magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

Dave called this afternoon. 'Remember when you hurt yourself last year playing soccer? Your knee or your shin or whatever?'

'I sprained my knee and my ankle. Yeah?'

'Well, we're playing soccer again on Roosevelt Island tonight. Around 7:30, if you're interested.'

'Umm.'

'That's a long pregnant pause.'

'Maybe. I might be able to make it out.'

'Well, we'll see you if we see you.'

Truth be told, I still have no food at home. I ate the pumpkin yesterday. So really no food now. At all. Some mouldy salsa maybe. And I had to go at least as far as the supermarket, which is just as far as the subway entrance, so why not shoot for further afield?

I picked up supermarket sushi (and, maybe a bad idea, a double espresso) at Whole Foods. Then the D downtown to the F uptown to Roosevelt Island. Getting off the train I asked myself 'Why is it again, exactly, that I don't live here?' We threw frisbees around for a bit, the when the kids from Queens showed up got down to the game at hand.

Again, as the sole Manhattanite, I was the odd man out in the Brooklyn/Queens rivalry. 'I'll play goalie for Brooklyn,' I said. 'I'll probably get hurt again if I actually try to play.' And apparently I'm not half bad at goalie, at least in an informal amateur game where no one is really all that good. 'It's mostly about being light on your feet and having good pattern recognition,' I said.

And, in my case, about not running around; I stepped out of the goal to run up and down the field for a few plays, and being terribly out of shape, felt as if my heart were going to explode. It's at times like this that I feel as if I really should be doing something for my health.

We all headed out a bit after dark. A carload to Queens. A trainload to Park Slope. A bike or two. And me uptown, delayed by a trash train at the Rockefeller Plaza stop. And now, after midnight, because of the coffee (or the fact that I've slept until around noon for most of the past few weeks) I have no impulse to go to bed, although because of the exercise, there's a part of me that feels as if I should.

Instead, I watched the first episode of the new TV show Brotherhood. Set (and filmed) in Providence. But I'm going to withhold judgement until a bit further into the season.