Separately, two old and dear friends, both of whom I don't see or talk to enough these days, contacted me with requests, one was a favor, the other an invitation. I must stress the word separately. These two friends of mine have never met each other, and their requests were mutually exclusive--I could respond positively or negatively to each one without having the one decision impact the other in any way. And yet, in my mind, the decisions regarding the two requests became inextricably bound. Once the decisions had been made--after much tortured thought concerning each, separately--it became crystal clear to me that I had had to say yes to one, no to the other. Such an either/or decision was not easy. In addition to pleasing one friend and disappointing the other, the reality is that both requests scared me beyond belief, and I would have much rather bitten the bullet of letting a friend, or two, down and said, "Oh, I'd love to, but I really can't right now. But let's grab a beer sometime, okay?" and been done with it. On a gloomier day I might have done just that. Being a Gemini, though, if the day had been an off day after working merely two days in a row, and if I hadn't been consumed all day with the absurdity of Newt Gingrich getting his big head of hair all mussed up (you'd think the fat guy would have a bit thicker skin) about Robert DeNiro's pretty funny when you think of it and pretty innocuous joke question about whether the country was ready for a white First Lady, I could have easily said to both of my friends, separately, "Sure, no problem. And let's grab a beer sometime, okay?" But no, the way things were aligned for me yesterday, I had to say yes to one request, and no to the other. The consequences of my yes and no will be played out for months to come, literally, and I shudder at the thought.
Fine, enough evasion. The cosmic fork in the road of my life consisted of this--house sitting, complete with rambunctious dog, for my friend (who lives about 40 minutes away, no small item to lay on the scale) for a mere four days beginning today, or (yes, the two are completely separate, but as I've explained, bound forever) joining my other friend in joining a fantasy baseball league.
There, has the paragraph break enabled you enough time to digest the enormity of the two requests, suppress regurgitation, and pull yourself back off the floor? I know, no one would wish such a twisted, damned if you do, damned if you don't, damned six ways to hell anyway either/or proposition on anyone. I had meant to yawn all day, the Cosmos yawned back with all Its ass-kicking force.
The fantasy baseball request came early in the day, via email. Email's nice for stalling. I closed it once without replying. I opened it later after mulling my further stalling options. I replied--honestly--that for twenty years I have resisted overtures from various other good friends to join their "rotisserie" fantasy leagues mainly for two sound reasons: I don't have (maybe more accurately don't want to use) the time necessary to competently manage a fantasy baseball team. Second, I love baseball so much--the dailiness of checking box scores and transactions and various teams' ongoing dramas--that to do all that in the service of my own glory ("Hey man, I've won my fantasy league six out of seven years"; "Good for you, Steinbrenner, but you look like you could use some sun.") seems--on a truly secular basis--quite sacrilegious. Baseball, in and of itself, excites and powers the imagination so much I don't need to "fantasize it." Of course, beyond all this hooey, the prospect of fretting away some perfectly boring July day worrying about the fate of some Colorado Rockies rookie's sore groin does not, in any way, qualify as my idea of fantasy. No, "fantasy baseball enthusiast" has never been a moniker I desired for my CV. As far as I could muster, there were only two reasons I would say yes to this proposition: It would give me a chance to interact more frequently with my good friend, whose daily conversation and laughs I've missed since we stopped working together a few years ago. Second, always being in the service of you, dear readers, my adventures in the world of fantasy baseball might provide some (not too much, I would promise) inspiration for this old blog of mine, which, admittedly, has suffered some inattention the previous two summers of its existence. All in all, not a good forecast for joining a baseball fantasy league (even though it has an "autodraft" which cuts down on preparation and mandatory acumen). I ended my emailed reply with, "Let me sleep on it and I'll get back to you."
I must qualify the house-sitting argument by stating for the record that the phone call last night was my friend's penultimate grasp at straws (I won't go into whose fault it was--her or her husband's--that their plane tickets were for today not tomorrow as they had thought; besides, their original plan--regardless of which day they were to fly--had been scuppered by an emergency). She had tried other undoubtedly more responsible and adept house/dog-sitters before making the second last ditch effort of calling me. She spent almost as much time getting to the point as I do in one of my usual posts, stating again and again that it was okay if I said no. Now look, I'm on record as not being the most animal-friendly person in the world, but I have dog- (and other beast-) sat before, and no trips to the veterinarian or coroner's inquests have resulted. I can and, more importantly, happily will help out an animal-loving friend in need. I have house-sat before and the fire department was never called and no silverware ever went missing. I can and happily will house-sit. But my friend lives out in the sticks! Very nice sticks, and compared to my hovel, the accommodations are positively palatial. But forty minutes both ways, when I'll be working odd hours the next few days and have a few plans--it just wouldn't be fair to the dog, now, would it? And did I say this was a phone call? Not a late night desperate one, but an after-sundown-the-day-before-action-must-be-taken one. There was no stalling. No, let me sleep on it and get back to you. No time for me to indulge my beloved hemming and hawing, talking myself into and out of and back into and coming up with some compromise and begging for another day to think about it all--no, the decision had to be made then and there in the here and now. "Ummm," I replied, as the totality of the what the next few days would/might entail sailed through my brain: long drives, a lot of running around, responsibility for another life, the fear of (hey, it's been over forty years, I might be due) wetting somebody else's bed, the fear of finding the one or two great pieces of music I don't already own in my friend's collection, the Mamma Mia soundtrack, say, and cranking it and getting lost in the reverie and knocking over some prized knick-knack, the fear of backing up a toilet, the fear--a constant one, the immediate presence of a canine not required--of being eaten to death by a dog. "Ummm," I continued. My gosh, I thought, the laughter and good cheer I had with this friend years ago when we worked together. Although it wouldn't bring us together again, house/dog-sitting for her would be such a nice thing to do, and I've certainly benefited from the helping hands of friends in my desperate times of need. And what the hell's a few days of disruption to my daily routine? And even though the house sits right on the most-worn notch of the infamous snowbelt, it's summertime, ain't no blizzard on that sunny blue horizon. And my God, if I can't milk the whole house/dog-sitting out in the sticks experience for a month of blog posts, I better just swallow the gum and pull the curtain on this whole show. "Well," I concluded.
Cunundra abound. The Cosmos is a disinterested task-mongering bastard. Friends, my backpack of neuroses is already seam-bursting; I don't need more, be it a house/dog in need of sitting (trust me, with my finesse around animals, the house would be much more easily sat) or a six-month plunge into the arcane, constant world of baseball statistics. My God, Nancy Reagan, I take it all back. You were so right. Just Say No, indeed.
Upon hanging up (and isn't it a pity that we no longer get to poetically, romantically "hang up" the phone, but just press a button?) the phone, without even considering the tit for tat that Cosmos had been insisting on all along, without even thinking this is what must be done, I immediately logged on, found ESPN.com among my list of favorites, and signed up for the Big Sky fantasy baseball league (taking out insurance, I'll have you know, by naming my team the Cellar Dwellers). Call me what you will for letting down a friend, for opting for six months of aggravation (which doesn't start for another ten days or so--delayed punishment, baby) rather than an immediate five days--sure, I'll be hurt by what you call me, and believe me, with my well-earned and relentless Catholic guilt, my dying words will no doubt be, "I should have dog-sat that one time," but the Cosmos doesn't give a damn, and since the Cosmos apparently pulls the strings--it doesn't make all that much difference in the end, does it? I'm forked.
And oh, by the way, do you think Jason Heyward is ready for a bust-out year, or is he just a bust?
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