I was thinking about Ichiro, earlier, the baseball player. Thinking he must be so good because he has reduced the game of baseball to its complicated mathematic skeleton, the way only a Japanese person -or a robot- could. He looks out at the field from the batter's box and sees it only as numbers. The pitch, a fastball, coming from forty-five degrees, traveling sixty feet six inches, at ninety-four miles an hour, gives him about a tenth of a second to react. Plenty of time for his super Japanese brain to whittle away the mystery of the approaching leather sphere with equations and calculations so complex, I can't even fake-write about them.

Yeah, that's how he does it. How else do you explain how good he is? He's Japanese for Christ's sake.

Ahh, generalizations.


Ealier, Anthony and I got into a spat. One serious enough for a storm-off. It was over Ellen and Oprah, the spat was. I stormed off to Wal-Mart to buy a little trashcan for my room.


We missed our train to Manhattan on Monday because I couldn't find the parking lot at the train station. Well, we dilly-dallied at the house too long before leaving too, but still. So we drove. Egads! Took about 8,304 days -give or take, [I'm not Japanese]- but I drove my car to New York City. I remember taking back roads so I wouldn't have to drive on -Eeek!- 192. [Those unfamiliar with Kissimmee, Florida, insert your own hometown's main drag.]

We missed an exit somewhere and ended up in Jersey but eventually we found our way. To the West End -I think, [I'm not Japanese]- to my cousin Aaron's girlfriend Lucy's apartment. It was amazing. Just the way it twisted and turned and opened up and was old and looked nothing like the pre-fab stucco apartments of Florida. It felt authentic, like those girls would really make it feel like a home. Like there could be no better place to finally duck into after the longest, shittiest, snowiest day of your life, than that apartment; if it were yours. It made me swear I'm going to live there before I'm 25. Not with those girls, but in that city. Although, I certainly wouldn't mind living with those girls. Those girlS being -as well as Lucy- Candice and Karin, sisters, starting their post-college lives. They were painting and waiting for the cable guy when we got there so Aaron and Lucy and Anthony and I went out for a bite.

To this Indian restaurant where we were the only people in there. It was nice, our waiter seemed also to be the owner, he was nice. We all had wine and it was one of the best all around New York meal experiences I've had. [Although I haven't had many New York experiences, I've had three times as many New York meal experiences] It was great catching up with Aaron. Lucy proved to be a doll with this flashy sweet smile. We all got something different, beef, lamb, shrimp, chicken. When it came it was all exactly the same mustardy-orange color. The curry. It was great though. And we had this crispy bread that Aaron likened to licking a snake. And speaking of snakes, as I so often are, I couldn't help but ask the nice chatty Indian man about the cobras back home.

He launched into this smiley story and we all did the thing where you really want to listen but you can only understand every other word, so you end up looking over-interested and saying wow and yeah a lot. He said:

House...bamboo...pineapple blossoms...cobras.

It was something about the snakes hiding in the bamboo thickets and biting people when they picked the pineapple blossoms. I think, [I'm no Ichiro Suzuki]. He did this thing with his hand like he was doing a dinosaur shadow puppet. An internationally recognizable symbol for COBRA, made more unmistakeable by his accompanying hissing sounds. It was cool, I didn't get the words, but I got the energy. I thought about growing up with cobras in the grass like he did.

I didn't really want to write so much about this trip, I wanted to make clear that it was great. Eye opening. Inspiring. But, I have a tendency to do what I just did. Stretch shit out. And now it's three in the morning and I don't have time to watch Harold and Maude now because I have to work in the morning.

So I'll write more about the New York trip tomorrow. Maybe.

Probably not.

[I'm not Japanese or anything]

I finally got tickets to Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, because it isn't enough to watch a bunch of comedians talk all over the place and disguise stand-up as talk/politics on TV. I need to see that mess of a show LIVE!

Of course I can't go though. I requested four tickets for a day when Anthony and Christian will be tied up all day in a photo shoot for Womens Ladies Better Home and Decorating Garden Food Magazine. What's worse planning still is that I work a double that day.

Tomorrow I'm going into the city to see my cousin Aaron. I can't wait. Who knows what we'll do, but I'm sure we'll be buzzing by the end of it.

I didn't even know my Fins' season started yesterday. Although some would say their season ended when Ricky Williams opted for Tibet and weed over being hit really hard all the time for the next ten years or so. They said the Fins are the worst team in the AFC East. They'll be lucky to win 6 games. They yanked Fiedler after three turnovers yesterday. This year is probably the last for Jay and Wannstedt. I really dig both those guys too.

This sucks.

Oh Well.