No, I'm not being executed at dawn (at least not that I know of--don't think any students could be that upset about anything).

But I'm turning 30 very soon indeed, I don't fit into some of my jeans, and the man I love so much it scares me hasn't shown up… Read full post »

22 years.  That's how long it had been before last night since an American man won Olympic figure skating gold by skating flawlessly, against a formidable competitor, and winning by the thinnest of margins.

I was a starry-eyed seven-year-old when Boitano bested Orser in the Battle of the Brians.… Read full post »

Because I feel betrayed.

Yet I am mature enough (or boring and stick-in-the-mud enough, take your pick) to step back, analyze and realize that what has transpired here is really not about betrayal, and it's not about people setting out to hurt me.  

I know that at least one… Read full post »

In about twenty minutes, the free-skate portion of the 2010 US Ladies' Figure Skating championship will begin.  I'll be watching with a great sense of conflict, actually multiple conflicts.  

For one thing, ever since the 2002 Olympic judging scandal, I have known just how fixed compet… Read full post »

It hasn't been a good few months in my sporting world.  My Phillies lost a winnable World Series to "the most evil franchise in the history of sports" (TM Bill Simmons), and then the Eagles went cold at the worst possible moment.  

After the Birds' first-round exit, I was reduced… Read full post »

Shallow it may be, but the World Series crystalized for me that I wish I'd never met the person I called my best friend over the last 11 years.  I mean, I've hated the Yankees since long before I ever met her, so their winning anything including a Spring Training game… Read full post »

. . . I am getting through a life crisis on the strength of a Sex and the City quote.  Not only is it Sex and the City; it's the movie.

 Be that as it may, "Some love stories aren't epic novels; some are short stories.  But that doesn't make them… Read full post »

During the years I dated The First, we lived hundreds of miles apart for all but the earliest days of our relationship.  One of the corny but comfortable things we did was watch TV "together" over the phone, discussing plot points and otherwise long-distance snuggling.

One of our mutual favorite… Read full post »

As I said a couple weeks ago, if I agree with President Obama, you know our shared position must be correct.  Similarly, if I agree with F. Scott Fitzgerald's Daisy Buchanan, who though she is fictional is still a woman who gives women a bad name, well, you know that our… Read full post »

I'm home at the parents' house near Philly for a short visit.  I blogged awhile ago about how The First gets homesick for State Where I Live Now, and if a big strong football coach can admit such things, surely so can I. 

I like State Where I Live Now. … Read full post »

As the furor up in Cambridge has died down somewhat, I've continued to reflect on the larger cultural currents at work in the situation.  As I've both posted and commented throughout this dicussion, I'm a preppy white person who's been pretty much left alone by the police to this point in… Read full post »

As everyone on OS knows by now, I have voted for exactly one Democrat in my whole life, and he’s one of my state’s senators.  So when I agree with President Obama on an issue, you know that our shared position must be correct. 

I have never, ever liked… Read full post »

The course of true love never did run smooth.

So Lysander tells Hermia early on in A Midsummer Night's Dream, while they are whining about Theseus (the Duke) and Egeus (Hermia's father) not supporting their plans to marry and planning their elopement.  Now, I would run screaming away from any ma… Read full post »

Apparently God plants lilies where and how He wants to and then they propagate themselves pretty much at random.  This is my impression (confirmed by people who actually know stuff about gardening) based on the fact that there was, oh, one lily in front of the house when I moved in… Read full post »

Having been beaten and bloodied after making the apparently outrageous statement that--as an average citizen who was a kid in the 1980s, not as a political scientist or any sort of expert--I admire our 40th President and think of him often in terms of my own political philosophies, and making the… Read full post »

I am inspired in content and formatting by Kind of Blue's wonderful post about being a "Bleeding Heart Liberal," here.  As I posted in my comment on Blue's post and have alluded to elsewhere, I'm as Republican as they come, and I'm praying that the 1994 congressional election repeats itself in… Read full post »

David Ortiz.  Big Papi.  Didn't quite work in Minnesota, so he ended up in Boston.  And all he did there, with a little help from Pedro Martinez, Dave Roberts, Keith Foulke, Orlando Cabrera, Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, Trot Nixon, Curt Schilling, Terry Francona, oh alright Johnn… Read full post »

Everyone please read all the way through and read the disclaimer at the end before pouncing.  My goal here is to defuse anger and bitterness, not stir them up. 

I'm still too grieved over Harry Kalas to write about baseball (it took two glasses of wine to write "Part the Sixth," and… Read full post »

So it's 1975, give or take.  The Phils are good and settled in Tacky Palace, er, um, Veterans Stadium.  My grandparents have reached some kind of financial, psychological, and marital equilibrium.  My parents would probably still be classified as newlyweds, living in a bug-infested apa… Read full post »

Okay, I'm not weighing in on Sotomayor's viability for the court.  Let's just say I'm so Republican (but the nice kind that I tend to agree doesn't really exist anymore in the national power structure of the party) that I'd probably not like it even if Obama brought Fred Rogers back to… Read full post »

1.  I touched the "keep it fair" left field foul pole at Fenway Park.

2.  I made it onto the "fan-cam" at Camden Yards.

3.  I nearly got my nose broken by a foul ball at Veterans Stadium.

 and just for fun, some literary ones

1.  I've never read Hamlet.

2. … Read full post »

I haven't deserted you, dearest OS-ers.  The title is a reference to Ezekiel Chapter 37, in which God brings a valley full of dry bones to life and tells Ezekiel that this represents ultimate restoration for the House of Israel, which has lost its hope (this is my paraphrase, and I am… Read full post »

So said Don Richard "Whitey" Ashburn when turning aside to Harry Kalas in the Phillies' broadcasting booth after something untoward, for good or ill, happened on the field.  Whitey left us in 1997. 

Harry left us today.  The Golden Voice is silent.  Thank God he was in the booth… Read full post »

For new readers (I'm humbled and thrilled by your presence!), this is the story I started this blog to tell.  Faith (which I also spell with a ph-), family, and Philadelphia Phillies baseball.  It begins with "Part the First," and so on, if you're interested in following it from the beginni… Read full post »

 Should be followed by "in men's wildest dreams."

 Fear not, Gentle Readers, I had to type that out very carefully, and I never studied Middle English beyond a parallel text of Chaucer, so this poor, feeble homage to the Wyf of Bathe will be in my very own 21st-century words (with… Read full post »