#16 — The Cincinnati Red Stalkings!

Dear Weblog Superfans,

More progress: I finished my first Mickey Rawlings baseball mystery book, The Cincinnati Red Stalkings! It’s actually the fifth in the series, but they’re not sequential in terms of plot, so I didn’t mind. Very basically (I don’t want to ruin it for all of you, since I’m sure you’ll want to get it out of the library), Mickey is a utility infielder for the Cincinnati Reds. (That means he’s only OK, that he doesn’t play every day. This is a technique used by the author, Troy Soos, to both gain sympathy from the reader for Mickey and to allow for him to exist in real-life history without actually asking the reader to rethink history. If that makes sense. Snooty snooty writer talk.)

More detailed updates

Dear Weblog Superfans,

I must apologize — my last post was far too vague, and you all must feel like you know nothing about me and what I’ve been doing to finish these 101 things for the last few weeks. This is my attempt to fix that. What follows, thus, is a thing-by-thing discussion of whatever I might have made some progress on. Or at least attempted to make some progress on.

Sort-of updates

Dear Weblog Superfans,

Blah blah blah it’s been so long blah blah blah. Yeah. I get it.

And this time, I don’t even really have much to talk about. I mean, 101 List-wise.

I’ve done a bit of reading (#16)–The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo by Peter Orner, about which I have already blogged. Orner also wrote a book of short stories called Esther Stories, which I might or might not have mentioned. And I read that, too. It was very good, very eye-opening in terms of writing style. Orner’s got a very spare style in general, but with Mavala Shikongo, all of his little two-page snippets built up to a larger thing. Not necessarily so with Esther Stories.

94. Max out my IRA contribution one year while still in school

Dear Weblog Superfans,

It’s been so long. I feel like I say that every time, and I think I will continue to say that every time. It had been so long, it has been so long, it will have been so long. (Bonus love points to anyone who can tell me the verb tenses used in the previous sentence!)

5. Drink the engagement wine (and many, many more!)

Dear Weblog Superfans,

I did it. I completed an item from my list.

I know what you’re thinking: You just started three sentences in a row with the word “I.” To which I say: shut up.

You are also thinking: Oh, msb. How you torture us with your witty, engaging, flower-scented posts that accomplish nothing but the theft of a few moments of my short, short life. You disappear from blogdom for weeks, apparently abandoning the project to which you were so committed, and then you come back all of a sudden and expect us to believe you when you say you’ve completed something? I smell poppycock.

67. and 68. Get baseball cards (of Ryan Zimmerman and Albert Pujols)

Dear Weblog Superfans,

School has started up again, and I have shit to do. Even on the first day. But I have undying devotion to this whole 101 in 1001 thing, and so even though I haven’t completed anything (still), I am driven to put something up. And so here the something is.

The other day, I did crap with my sister. We went to Chipotle (she paid), the doggie pound, and K-Mart. Chipotle was good. The pound was fun (they’re nice to the dogs, and the dogs are nice back). And K-Mart, my friends, was largely uneventful.

Except that they have baseball cards. And I bought a pack.

2. Read a book by Ernest Hemingway; 16. Finish 15 of my unread books — in progress

Dear Weblog Superfans,

I still haven’t actually completed anything, but I thought I should keep at the updating so I get in the habit of it. I did make a decision, though: the Hemingway book I’ll try is The Snows of Kilimanjaro, which is a short story collection that contains, besides the title story (which was made into a movie with Gregory Peck and Ava Garnder), “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place,” a pretty commonly anthologized story. The idea behind #2 was to force me to get more acquainted with a highly regarded American writer of the twentieth century, since the tradition that those writers established is the tradition that I, as a writer myself, will be continuing. Or rebelling against. Or whatever. (I don’t want to hear crap here about the postmodernists already doing that with regards to Hemingway, because literary criticism is boring and not of much use to me right now. And anyway, you get my point.)

73. Research grandpa’s semi-pro team some more — in progress

Dear Weblog Superfans,

#73 on my list forces me to continue some work that I did about 18 months ago, just after my aunt sent me my grandfather’s semi-pro baseball uniform (along with a kick-ass booklet about Christie Mathewson, a Hall-of-Fame pitcher for the New York Giants from the early twentieth century, that was published during his final season–maybe I’ll put up some photos of it or something later). Grandpa, I know from talking to Nonna and my mother, was a shortstop for his team and lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, when he played semi-pro ball.

But I don’t know much more than that. The uniform is gray wool, a little stiff, and smells of cigarettes (I’d like to think grandpa’s cigarettes, but since the aunt who had kept it smokes herself, that’s probably not true), and it says ELIZ across the front and Local 823 on its sleeve. The ELIZ obviously tells me that the team, in some way, represented Elizabeth. The Local 823 says, to me, that it was a union team. Now. Grandpa’s job at the time was somehow related to cable cars and so he was eligible to join the Teamsters labor union. However, last June 19, I e-mailed the Teamsters to ask whether there was a Local 823 there at the time (there isn’t one now), and I was told nothing of substance. Namely, that Local 823 is based out of Joplin, MO, not Elizabeth, NJ. But I was given a phone number of Teamsters Joint Council 73, based out of Union, NJ, which covers the Elizabeth area. So that’s something I can pursue.

