Tomato Nation

Don't we all, Ms. Yoshida.  Don't we all.

Eri Yoshida, a knuckleball pitcher, will play for the Kobe 9 Cruise in a new independent league starting in April 2009. The team selected her last month along with 31 male players in the league draft.

"I still don't feel like I've really become a pro baseball player, but I want to do my best," Yoshida said at a news conference after signing her contract. "My specialty is the knuckleball, so I really want to be able to get batters out using it effectively."

The Cruise are more like a farm team and a far cry from Japan's mainstream pro teams such as the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants. But the 5-foot, 114-pound Yoshida has broken a barrier in baseball-crazy Japan, where women are normally relegated to amateur, company-sponsored teams or to softball.

Yoshida, who started playing baseball when she was in second grade, said she wants to emulate Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield, who has built a successful major league career as a knuckleballer.

I don't want to make too big a deal of this, but when you love a thing, a subject, a sport, and you don't see anyone like you doing it, when you become accustomed to the idea or the convention that it isn't something that anyone like you — anyone female, anyone of color, anyone disabled, pick your "like you" — does or has done or probably will do anytime soon, or it's rare, or it's a fight to do it, it's not that you love it any less, that thing or sport.  But when you finally see that "like you" there, you realize how much you wanted it to love you back.  Now, maybe you can mean to it what it's always meant to you.

I used to stand behind home plate with stanky umpire pads on, back in the late '80s, watching a girl named Caroline throw the best heater in Summit Junior Baseball.  I felt a sort of kinship with her because people said our dads looked alike (they didn't, really), and because we both had to do the same thing every time — wait for everyone to 1) see that we had our shit straight, and 2) go about their business.  It usually didn't take long.  Some people want you to fuck up so that they won't have to change their thinking about certain things, because that's a pain and makes them uncomfortable, but if you get done whatever it is you're supposed to get done, after about ten minutes nobody cares.  If Yoshida can get outs with the knuckler, that will become the story.

I would like, someday, to live in a world where the story is not what women can or cannot do, but what we do, period (no pun intended), and the woman part is incidental.  The Kobe 9 Cruise has the right idea: she has boobs, and she's tiny…ohhhhh yeah, that flutterball's tyin' 'em up, so who cares.

Apologies for the brevity/tardiness of today's Vine; lots going on behind the scenes here at TN HQ today. Stay tuned…

Hi Sars,

This is probably more an etiquette question than anything else. When, if ever, should you tell your boss that you are embarking on IVF? I ask because I'm now into my fifth attempt, and due to some unfortunate timing I'm finding that I'm having to really juggle work issues with hospital appointments without actually telling her why.

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I worked with John Grady a few years ago when he played Captain Patterson in the FGM.  You can catch him in the upcoming Ian McShane project Kings, and in a short called Doga that played at Tropfest this year.

I've also been following Ramit's personal-finance tips for the last few weeks — "following" as in "reading with interest," not as in "doing all of them" (although one of them led me to catch a major problem with my cell-phone service and saved me some major money).  One of his tips, NoChristmasGiftsThisYear.com, got me thinking, because the fact is, I don't need anything, and the things you could say I "need," either I don't feel comfortable asking anyone to buy me because of the price (it's time for a new computer, I'd like a better bike, etc.), or I'd rather just buy for myself so I can control the specs (computer; bike), so if someone approached me with that idea, I wouldn't mind.

The holiday-gift social contract is so fraught as it is — what do you buy for a couple when you're really "more friends with" one spouse; how do you match the ugly pricey gewgaw your mother-in-law got you when you make 11K a year in grad school and didn't like said gewgaw anyway; how impersonal/cheap can you get with your business contacts; the list goes on and on, and in this economy, the resentment level is ratcheted up several notches because, on top of the emotional gift anxiety, you've got the dread of the January bills…and if the economy hasn't touched you up as badly as some, you worry about overspending for people who can't return the favor and may feel awkward about it even though you don't care.  As Gen once aptly put it, "I know it's the thought that counts, I just have…too many thoughts."

Lisa's had a few entries of late on homemade gifts and how we view them, the Black Friday tradition, and so on, and I thought I'd open the floor — has anything changed for you guys this year vis-a-vis holiday shopping?  Any dead weight get booted off your gift list?  Any deal-making going on between siblings to the tune of "just get me X thing, here's the URL, do not spend any more than that"?  Have you instituted a spending cap, total or per person?

This time last year, we vented about the post office; feel free to visit that entry and open a vein.  This year, let's talk about holiday budgeting stress.

