Wowza, I've been going nuts with the long posts recently. Maybe that's why no one's been commenting lately? Maybe I'm losing my short-attention-span readership?

I've been avoiding weighing in on baseball the last few weeks because 1. the highs and lows of the Sox, particularly against the Yankees, have been too hard to take at points; and 2. baseball should be its own topic, not mentioned sporadically in an otherwise purposeless (albeit brilliant) blog such as my own.

But today I must chime in on a few points. First, I think in many ways the results of this weekend were ideal. Two blowouts against the Yankees and Kevin Brown looking about as effective as a slow-ball softball pitcher -- wonderful things indeed. But the loss on Friday I (now) believe had some desirable results as well. First, it essentially took us out of the division race, which means we can spend this next week taking it easy on our starters and solidifying lineups. Second (and I'm cribbing some of this from a certain significant other), unless he is actually brain-damaged, Francona will never ever ever leave Pedro in past the seventh inning against the Yankees during the playoffs unless his pitch count is hovering around 80. I have no doubt Francona will pull some insanely stupid moves in the playoffs, but I rest a bit easier knowing that won't be one of them.

As to Pedro's comments.... I'm generally not someone who cares that much about so-called controversial comments made by players. I would say about 90 percent of the time such comments are either overblown, taken out of context and/or are induced by leading questioning on the part of the media. Now, granted, it bummed me out to hear Pedro speaking in such deflated terms after the game (in part because it mirrored my own deflation), but I cannot believe the signficance and hidden meaning being attached to his comments. The guy was extremely frustrated, as we all were, and he spoke frankly instead of solely hiding behind "tomorrow's another day" cliches (which could have then caused the press to brand him deluded). And, he was standing up and accepting full blame for the loss, which is a tough thing to do. He wasn't quitting on the playoffs, he was reacting to a devastating loss maybe 60 minutes after that happened. What he said made sense to me. I didn't think twice about it until the firestorm that came later.

Acknowledging that the Yankees are an extremely tough team to beat is hardly a revelation either, and I can think of several times in his career when Larry Bird tipped his hat to Magic Johnson and the Lakers for playing a better game than the Celtics (including in the playoffs). Does it signal Pedro's desire to play for the Yankees? I absolutely don't buy it. I feel instead like he was trying out a different tack -- that his more traditional posturing would have felt particularly hollow at that moment, so he just went a different way.

Pedro's an odd bird, there's no doubt about it (catch Gordon Ede's column today, which makes mention of a 29-inch Dominican performer joining Pedro's posse. I mean, wha'??). And yeah, Schilling has been the better pitcher this year (though it should be noted that as the number three starter, Schilling's been going up against less formidable pitching opponents, which means he's gotten better run support). But Pedro has been dying for a chance to go to the World Series ever since he began. He lost a hard game, he was frustrated, he spoke in raw terms, the end. People are mad if they think he's not going to compete hard in the playoffs.

(Exeunt)

Some time ago there was a series of articles in the Utne Reader discussing careers and how you can best go about discovering your work passions. One suggestion they offered was that you ask close friends and family members what sort of job they could see you in, the idea being that those close to you know you well and aren't encumbered by the same worries and insecurities you may have, da da da.

During my sporadic and disipiriting adoption of this approach, I have variously been told I should be: an owner of a temp management company, an entertainment reporter, a social worker, a magazine editor (uh, I've actually been working on and off in magazine editing for a few years, but thanks), a novelist, a party planner(!), a sociology professor, a project manager and a doggie day care owner.

What bothered me were not so much the suggestions themselves (although I could have done without the party planning idea), but the fact that no two people had the same vision for me. My career sense of self was blurry enough as it was without a half dozen people offering a half dozen different takes on where my talents lie.

The moral of this tale is that the Utne Reader gives terrible advice.

When I'm not brown-bagging it, I usually go downstairs to our food court and get a salad from this stand called the Health Nut. I always get a green salad with a crapload of extra-cost add-ins – chicken, avocado, an egg – and a specific list of vegetable do's and don't's. But the salad-maker never gets annoyed. Once the woman has finishing laboring over my concoction, she'll hand over the container and chirp, "Anything else?" And always I'm tempted to reply, "Haven't you already been through enough?" But I don't.

Inexplicably, this place always includes a fortune cookie with their salads.

This is how time gets away.

This morning I slept late in an attempt to finish up some plot-driven dream that I don't remember. I got up and puttered around and was about ready to leave but then remembered that our cleaning person was coming today. So I cleaned up for her and then headed out the door. But as I was driving away I remembered that I needed to leave some money for the cleaning person. So I pulled up to the house and then ran back inside and put some money on the table.

I'm driving to work and just as I'm pulling in to the parking lot, ESPN radio starts playing this awesome call-in that Curt Schilling made to WEEI yesterday that I'd been dying to hear. So I sit in my car and listen, and because Schilling is a verbose man, I'm sitting there for quite a while.

I get to my office and remember that it's my mom's birthday and that I need to send her an e-card. But then I remember that I cancelled my subscription to Blue Mountain because they had pissed me off over a billing issue. So I search the Web for a while to find a fun and free e-card I can send her.

