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It's official. I'm a jinx.

Every time the Phillies come to town, I show up at Dodger Stadium for at least one of the games. Every time, I see the Phillies lose.

This year was no exception. I couldn't go to Friday's game, and the Phillies bombed L.A. I did go to Saturday's game- took Fran, had regular seats instead of the usual hovering in the press box- and they rode Paul Abbott's inept pitching to a miserable loss. I couldn't go Sunday, and they won.

I give up. I can only see my favorite team three games a year out here, but I have to stay away. From here on out, I promise the fans of Philadelphia that I will stay away from Chavez Ravine when the Phils are here. And the next time they play interleague games in Anaheim, I'll stay away from them, too. I will take one for the team.

Unless they're playoff games. I can't miss those, can I?

(I can be had for the right price, of course. What's a win worth to you, guys?)

This game was also notable for the guys who sat in front of us. Chicagoans of the "da Bears" variety, one beefy, one thin, both loud and boisterous and guzzling beer, the epitome of the Embarrassing Sports Fan, asking incessant questions of the "L.A. is Such a Weird Town" variety ("do people really leave in the 7th inning?"). I played the tour guide to keep the peace, pointing out on request where Vin Scully sits and politely defending the late-arriving, early-leaving crowd. (They left in the fifth with an alarming statement: "I've been drinking too many beers, so we're going to leave now." What do I do with that information? Do I call the CHP? Do I throw myself in front of them and prevent them from leaving until they've sobered up? Do I vow not to get on the freeway for at least another three hours? We- everyone in the row- were so stunned by his statement that we couldn't react.) At one point, Fran leaned over, nodded towards the beefy guy, and whispered "am I glad I married YOU." I thanked her, leaving aside the idea that marrying that guy would have been a possibility at any point.

And it was Hollywood Stars night, the annual celebrity softball game preceding the real game. "Celebrity" as it applies to this game has been devalued to the point where Tom Arnold and Norm MacDonald are at the top of the list- I swear, the "who the hell is THAT?" quotient for this one was sky high. (Anthony Kiedis and Michael Clarke Duncan were at least familiar if not all that impressive- Jamie Kennedy and Rob Lowe were, well, you know, not A-list, and Adam Rodriguez is as familiar as the rest of the lineup got) The biggest disappointment- the hugely obese guy called "Gordo" was NOT the Gordo of "El Gordo y La Flaca" on TV- at least I'd heard of the "El Gordo" Gordo. This guy was a counterfeit Gordo. The biggest ovation- not much of one, actually- was the anticlimactic appearance of Fernando Valenzuela, anticlimactic because he's there every night (he does the Spanish radio broadcasts on KWKW) and because a stunning number of people in the stands had no idea who he was until Tom Arnold, doing a horrible and unfunny running commentary on the P.A., said "uh, Fernando!" Suggestion to the Dodgers: time to end this thing. Or put it before a Phillies game again, so I won't be there.

And Bob Saget is no longer a "celebrity." Just thought you should know that.

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No sleep last night, or almost none- just as I fell asleep, I began to think about my mother. Last week was the tenth anniversary of her death, and at the same time I found some pictures of her in a file and remembered how much I miss her and how long it's been. Ten years. Damn. I can still hear her voice, but fainter- she's still with me, but the details get fuzzier with age. The pictures, though... she was beautiful, and special, and as I looked at the photos and her wedding announcement and her citizenship papers, I remembered and I felt the tears coming on, and my impulse was to suppress them, because I'm a guy and we do that.

But then I was alone with my thoughts last night with the lights out, and Mom came back, and Dad, too, their voices echoing in the darkness, their faces returning with smiles like it all used to be, before all of the bad stuff happened, and then I thought of the picture I found the other day of my Dad at the very last ball game he ever saw, this Spring in Fort Lauderdale, smiling in the bright sunshine as I surreptitiously snapped his photo with my camera- hey, the camera phone's good for something after all!- and I thought of their impermanence on Earth and mine, and all that stuff I wrote before about legacies and death came flooding back, and I had to get up and go in the other room, turn the light on, read something, anything to take my mind off it all.

