was the same story, as I arrived at the appartment only to be told we would be taking two other studios a little further from the center of town tomorrow… which is naturally after I leave for Paris in preparation for Saturday’s exam. So, tomorrow will be different, because I will be moving into a new appartment. In that respect, tomorrow is identical to every day for the past two weeks. {sigh} Happy Birthday to me.
I like to think of myself as slow to anger, but boy, when it comes out, look out. After a brief but cathartic explosion- in which the key chain to the woodmobile lost it’s W as a result of the best fastball I’ve thrown since early April- I cooled off and had a beer with Sylvain. It’s not his fault, and he’s been working real hard to find us something, so I couldn’t really stay mad. As I pointed out to him, it’s only life. On y va.
Tomorrow I catch an early train into Paris, where I’ll be getting ready for the test and also seeing the best expert on pitching injuries in the country at INSEP. Usually I’d make some sort of joke here, but my weariness (being that apoplectic takes a lot out of you) and my sincere hope for recuperation has overwhelmed even my cynicism. I’ll take the test on Saturday, then come back Saturday night (possibly to a new apartment, although I’m not exactly holding my breath) for Sunday’s games against Senart. Hugs and handpounds,
ev