There is also a quirky little outfit called the Elizabeth Athletic Club that helped me a bit. It’s a group of guys who play baseball according to the rules and customs of 1891 base ball (as it was then called). I e-mailed the captain of that team last June, also, and was told that the best place to find information on baseball in or around Elizabeth from the early twentieth century would be the Elizabeth Daily Journal, a newspaper that published from 1872 to 1990. It appears that I can find archived papers in two places: the New Jersey Historical Society in Newark or the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Neither place is truly convenient, but the LOC I at least have experience with, because I am a big dork and went there to research various thesis papers I wrote in college. I don’t think there’s a big chance of semi-pro baseball being documented much, even in a relatively local paper, but it’s someplace else to look.

I’ll keep you informed. And I’ll put up pictures of grandpa’s uniform as soon as I find a digital camera.

Love,
msb

P.S. Here are the photos of the uniform.

Progress! Oh, wait…

Dear Weblog Superfans,

It’s the end of Day 1. And I’ve got nothin’ except a super-catchy and creative title for this blog. But I’m listening to Bob Dylan (“Give me a string bean; I’m a hungry man”) which means that something must be going right. Ah, well.

Love,
msb

This is my next 1001 days.

Dear Weblog Superfans,

I am officially on the bandwagon. As it were.

This is where I will (incredibly privately) document my progress as I work to complete my list of 101 goals in 1001 days, beginning January 1, 2008. Or Jan 1 2008, depending on how you write your dates. Hopefully everything will be completed by September 27, 2010. Or 28 Sept 2010, depending on whether you count leap days as actual days.

Here, in all its glory, is my list:

1. Get murried
2. Finish a book by Ernest Hemingway
3. Go to the gym 3 days a week for 3 months (allow breaks when not in Richmond)
4. Learn 5 new fingerpicking songs on the guitar and have a mini-recital for Keds
5. Drink the engagement wine
6. Watch all of the Macgyvers
7. Finish the 101 movies
8. Help Keds find a job
9. Submit 10 stories to magazines
10. Get a story published
11. Find 3 new poets whose work I can say I know and like
12. Have breakfast in bed with Keds
13. Use all of our wedding gifts
14. Discover a restaurant in Richmond that Keds and I both like
15. Read one of my unread books for fun every semester
16. Finish 15 of my unread books
17. Buy a book on trees and learn to identify ten of them
18. Visit Nonna on a long weekend
19. Go on a hike
20. Attempt to make roast beef and Yorkshire pudding
21. Buy something frivolous
22. Take a mini road trip
23. See Niagara Falls (on the Canada side)
24. Have school friends over for dinner or something
25. Go to a baseball game with the guys
26. Get season tickets to a theater in Richmond
27. Take a ghost tour of Richmond
28. Finish a school assignment a week ahead of time
29. Find prints of Richmond to hang
30. Make root beer
31. Finish a cryptic crossword without cheating
32. Learn five good crockpot recipes
33. Walk dogs at an animal shelter
34. Truly help a student
35. Subscribe to two different literary magazines
36. Visit my brother and sister-in-law
37. Learn how to buy a house
38. Write a poem
39. Backup all existing stories onto an external thing (Google Docs, eg)
40. Play catch with dad
41. Swim in a lake
42. Keep a journal regularly for 6 months
43. Hit a bulls-eye in darts
44. Watch a foreign film
45. Go to the Byrd Theatre
46. Visit an art gallery
47. Read in the Moveable Feast
48. Write three more book reviews
49. Visit my friend and his girlfriend in Blacksburg
50. Still be in touch with my college adviser by the time this list is finished
51. Change my oil on time for a year
52. Teach a class on my own
53. Go to a Nationals game in the new park
54. Go on a picnic
55. Discover a photographer
56. Do ten hours of community service (Just ten! That’s nothing!)
57. Teach my near-niece a new word
58. Try contact lenses again
59. Read the Book of Mormon
60. Read the Koran
61. Finish reading the Bible
62. Take a ballroom dance class (preferably before the wedding)
63. Learn to juggle
64. Still be in touch with the third part of the Troika by the time this list is finished
65. Read a second book by Chris Ware
66. Write fan letters to Michael Chabon and Edward P. Jones
67. Get a Ryan Zimmerman baseball card
68. Get an Albert Pujols baseball card
69. Visit Mount Vernon
70. Visit a Civil War battlefield I’ve never been to before
71. Learn three constellations (not including Orion or either of the dippers)
72. Learn about five Negro League players
73. Research grandpa’s semi-pro team some more
74. Get grandpa’s semi-pro uniform preserved/framed
75. Make mom’s fettucine alfredo recipe
76. Have my brother and sister-in-law come visit
77. Finish a Sunday NYT crossword puzzle
78. Go to a VCU sporting event
79. Go to a different doctor about my exercise-sick-thing
80. Work at learning Spanish
81. Learn what tax rules apply to writers and use them on a return
82. Get a head shot to use as a contributor photograph
83. Whiten my teeth
84. Learn to make a Chinese food recipe amazingly well
85. Complete a Rubik’s Cube
86. Get my allergies under control
87. Build something out of wood that I would be proud to display at home
88. Go wine tasting again
89. Take a ferry across the Chesapeake
90. Go horseback riding
91. Find an old map of Richmond, frame it, and hang it in the apartment
92. Call mom twice a month (at least) for three months (while she’s in Italy)
93. Go on a date with Keds at least once a month for six months straight
94. Max out my IRA contribution one year while still in school
95. Go to a batting cage
96. Get and keep the book database up to date
97. Bake a cake for no reason
98. Donate blood
99. Find a job after I graduate
100. Get to know the guys’ girlfriends
101. Grow a goatee

As I make progress on any of these items, I will (hopefully) update this weblog with stories and photos, thereby keeping my millions of fans satisfied. I include you in this number.

Love,
MSB