"Good morning! Look at the sun!"

Charlie's got a golden ticket.

Y'know I feel so dirty

When they start talkin' cute

I wanna tell her that I love her

But the point is prob'ly moot.

-Rick Springfield, Jessie's Girl

Related, from "The One Where Chandler Doesn't Like Dogs," we remember:

Joey: All right, Rache. The big question is, does he like you? All right? Because if he doesn't like you, this is all a moo point.

Rachel: Huh. A moo point?

Joey: Yeah, it's like a cow's opinion. It just doesn't matter. It's moo.

-Friends, Episode 708

Monte Reel of the Washington Post writes about the life and death of Alan Brudno, whose name was recently added to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

We're talkin' softball. Playin' some too. The work softball team has started up, and we held our first practice today. If I'm remembering right, it was my first such practice since Little League — 10 years ago.

Some observations:

1. I am not in shape. But I knew that.

2. I still can't hit!

3. Kirby Puckett mitt … tarnished.

4. I am further from the ground than I used to be.

5. Or the ground is further from me.

Two men are creating a whole "bar & cafe" based around the concept that people want to eat cereal all day long. Who are these men? Geniuses!

Jerry Shiver of USA Today writes about their dream: "Each Cereality would offer about 30 hot or cold cereals; 34 toppings; seven types of flavored and unflavored milk; cereal-and-yogurt-based smoothies (Slurrealities); and fresh-baked breakfast bars."

Learn more about Cereality and tour their prototype cafe here.

A week or so ago, some quick calculations showed that I'd gotten more than 4,300 spam e-mails in my inbox during a Monday noon through Friday noon period. After that ridiculousness, adjustments were made". They seem to have taken effect and had good results. The same period in the last week got just about 900 spam messages.

An ad for "cicada-free" Ocean City:

        CICADAS CAN'T

CHEW SALTWATER TAFFY.

              HA HA.

After this morning's entry, I went into kitchen and nearly poured my cereal into my orange juice glass. I've poured orange juice on my cereal many times, but today's style of confusion was a first.

There's this great Sesame Street skit when Ernie can't keep sleep, so he decides to a sing a song. Not the Sing a Song song one (which is great on its own merits of promoting individuality and personal boldness, both probably running short in today's world and certainly in my lifetime as far it pertains to, you know, me) but Dance Myself to Sleep. Obviously, this does not please Bert. But then again, what does? Pigeons and bottle caps make Bert happy. Remember that pigeon of his, Clarice? How did the writers come up with that name? I'm worried here I may be confusing her with Gonzo's girl chicken sidekick, but not too worried. A pigeon's name is not life or death, and neither is a chicken's. But so Bert isn't happy with the song. He's even less happy when a whole bunch of sleep come dancing into the room to perform the song with Ernie. They live in the basement and all so it's not like they're gonna piss off the tenants downstairs, but maybe Bert had an important meeting or job interview in the morning ("Mr. Hooper, I believe I can hit the ground running and make a difference in the day-to-day operations at Hooper's Store. Or should I say ooperations! Ha, ha, just kidding, I make jokes when I'm nervous, shut up, Bert, shut up, don't blow this one!") But the sheep go right ahead and, if memory serves, carry Bert — in his bed — out the door. Those sheep were cool. Ernie had cool sheep long before Serta had cool sheep. If the end, I think Ernie falls asleep while Bert's out in the street with the sheep. Which would probably make an awesome song lyrics in itself if sheep weren't, you know, weird.

I write all this hesitantly, of course. I spend my whole week trying to project upward with the age thing. Culture, check, confidence, check, projection, check. I can't do anything about how I look, but the rest seems controllable. Most days. Every once in a while you let your guard down, and it probably sets you back weeks. You let them start to realize how different a life you're living and what kind of touchpoints you're working from, and that's it. Turn out the lights. You can see it in their eyes and know it'll be miles to go before they'll buy your theory or idea or Jerry Maguire-like plan to save everything. Which you do have because why would you bang your ahead against the wall every day for years if you didn't? What's it take to show you really care? What's it take to show you're capable of putting absolutely everything into something that you know will flat out work? Maybe they all wandered lost and alone and uncaring for a long time, figuring themselves out and all, or went through the same time with just little segments — that used to be possible but don't make any sense now. Not if you want to make a difference.

