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OCT

24

2004

these late-ending baseball games have put new england sports fans on a sleep deprivation diet. normally i sleep late anyway, but the world series is pushing my bedtime even farther back; this past week i've been going to bed around 4-5am. late last night, after the game was over, i got caught watching frantic (1988), the roman polanski mystery about harrison ford searching for his kidnapped wife in paris with the help of a drug courier. there's some great scenes, like walking the rooftop with slippery shoes and a suitcase, or a naked ford pretending to be a crazy american john to get two thugs to leave an apartment. and the songs! it was the first time i heard "the more i see you" by chris montez, and grace jones' "i've seen that face before."

i woke up this morning (11am) and started making my lanterns. renata had been sick all weekend long so she wouldn't be able to go to the lantern festival, which in turn made up my mind to not go as well. nevertheless, i still wanted to try my hands at making some lanterns, and since i had all the materials, i went ahead with a part of my original plan. the steps are pretty easy, you find a 2 liter soda bottle, cut off the top, and glue colored tissue papers on the outside. i had two soda bottles, one was almost empty, the other was still unopened. originally i was hoping i could drink all that soda by today, but i ended up having to transfer the soda to a tupperware container. the first lantern i made was just a series of contrasting orange and blue horizontal stripes. the second one i was going for a nature theme, blades of green grass, decorated with round flowers and a butterfly cutout.

in the early evening i went over to renata's place, bringing with me the lanterns, one of them would be a gift, as well a spur-of-the-moment "get well soon" mix cd. it was a wet motorcycle ride, not so much a steady rain as it was a pervasive misting. it wasn't too bad but i made sure i cornered slowly, fearful of sudden wipeouts. renata made some tea and we tested out the lanterns while munching on her oatmeal cookies. we discovered the lanterns work better with votives candles instead of the column candles i had put inside them. renata picked the nature lantern as her gift choice. over the flickering of lantern light, renata griped about problems in her life that i've sworn not to repeat in print. she asked if i could find her a proper chinese name but i told her she should stick with her transliterated name. pretending to take some photos, she took the opportunity to censor (which means deleting) some subjectively unflattering photos of herself before i realized what she was doing (renata 1 tony 0). later, gathering up the droplets of dried wax on her dining table, she displayed her propensity for pyroplay by sprinkling the residue back into the flames. my charges of "pyro" were flatly abnegated. quickly losing track of time, i made my exit, leaving renata to her work.

i went to my parents' place for dinner, lambchops and spicy salmon. afterwards, my mother gave me a haircut. i managed to ride back to cambridge before game 2 of the world series got started.

game 2 was another happy ending game for the red sox fans. the home team scored first and never gave up the lead. the cardinals lightly threatened, but pitching ace curt schilling was able to quell any offensive outbreak, despite the fact that once again the red sox made 4 errors, most of them coming from bill mueller, who seems to be in a contest with manny ramirez to see who can suck more on defense. 4 seems like the magic number though: we won 4 games in a row to come back and beat the yankees, we got 4 errors last night, and got another 4 tonight. maybe it'll also mean we can win the world series in just 4 games, but let's see what the st.louis fans can muster in terms of psychological warfare, and see how well the cardinals play at home, from where they haven't lost yet this postseason. after the game, in the press conference, schilling was telling reporters he woke up this morning thinking he wouldn't be able to pitch. that's more reason to close out the series in 4-5 games, because schilling might not be able to throw a game 6. and is it just me, or does it feel weird when players personally acknowledge god in helping them win the game?