What is this thing?

Apparently, its favorite book is Wuthering Heights.

The Mid-Season Best of Cole Hamels

Sometimes the world provides you with an opportunity to return to yourself and remember the things that make you like being you.  I've been re-reading "Tender is the Night" this week for the first time since my junior year in college, when I was living in Aix-en-Provence and it was one of only two English novels I owned.  Do you know how good that book is?  And how sad? I LOVE reading sad books and I love F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Another thing I LOVE is taking photos of Cole Hamels on my iPhone.  Here are four of my favorites from before the All-Star break.

(Do you ever wonder why I don't take photos of my favorite Yankees on my iPhone?  It's because MLB.tv blocks out local games.)

Tonight is a great night for baseball.  Strangely, I'm actually going to leave my house and meet the world on its own terms.  That's what highlights are for!  And the MLB.tv iPhone app. DO YOUR BEST COLE.  STRIKE OUT A LOT OF PEOPLE AND DON'T WALK ANYBODY.

A Scientific Exploration of the Cole Hamels Contract, My Brain, and Representational Lawn Gnome Art. I'm Kidding. Just Another Post about Cole Hamels.

I wasn't expecting Cole Hamels to stay with the Phillies, but life is nothing if not full of surprises.  I haven't decided if this is a good surprise or a bad surprise.  On the one hand, I was eagerly anticipating the thrill of buying Cole Hamels Dodgers t-shirts on eBay.  On the other hand, I was dreading having to weigh my love of Cole Hamels, the person, against my hatred of the Texas Rangers, the ball club and symbol of everything that I irrationally fear and loathe in life. (Why do I hate Texas? I don't know.  It's an idea that formed in a deep animal recess of my brain where terror reigns and no logic flows. I like Michael Young and I like Adrian Beltre.  In fact, I like Adrian Beltre so much that I woke up last night yelling "WHO HIT ADRIAN BELTRE" and stayed awake long enough to google "Adrian Beltre concussion."  What part of my brain prompted those actions?  Again, I don't know.  Life is nothing if not full of mysteries about our unquiet, unknowable, ever-working brains.)

And, on the third hand that doesn't exist (i.e. the hand that represents things that we can imagine with no basis in reality), I REALLY wanted Cole Hamels to end up with the Yankees.

Anyway, this not-as-exciting-not-as-awful-as-it-could-have-been news about Cole Hamels provided me with a nice opportunity to revisit the internet's vast holdings of Cole Hamels images.  These are not my favorite Cole Hamels images, but they do touch upon three things that have not previously been said about Cole Hamels on this blog:  1) he chews gum; 2) he would probably be good at Bikram yoga; and 3) someone made a Cole Hamels lawn gnome that looks nothing like Cole Hamels (this lawn gnome would probably also be good at yoga if it were alive or if yoga were just one eternal, unbroken lotus pose).

(Okay, probably I hate Texas because of what they did to the Yankees in the playoffs two years ago.)
(A greater mystery than that, perhaps, is why do I love Cole Hamels? One answer is that I decided many years ago that he and I shared a specific brand of existential angst.  Another answers is that I took a gamble on him Fantasy-wise that same year and it has mostly paid off.  Another answer is, I don't know.  Another answer is, I don't care to know.  Another answer is that life is nothing if not full of me talking and thinking excessively about Cole Hamels for reasons that no one knows or cares to uncover.)
(And the greatest mystery of this post, honestly, is who were they looking at when they made that Cole Hamels gnome because it doesn't even look like they tried.)

Enough for now.  Congratulations on your gigantically expensive contract, Cole.

Ichiro Laserbeam New York New York

I was hoping that Mercury being in retrograde would cause a cosmic malfunction that would send Cole Hamels to the Yankees.  Because the universe doesn't exist to please me, this happened instead:

Luckily, I love Ichiro and am perfectly fine with this bizarre rupture from The Way Things Were.  Cole, just please don't go to the Rangers and I'll survive.

Where will Ichiro live in New York?  Or will he move to NEW JERSEY?