Baseball fades to purple dreams

The TV in front of me has the Giants-Phillies game on.  I have a passable interest in baseball in general, but I am struggling to care much about this particular series...other than the fact that my friend Evan is a lifelong Giants fan.  I guess I will root for them, for his sake.  (Full disclosure, the game is close and so it is actually fairly interesting.  But really, I am just pooped from cleaning the kitchen and bathroom, and need a rest.  When I went in the shower, I felt like an animal.  But now it is all white and shiny and bleach-y.)

Today was supposed to be purple day - there were announcements at both of our schools (and nationwide??) to wear purple as a sign of support for the LGBT community, in response to the recent streak of suicides.  Given how much purple Rachel and I own, it should have been a no-brainer.  Yet both of us managed to forget.  Well, I forgot.  Rachel did not seem to know about it.  If she had, I am sure she would have gone head-to-toe in purple. 

Speaking of purple, this weekend is homecoming at NU.  As any reader of this blog knows, we are somewhat obsessed with our alma mater.  But can you blame us?  I got a great degree and a wife there.  Anyway, I was on the NU Alumni website looking at the homecoming schedule, and I found a book called NU Rock Art.  It is a coffee table book filled with pictures of rocks from the lakefront along the NU campus.  I clicked on "gallery", and there I saw the rock that Rachel and I painted together while still students (was that in 2002?)  We will have to check that out in the bookstore when after the game on Saturday. 

I also looked at the class rings.  It is ironic, because I talked my parents out of buying me one when I was a student.  "No.....I do not need one.  There is no reason to buy it.  Really.  Don't."  But now as a teacher, it has a strange appeal to me to get one.  I had a literature teacher in high school, a Notre Dame grad, that wore a big class ring.  I did not particularly love his class - perhaps that is why I do not really read fiction today - and I really did not like having to stare at that big green ring everyday.  I am not sure why despising my teacher's class ring would make me want one...there is no reasonable explanation.  It is kind of old-fashioned to get a ring, buy hey....I'm the kind of nerd who would!

-alan