I'll start.  A couple of people did get trimmed off the gift list; we do have some intra-family "let's pool our resources and get Y this big Z" dealing going on; my holiday-card list is going to see major downsizing (this is a time issue, primarily, and if I can't get an in-focus picture of the Hobe in novelty antlers in the next two days, it may not happen at all this year); a few people will get handwritten coupons for activities, not because I don't want to spend on them but because I would rather spend time with them.

December looms: how you doin'?

Hey Sarah,

Here's a doozy for you.

I am the unofficial lead secretary in a smallish office — unofficial because I'm on the same level as the other secretaries, it's just that I'm the only one who isn't too chicken to speak to management. There are about a dozen secretaries on our hallway, all of whom are women except one. There are two single-stall women's bathrooms on the hall and one single-stall men's bathroom.

The dude is not the issue — he handles his what-have-you in the men's bathroom without incident.

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Can anyone recommend an inexpensive artificial Christmas tree?  (…"Winter-holiday arboreal cluster," whatever you like.)  The faker and more space-age '50s Christmas-looking, the better, and if you can attest to its relative pet-safety (i.e. if a certain orange pet tries to snack on a low-hanging branch, will that kill him or what).

Thanks!

Sarah: "Check it out, you know that girl that I yelled out about at the movie this afternoon?"

Skyrockets: "The girl you…right.  …Wait, no."

Sarah: "During the credits, when I yelled out 'MARIA DIZZIA!' You know…her?"

Skyrockets: "And then you wanted to watch the movie again because you didn't see her in the actual movie?"

Sarah: "Yeah, her."

Skyrockets: "Because you went to high school with her, right."

Sarah: "Yeah!  So, check this out, I was watching Fringe while tweaking the furniture arrangement –"

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Hey, folks. Overwhelmed by other deadlines this week, I've asked the beautiful and talented AB Chao to step in on Ask The Readers Friday. Welcome back, AB!

Dear Sars,

HELP! I finally found a product for my face that I love, and it has been discontinued. It is Seabreeze Naturals, Purifying Clay Cleanser. Drugstore.com used to have it, but they don't, and I even called the company, and it has been discontinued.

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Dear Sars,

Since I found out a few weeks ago that my ex became single again, I have been dreaming about him. Not in passing cameos, but long elaborate dreams full of longing looks, "accidental" touching, and each of us trying to figuring out how to meet somewhere in secret. These dreams culminate in him telling me how sorry he was for ending things, that he never should have tried to make it work with his ex (the girl who came before and after me), and he knows how horrible it is that he's telling me this now because of my boyfriend…

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Due to very slow sales, the "Red White & Beefsteak" shirt is no longer available; the shirt/store will return in March.  Those of you who have already ordered will receive a refund, plus a discount coupon for your next Glarkware order.

Sorry for the cancellation, but alas, with orders this slow there's no alternative.

Dear Sarah,

My 27-year-old sister came out to me and the rest of our family recently. I think everyone's dealt with it fairly well — we all asked a lot of questions at first and my sister was very open about her feelings and experiences.

Now that this has become a part of my life I'd like to learn more. I don't know any gay people besides my sister and I was wondering if you could recommend some basic reading on the subject of homosexuality, in both women and men.

Thanks,

Mostly Clueless

Dear Most,

I commend you for wanting to learn more, to support your sister — but before I throw the question to the readers, I would caution you that, you know, LGBT people are just people, and books will not really help as far as learning how to deal with that, because you already know that. I mean, she's still your sister, you love her, she's part of your life, and you just have to give it time to settle and become less new and unfamiliar.

Not to discourage you or anything; I just think you feel a pressure here that, while it's totally understandable, will probably ease on its own with time.

That said, dipping into gay cultural history is well worth doing on its own merits. You might start with a documentary or two — The Celluloid Closet, or The Times of Harvey Milk, which is timely if deeply sad — and then I'll let the readers recommend other sources. I can't name any offhand, but I know that essay collections exist where the authors address what it's like to live in a majority-hetero world, what it's like to hide (or not) in that world, and so on.

Bookwise, I can recommend Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys: True Tales of Love, Lust and Friendship Between Straight Women and Gay Men, and From This Day Forward: Commitment, Marriage, and Family in Lesbian and Gay Relationships, which is a window into how LGBT folks thought about these constructs 10 or 15 years ago (and which, full disclosure, is my cousin's book).

Readers, do have any literature or movies or anything else to recommend for Most?