Touching Base

I’m of a mind to start saying things without editing. Just let it rip. I took a test run in retrospect with a memo I emailed last week at work to a nice woman, Jane, who helps me stage an annual event down at the beach, an ancillary part of my job in that I started this event for fun and now it’s a tradition that has turned into a must do. “Jane – Just wanted to touch base, although I don't know what touch base even means nonetheless I use it because everyone seems to know what it means without really knowing what it means…” At that point I continued with my memo, as if none of the nonsensical jargon came between the commas. When Jane replied, a few days later, she made no reference to my “touch base” antics and played it straight, simply answering the meat of my memo with a short and friendly reply. I didn’t know whether to feel silly or to conclude that Jane didn’t have much of a sense of humor. Although, maybe her humor sense is different than mine which doesn’t mean she doesn’t have one but just means she has one all her own. I could throw out another cliché here, “well, be that as it may,” which I believe was included in my DNA strands I received from my mother along with a parcel of others just as mundane, but instead I want to explore the matter of “touch base”. Best I can tell from the etymology giants, which means just some nerdy on-line Joes who think about this stuff, the phrase derives from baseball and deals with re-establishing contact on the base or “tagging up” following a fly ball being caught. I guess that makes sense in a sort of Americana way. So, back to the issue of letting it rip, I realize at this point that this isn’t about letting it rip at all and has turned into something else entirely, which if I continued fumbling along I might discover. But, I’m done.