Confession Tuesday - Pride Edition

It’s that time again…. Tuesday. Did you know that Tuesday is associated with the planet Mars and the Roman God of War? Anyway, it’s off the confessional. Are you coming?

Dear reader-

Yes, another week had come and gone since my last confession. I have number of things to offer in confession this week let me unload these sins now.

There is this sin called pride. This is one that I’ve often found confusing. Pride seems such a normal emotional experience related to what I generally regard as good things that happen. Your child brings home a good grade card – you feel really proud of your child. You get a poem accepted in a journal… you are beaming with pride. I felt a sense of pride in my favorite baseball team this weekend as they clinched the National League West championship.

The San Francisco Giants are not a team loaded with high payroll. They have a number of young players mixed with veterans most with little or no post season experience. They were not on most people’s radar for post season and at All- Star break they were barely above .500. Much of they year they were in second place, a position that alone raised many eyebrows. But they hung in and played good ball down the stretch. In August they had some tough times and their pitching staff went south. After a team meeting, September turned around and the pitching was among the best in baseball. Meanwhile, the Padres who spent something like 130-140 days in first place went into a tail spin, crashed and burned. The Giants took over first place, came off a road trip and swept the Diamondbacks three games at home and awaited the Padres to play the final three games of the season. On Friday, the fist of the three games the Giants needed just one win to clinch the Division. The Padres needed to sweep to tie and face a playoff. It took three games to put them away, but on the final game of the regular season, SF did just that and sent the Padres home with no post-season.

So I confess- yes, I’m proud of the Giants. I’m proud of my team. I know they are not the best team that San Francisco has ever assembled, and likely not the best team to reach post season, but they did, playing often above everyone else’s expectations. They many not win the NL pennant. If they do, the may not win the World Series, but I will be cheering them on as far as they can get and if they do, I will be crazy excited like a kid. Still, I confess I will remain proud of them whatever.

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I have another sin to confess. I know all writers do this. They read something written by another writer and they say out loud, “Wow! I wanted to write that!” Of course, they can’t because now it has already been written. Ok, I guess they can and some do try it. It’s called plagiarizing. I think we all know that while it may not be in the Ten Commandments it is pretty much the single biggest Writer’s Commandment, “Thou Shall not Plagiarize” And though I have not, and will not plagiarize, I confess that upon reading Kelli Russell Agodon’s poem I Try to Plagiarize Moonlight, I did covet it.

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Drumming. Yes, recently I have been guilty of the sin of drumming. While I played drums in band at school, I’ve been drumming a lot lately and not on drums, but on the top of my Quick Trip cup, the dash of the car at stop lights, etc. and this in annoying. So I’m told. I confess it really isn’t bothering me but apparently it is an annoyance to (some) others. I’m trying to do better.

Thanks for listening… everyone have a great week!