It’s Friday afternoon and I don’t feel like working. I feel like going to the beach or playing tennis, but I can’t find any playmates on the phone. So… I blog.

Like many, I watched the debates last night and it was clear to me that Kerry was the obvious “winner,” even though the spin doctors from both sides were quick to point out that their candidate “won.” It makes me wish there actually were judges, like in boxing, who could score each round and pronounce a winner at the end if both men were still standing. (Wouldn’t it be amazing if the loser actually was not standing at the end of the debate? Worn out from all the verbal sparring, the candidate drops to the floor, spent and woozy, carried off by his trainers… It did seem to me that Kerry had W against the ropes several times, but didn't deliver the knockout punch) They must do that for debate teams in college, right? So why not in politics? I suppose it’s impractical due to the political allegiances of judges (just look at the Supreme Court’s actions in the last election) but it would take away some of the annoying power that these “spin doctors” have by getting in the first word after the debates on every TV channel. Nevertheless, it was an exciting moment for this country, if for no other reason than the population has not been so polarized and engaged in the future of the nation in several decades. I just wish someone had fallen down (someone named “W”)….

As for the weekend, I’m considering venturing up to Santa Barbara to visit my brother and see his new house. I’m the only one in the family who has not yet seen it. So I suppose I should pay my respects, or whatever it is you do when you see someone’s new home or meet their new baby or any other function that serves as a major milestone for them but not for you because you are still broke and single. So you go and look at the kitchen and make comments about how nice the tiles are even though they are just tiles or how cute the baby is even though most babies look pretty much the same and then you go home and wonder where you went wrong and how you’re ever going to fix your life. But then you realize that your life isn’t broken, it’s just… different and houses and babies and marriage and all that stuff normal people do is not for you, at least not now, anyway. So you go out to happy hour and hope to meet a drunk woman who will sleep with you and make you feel lucky that you are a swingin’ bachelor living it up on Southern California even though such an event rarely, if ever, happens.

But we keep hope alive.