BULL DURHAM'IN

There are many things I’ve come to embrace over this last year and a half in Vermont. The ability to make Patagonia clothing fit even the most formal of Vermont events. Appreciation of the fact they put maple syrup in E V E R Y T H I N G here. Food. Drink. Motor Oil. If its in Vermont, its probably made of maple syrup. The deep, deep screams of pure terror/regisnation that bellowed from my soul as I skidded down my driveway on a daily basis during the Winter. I’ve even found myself thinking its adorable that every single citizen drives a Subaru. Live dat sensible life, Michael Gross! But the one thing I’ve really gone whole-hog on, where I’ve not just doubled down, but allowed it to become part of my cellular structure, is embracing the hornless that is being a single woman on the cusp of forty. I’m sure that would’ve happened if I had stayed in New York, or even gone back to LA, but being in isolated, rural Vermont, where the men wear flannel and build shit with their rugged hands, has basically poured fuel on my horny fire, and I AM OUT OF CONTROL, BABY! It’s like that movie BACKDRAFT, but in my vagina. Jason Gedrick getting burnt to a crisp in my loins. So, its probably no wonder, that in my horny spinster haze, I’ve sought out a pastime that merges all of my interests: beer, hot-dogs and handsome baby-boys. I’m talking about my town’s summer baseball league. I thought it was minor league, but then realized its a summer collegiate league based in New England, and honestly, thats the best thing my horny heart could imagine.

Growing up in East Texas meant that football was, literally, the only game in town that mattered. On Friday nights, all the radio stations in our area would stop playing Taylor Dane and Mark Chestnutt and would switch over to live broadcasts from the high school games. Old men would bring folding chairs to the sidelines of the pee-wee football games to scope out the kids and speculate about future prospects. Hell, I cheered at those games in elementary school! My town was like if Friday Night Lights had a baby with Footloose, but that baby ended up being extremely un-cool. So, I grew up with Football being pretty much the most important thing next to God. And I haaaaaated it. I spent every single Fall Friday night from elementary school through High school at football games. I was a member of the Blazettes, which is the drill team, in High School. That meant I wore a sequin bathing suit with a mini cowboy hat and boots, while doing high kicks while our creepy youth minister ogled me from the stands. Even taking away that bullshit, the bottom line is, I find football to be incredibly boring. I don’t get the excitement unless someone literally runs the length of the field for a touchdown. It’s a snooze. Also a snooze are the outfits - how the fuck are you supposed to sexualize men if you can’t see their damn faces?? And my disinterest in sports really runs the gamut. My grandfather used to have golf on in the background all the time, and that monotonous low volume “par 4. and he’s on the green. birdie for Phil” creepy chatter makes my skin crawl. I played indoor soccer in high school, but couldn’t tell you anything about professional players of that time. I could’ve cared less. Until college, when I developed a deep, deep appreciation for basketball. Well, not basketball in general, but more specifically, Vince Carter. Holy Moly he was/is such a babe. That awakening was when I got to thinking that, hey, maybe sports being full of beefcakes and all should be something to grab my attention. But it wasn’t until I worked at my first Hollywood job and started going to Dodger games that I realized how enjoyable objectifying men on a field could really be!

During those years working for truly the best folks in Hollywood, I went to an obscene amount of Dodger Games, thanks to their Dodger Suite. It started innocently, me accepting the invite to the suite because there was an open bar and free dodger dogs, which, I mean, who can pass that shit up when you’re a poor 26 year old? Then I started going because I realized it was an incredible way to impress dudes you’re interested in dating. I’d meet a guy in a UCB class and casually invite them to a game - then BLAMMO! Fucking best suite in the stadium. A list actors ! Dessert Cart! Tommy Lasorda coming in to say hello! The works. I was the cooooolest when I was able to take dudes on dates to the games. Eventually, I took over control of the tickets, which meant I had to go to all the home games and handle getting tickets to talent/executives/family. And amazingly, thanks to the copious amounts of free drinks and and that weekly processed meat high, I found myself getting, unintentionally, kinda into the actual, ya know, game. I enjoyed watching the bases get loaded. I liked when the innings dragged into the night. Or when there was a fly ball headed straight for some idiot jr exec’s noggin in the box next to us. But what I really found myself interested in were the Hunks - specifically Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. I collected their bobbleheads. I googled their significant others/wives. I analyzed every aspect of their beef. And thats when I realized how brilliant baseball really is - not the sport part of it - but how they really, truly, market it to the folks looking for hunks. Why baseball is so smart, is because it really showcases the beef. The only time you don’t see baseball players faces is when they’re up to bat &/or the catcher - and in those instances, they project those handsome mugs right up on the Jumbotron for your horny, ass! And baseball uniforms are great - jaunty, breathable, and allowing us to see the two B’s: Biceps and Butts. The only quibble I have with the baseball aesthetic in general is their weird affinity for Oakley Sunglasses. Which are known to many as birth control - because they flatter NO ONE. Tom Fucking Hardy could be naked with a bottle of champagne, ready to bone down with me, and if he slapped on Oakleys, I’d be out the door, in my car and driving straight into the nearest, deepest body of water, ready to end it all. They are hideous. JNCO’s for the face. An indicator of a love for “PISS ON..” stickers and Kid Rock. But aside from that, baseball has got it figured out! And for five wonderful years, I got to bask in the glow of the hunky Dodgers faces and enjoyed every second of it. But then I changed jobs, and started working seven days a week, and then moved to Atlanta and lost track of my love of the 7th Inning Stretch and peanuts and at-bat songs. And my horniness was replaced with bad bosses and bitterness and a lack of sleep so intense that it caused my hair to fall out of my damn head. Until Vermont.

