i'm not sure what i feel like saying. i have been pouring through "Shoeless Joe" today and half my brain is still between the pages of that book, sitting in the bleachers next to JD Salinger and Ray Kinsella. today is my brother's 27th birthday and i sent him an ecard. for the second straight year i'm too poor to buy him a gift or even send him a real card. and its worse this year since i haven't received a paycheck since mid-December and we're dancing on march. i also haven't been called to sub this week but i've also snagged a drainning cold so the time off is nice. i still need the money though.

i hope everyone has the chance to read the future works of micah hoggatt. the guy is amazing. whenever we wax religion/philosophy/creativity he brings in so much theology and enlightened understanding i'm blown away. i get the distinct impression he is one who has wrestled with some very serious questions and has saught answers with the zeal and tenacity the likes of which baseball only brings out in me. most everything he says has been carefully examined and supported from voracious reading and quiet contemplation. and i haven't even said anything about his fiction writing. i hope he pursues his craft and lets others in on his journey by publishing. he sees things much more clearly than i do, but he pays a price by living in his head more than i do. though perhaps i assume too much.

i have started to see distinct patterns in kinsella's baseball writing for the first time. i'm surprised i never saw any of it before. each of his characters uses the same drawn out metaphors in their dialogue when they are describing something. he mentions the smell of each new place or room the narrator goes into. he changes time frames without notice and in successive paragraphs, but never leaves the reader questioning what period they are in. he creates a feel for places he has never visited with focused and specific description for subtle nuances. we expects the reader to take what he writes of magic as normal and doesn't qualify it. he also has described, in the novel, a deeper love for a place than i have ever known. i've dreamed about loving a woman that much, but not a place. it reminds me of dan and his love of indiana. he belongs to the land here. we all should be so fortunate to find a place or a someone we belong to.