So I read a little from that Bill James/Rob Neyer book on pitchers, hit a few more pages of the book by Semisonic's drummer, browsed through some David Sedaris and some 1950's and early 1960's TV Guides on the shelf, and Fran came in to check on me, so I decided that maybe I should go lay down and try to sleep. And that's what I did- I tried to sleep. It was mostly staring at the clock until 4:30 rolled around and I got up to work.

I know that what I've written on the legacy you can hope to leave is on target- it's somewhere right after my Dad's death on May 29 if you want to check the archives. I'm not gonna repeat it now. But on the other hand, everyone needs to grieve, and the thing I lost in the whole legal mess that ensued in the weeks following Dad's passing was the chance to properly grieve. I still haven't done so, and I really never got to do that for my Mom, either. It was right back to work for me, mustn't buckle or waver, have to keep going, keep that mind occupied lest I cry or scream or something. Gotta be strong.

That was probably a mistake. I should have taken a few days off to cry, to scream, to curse the fates, to remember Mom and Dad and the legacy they left me and my sister and the people whose lives they touched. I'm paying for that mistake now. Instead of crying, of yelling, of releasing, all I can do is... this. I'm numb. And I expect I'll be numb for quite some time.

But because I didn't say it last week, I'll say it now, in case there's Internet access where they are- Mom, I love you and I miss you, and Dad, I love and miss you, too. If I dream tonight, maybe I'll see you there.

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Look, I, too, have my doubts that Kerry's little sneaking-into-Cambodia story's true. I'm with all the folks who think that the candidate's basically Commander McBragg on this one.

Doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter because it's going to be buried. It'll be big on the conservablogs, it'll get play among the Bush-converted, but in the great scheme of things, it won't get traction, just like the general public kinda gave Clinton a pass when he lied about, well, lots. It's because a) most of the press won't make a big deal of it- hey, it's been out there for a couple of days and it's still absent from CNN or the Times (NY or LA)- and b) it won't matter to most people. And it won't matter because, like the staged filming and the questions over atrocities and the stuff with the swift boat guys, it misses the general point- he served, and that's enough for most people to absorb. He served. He may have served for only four months, he may not have been as heroic as he'd like you to think he was, he may be telling tall tales about his service, whatever- bottom line, all that'll register, fair or not, is that he served. He may be lying about some, even most of it, he may be pathological, but there's going to have to be a lot more than this to cause real trouble among the non-committed.

The guy did nothing in the Senate for 20 years. He's all over the map on every issue, stands for whatever the people near him at any given time want him to stand for, is in favor of abdicating the responsibility for our- your- defense to nebulous international forces who would not have our- your- best interests in mind, believes government plays a role in everything... there's a lot of real trouble in this guy's background, but, just as rehashing Vietnam isn't really a winning position for him, attacking his war record- even if he lied, even assuming he lied- isn't a winner for his opponents.

Unless... unless the press' boredom leads them to play this up with "Kerry Lied" headlines.

But I doubt it.

"I say, have I told you about my foray into the darkest wilds of Cambodia?"

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I didn't think much about Kerry and Cambodia today, or terrorism, or health care or abortion or gun control. I didn't think about education, taxes, or the environment.

I did think about the Phillies' injury troubles and the Dodgers' continuing streak. I thought about buying a new computer, and spent time admiring the Sony with the Arquitechtonica-style hole in the case. I thought about getting the wall in the office replastered, about buying some clothes on sale (which I did), about how I wish Terrell Owens would shut the hell up and catch the ball but how I realize this is what you get with T.O. I thought about Otter Pops, and ate some. I thought about Fran, about Ella the World's Most Famous Cat, about my sister, about my Mom and Dad some more. I thought about paying some bills, and paid them. I thought about cleaning the office some more, and didn't. And now, I'm thinking about shutting this off and going to watch some TV with Fran, then going to sleep.

Which is to say this- pundits and radio people tend to think that everyone in America's obsessed with Bush and Kerry, with Iraq, with all the "hot button topics" out there. And we care, surely we do, but, you know, I have a lot on my mind, and most of it ain't about the election. I care about terrorism, care a LOT about terrorism, hold strong opinions about it, but I really don't have a lot of energy to devote to thinking about it.

