Wasn't this supposed to be a Friday? Because on Friday I coast into the weekend, while today I was sucking wind and standing over the copy machine as late as 7:30 (game time, by the way).

This has been happening way too much lately. The week will go by without undue pressure, or at least without anything I can't handle while staying "within myself" (as the players say), and the weekend is in sight, and then boom.

I mean BOOM!

A ton of feathers suddenly falls from the trap door in the ceiling, and I'm sputtering away trying to catch sight of a calendar to see if it really is Friday, or maybe an extra Monday, because we only had one this week and someone somewhere thought that wasn't quite enough.

This is about the third week in a row when the Boss has suddenly come to life at four o'clock on Friday afternoon. It's never about anything that couldn't have been handled earlier (say, Wednesday or Thursday) or that couldn't have waited until Monday. He doesn't see it that way, of course, which means that I can't see it that way, either. That's how I end up having an extra Monday pasted onto the end of my Friday.

I'm really eloquent when I'm sitting (or pacing) in my own house, watching a baseball game by myself. It's maybe the only time that I wish I didn't live alone. Someone should be the beneficiary of all this wit and wisdom. Tonight's game lasted forever (over five hours, including all the pre-game and post-game ceremonies), and it didn't have the outcome I wanted, but it had some transcendent moments, including a couple of record-breaking home runs by the local hero.

I was so full of nervous energy watching the game tonight that I started eating, the way I used to, without even thinking about it. Fortunately, I'd been good all week, and I don't think I did any major damage to my diet. It was a little like sleepwalking, and when I woke up I was startled to find myself standing at the counter with an almost empty pudding container in one hand and a sticky spoon in the other.

A little later I suddenly realized that I had a giant box of Corn Pops (which I still call Sugar Pops, because that's what they were when I was a kid) tucked under my arm. They were mortally stale, having been sitting in the pantry since last March (I think) and untouched since I started the diet before last (in April), but that part didn't register at the time.

I'm so fortunate (I think) to have baseball to take my mind off the problems of a crazy world and a crazy life. So much is in turmoil, both near and far, that it's an absolutely liberating relief to spend three hours (or in the case of tonight's neverending game, five hours) in a world where the rules make sense and everybody plays fair (or gets thrown out if they don't), and where you can invest all your passion into something that means everything while it's happening but ultimately passes into history without costing any lives or trampling on any rights. I sometimes think of politics and government as a considerably less benign example of a spectator sport.

Now that the Giants are out of the running, let me go on record as saying I think the Oakland A's will win the World Series. And that's the last I'll have to say about baseball for awhile.