a book

I spent all day at home but working. I'm writing a marketing plan, something about which I know very little. The title of it is "A Marketing Plan as Written by a Poet" which I am really not either but I thought it was an apt analogy. Like brain surgery done by an auto mechanic. No offense to auto mechanics...I couldn't do brain surgery either.

I've learned a lot about marketing and promotion but I have experienced brain overload. I have too much information and no framework for it so it's all floating around in the dusty shelves of my head...little parcels of information floating in space, looking for a place to land. Network hubs, anyone?

I took a break mid-afternoon and read some in my book, The Art of Fielding. It's a great book and I love the writing. I have to say that it is what helped me not only endure but maybe enjoy a teeny tiny bit the Super Bowl last night. The book is fiction but it is about a character who plays shortstop as an art. I won't go into all the details of the plot because you should read it but here is what I have learned.

I learned that there is a sense of camaraderie in sports. I learned that sport coaches can be like life coaches. I learned that playing is about way more than the game. Maybe I just like the book. Like I loved oranges after reading John McPhee's book.

I grew up in a family obsessed with sports but I never understood these aspects that might have made it appealing. I don't think it's the kind of thing you can understand unless you play competitive sports and I grew up in the 60s when only boys played. Girls watched. Maybe some girls can get it by watching (heck, I had friends who were cheerleaders) tennis and we  worked out to some record called Chicken Fat in one piece navy blue short outfits. The whole thing was hideous.

Sometime, I'll publish the poem here that I wrote about cheerleading try-outs. Not soon, but sometime.

And here, thanks to the internet and some goof ball with a sense of humor:



Meredith Wilson of Music Man fame wrote the song, commissioned by JFK. Tom, burn the photos we took in Mason City, Iowa!

I'm not going to become a true believer or a sports fanatic but I could tolerate the Super Bowl and I guess that's something. Actually we watched it on a live stream (I think that means via the internet.) so there were no commercials and no half-time show and those are the entertaining parts, right?

Regis and I are enjoying a quiet evening at home. We had left-overs for dinner and we gave the dog a bath. No easy task when the dog is as big as Gus. The unseasonably warm winter has made for an ugly scene in our back yard.

Happy Monday!