I send it off and then look at my work load for the day and realize that there's no way I should keep the eye doctor appointment I have today because it'll cut into my work day too much. So I go looking for the phone number for my eye doctor. But because I'm an idiot it takes me a a good 15 minutes to find the number online, because I can't remember the exact name of the place and have to find it via vague Google searches like "women-owned eye doctor place Los Angeles."

Once I've called and rescheduled, I go to the bathroom. Once I come back from the bathroom I decide I want coffee. But my coffee mug is dirty, which means I have to go back to the bathroom and wash it.

I sit back at my desk with my coffee, my phone rings and it's my sister making sure I'd called my mom to wish her a happy birthday. So we talk a little while but then realize that we don't have that much to say since we talked the day before. So we hang up.

I get online and decide that I'll quickly read a recap of the Red Sox game last night. But no recap is complete without reading a profile of last night's hero, Orlando Cabrera. So I read the Globe's profile, which whets my appetite for more, so I go to Boston Dirt Dogs, which links to more coverage and more profiles and some nifty photos to boot, which I start to sort through in an effort to decide which one should be my new desktop photo.

It is 11:30 am and I have yet to do a lick of work.

I also don't want to be the person who buys and consumes french fries as a way to avoid doing her work. But wait, I am that person!

In a little while I am off to my book club; unfortunately, embarrassingly, moronically, I've read the wrong book this month. But, the first rule of book club is that you do not talk about book club. So my idiocy shall remain a secret.

This is the person I never want to be: a woman so afraid of taking time off from work that she keeps postponing a needed knee surgery, instead surviving on painkillers while reinjuring the joint on a semi-regular basis.

This would be my boss. This would not be my role model.

Today's first meal of the day has consisted of a vanilla latte and a cupcake. The Breaksfast of Also-Rans.

I've come to view left turns as inherently selfish acts. On the way to work this morning, three different cars held up traffic trying to take a left turn down a side street. I couldn't believe the egoism of these drivers. Take three rights or accept your place in the traffic flow, that's my opinion.

I just read an amusing article about Google-stalking and its perpetrators. How did I come across this article? I Googled the name of an old co-worker, and she was the author of the piece. In the article, she quotes a mutual ex-coworker who talks about Googling an old co-worker. So now I'm trying to figure out the identity of said co-worker through a Google search. Round and round it goes.

One of the greatest fallacies I grew up believing was that if you were a female sports fan, boys would like you better. I think that in truth, most boys want you to be just interested enough in sports that you'll indulge their own athletic passions. Back in the ol' dating days, on more than one evening, I saw a male's interest peak and then wane when I got a little too passionate about the Pats or Red Sox. Whether it masculated me or emasculated them, I'm not sure, but my fandom sure never proved to be the aphrodisiac I thought it would be.

At sports bars, however, I can still get some decent play. Watching the Red Sox at a bar on Saturday night, I had a fan.

"You look just like Jorja Fox, you know that?"

"Oh, thanks."

"I really like your eyebrows."

"Oh, thanks. You should see them in their natural state though."

"Whoo, I didn't want your life story. Anyhoo...."

(15 minutes later)

"You look just like Jorja Fox, you know that?"

"Oh, thanks."

"I really like your eyebrows."

There are some grand advantages to working from home. For example, you can eat ice cream straight out of the carton for lunch.

Decades ago, I was christened with the unfortunate nickname of "Egghan." The tormentor was my best friend's older brother; the reasoning was that my head was "shaped like an egg." And it was true -- my face was oval and bottom heavy and not exactly a picture of delicacy. Because my best friend also had a twin brother, this nickname got passed around the schoolyard and stuck around for years, modified only for certain holidays -- "Easter Egghan" -- and rumored crushes -- I liked a boy named Nathaniel Bacon, therefore we were "Bacon and Eggs."

Well, I've come full circle. Thanks to oral surgery, I am Egghan once more. Better to be Egghan than Eggplanthead, as I was a couple of weeks ago, but this is the very definition of undesired regression.

This blog is pretty useless, really. I knew from the get-go I should try and niche-ify it, sew a common thread through all the entries and then wait for the book deals to roll in. But no, instead of political musings or O.C. recaps or Jesus diatribes, you, the readers, get a micro-level mishmash of nothingness. And it's not even a stylized mishmash. Maybe that's the problem -- maybe I need nifty sound effects or something.

Anyhoo, I apologize.

I hope to hell that in this lifetime I never find myself in a hostage situation anywhere in Russia or a former Soviet republic. The images from this latest disastrous standoff are beyond disturbing. I spent a wee bit of time in the former Soviet Union 15 years ago, and the one overriding thought I came away with was that I would never, ever want to put my life in the hands of the Soviet government. Flying Aeroflot alone felt like an excessive risk.

Any while I'm being newsie (though I refuse to touch upon the RNC for fear of barfing on my new keyboard), I don't understand how Kobe Bryant can release a statement saying he thought the encounter was consensual but now understands the victim did not. Um, isn't that rape? Don't many convicted rapists carry on under the delusion that the encounter was somehow just?