WIth apologies to Yankees fans

I'd like to apologize in advance to my friends who are Yankees fans. And I don't mean that snarkily or gloatingly. I actually mean it with heart. Because at the end of another long day, when I had finally finished work and finished my phone calls and finished eating dinner and finished cleaning up from dinner and then it was time for the debates and I hadn't taken time just for pure selfish joy, I realized I could record the debate and watch it later on tape delay, and instead watch the Tigers tromp the Yankees. And this made me happy. And this is what I did.

There is very little that calms my soul and clears my mind like watching some baseball, unless the Yankees are involved, which usually means that it agitates my soul and fills my mind with all sorts of wasted grief. In fact, I can't say that I have ever in my life had the opportunity to watch the Yankees with such a high level of confidence that it would not be a stressful experience for me.

So I settled into my comfy chair, and tuned in around the third inning when it was still 0-0, and watched as the Tigers climbed to 1-0, and then to 2-0, and I just smiled. By then I started feeling some pressure to be in synch with the rest of the country watching the debates, so I switched over and watched it on tape delay while reading people's Facebook updates, which was hilarious -- knowing Romney was going to say something about binders full of women and green cards stapled to diplomas before it happened, but having no idea what that could possibly mean. Now, just because it was hilarious does not mean I enjoyed it or it felt like it was all for me. In fact, it was great to feel the difference between watching the ball game and watching the debate. I kept getting up. I needed a snack, I needed to pee, I needed to stretch, I needed to go file something. What I really needed was to get away from the tension of the argument and my sketchy feelings about one of the candidates. And in feeling the contrast, I got to feel how comforting it had been to just sit back and watch a predetermined game play out.

PS, I want to go on public record and say I take NO joy in Jeter being injured.
PPS, I switched back to the end of the ballgame after the debate and got to see the Tigers win.