Spring Training

 Giants, Giants, Giants!
 
The Giants are in Arizona for Spring Training, and I'm home for Spring Break. That was my second sentence of my new blog. I wrote the first one 6 days ago.

I'm starting this new blog cuz I wasn't writing the other one. I felt blocked, constrained. After a while, I wanted a blog, I wanted to blog, but I didn't want that one. I read my work in public. I publish my work in books, journals, and other blogs. I have some ideas why, but I didn’t feel write (sp error that I'm going to leave) about putting that work on that blog. Home(Y)Lands was focused on place, specifically land and people. Land? When I think of my land--San Francisco's Mission District--I think of concrete. For now…

Something feels right about putting this work on this blog. In Life in the Bleachers, I will write about those things we do when we’re not doing the other things we do.

We work, we go to school, we shop for groceries, we cook, we hang out with family and friends or friends who are like family, we watch movies, we watch the game, we do laundry, we write poetry, we attend concerts.

For some of us, work is the main thing we do. For others, school is. For lots of us, keeping up with the team takes all our time. We may not know how we’re going to pay rent, but we know when's the next game and where we’re watching it. For others, playing on the team is the most important thing in our lives and work is the thing we do so we can play.

Some of us always play even when we’re doing the laundry. We toss the sock in to the hamper and think “Two!” even if we don’t say it out loud. I’m not a jock and this isn’t a blog for jocks. I like sports. I write sports and I am interested in more than two, but my top two are baseball and football. I’ll write more about my teams, the Giants and 49ers, later. As much as they are my team and I’ve cried over losses and wins, I appreciate other sports, including basketball and boxing.

This is basketball season and I'll write about it sometimes. If I root for any basketball team, I root for my hometown's Warriors. There was a time when I stood on the side of the court waiting for players so I could ask for their autographs. I'll write about that too.

You should know that I hate sports. Really, I don't hate any actual sport. I hate the racism, sexism, and homophobia that surrounds sports and not only professional sports. I hate capitalism too, the reason for my teams’ creation, and the superficial basis of our society. Racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism. Terms that many fans—and players—usually don’t want to talk about. I don’t like talking about the r-word, s-word, h-word, c-word. They're no fun. They ruin fun. Before I ruin all my or yours, I’m going to end this post. 

I just wanted take the blog out for a few laps. Stand in the sunshine and breathe in the fresh air of a new post. You know, take some practice swings outside the batter’s box. I’ll come back out for a few more warm-ups before Opening Day. I hope you’re doing ok. I hope your team is. And if you don't have a team or sport, that's ok.  You still have time: this is Spring Training.