I’m not sure what actually, physiologically, shifts in your body and hormones when you’re a single woman in your late 30s, but it is INSANE. You know how people talk about Baby Fever? Thats me, but with handsome dudes. I want them ALL. I want to feast on a buffet of prime-time dick and I will not be appeased until I have it. A smorgasbord of hog. All you can eat, hunks. I can spot a hunk or a beefcake a mile away. I started listening to One Direction because of my horniness over Zayn. I once interviewed with Zac Efron and thought I’d have to consider turning down the position because of how hot he was! It’s INSANITY. Apparently you hit 35, and if you’re not married with a kid, your circuitry shorts out and all the blood in your body is replaced with pheromones. You’re literally ruining on pure horniness 24/7. Somehow your body recognizes how close you are to death AND the fact that you’ve not procreated, and so it makes you crave hunks and beefcakes and petite handsome and the works. I hit my mid-thirties and everything changed. I went from being a normal lady to some sort of sexual predator. I started reading romance novels. I would openly, and unintentionally, gawk at passing Handsomes. My horniness is totally out of control and consuming my life. And being in Vermont, with a limited selection of ANY men, let alone USDA certified beefcakes, is tough. There’s only so much googling you can do, when you really need to see free range Hunks, out in the open, in real life. So, imagine my excitement, when I stumbled upon our towns summer baseball league. I was originally drawn to the event as I’m drawn to most things here, due to equal parts boredom and amusement. I wanted to see how quaint a small town baseball game could be - and the answer is, its off the fucking charts. The stadium looks like something out of A League of Their Own. Its tiny, with red white and blue bunting everywhere. The “beer garden” is actually just a cooler, with a little table and the local bartender flipping a sign with the score on it each game. The mascot is….incredible. Its a fucking mangey looking Woodchuck named Skip, with creepy Graves Disease eyes, and who is absolutely terrifying. And each game during a break in the innings, he dons rollerblades (!!!) and skates behind a golf cart that has been modified to look like a little baseball hat. Kids walk around selling raffle tickets, and most of the time you can get away with not even paying the entrance fee. And then there are the nights when they do fireworks - which are what seem to be Roman candles launched from the outfield, freaking out unsuspecting patrons of the “beer garden”. It’s incredible. It’s hysterical. It’s quaint. And its become my favorite thing during the Vermont summers. Due to the things listed above, and also because, and this is the important part, all the players are all 20 year old college baby boys who are F. I. N. E.

Tell me these goblin Woodchucks aren’t gacked out of their critter minds on New England smack.

Yes, I should be ashamed. I should realize that ogling kids who are young enough to potentially be my children (had my late teens/early 20s been a bit more exciting). I should be, but I’m not. Because I’m a red-blooded lady who is sliding closer to death each day and apparently the only things giving me joy are beefcakes and realizing that you can stream the PBS version of Anne of Green Gables online now. So I do what any lady who realizes she needs to feast her eyes upon prime-time D would do, I go to these baseball games. My goal is to become the Susan Sarandon of Central Vermont. Just scooping up these Lil Hunks and teaching them shit - what I will teach them has yet to be discovered. I’d like to say I’ll teach them important stuff about chasing your joy and not letting yourself work for bad men, but honestly, it’ll probably just be me bitching about how much I have to shovel in the Winter and then introducing these baby beefs to bad 70s Sci-Fi. Nothing sets the mood for some Cougar action more than forcing a Petite Handsome into watching multiple episodes of Buck Rogers: Man of the 25th Century. But this is my life now, a baseball aficionado due to my love of Hunks. I figure there are worse things I could get myself into here in Central Vermont - opioids, specifically. Scoping out hot ass seems like a much safer, albeit less exciting, route. The only issue is, I’m apparently not the only lady who has these aspirations. I witnessed another single lady around my age on some sort of date with one of the baby beefs, and I’ll be honest, I was jealous - she was putting into action what I’ve only hoped for - but I also have to remember there are around 40 of those dudes, so there’s more than enough hog to go around for us ladies. So, tonight I’ll do what I do most night the team is in town, I’ll head over to the rec field, take a seat on one of the park benches in the “beer garden”, and objectify some dudes while cackling like a mad woman at the mangey Woodchuck rollerblading around the area. I guess this is my version of living my best “39 in Central Vermont” life.