Golden Gloves Boxing at The Garden is awesome.

Even awesomer, the free tix courtesy of WML guest Kevin Van Meter, who also introduced panelist and pal Shari Albert to the whole crowd!

Tres cool!

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The sign itself is pretty banal, but the stories that have to be behind its necessity must be fantastic.

The only thing better would be finding that:

a) It’s not one-of-kind.

and

b) In a Magritte-esque stroke of surreal existentialism, it was actually affixed to a subway.

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Another nominee from my Manhattan travels in the last 24 hours.

This was probably meant as a signal of relief after a maze-like series of complex exits. Seeing only this sign from the street, I wondered just what kind of transitional services they were indeed offering to the clients inside the building on 21st Street.

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Sure, New York offers me subways, skyscrapers, and Robitussin commercials.

But then my apartment-watcher sends this photo from LA –a rare sighting of my Donut in his previously-natural habitat.

And suddenly, who cares if 48 hours ago I was working with Dick Cavett, or that I played Scrabble in Union Square Park today. Or that I have within this island a girlfriend, a family, good friends, and exciting people yet to meet.

I even have two cats where I’m staying. But not my fickle tuxedoed boy.

Donut, according to a “cat whisperer” friend, has given up on my returning, which may explain why he’s been unseen in the apartment for the last month. He now spends most of his time in the homes of neighbors I’ve never met but who apparently are good-hearted cat people, or at least not chintzy with the meat.

I can’t decide if Donut is a turncoat (giving up on me so easily when clearly I think of him so fondly; does he even bother to mention me ONCE in HIS blog?!?) or if his abandoning our home is his way of saying that it’s just too painful, too empty and hollow without me (The same old song, but with a different meaning since i’ve been gone, as it were).

I can’t know what goes on in that tiny little brain an heart of his. This is the same soul who, whilst purring, once urinated me while I was cozy in bed. If that’s not a mixed message, I don’t know what is.

But I do know that i’ve spent this train ride to Brooklyn writing about a cat. And i’m glad he’s safe. I was just asking about him yesterday and today he shows up and I discover he’s all right.

It’s as if he knew I was wondering, on the verge of worry.

It’s as if he wanted me to know that I can keep missing him.

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It’s such a nicw day… Let’s have Scrabble outside!

Here’s J. Keith as he outedges his opponent.

It’s the moment JUST before he discovers that “outedges” is not an acceptable word in Scrabble and it’s challenged off the board.

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So if I eat plain, uncooked Oreos, I should lose weight, right?

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Sure, I’m sentimental. Sure, I love baseball. And I believe in commemorating things, honoring history before tearing it down.

But really, a commemorative seal on every dispenser of two-ply paper products? Sometimes you just have to let these things go.

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This ain’t right. A Mets Rally Monkey? Is nothing sacred? Will they next try to serve Halo Chip sandwiches and have utility players named Macier?

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The beautiful part of this god-awfully ugly stadium is that I took this photo from the subway platform on the way in, and i’m writing this entry on the subway on the way home.

It once again baffles and enrages me that Los Angeles makes no serious effort to get people to its stadia via public transport. Dodger Stadium parking costs are at an all-time high and the racket is that there’s really no other choice. You could maybe take a bus, but that’ll drop you at least a 1.5-mile uphill walk to the stadium entrance. A walk with no pathway, no guardrails, no pedestrian lighting for the way back.

My beloved Angels have a train station in their parking lot, but are presumably too busy giving away GM cars every Saturday night to look past the sponsorship to the needs of their environment nearby. No promotion of the train or special deals are worked out with the city or with fans from Los Angeles, which allegedly is the city the team represents (though if they’re the L.A. Angels, how come it takes me 2 hours to get there from my home in LA?).

And so the traffic, the carbon, the fuel, the time… All is wasted.

It’s genuinely disgusting how the teams needlessly soil the community in which they play such a pretty game.

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High atop the crowd, I bid you a chilly hello. They’re calling this Opening Night at Shea Stadium, which technically it is, as yesterday’s game was a 1pm start. Pretty cheesy.
Just like when they announced Billy Joel’s last concert here (the new stadium opens next door in 2009), and when it sold out, they added another one. The night AFTER.

Good thing i’m not obsessed with things like baseball and Billy Joel, and firsts and lasts.

Not after tomorrow.

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