The Living Rockumentary

Relax and have fun; it's only a game. Those of you who knew me circa Summer of '01 know I broke my left ring finger playing stickball with Brian, Ari and Connolly Ryan at Vets Field. Couldn't play guitar for several months and somewhat re-learned my playing so that I'm not as dexterous or as "good" as I used to be. I subconsciously favor my pinky over my ring finger, which is really against the norm. I realized at a SFTD practice recently that the entire 30-note intro solo I wrote for "Back To School" has my hand avoiding the use of my ring finger altogether. It only occasionally aches on very cold days and nothing I really do irritates it; nonetheless, those few months of relearning changed the way I play.

Anyway, Shelly and I joined her company's softball team last week and during today's practice while in centerfield, I slammed into the fence chasing a homerun ball. I was so fixed upon shagging that fly down that I hit the fence straight on, much like I slammed directly into a soccer player at Vets Field another time (not the time I broke the digit). This time it felt like my left pinkie cracked. Having had the experience once before, I decided that it wasn't actually broken but pretty damn well bashed up and sore.

On a related note, our league insists that each team carry at least four females in the lineup- we currently only have two. Is there anyone out there who would like to join us in a game or a few? Seriously, we need some women to fill out our roster and it wouldn't matter if you only came to one game, four, or all of them- if we don't add some women, we'll be forfeiting games. Most of the games are played right here in Nampton, though the practices have been in S. Deerfield or Sunderland. Anyone interested? You could email me at tony@schoolforthedead.com. Oh yes, it's not a super-competitive league (Shelly has never before played, for instance) and nobody I've encountered on our team is as horrifically gung-ho klutzter psycho-playa as I am.