Home sweet home (Day 27)

I had my first real bout of homesickness today.

If I thought I was homesick before, I was wrong. Comparatively today was the worst.

I don't know why. I've only been here for three weeks...or since it's Day 27, I guess I've been gone almost four weeks, but still. That's not a huge amount of time. I think it had something to do with the fact that I called a couple of people in the morning and got answering machines. I left messages just kind of saying I would try again, since it doesn't seem to work when people try to call me, but my failed attempts made me a little sad. Then throughout the day I started to feel like I was really missing out on things at home. I don't really know what people are up to or what's going on. And unfortunately, not everyone writes in daily journals that they post online like some of us (alright, just me).

But at the end of the day when I got home from work I was just feeling tired and homesick. I miss my friends, my mom, watching stupid TV shows with my roommate, going to the movies when movies come out at normal times. I miss driving a little bit and having a gym to go to. I find it weird that I communicate with my brother via email. But I still love it here. For everything I just named there is definitely something here that's great. So I shouldn't complain. I was just not having a good night.

The day didn't start off too bad though. I woke up early and had time to tidy my stuff up and finish my laundry. Laundry is actually something I haven't mentioned yet and I don't know why (probably because I didn't want to lose any readers), but it's funny because there are always clothes hanging around my room and the bathroom and everywhere else I can manage to hang anything. The washer here works fine but the dryer, not so much. So I have to hang everything up. You can find my shirts on doorknobs, shorts on towel racks, socks lined up around the sink...it's fantastic. I should actually go out and just get some more hangers or something but it's funnier to pick my clothes for the day by walking through random parts of the house and seeing what's dry enough to wear.

Whitey picked me up and we went straight to the field to see how much damage had been done during the concert over the weekend. The first piece of good news was that no one had broken into the locker room. Apparently last year during a concert or something that went on at RNA, people managed to break in and steal stuff from the locker room. So we were up one on last year already. Whitey took a closer look at the field than I did but he seemed happy with the situation. His expectations must have been pretty low because what I was seeing didn't look like anything to be happy about. But if he's okay with it, who am I to say otherwise?

After a satisfactory inspection we headed to the office. We couldn't do any more on the field because the stage was still there and all the cans and garbage and everything were still littering the grounds. We don't really have access to do anything productive until Wednesday. So that gives us plenty of time since we don't play until Thursday. Should be a hectic week.

At the office I set to work on putting together some player facts for baseball cards. I had to write short 100-character factoids about each of the players to go on the back of the cards. The guy who is organizing them sent me some of the information he had compiled but the stuff he sent was way too long for what he wanted. I don't know if you knew this, but 100 characters is very few. So I put together an Excel spreadsheet with the stuff he sent me and then with the blurbs I had written using the limit. It took me a lot longer than it probably should have, and a lot longer than I thought, but eventually I finished. I sent it away to Gonzo who was fine with it and then to the guy dealing with the actual baseball cards.

I decided to work on some story ideas after that. I started compiling a list of ideas over the weekend, of things that I thought might be interesting to pursue. So I went through them again, trying to figure out what I would need for each one, and then I passed it over to Carl to see if he wanted to add anything, take anything away or just give me his opinion. I'm not sure he really looked at them very intensely or anything but he did circle a few of the things, giving me the indication that he wants me to do those first. Or maybe he just wants me to do those ones. Who knows?

Hopefully I can start on some of the stuff soon but I don't think I will see the players until the games this weekend and I have to figure out how to go about doing some of the stories. There are a few ideas I've had where I just need as many of the Bandits as possible to each answer one question and I will compile them all into one story. Like for Christmas I want to do a story about the guys' Christmas plans, or ask them to finish the sentence "All I want for Christmas..." or something like that. And for New Year's I want to put together something about their New Year's resolutions. Things of that nature. The writing won't be any sort of journalistic masterpiece or anything but I think it's interesting for fans of the Bandits and readers of the website. We'll see what I can do though.

We didn't have lunch until super late in the day. Or at least it seemed that way. I was really hungry by the time we ate and I scarfed down my footlong sub and cookie in no time. Probably before the other guys even opened up their sandwiches. But as Carl has discovered, a hungry Alexis is a cranky Alexis. I guess that probably didn't help my ugly mood later on in the day. Perhaps that's where it all started.

Before heading home I got some quality work done on, well, mostly emails. I was working really hard. The whole late lunch thing really threw me off. I can't handle change since I've become accustomed to being in the future, now that I'm sleeping and stuff. Stupid International Date Line, throwing everything off.

When I got home I think I fell asleep for a couple minutes before Erin knocked on my door to see if I wanted to go someplace with her and her Torontonian friends. I declined but quickly realized that falling asleep at 7 o'clock on a Monday is no way to start the week. And that's when the homesickness really started to kick in I think. I was even rude when I was texting Carl and that's a clear indication that something was really wrong. I mean come on, it's BFC (Best Friend Carl). What was I thinking?

Instead of collapsing again and risking heading into a deep slumber for the duration of the night I decided to go for a run. Since it was dark and actually a little bit cold here today (I use the term 'cold' lightly...it's all relative), I went to the gym in the parking garage ('gym' is also not a proper description for the place that I am talking about). The gym here has two rooms, one with a treadmill and a bike and the other with a weight machine and perhaps a rowing machine, though I haven't really taken a close look. But since all I needed was the treadmill, it was a perfect place to go.

I didn't think I would last very long on the treadmill, mostly because it faces a blank white wall and has nothing to distract your mind from the fact that you're running. And that is usually something that I need. After about five minutes I thought I was going to throw in the towel. But somehow I lasted. Thank you, iPod. I ran the first six kilometres in 33 minutes, which isn't great because in order for me to qualify for the Boston Marathon (somewhat of a pipe dream), I would have to run five-minute kilometres. I need to step it up. Then I ran another four kilometres at an even slower pace, with some walking thrown in at the end.

I think I want to start training again though and run a marathon at Spring Training, or maybe when I get back home. Qualifying for Boston isn't something I'll be able to do in a couple months but if I keep my eye on the prize maybe I can do it within the next couple years. Running here is great though. There's always great weather for it and my apartment building has a treadmill, so really I have no excuses. And maybe if I start recording my mileage in these journals it will give me the extra bit of motivation I need. It's worth a shot.

Since the gym is right next to the pool, I thought I would take off my socks and shoes and dip my legs into the cold water when I was done. After long runs you're supposed to take ice baths, and though this was neither a long run nor an ice bath, I figured it couldn't hurt. I'd worked up quite a sweat so the water felt nice.

I also took the opportunity to call Carl and apologize while I was laying out by the pool. I had been pretty short earlier and it was probably because I was tired and homesick. When I told him that, it opened up a whole conversation about home and people and things we miss and how Carl's felt about it since he's been here. I knew he was pretty homesick himself at American Thanksgiving time but I didn't think it was too bad. I kind of felt stupid even missing everything since I've only been here for such a short time and Carl's been here for months and he's not whingeing about it. But he seemed okay to listen to me and my no-problem problems.

We talked for so long that we figured it would just be easier to hang out in person and so Carl came and got me and we went to his place and watched Billy Madison. Nothing like classic Adam Sandler to be the light at the end of the tunnel of a long day.

Oh Adam Sandler.