I'm a Little Teapot.

Yesterday, I needed to blow off some steam.

Usually, when that's the case, I go out and party like a rockstar, only to wake up and feel the same way. But yesterday was different. It was a rough one -- to the core. The kind of bad day where one thing irks you and everything else seems to hit like a ton of bricks. I needed to hit something.

So, I did what I do best (or used to do best anyway). I put on my old softball jersey and went to the batting cages. Alone. With a pocketful of dollars for the machine.

The place was packed for a Friday night. At the front of the building, two indoor soccer games were being played at once. People were crowded around, eating chili cheese fries, yelling at the ref and watching their daughters or cousins or sons or girlfriends run back and forth across a carpet spray-painted green.

No one was in the batting cages in the back. Thankfully. So I got 10 tokens -- 15 pitches a piece -- broke out my old Lisa Fernandez and went at it.

I was a little rusty, but I only missed one before I started shotgunning them back at the machine.

Ping, ping, ping. It was pretty obvious I was pissed. I was swinging as hard as I could at every pitch, to much avail. Each ball was something else -- the job market, some old boss that pissed me off, something keeping me from being truly happy. Anything. And everything.

I guess I was doing pretty good because about 10 minutes into my swinging, three guys in Polos walked over and started watching me from outside the cage. They didn't even say anything. They just sat there as I swung. They probably knew better. It's not often that a single girl goes to a batting cage by herself on a Friday night. They left eventually, but I glanced at one in between tokens once, and he seemed in awe.

When it was all over, I was sweating like a bitch, blistered on my left hand and overcome with a sense of relief. I had boiled over in that cage, like a damn teapot. And every time that ball came at me, I whistled.

It was nice. But I can definitely tell this morning how long it's been since I've been in a batting cage. My left thumb is one big blister, and it hurts. I have a newly formed callous under my pinky (the palm side) on the same hand, and I can feel it in my shoulders. I'm sore. I'm old. But it's OK.

It's worth it. I needed to whistle for a bit.