But is it right to devote brain activity to Kevin Millwood's pain and whether to drop in a "Family Guy" DVD or a "Father Ted" DVD? Is it right to spend time thinking about whether I'd rather have a Mustang convertible or stick with a staid Volvo? Is it right to focus on my petty little interests, my suburban world of comfort and insularity? Shouldn't I be spending all my time dealing with the serious issues that face all of us?

Yes, yes, yes, and no.

I can't fix the world. I don't have the answers. I can't pick up the phone, call my pal George W. and say "hey, Dub, I'm OK with the war thing, but let's see a plan, dude, and, oh, yeah, by the way, keep the tax cuts going but you're being an idiot on stem cell research" and have him listen and take my advice. I can't call Kerry and tell him "Johnny, you know what, how about going lite on the Vietnam talk and focusing on specifics of what you're planning to actually DO about terrorism and the economy beyond the platitudes, and I'm with ya on stem cells but you might want to lose the tax-hikes-for-the-'rich' thing and maybe come up with ideas that won't cost us an arm and a leg" and have him say yes, that all makes sense and I'll do it. I can't drop into Najaf like Rambo and singlehandedly wipe out the Sadr forces and Sadr himself. I can't fix a damn thing in the world. Even my vote isn't likely to matter, because I live in a state that's pretty much already decided. It's out of my hands.

But I can root, root, root for the not-home team back in Philly, and enjoy myself fretting over being this far back of Atlanta and in the wild card race when we were supposed to be winning the division. I can think about the material goods I'd buy if only I made more money. I can watch mindless TV shows and keep my stress levels low. And I can avoid listening to high-stress talk radio discussing the more important stuff.

For now. You know I'll be back arguing about politics and stuff before long. Right now, though, I have other things on my mind. And I'm okay with that.

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So McGreevey resigns and I see people rushing to call him courageous and his speech wonderful and inspiring. (Even Wonkette loved it- oh, geez, Ana, you got taken. Sorry.)

So it's courageous to cheat on your spouse.

So it's courageous to hire your lover for an important job for which he is not qualified, thus putting an entire state's population at risk.

So it's courageous to lie until someone blackmails you into telling the truth, or at least part of it.

So it's courageous and inspiring to make your confession on national TV while making your spouse stand there with you, stonefaced and embarrassed to death.

Oh.

The issue is not that he's gay- that isn't and shouldn't be important here. The issue is that he used a critical state position- the director of homeland security, across the river from where thousands of his state's residents died on 9/11- to stash his lover. And that he allowed himself to be placed in a position where he could be blackmailed. And that now, he's timing his resignation in order to prevent the people of New Jersey from having any say in who should replace him, the exact opposite of his party's stance when Bob Torricelli ran into trouble after the withdrawal deadline.

Worst. Judgement. Ever. Almost.

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No time tonight, so all I can do is to note that my prayers are with the folks in Florida dealing with devastation tonight. The early reports aren't good, and some of the pictures I've seen- a truck atop a station wagon, houses collapsed, a roof torn off- are disturbing, like Andrew was in Homestead. I was listening on line much of the day to WFLA Tampa, where the 'cane was originally expected to hit, but the action happened down by Port Charlotte and Captiva and inland up towards Sebring; my sister-in-law and her husband (and cat) made it safely out of Tampa to Orlando, and I hope they don't get hit too hard as Charley heads up towards Daytona.

I used to think hurricanes were no big deal. Andrew cured that, especially when we drove around Cutler Ridge and Homestead shortly thereafter and saw what can happen. I love Florida, but I'm glad I'm not there at the moment.

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We were sitting at a sidewalk table enjoying our pizza at a Redondo Beach joint when a bald guy in a white car pulls up in the parking space behind Fran's chair, bolts out of the car, and runs into a store. OK, fine, no big deal. Then he comes back out, jumps into the car, and it's still nothing worth noting until something comes flying out of his passenger-side window and plops on the paveent a few feet away from my feet:

About a third of a partially eaten bagel.

Pig.

And this is why, sometimes, I resolve to become a hermit and never deal with people again.

But then this happened:

Birds showed up and started pecking at the bagel. It wasn't garbage to them, it was dinner.

Things happen for a reason, I guess.

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