Kristin: Fine. Be that way. I’m super excited for tonight’s Doctor Who anyway. Ben Browder in the Old West – woohoo!

Doctor Who: Hi, here’s an unsettling, unfun episode that only serves to make you more nervous about Amy and Rory’s impending departure. Plus, not nearly enough Ben Browder. Relish it.

Kristin: Whatever. I don’t want to think about that. It’s time for some music.

iPod on Shuffle: Hi, here’s Aaron Lewis from Staind covering Pearl Jam’s “Black.” You wanted music to slit your wrists to, right?

Kristin: *gives up and goes to bed*

Until tomorrow.

That wasn’t even the only cognitive dissonance I experienced thanks to baseball tonight. Twitter exploded in the top of the ninth inning with the news that Darin Ruf was possibly going to get his first MLB at-bat. After all, the Phillies had a seven run lead; it was kind of the perfect time to finally put Ruf in a game. Tom McCarthy even said that Ruf would probably get to pinch hit if they got to Justin De Fratus’ spot in the lineup. And therein lies the source of my cognitive dissonance: I’d been dying for a chance to see Ruf, but then T-Mac had to go and dangle the carrot of a second inning of work for De Fratus. I hadn’t even entertained the notion that De Fratus would pitch two innings, but then T-Mac floated the idea and I got all conflicted. (I still don’t know what I would have preferred, but I am glad that Ruf got an official at-bat.)

Hell, the only game I’ve paid attention to tonight that hasn’t caused cognitive dissonance is the Cardinals – Dodgers game. I want the Dodgers to win and the Cardinals to lose, so there’s no internal conflict there.

In other news, the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was preorder an iPhone 5. Yay I really had wanted to hold off on getting a new phone, but since the Home and Power buttons on my iPhone 4 are both on the fritz I kind of need a new phone.

Until tomorrow.

Well, I’ve reached acceptance with this Phillies season. Actually, I’m pretty sure I reached acceptance a week or so ago, but I’m talking about it now because we’ve reached the official and unofficial mid-point of the season.  (Official in the sense that they’ve played more than 81 games and unofficial in the sense that it’s the All Star Break.)

I have accepted the fact that the Phillies will not be winning their sixth consecutive NL East championship, nor will they make the playoffs (two wild card teams or not). And I’m sorry, Chase Utley, if you think I’m giving up on the team. I’m not giving up on the team, I’m giving up on getting my hopes destroyed and my heart broken.

Honestly, rooting for a team that was expected to do well never really sat well with me. Which is not to say that I didn’t enjoy rooting for a team that was legitimately good. (Because only an insane, crazy person wants his or her favorite team to suck.) I don’t know if I can really explain it, but as a lifelong Philly sports fan I expect my favorite teams to fall short of greatness. And when they do well and things are looking good I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. You have to understand, in my lifetime, Philadelphia, which has a team in all four of the major professional leagues, has only won three (3!) championships. And the first two were won when I was much too young to be cognizant of them. Then there was the Curse of Billy Penn and the 25-year stretch without a championship.

It’s not like all Philly major sports teams were consistently bad for those 25 years, either. Each team made it to its respective championship game or series at least once, but it never ended well.  (At least, not if you were a fan of the Philly team.) Even when the Phillies won the National League pennant in ’08 and secured their first spot in the World Series in 15 years, I expected them to lose. To the point that I started hardcore rooting for the Red Sox in the ALCS. This wasn’t just my usual rooting against the Rays, either. This was rooting for the Red Sox because I would’ve much rather the Phillies lost to the Sox instead of the Rays. Normal people don’t look at their team’s potential opponents in a playoff series  and root for the one that would be least offensive to lose to. Unless, of course, you’re a Gen-X or Gen-Y Philly sports fan and you’ve spent your life being conditioned to expect your team to lose.

So if the Phillies manage to put together a crazy second half and make a playoff appearance, great. I will gladly eat my words and pull myself off the Kübler-Ross model. But I’m not expecting anything. It may even make the games more enjoyable if I’m not worried about where the Phils are in the standings and what’s going on with the other NL East teams. I just want to watch baseball and root for my team and have fun.

Until tomorrow.

Normally, of course, I’d read or something to kill some time, but I’m in a hotel room in North Carolina that I’m sharing with my parents and they turned the lights out about an hour ago. And I really should try to get some sleep since 6:30 comes fast. But I don’t know that I’ll be able to.

There’s a very good chance that the Phils game might kill me. Which is why I have to stop listening to it (using earbuds, natch). It’s just so frustrating. Halladay started and they’ve scored 13 runs. This should’ve been a piece of cake. Blah.

My iPad is dying and I don’t wanna think about this anyway.

Until tomorrow.