No More M's on the Radio

The baseball season ended Sunday, and now I'll have nothing to listen to when I go to work flyin' pies, no games on the radio. I'd like to think it's for the best and I'll supplement my time with music, but this might not be the case, and that scares me. I loathe the idea of listening to NPR all night, a fate worse than death, but some news trickles in and it's a voice in the background. I'm not enjoying the pop music station so much anymore, and don't imagine losing myself in Justin Bieber, Taylor Swift, or the Weeknd, though it sounds nice, and at least contemporary. A lecture on CD, or an audiobook, never worked for me and I'm not sure if it's the nature of the job but I get too distracted to pay enough attention.

This leaves me with old CD's to fill the gaps of time between orders, and this sounds sad. Most of my CD's are old, and I haven't bought a new one for many years, so that I have them all memorized many times over. I could employ silence as a sort of listening device and fill my head with literary thoughts, or astrological dreams, and while this sounds lovely, it takes a mentally impacted consciousness, but right now I feel empty. I could take this emptiness and make it meaningful, but that would take an act of creation that may be forced out of me by boredom.

The beauty of a baseball game is that it's boredom incarnate and forces meaning on the listener. It's live so that you can lose yourself in the drama on many levels... the opposing team, the pitching match up, a new line up, a subtle change, and get lost in the tradition of the Country, the national pastime. Games on the radio are almost like symphonies to me that have their own internal rhythms over 9 long innings and 27 outs. The announcers are like poets with their own language, and the long drawn out nature of the season really feels like reading a novel. Sure, the Mariners are maybe the worst franchise in baseball history, so the seasons tend to end early up here in the Great Northwest, but even then there are enough games into July to make the season interesting, and this wasn't a boring season.

Now I'm stuck with no entertainment for months on end, no postseason bluster to look forward to, only a few more dismal Presidential debates to pass the time between runs, and to contemplate the Country. No dream fantasy of a baseball park where all reality takes place on a diamond with no greater consequence than a metaphorical act.. a swing of the bat, a wild pitch, a home run... on which all life hinges, like a work of art.