Up on the Roof

I'd had a permanent scowl on my face for days when my friend suggested I should live my blog. It would take a bit of soul searching to wipe off the bitchiness, but the idea certainly gave me pause.

Sometimes it's tough to put a positive spin on things. After almost 58 years of sinking my teeth into perceived petty offenses and foaming at the mouth like a rabid dog whenever I occasionally get the urge to share the joy of my bad mood with someone close, I often need to take a few extra blinks to see the glass as half full. Writing helps, I suppose. My fingers tap away, making sense of the nonsense. My jaw relaxes its death grip as I conjure up life as I think it should happen, or, at the very least, imagine an optimistic take-away.

I've always wanted to sit up on a rooftop on Waveland, enjoying a bird's eye view of a Cubs game from a perch well beyond left field, high above the clusters of fans on the street below hoping desperately to catch a hard hit foul ball. I've sat in perfectly good seats over the years, close enough to see the stitching on the ball -- and to appreciate the way uniforms can accentuate the contours of athletic physiques -- but still, I  have yearned to sit among the chosen few, the glorified bleacher bums getting wined and dined and generally keeping their shirts on. As far as I could tell, anyway, from my seat so far away.

After taking a break to warm up and dry off inside (and get yet another plateful of steak and Italian beef -- tasty, but not nearly as good as satisfying as a ballpark hot dog passed from a vendor through the outstretched hands of a dozen strangers -- we ventured back up onto the roof. It seemed wrong to sit inside after shlepping all the way downtown for a rooftop gathering when it would have been a lot easier to sit in a local sports bar. I pulled my sweatshirt hood up, and my rain jacket hood over that, tightened my scarf; we toweled off the seats, again, and prepared to focus more seriously on the game, to shout inaudible encouragements to the struggling Cubbies who, in eight innings, had managed to get only one real hit. I hunched my shoulders against the rain, watching it as it moved in waves of feather dust against the backdrop of the right field seats. I felt superior, out there in the damp cold, watching a blur of players in stark white home colors try to fight off the visitors in drab gray. I could barely even make out home plate, although I had a close-up view of more than a few stray paper plates blowing in the wind.

The Nationals had walked their way to loading the bases; our pitcher had finally been replaced. Only moments earlier, a different pitcher had somewhat gracelessly picked off a runner taking a provocative lead off first base. A small and ugly victory, but it had kept them at bay, at least for a bit longer.

I could barely even hear the crack of the ball, could not even tell whether the ball was going to sail over the wall. It took me a moment to realize I had just witnessed the thrill of a grand slam, for the wrong team. I could feel my scowl returning. We left. It's not that we saw the glass as half empty. At five to nothing in the eighth inning, in the cold and relentless rain, it was not a question of perception. The glass was broken.

But the walk/jog to the car, more than a few blocks away, was invigorating. We had sort of forgotten exactly where we parked, so we were relieved to find it, downright joyful when we fell into our seats and cranked up the heat. The glass is half full again. I decided to be happy that they got the grand slam out of the way today, when they didn't even need it. Their single run from earlier in the game, as it turned out, would have been enough for the win.

I am living my blog, and until I am proven wrong, I am hanging on to my faith in the Cubs. They will win tonight, as I watch from the warmth of my living room. Not like sitting up on the roof, but, even in blogland, life can't' be perfect.