a lighter jacket, a holiday, and visions of you on the orange thing

It's March, and that means Spring Training. Shake out the stiff old leg, do some pushups, maybe go toss the bean around with your pal. Soon we'll be playing under the cozy lights of Clarkson Street, laughing and failing and getting into arguments as if any of it really matters.

In order to do my part, I am warming up with a cold 16 oz. Budweiser this Sunday night.

As I swoosh it around in the back of my mouth for a second before swallowing, I can almost feel the comforting crunch of shredded tires beneath my feet. How I love the outdoors. As my friend-for-an-instant Rich wrote in my high school yearbook 21 years ago, "Man this summer's gonna be a blast. You better be around."

I have been sick as hell for the last 9 days but I think I'm pulling out of the tunnel and things are gonna be OK. Whenever I go down with an illness or an injury I remind myself to be thankful the next time I'm chugging along healthily on all 4 rusted-out middle-aged cylinders. I think I'm just about there. So here's some thankitude in advance.

Feeling better always gives me a fleeting impulse to make changes in the way I live, to streamline this or that, to stick to my budget, to exercise, to get more sleep, to take more of an interest in my life and my family's future and to think about steps that can be taken to get things rolling. It never lasts. I am tired and lazy and for the most part happy as can be with the way things are. I wish I had been born more motivated or had more discipline instilled in me or could somehow find a way to change my basic makeup as a human being, but...I think this is it. Deal with me. Love me. And not just for this huge penis.

Small changes I do promise to make:

-Get bike outta basement, get it tuned up (next weekend), begin riding it around. Ride to softball 85% of the time. Ride to work 72% of the time. Avoid cab fares and other problems associated with cabs and cars.

-Play sports. Starting the weekend after next (next weekend is the wife's 'birthday zone' weekend). Decide that 2008 is my last great stand as an athlete and make the best of it.

-Finish my new Trayline post, about Moving Day 1992, and my new Basketball post, a series of lightweight observations about this season's Golden State Warriors. Go back and give them both a once-over before posting to make them funnier. These will both be in the can by Friday unless something goes wrong.

-Wear something green to work tomorrow for St. Patrick's Day, and re-initiate official Genius Point distribution with the arrival of today's contest: The First Annual Verbungle.com Patty Cake Challenge. Your mission: between Monday and Tuesday, grab your phone cam or your digital cam, whatever you got, and take pictures of as many of these as you can. Fools are getting drunk today, drunker than they anticipated, and they are vomiting on the damn streets! Let's get out there and document it! 20 genius points for each vomit patch you can photograph before Wednesday. If you live in a small town where nobody vomits on the streets, take some initiative: go out and vomit yourself.

Also, Deion will be grandfathered 20 points for his bathroomdat answer of The Blue & Gold.

Finally...it's just about Spring, kids, so why not celebrate with a quick trip back to another Spring not too long ago when the world was a simpler place, when we didn't even know how good we had it, when love was in the air and free time was still in your price range.