It's not like tonight will be the last time I see the Sox in person. Heck, it won't even be "the last time for a while" - they'll be playing a series in Safeco just about a month from now, and you know I'll be all over that. But, man, I've been to Fenway a couple times a month ever since I moved to Boston after college, and it's loomed kind of large in my life. I was there when I got the call that my dad died, and this past winter, the day Sox tickets went on sale was also the day Columbia blew apart, and that's how I met Maggie - we were both sitting in one of the conference rooms, watching the news as it went on about the search for debris and replaying that footage over and over again, while other people came and went, leaving the bad news to listen to Theo Epstein or Larry Lucchino talk about their plans for the team. After our numbers were called for tickets, we met up outside and had a coffee, then stayed together for four-plus months.

That's not very long, I guess, but if this job hadn't come up, it could have been longer. Maybe not, though - we liked each other, sure, but we reacted to that late period in very different ways. Perhaps, given a little time, we'd have met up again and how much fun we had together would have been more important than that disagreement, or one of us would have softened our stance somewhat. I'd sorta kinda been hoping for a sappy movie moment last week, calling her to tell her about the job and having her say "don't go", but that certainly didn't happen. It wound up feeling like a divorce, as we divided up the tickets for stuff we'd been planning to do together between "hers" and "for me to sell off so that she doesn't owe anything to me". Ugly.

Heck, she originally bought the tickets to tonight's game, but since I wouldn't be able to use any of the others, she magnanimously let me have them (although, is it magnanimous when she's like "see, I'm not a controlling bitch, I can be nice even though I have no reason to be, you selfish bastard?"). Of course, since Pedro's not pitching like we'd expected...

Ah well. Kurt and I will have fun tonight, and if she gets mad watching it on NESN, I can't exactly help that, can I?
- posted 2:04 PM - - (archive use only)