It was a romantic baseball evening. I saw Kevin Youkilis throw out the first pitch, watched Henry Owens pitch horribly, enjoyed the chatter of the three strangers sitting behind me (little Eddie and his grandparents were having a fine time together), speculated on the workplace frustrations of Slugger the Mascot, spent nine innings cuddled against my sweetheart on a truly wretched aluminum bench, and then listened to Red Sox wackiness on the radio as we circled through nighttime-construction detours and tried to find our way home.

This afternoon I head north for band practice, and I am already bracing for terrible weather. Thunderstorms are forecast, and no doubt, as is my wont, I will hit every one of them. But c'est la vie of the faraway band member. Neither wind nor snow nor dark of night . . . Ugh.

There are a couple of openings left in my Kittery poetry workshop, upcoming this Saturday, so southern Maine/seacoast New Hampshire/north-shore Massachusetts friends: please consider joining us. And by the way, next Monday, August 7, I'm reading in the Word Portland series: 9 p.m. at LFK Bar here in the city. I should have some kind of event poster to link to before long.