It's going into the bottom of the eleventh in the Red Sox/Yankees game, tied at five. But, as much as I want to root against the Yankees, I can't bring myself to eagerly root for Boston to get what the Cubs Nation was denied.
So, I'll share the recurring dream I've had since the Cubs lost Game 6 and I learned the name of the poor schmuck that intervened in the Cubs shot at redemption.

The North Side sleeps in the wee hours, every shellshocked closed after a miserable night. I alone, in my first trip to Chicago, wander the streets, disbelieving the horrible irony I'd witnessed.
Finding the tallest building in the vicinity of Wrigleyville, I make my way to the rooftop. In a confusing flash, I'm atop the jutting chimney, clad only in faded blue jeans and a battered Cubs hat, primal as the Goat that embodies our misery.
Then, with a baritone deep and loud enough to wake the ghost of Three Fingers Brown, I speak the name given to every Cubs-fans' distress:
BaarrtMaaaaaaaan!
Across Wrigleyville, windows light up, like eyes painfully woken from the dreamy sleep of Nothingness.

It's alright Steve. You did exactly what most of us would have done. But damn, why did you have to do it then?

thanks to Gregg Easterbrook, ESPN.com's Tuesday Morning Quarterback and Brookings Scholar, I've grown fond of haikus again.
the other day, I was taking a cigarette break and got 17-syllabically poetic about my job as a database manager for a job-search outreach in Alabama's Black Belt (one of the poorest parts of the nation).

Mountains of data:
Sob stories, by the bootstraps,
Every file a life.

Not too much in retrospect, but it seemed poignant to me at the time.
Also, a bit about the event most dominating my dark thoughts today

Marlins in seven.
Cubs' dreams dashed the night before
Bad times for Bartman.

10-year-old Marlins
Dress two Series in gauche Teal.
There is no justice.

I did everything I could think of. I knocked wood, I broke out the old t-shirts, I made certain the baby was watching, just like she had been during the Division Series.
I've even resisted writing about the Cubs this year, wary of a repeat of 2001, when my presumptious early August newspaper column seemed to trigger the Cubs slide back to the middle of the standings (that's what we deserved for getting stoked about Fred McGriff).
But this year it all came together. It was gonna be. No more next year.
Now, though, it's Thursday morning. Sammy's starting to pack for his yearly migration to the Dominican. A little later than usual, but not late enough.
Where we once had only the dull ache of decades of what-ifs, now we have a face for our misery.
Steve Bartman.
I can't really blame him, I guess. If the ball was coming to me, I'd have probably been locked in to it, too. But I would have already thought a lot about my seat. That close to the field, you gotta have a plan. I'd have already thought about how not to lose my head in case of one of those blistering foul balls. The one that was in play would have been an easy choice: get out of the way.
I know he's heartbroken too, especially since he no longer has any friends, most likely, and half of Chicago wants him dead. But he had the headphones on. Radio listeners know the game better -- that's a fact. So, logically, he should have known better.
But he didn't. It wasn't his fault. It was Gonzo's, for booting Pudge's grouder. It was Dusty's, for leaving Prior and Wood in for so much longer than necessary (especially considering one of the league's best LONG relievers, Remlinger, sat in the bullpen). It was Kerry's, it was Mark's, and it all doesn't matter.
It IS over.
The blame game isn't nearly as much fun as an October ballgame. We know that now.
So, yet again, though we hoped we wouldn't have to say it:
Wait til Next Year.