What color is your blood?

I know what color mine is! I got a tattoo last April, on the front of my right hip. Yup, before you asked, it hurt very, very much. But worth every single wince of pain. What is it? About the size of a silver dollar, a beautiful Cubs insignia. Breathtaking, I swear... That night, after I was able to remove the initial bandage, I had a moment of joy even through the pain. On the bandage was the perfect mirror image of my new tattoo, a mix of blood and ink...my blood, Cubbie blue. Aahhhh. Beautiful. (and yes, I saved the bandage!)

So the other day I got a copy of a pretty new book on the market. It's called "Cubs Nation" by Gene Wojciechowski. Basically, it is a brilliant, intimate detailing of each and every game of the 2004 season of the Chicago Cubs. Actually, the details about the games are brief, but each day he tells a new story of Cubs lore, whether it is an interview with a player, or a beer guy, or a bleacher bum, or whatever. It is fantastic, definitely one of the best reads yet to date, in my book. (and not simply because of my blood type...)

On the other hand, the book did give me a moment of pain that I hadn't visited in a while. That stabbing I-miss-my-sister-and-I-wish-I-could-share-this-with-her kind, the sort that hits you from out of nowhere. Right smack in the middle of a story about the author's tour of the place where each player's uniforms are custom made, I realized how much Laurie would have LOVED this book. Laurie was born in June of 1984, just a few weeks before The Sandberg Game, was 14-years-old and oblivious during the 1998 semi-boon with Kerry's 20 KOs and the Sosa/McGwire chase of Roger Maris. She had just begun her real devotion to the legacy, she was just starting to see what color her blood was... this book, it would have grown her up. It would have taught her all sorts of little things unknown, about baseball, about the Cubs, about life. (Seriously, its that good!) It would have showed her little details about our beloved boys in blue that simply watching the game wouldn't expose (like the 3 things Matt Clement relies on to get him through the tough times: religion, family, and Greg Maddux. For crying out loud, he named his only child Mattix!) or that Eddie Vedder is so devoted, he owns an actual full Kerry Wood uniform displayed on a moving mannequin! It would have been so fun to share this crap, and that just ain't gonna happen. That sucks.

To some of you, this may have been the most boring post in the history of blogging. To the rest of you...read the book, you'll know that "ouch-I-miss-her" feeling that will make you want to read more and more...