the return of Space Mantis; or, welcome back, Trotter

I reconnected with an old friend & teammate at the batting cages today. he wants to rejoin the team & is willing to "keep the bench warm & the beer cold." nice.

"an interesting ethical question"

a tweaker once gave me a hockey jersey. I gave it to a friend, then asked for it back, so that I could gift it to another friend (a hockey fan). was that wrong?

crazy hand jive

a variation on a theme: today, I saw a bicyclist use her left hand—upraised and crooked at the elbow—to signal a left turn. I didn't know people still did that.

hang up & chew.

dear pedestrian,
please do me a favor and pay attention as you walk—meaning, look up from your phone occasionally, jaywalk intelligently, and stay out of my way.

I witness

I have an uncanny gift for recognizing faces—especially of well-known actors in little-known, early-career roles. Suzy says that I'd be hell in a witness chair.

"to everything—turn, turn, turn..."

dear driver,

please do us both a favor and signal if you're going to turn. they've yet to invent the car—or the pedestrian—that can read your mind or intention.

espresso love's lost.

my coffee gal raised prices another $0.25; my doppio now costs $2.50. does she know I go only for her amiability—that better, cheaper espresso is 2 blocks away?

updos & downtalk

in the future—when we hold our Aughts parties—we'll remember our guys and their unfortunate Sleestak hairdos, as well as our gals and their down-talking growls.

"goodbye, soldier!"

when Tina Turner said, "we don't need another hero," did she mean we don't need another sandwich? ('cause, as we all know, a hero ain't nothin' but a sandwich.)

nephalism redux

that ride on the wagon I'd mentioned earlier turned out to be bumpier than expected. I've fallen off at least twice—with every intention of jumping back aboard.

save the date!

want to draw crowds in support of the failing cinema? make romantic comedies. a lady on a first date might go—if only to delay a visit to her lame date's house.

need-to-know

running a softball team would be far easier if I disseminated only the necessary info. some day, I'll learn that too much info can be worse than no info at all.

Wiley the Wise

today, I gave my standard never-change-your-first-answer advice to a friend's teenage son, who's taking a final exam. his reply: "oh, no, man! I never do that!"

"everybody look what's going down..."

I change the channel from depressing Japanese-tragedy news to Three's Company, and what do I get? "save the life of a child. sponsor a child through ChildFund."

shaken & stirred

earthquakes terrify me, but only in the intervals between them. the last one I experienced (in 2001) was not scary; I was too stunned—and unnerved—to be scared.

why 6 is my lucky number

June is my birth month; other than song #2, song #6 is the best song on a vinyl LP; and God created Man (allegedly) on Day 6. c’mon, what more do I have to say?

ex–native New Yorker

have you been to New York lately? NYC in 2010 is what Los Angeles was in 1989: virtually empty of natives. when I lived in LA, everyone was from somewhere else.

"force equals Ma."

the things you remember from teachers: sure, Mr. Haffner taught us that
F = ma; but, he also said, "never change your first answer," which I haven't done since.

seen thru a glass, darkly

when I was a kid, I spoke as a kid, I understood as a kid, I thought as a kid; but, when I became a man, I put away kid-like things. damn, I miss my skateboard.

notes of a nephalist

it's time to hop on the water wagon, to get realistic & teetolastic. (the time, expense, and psycho-/physiological aspects of boozing outweigh the social ones.)

smudge

on ESPN yesterday, one announcer had an ashen cross on his forehead. how, exactly, is this less crazy-looking than any ritual we might mock in another religion?

Scrub-Jay herding

someone compared managing a softball team to cat herding; but that's not my experience. for me, it's more like running Sunday School—which is the same thing....

a.k.a. the ethic of reciprocity

searching the Golden Rule online yields the Yoruba "one going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts."

He doesn't even hate the Devil.

did anyone catch the Devil on SNL last night? he reminded us that God does not hate fags—as some "Christian" military-funeral protesters might have you believe.

"and on the eighth day..."

the Beatles were on to something with "Eight Days a Week." weekends are for relaxing, not for cleaning up around the house. (for that, we'd need an eighth day.)

orange pekoe

if only I had a blue cat (and they do make 'em in blue), I could wear my Navy pea coat without first having to de-fur it, which I have to do with an orange cat.

do-over

tattoos are like bankruptcy in that they might be for others, but not for me. (I'm not interested in things that cannot be undone, bells that cannot be unrung.)

but only at times

at times—as now, when I'm reading Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule—I wonder why I bother to vote, when others pull the political levers.

blogging while asleep

last night’s dream featured me blogging while watching street-corner buskers: one, a Spanish-pop acoustic guitarist; the others, an iPod-playing electronic duo.