Bling Flakes 12.05.03

Where does it come from? Is it because I’ve been shoveling snow and I am more tired than I thought I was? Is this simply a novel with actually good parts? Is it the public finance paper, the end of school stress?

Whatever the great big “it” is, it’s ticking me off, because I am all lathered up over a passage I am reading in Columbus Slaughters Braves. The book is about a guy whose younger brother is a baseball star. The older brother is of course in the shadows. Personally, I thought the first section was simply bland, kind of crappy, kind of heard-it-before, as CJ Columbus, the player, grows into his ridiculously mammoth talent (though a .380 average, in any year, gets you an All-Star start and this author can’t tell me no kind of different). None of the writing really inspired or made me think much of the author—

And then in part two I am reading about this fellow, half petty and half jealous, kind of lame, who has fallen into a swampmire post-collegiate marriage with his collegiate sweetheart; and they are out of place. Perhaps economically mismatched, perhaps she simply cannot take this brother seriously—but it’s depressing, it’s everyone’s worst nightmare, waking up next to a person who you are unable to communicate with and you’ve got a whole lot of life to go. And it’s real. I think I’ve had this conversation, or non-conversation, more than once.

But at least my little brother wants to be a rapper. Shorter career arc, and nothing I’d be envious of. I think.