That's why if it were any other hour of the day, I'd be hesitant on the Sesame Street thing. Because even though several generations have grown up with the show, it's still a chink in the armor to admit what's on your mind. Doesn't show focus. Doesn't show projection. It's so strange that so many people go looking for projecton instead of actual people. Those lookers would be a lot of productive and happier if they just used the actual people. But of course that would be harder.

It's funny I'm awake now, but not really, because the whole point of what I did to be awake now was that I could be asleep. I had dinner in Ballston with friends, going to the Flat Top Grill which apparently is located in three spots in Chicagoland and then Ballston. There used to be one down by this Mexican restaurant down Wisconsin — I wasn't able to remember the name last and still can't this morning, but it was where everybody and their sister apparently waited tables in high school but I never went to until college. We'll call it Mexican Metaphor Restaurant. But we're past that now. At Flat Top, there ought to be some sort of study done by physicists there. I doubt there are physicists there already, so they'd have to go. They could get a government grant and university vehicle. Obtaining university vehicles are easier than one thinks. But these physicists, they ought to go to Flat Top and study the expansion of food upon stir frying or whatever the name of the Flat Top process is. Because the second time around I'm sure I made a smaller bowl, but when it came back, it was bigger than the first. How does that happen? I don't think there was anyone else's food in it. I also had a mojito there. Where was the mint? That's the last time I order a Cuban drink in a stir fry place. Which, when you think of it or write it down, is sort of obviously not a good idea.

I was tired when we left the restaurant so decided to head home — yesterday was a 4 a.m. wake day — while the friends continued onward and elsewhere. I walked next door to the Ballston metro stop but for some reason kept going. It seemed too short a walk. With the nice night and all, I'd figured I'd walk to Rosslyn the last station stop in the commonwealth of Virginia and get the exercise I don't get sitting at a desk for eight hours straight. Plus the walk would put me in a sound sleep later, I thought. That's where I am now apparently. (Is this a dream? The sound of the cicadas would have me think so if I ever dreamed this vividly on a regular basis.)

The walk was longer than I thought, two miles and change Yahoo told me when I got home, but it was worth it. Who walks anywhere in Virginia? Why would they award a baseball team to a place where nobody walks? No pun intended, really. But it was interesting to see the mess they've made of the hills there. All sorts of buildings. Houses, offices, tiny little gas station, used car lots jammed into corners, too many lanes for a weekend, Vietnamese restaurants that are filled with people, Vietnamese restaurants that have the owner sitting behind the counter alone, all ignored by some kind of sandalled vivirosi whom TV advertisers would love, love to meet. All sitting on the downward slope of Fairfax Drive and Wilson Boulevard, the ridge twins, both relatively cicada-free. Along the way I saw: a metro stop I never knew existed (Virginia Square-Some University), a coffee shop I knew existed but had never seen (Common Grounds), a interracial couple being teased across the street ("heyyyyyy, white boyyy, heyyyyyy, white boyyy"), a couple fire trucks (turning and driving somewhere between the two streets), a guy asking for the American Legion ("the american legion bridge?" "no, just the american legion," good luck my friend), couples walking at night, 7-11 customers crossing the parking lot diagonally (the only way to cross a 7-11 parking lot), young families pushing kids or holding their hands. Young family on the north edge of Clarendon, I obeyed the don't want sign for you! Every parent should be able to teach their kid how to cross the street without some jackass doing the opposite right in front of them. Cop on the north edge of Rosslyn, I obeyed the other don't walk sign for you. But it was amazing to me how few don't walk signs there were on the walk; maybe Virginia's horrible at building roads that make sense but great at sequencing their traffic lights. I also found that I'm worse not better at walking behind people. It's not my fault I walk fast. Really. I walked home from my first basketball practice in fifth grade and just walked faster. I'd walk slower if I could tolerate it. I can only tolerate it if there's a really good reason. Like, say, you're cute, interesting, aged, handicapped, on principle against fast walking, or came up with the whole walk idea that time. But otherwise no. Walking behind people is just another whole walking problem piled on top. Six years ago I read this short story in the newspaper (it was a short story contest0 where the narrator lamented bot being part of a couple, of forming a larger obstacle on the sidewalk or some such wording. I cut that out of the newspaper and I never cut anything out of newspapers. It's still in a box somewhere, like everything else. But that line gets me worried sometimes. Have I changed from wanting to be obstacle to wanting to be walker? I don't think I have. I really hope I haven't. But sometimes I wish I could figure out how to get it back. It's probably at least a good thing to be realizing what I don't have. A generally direction is better than not at all.

