Happy Easter! I just made a dark chocolate cream pie that looks and smells so amazing that I may need to leave the house or else there may be none left for my company this afternoon. I’m happy to be having some friends for dinner today, it would be another painful anniversary otherwise, last year was one of the hardest days I had. I am so relieved not to have the anxiety anymore, to not feel unimportant or unwanted, but to just have a nice relaxing day.

I went to a Dodger game last night. It’s a spring training game, opening day is officially tomorrow, but it was great. For some reason baseball just makes me really giddy, especially in the spring. I was trying to explain this to my friend last night, as we walked to our seats and I got my first glimpse of the blue uniforms, I just started laughing and said “I’m so happy it’s baseball season.” She does not get this, like, at all. The only reason she was there was because her six year old son, who came with us, just started tee ball and he is really curious about the game and she is not a fan, so can’t explain anything to him beyond the basics. So I was there as tutor, although he is really smart and already knew pretty much everything that was going on, and she was there as temperature monitor (put on your jacket, no you can’t have another Icee) and snack getter (obviously), and it was a good night.

There is something great about baseball season – not just that it’s almost summer, but more that something hard is over. Even in California, the winter feels long and isolated and the freedom of extended daylight feels wonderful. I love going to baseball games, or watching them on television, and of course I love the Dodgers the most. I grew up on the Dodgers – my grandmother was the biggest fan, ever, and I remember listening to Vin Scully call the games in her car, or in her kitchen, and it is comforting and familiar. I can say with little exaggeration that Chavez Ravine is like a holy place for me, a sanctuary full of hope and hot dogs and beer.

Several years ago, I was at a game with an old boyfriend (who was not American, although this should hardly be an excuse) and before the game they brought out almost the entire 1981 World Series team. This was the team of my childhood, every one of them as vivid in my head now as they were when I was ten. It was amazing, everyone was going crazy and I started to cry. He looked at me and said “really?” and I knew, in a split second, that this was going to be a divide I could never bridge. We. Were. Doomed.

Last night’s game was in Anaheim (or is that Los Angeles? No, that’s just what they call themselves and the inaccuracy is enough to make my skin crawl), which is very different from Dodger Stadium, but certainly has it’s pluses.

– It’s closer, only about 20 minutes for me instead of an hour
– They serve better beer, and it’s cheaper
– The employees are inexplicably happy and friendly here, almost like they chose a service job on purpose. Weird. This is wildly different than LA.

On the downside, it doesn’t actually feel like baseball to me. They go to these incredibly great lengths to entertain people there, forgetting that the baseball game itself is the actual entertainment. It feels like what baseball would be if Walt Disney’s Imagineers got their hands on it, and no one was there to fact check. It’s really not that bad, but I am a purist and baseball appeals to my tiny structured OCD little soul, and at the end of the day, I just think that pitchers should have to hit. After a long winter though, even baseball in Anaheim is close enough, and I will take it.