Usually when I sit down to write a post, which is increasingly rare these days I know, unless it’s a super-short update about what Jake Plummer is doing today or where Julius Hodge is playing, I really, really make an effort to write something that is thoughtful, interesting, accurate, and reasonably well written. As a professional editor by day, I am ridiculously hard on writing, all the time (honestly, I wish I could turn off the “editor” part of my brain sometimes, because it makes it hard to enjoy most writing). So it’s only natural that I’m ridiculously hard on my own writing. This is why I haven’t yet written the novel that’s been floating around in my head for YEARS — my expectations of it are so high that anything, even a stupid stream-of-consciousness pretend first draft is soooo awful I can’t even live with myself for having written it and I get really embarrassed for myself even though nobody else will ever see it and then I just go have some beer and forget about it entirely, until I’m lying in bed trying to go to sleep, which usually takes a while and is the time that, without fail, every single day, I inhabit the world of my novel that I hope will exist someday.
So this is also why, now that I’m not taking Adderall every day, I have a hard time posting here. It’s really hard for me to organize my thoughts enough to write something coherent and thoughtful, interesting, accurate, and reasonably well written. Because that’s not how my mind, in its natural state, actually works. And when I’m not on Adderall, I’d rather sit on the couch and talk shit about eyeglasses, road trips, and the next tattoo I want to get than actually look shit up on the internet and write a post.
But fuck it all. This is my stupid blog, and I guess I can do what I want. So here is an unmedicated, buzzed off of two beers (I’ve been seriously cutting back lately, so this is a pretty good buzz), unresearched and spur-of-the-moment shitty post.
I want to talk about Jermaine Dye. If you’re a White Sox fan, you love Jermaine Dye. If you’re not a White Sox fan but you’re a fan of MLB in general or some other team, you probably don’t even know who Jermaine Dye is, do you? Well, that’s kind of disgraceful, because Jermaine Dye is one of the best players in MLB today. He was up for that last-minute All-Star spot, which he lost to Evan Longoria (WTF?). I went on that stupid website and voted for Jermaine Dye (even though you had to uncheck the “get updates from monster.com” thing and put in the stupid CAPTCHA code every. single. time) early and often. And I’m from Chicago, so I know about voting early and often. Because who in the hell is Evan Longoria (right now, as we speak, someone in Tampa is writing a blog post about how Evan Longoria is really awesome and MLB fans who don’t know about him are a disgrace and is it okay for me to say right now that I’m really jealous of the devil ray petting zoo tank thing they have at their field because that is the shit)? Jermaine Dye deserved to be on the All Star team. He deserved it more than the 900 Yankees and Red Sox who made it and who piss me off because there are too many Yankees and Red Sox and Cubs fans and the White Sox will never get that much love.
Here’s the thing. You know how every day except Sunday, you get your mail? And every day, unless you don’t pay your bill, your home has electricity and heat and MLB Extra Innings and shit like that? Do you ever really think about the people who make that all possible? Do you think about the guys who put in the cable wires or the people connecting your iPhone to shit or the mailman? And I know that there already was a mailman — Karl Malone, yada yada I always thought he was cool but now he lives in the boonies and like hunts and shit, which I totally don’t approve of but that’s really beside the point. Anyway, Jermaine Dye is the invisible guy who gets everything done and keeps the White Sox running. He doesn’t get all the glory. The glory is reserved for people like my future husband Carlos Quentin or the most hated man in MLB AJ Pierzinski or, well, Ozzie Guillen because let’s face it not many White Sox players get any glory at all.
So anyway, this is my long and ADD-related way of saying that Jermaine Dye is the mailman. He always delivers. Rain or sleet or what-the-fuck ever, you can rely on him to make a crazy-ass catch like he did this afternoon or get a big hit or do whatever you need so your team and your city can function like normal. The guys who keep you functioning like normal don’t get that much credit or recognition from anybody. But maybe they should.
