we're coming back from Somerville visit around midnight when Erin calls. just as he starts to speak, a couple of cars pass widdershins honking their horns. Beth and I guess Erin's message, that the Red Sox won. we say wow. I shriek into the phone. it's a strange and wonderful thing, and I use those words carefully. once again, pitching wins, not gaudy sluggers who disappear. I forget when Beth started saying that they were going to do it, long before I would concede the point, tho certainly I was pretty sure they Sox would win last night. I've lived here all my life. I think it wasn't until I was 15, in 1967, that the Sox recorded a winning record in my lifetime. and then the litany of grievances after that season. I never suffered it tho, never committed that desperately. 1967 was a hell of a thing, Summer of Love and Impossible Dream. the excitement of the Sox winning then covered the area, as does last night's win now. however, I don't want to go all Behrle about this. aren't athletes pampered fucks? isn't the sports industry about crap, and more crap? nice to keep that perspective. still, there's a strange release with this. we get home and goggle at the still eclipsed moon. the evening was fun and it's a lovely night. my father, who was 7 when the Red Sox last won, is in bed. the importance of this hardly reaches him. I showed him the Globe headline this morning and he nodded approvingly, but without much connection to the excitement. I guess the same goes for me. Poetics list has been rehearsing the topic of smoking bans in bars. the person who started it trumpeted the idea of tolerance, tolerance being strictly what you expect/demand from others. the world is too much with us. I'm feeling like the choice is either fake joys or fake issues. Jim Behrle can die happy because his Red Sox won the Series. good for him. I'm as middle class as they come but still, I don't want to be that bourgeois. same goes for the tolerance crank. I feel too many distracting winds blow.