Basketball

Last night I was watching The Warriors play The Bulls. The game wasn't going anywhere, so I got off the couch and went to the poetry reading.

I could tell from the moment I entered the bookstore that the poetry reading wasn't going anywhere either. There were 13 people and 50 chairs. The poet was a woman with silver hair and dark blue circles under her eyes. She had to explain each poem before she read each poem, which means it wasn't really poetry she was reading. I left as soon as she finished reading her last poem, not hanging around for the Q & A or for the wine and cheese.

On my way out of the bookstore I stopped and asked the clerk if they had a psychology section.

"Do you mean self-help?" he asked.

"I guess" I answered.

"I'll show you where it is" he said, leading me to the wall where the books he thought I wanted were hanging out.

He wore a lanyard around his neck. His name was, and still is, Don.

"Terrific," I said, seeing the book I wanted--"The Drama of the Gifted Child" by Alice Miller--there on the shelf. My psychiatrist suggested I read the book, that it might help me understand certain aspects of my personality that are troubling to me.

I paid Don cash for the book and stuffed it deep inside the pocket of my black mid-length Johnston & Murphy raincoat so it wouldn't get wet. It was raining again and I had a long walk back home.

Out on the street I started to run, if for no other reason than I can still run. I ran through the deluge, wondering that if by running I was actually becoming wetter than drier, that walking would actually have been wiser. But it felt good to run, to jump over the puddles that collected along the sidewalks, and if I kept running I could make it home in time to watch The Rockets play The Clippers.