"Deep thoughts" w/ some "Levity" sprinkled in..

Day 239: It’s time for another deep pondering. While I was at softball the other day, I meet a fellow Midwesterner, currently working away from his Minnesota-based office. After telling him I was from Minnesota, he looked at me with relief and asked me what I thought of life out here and whether or not I thought people were rude. I responded that I didn’t know if “rude” was the term, but that it does lack the “Minnesota nice” that I once took for granted. The typical Midwesterner will talk to those around them and smile or wave on the street, to complete strangers, and while you may come across a rare gem here, typically, this will not be a part of your DC experience. You know what David, the Iowan transplant to Minnesota and then placed in DC, pointed out as the difference? He said, the first thing anyone asks you is “what do you do?”. Phew, maybe I’ve been out here too long, because that didn’t seem so weird to me, but he is SO RIGHT! This is the easy conversation starter, from a business reception, to a bar, no matter the setting, this is generally how a conversation begins. I don’t think David has anything against finding out the career of a stranger, but to him, this is a way to find out how successful they are, not a genuine question of who a person is. So I guess the better question that I’ll aim to ask, can be a follow-up to this one David deemed as so impersonal—“why, do you do what you do?” Most people I meet are employed by the government, a non-profit, the military, a contractor, or a law firm, but each of these probably took painstakingly long hours of schooling, decision making, training, and prayers, and those are what, in my mind, are worth hearing about! Hopefully, this unexpected question won’t be so hard for a person to answer, and if so, it will beg for examination.

Day 238: Levity for COB in EDU.

Day 237: I found myself sitting here this afternoon, updating myself on the MLB standings as I do occasionally throughout the week. It’s getting to that point where suddenly, it’s not just the Central division that matters, but the East, West, and Wildcards matter. I click around, toiling on the home page, checking out our homepage, when I begin to think about the play-offs. Seeing as I have nothing to do at work (note the total sarcasm), I look up the ALDS and the play-off schedules and start crunching scenarios in my head. I am pleasantly reminded that we made it into October in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2009; I briefly smile at the years gone by, the time treasured in my first and last years of college, beating out the Tigers to make the move forward. The moment is quickly snatched away, like it often is, as I am also reminded of those rich ominous pin stripes that somehow tear away at our core each time we attempt to reach our full potential. It doesn’t matter how the regular season ended, how we got there, or who is playing, we are shut down with a finality that makes next year seem like it is ages away and October of next year in a different dimension. I step out to head to the bathroom and walk down the hall, despising the Yankees and their fans. Their fans who may just own a hat that makes them look cool, their fans that sit at the front desk of my office, not really caring about the sport until they’re winning and they can nod with the “I told ya so” look that only really shows if someone raises the topic of hating the Yankees, and their fans who are respectably die hard, but will never cease to be a thorn in my Minnesotan side. I take a breather, sit back down, and start to sift through the post-season possibilities. There are too many if’s, too many games left. I sit back, text Michelle in anxiety, write down these thoughts, close the MLB browser, and turn to my calendar. 23 games left. That’s 7 series, 6 teams, and absolutely nothing I can do about it. Phew.