In Rosslyn I coudn't quite remember where the metro stop was, my last internship using it was four or five summers ago, and the station's positioned under an office complex and the signs at least a night are apparently not positioned much better. I almost typed butter there. Asking a parking lot attendant confirmed the street was indeed the right one, and it occurs to me now that the last parking lot attendant I asked directions from was somewhere in the forests of northern DeKalb (silent l), Georgia. His directions got me out of the woods just fine; from there they were wrong, but they were good enough to get me somewhere with a gas station. To run out of gas in the Georgia woods would have been an experience, and then as well in retrospect it seems an experience one would be well to do without. You know what got me lost that time? All the Peachtree streets. You'd think major and multi-laned streets with the same name would connect with each other, but no. If only Jimmy Carter had been building Habitat for Humanity homes out in the woods and could fashion me some gasoline out of tree sap and sweat from his brow. Or something. I've always imagined Jimmy Carter and I would have a surprising amount to say to each other. It's so six in the morning now. I just had to scroll to the top of this paragraph to remember where it began and was originally going. Being at the metro stop was nice because metro's like my second home. Or third if the Outer Banks is my second. Or whatever name if you throw Evanston and Gonzaga in there too. St. Petersburg and Atlanta never felt like home. I stood on the ride down the long escalator — that gave folks below their space and gave me not walking — checking my messages and finding none before the signal went to roaming at the bottom. I really need to do a better job with calling people. And planning ahead. These are my six in the morning resolutions. I think I'm afraid of the pressure of planning ahead. But it seems like a requirement of being an adult. Or consorting with them at least. At the bottom of the escalator, the signal faded and the train was there but I didn't give it a run — 'cause when I run for metro trains, I catch them — because why start running after all that walking? Didn't make any sense. So I waited for the next one. Seven minutes in a mostly empty station with no benches. So boring. Pacing, pacing, pacing. Back in the day I wrote this poem about some metro nightmare; writing a poem was required for the class and I'd finished Caleb Carr's The Alienist the night before. Creepy book. Creepy but good. But in all honesty, the metro's never drawn any sort of gothic emotions or daydreams from me. It's more near than foreign. Not like sitting at the dining room table but maybe my big desk chair. Haven't been around it forever but long enough, and it's comfortable and it takes you somewhere (in your head or physically). The ride was short to Metro Center where every TRL fan from five minutes ago (now they watch their others shows that waste your time and don't show any music) had just finished searching or pretending to search for something more at RFK stadium and HSFtival. Ever wonder how RFK would feel about those ties? I mean, he was in the '60s and all and he certainly would've been a Redskins fan but you'd think he could find a better use for tens of thousands of the disaffected. Not that day, maybe. Everybody needs music. But in addition to. Something with soul instead of sponsorships.

