Waiting to Get There. Usually on the A/C/E in Chelsea, New York City.

I'm back at kung fu at the YMCA dojo. I know it's exciting to dream of a brilliant Lord Voldemort-y nemesis because it challenges you and all that, but I have a few hypermobile vertebrae. So I'm training for a nemesis likely to hoist himself on his own petard. My sensai told me if I don't want to take the throws, I can be excused. Nonetheless, she invited me to the class Bar-B-Que this afternoon at her house. This kind of lifestyle - hard drinking, hand-to-hand combat, Benadril - takes its toll on your body. The antihistamine only came into play because about 10:30am, a yellow jacket infiltrated my sweatshirt and stung me seven times about the neck and shoulder region. It was harrowing. But I'm white belt tough. I grabbed the yellow jacket in between my bare fingers and squashed it like a bug. My sensai lives next to an illegal daycare. They put a trampoline out in the mini-yard and let the kids jump on it from the roof. Keeps 'em occupied for hours. Although at

Beantown goes recklessly patriotic for Patriots Day. The citizenry celebrates the vision and fortitude of our founding fathers with all the usual fanfare, like beer in plastic cups at 10am. There is also a lot of flinging one's self around and shrieking encouraging words into an endless expanse of multi-colored, spandex-clad marathon runners. They don't call it The Poeple's Olympics for nothing. Just like you have to qualify to run the race, I think you have to qualify to spectate the affair. You can't just stand there like a googly-eyed lump, as is so prevalent amongst lesser crowds. You need spirit fingers, bullhorns, sharpie markers, balloons, drum sticks, pompoms, and maybe a good high kick. Bib #6739 trotted in to the finish with no orthotics and one massive blister. Yet despite defeating Heartbreak Hill and 26.2 miles without an iPod, Tom was frisky enough to immediately deck himself in a new Boston Marathon 2008 windbreaker.

My Grammy R has been known to tell other people's relatives that their liver patê could be better. She has been known to do this at soaring volume in the middle of Tom's and my engagement party. But my Grammy has wrapped her head around more than just liver patê. Yesterday she clued me into some ancient family wisdom. She said that a husband and a wife need to work as a team to make a house a home. She passed on to me her home improvement strategy, which she has perfected over her sixy-five year marriage: Decide what you want to do. Discuss with your husband. Go out and buy whatever you want.

Nothing says Friday Night like hoofing around the Village at 4am in pursuit of a public defender and an Ethiopian, aka Kerry's sister and her sister's boyfriend. We found them at the Little Branch Bar, a cross between a crowded speakeasy and your mother's basement with a lot of people in it. I drank a rum buck made out of real ginger and real ginger juice. It was good. I love ginger. One time, I loved ginger a little too much and ate an entire jar in one sitting. (Please keep in mind that what may seem like an assbad idea to some people may seem like a genius move to other people, especially if they have had between three and seven beers.) How it became 4am confounds me. One minute we were circling the block between 59th and Tenth searching for a bar actually located on 53rd and 9th; the next minute it was three hours later and we missed what could be considered the entire set of the band my friend's friend's friend was fronting; and then suddenly we were downtown l

"Can I get a hit?" - College freshman kid to a girl at the show on Monday night. A wild girl, brazenly sucking a toke. On a Marlboro Light.

I went to college with more than a few Arab sheiks' sons, an Argentinian blue blood and a truckload of your everyday heiresses. They all had rooms in the dormitories. With no beds. They slept off campus in palatial apartments on Rittenhouse Square chockalot with hot tubs and full maid service. But for those awkward hours between classes, the richlings all held onto their conveniently located pied-a-terre dorm rooms. Which they pimped out with fluffy hand-tooled oriental rugs, sectional couches, big TVs and refrigerators filled with beer and spicy finger food. The Really Rich get complete and entire new wardrobes every season. If you say you like their shirt they will take it right off and give it to you. There's more shirts where that one came from. The Really Rich go heliskiing and think if you don't go it's not because you can't afford to rent a helicopter for the weekend, it's because you're busy. The Really Rich don't quite comprehend any other stat

I have informed Tom I would appreciate either a flypress or a chipper shredder for my Birthday.