I'm getting tired now, too bad the sun's coming up. Or is up. Can't tell from sitting here and don't really want to move my heels off the seat back to the floor. At Metro Center the line of boys ran down the up escalator and the girls watched them from the platform and on the train — which was just long enough to give the from of the platform room to breathe — a quiet guy by himself had one of those little stunt bikes and we listened to an mid-30-something woman discuss how by now in the day she was used to everyone looking at her cleavage and, yes, I gave a glance, yes, it was there but sweatily so and under the harsh lights in the train cars she really should have kept that tidbit to herself or at least not projected it as much. But her group of three 30-something friends seemed to enjoy it (weren't they being young and crazy and unnecessarily blunt) and when they left the train at Dupont Circle yelling to their friends from down the car to leave also, no one seemed to miss them. Personally, I enjoyed their loud conversation about issues of personal space on the subway. When they left I got myself a seat in the facing sideways rows on the other side of the conductor's door, and there were newspapers up against the seat back but there's only so much one wants to have to do with newspaper so I left them there and sat against them. Young bike guy sat across from me; he aligned the bike so it wasn't bumping against the rattlable conductor door or wheeling itself backward into open area by the front passenger doors. At Friendship Heights a good chunk of the music mass unloaded but their day of standing and sun soon put them behind me and it was nice to walk up an escalator again. There was a group of people in formalwear at the Italian restaurant above the bus depot. I couldn't tell how old they were but the restaurant always struck me as strangely positioned, with the fumes and exhaust and the former Snik-Snak snack and flower shop right below, so I hoped it was some sort of pompous business that needed a few starches taken out of their shirts and whose long road to the bottom would begin with the party at Ristorante Friendship Heights, instead of someone's prom. I mean, in high school we used to meet their every morning in front of the Snik-Snak and take the train downtown. Our floor hockey league team was the Snik-Snak attack. (Or maybe that was just one of the names we considered, I can't remember). Like I said, the restaurant's location has always confused. The Mexican place there never did well — but I'm glad they left the big clock — so why is the Italian one still there? Maybe the buses remind the Italians of Rome and all that pollution that gets written about one a year, destroying the Appian Way or the Tiber or the ancient viaducts or what have you. But I'd imagine the Mexicans have buses also. Every time I write the word "buses" I think of how the word is so close to "busses." I always like that.

Along the Western side of the stop some kids were sitting on a bus bench in the dark and a bug flew on a girl and she jumped up and danced. A boy asked it if was a ciciada and she said it must have been. Walking up the hill, the traffic's light now dispositioned with them moving the entrance to the shopping center's parking lot. They're tearing the whole thing down to raise some kind of massive development. While the neighbors over there are up in arms about it, my home's a mile or so away so I don't care as much. I'll begin to get concerned when they start messing with my traffic pattern. Until then and until the final walls are brought down with the wrecking ball, the only stores left in the mall are the Giant and the Blockbuster and word is those are going to go sooner than everyone thinks. Moving the entrance to the parking lot and dispositioning the light seems like a good jump. The trees along the way home didn't appear to have too many cicadas, they still had a good grip on the trees if they were there, but my guess was they were short enough and young enough where maybe they were short like I was short back the last time the cicadas were here and so the last round would have paid them no mind. Looking back on it, I only remember the cicadas on the ground as opposed to in the air on the trees, so I suppose the reverse must be true. A friend driving by with a friend of hers saw me along the way and stopped to offer a ride. I pointed out how they were headed in the opposite direction and they still offered, so I thought that was sweet of them. But in the home stretch the walk wasn't that much longer so they had my thanks and headed on their way, to either Bethesda or Georgetown, I guess depending on the way they felt by the time they made it down the hill to Wisconsin. (They chose Bethesda, I find in my morning e-mail.) I rounded the low side Chevy Chase Circle, sprinting across the inbound half like I always do and walking across the other half where my speed's usually more determined by traffic. My brother and I used to mow the lawn of that real estate office there on the circle, and it's interesting now how half the time I don't think about it when I go by and half the time I do and do what must be reminiscing in some abbreviated form. On the other side of the circle the cicadas all seemed to be asleep, their only sounds were coming from trees back west, maybe along the old Belt Road stretch five blocks over that was one of the first streets in the area and now looks like an alley. The trees planted there had to be really old. I got home and watched a little TV and slept and now I'm doing this and I'm don't feel anymore asleep than when I started. Hope you all don't think this is weird. I thought it would work.

It's a shorter walk than you'd think.

Zzzzzz. Four a.m. is a horrible hour.