The fact that I kept seeing Prof. Harold Hill as played by Will Truman did not take anything away from the performance.

My sister and I went to see "The Music Man" on Broadway today, with Eric McCormack of "Will and Grace" in the lead. I saw the play once on a grade school trip to the then-Garden State Arts Center, and I think I fell asleep. So the story was somewhat new to me. McCormack's singing was great, and I think it was his mannerisms, little bits of his acting that had me thinking Will Truman. But it wasn't all bad thinking of Will Truman playing Harold Hill.

But the songs brought back fourth grade chorus memories. Chilling memories. You see, I'm no singer. I have no musical abilities beyond loving to listen to it. Somehow, I was accepted into chorus in fourth grade. I might have been in it third and fourth grade, but I don't see how they would've let me come back after the first year. Maybe that one year seemed like two. Casey says all the cool kids at her grade school were in chorus, but that certainly wasn't the case with me. If it was, then I hung out with the non-cool chorus kids. But one of our big shows involved several Music Man selections � particularly "Seventy-Six Trombones" and the medley of "Pickalittle" and "Good Night Ladies." We may have done "Gary, Indiana" too, or maybe I just remember singing that every time I went through Gary, Indiana, on my way from South Bend to Chicago, as I imagine nearly every single person does.

With the big marching band finale, where the entire cast dresses in full band regalia and marches while playing, I left the theater singing "Seventy-Six Trombones" in my head. After a nap on the train, that became "Till There Was You."

Before the show, my sister and I had lunch at the ESPN Zone in Times Square. I'd been there before for drinks and games late on weekend nights, but never had the food, which I'd heard was good. And it was. I remarked to Jess how it was just like home: I'm eating my lunch while watching "SportsCenter."

With an hour to kill before the theater opened, we walked up to the Virgin Records superstore in the sweltering city heat. Inside among the crowds, the air conditioning was not nearly sufficient, but still better than Broadway. I noticed something weird in the greatest hits section, though: Soul Asylum. How did Soul Asylum get 19 Greatest Hits? Did I miss their career? Of course, they called the album "Black Gold," which was their first and biggest (far as I know) hit. I'm sure I could've found many more musical phenomena to ponder, but soon we took to the streets again to hit the theater.

After the show, exhausted by the hot day, we had no desire to stay in the city. We'd talked about getting in touch with some friends and having dinner, but since I was busy last weekend and then lazy this week, I never did, and I'm glad, only because I was so tired and wouldn't have been much fun. We made a crowded 5:27 train to New Jersey, but were on it fast enough to have a seat and slept part of the way home.

And then I spent the evening watching "The Simpsons" � amazingly, two episodes I don't recall ever seeing (one about Lisa afraid her brain was melting and she was doomed to dumbness like Bart and Homer; and another where a truck driver dies in an eating contest with Homer at a restaurant called The Slaughterhouse and Bart and Homer become truck drivers to finish his route) � and "Ed" (the one where John Goodman comes back to buy the bowling alley back from Ed; and Bonnie HANE leaves for Washington; and Ed bets Mike $10 if he'll talk to a former classmate in an English accent; and then Ed wants to be the Stuckeyville superhero to get Bonnie to stay and Mike says he looks weird and how the music video and knight in shining armor for Carol was romantic but the superhero is, "not so much"). I also caught "The Family Guy" which is at once one of the strangest and funniest shows on television, but certainly requires an acquired sense of humor (or a demented one). And then I watched the Mets win and next found myself up here, chatting with my girl and Molly and feeling a great sense of peace, a calmness for some reason. And it feels new, or at least back for the first time in a long time, like after a hiatus, my life is back the way I want it, the way I'm comfortable with it.

I think I'm made to be in a relationship. I'm more attentive, more alert, more open, more responsible. I'm more aware of things, of money, of days passing, or birthdays and anniversaries and friends and knowing to stop, slow down, look around and appreciate the little things. I'm good with relationships, I think. My first date in high school turned into my best friend, a woman who's wedding I'll be in next fall. The second girl I dated in high school I went out with for two years into college. I fell off a little in college, doing fine with one, fumbling another, and hitting the highs for a few months on a third but ending in a strange, surreal, extended series of strange circumstances that basically lasted all of senior year. I don't take them lightly.

She makes me want to be a better man.

I put all I can into them, and yet, I don't think I've ever fallen this hard before.

It's the old question of "Yes life's not real" but you see a beautiful woman or something you can't get away from wanting because it is there in front of you�This beautiful woman of 28 standing in front of me with her fragile body ("I put thees in my neck [a dicky] so nobody look and see my beautiful body," she thinks she jokes, not regarding herself as beautiful) and that face so expressive of the pain and loveliness that went no doubt into the making of this fatal world,�a beautiful sunrise, that makes you stop on the sands and gaze out to sea hearing Wagner's Magic Fire Music in your thoughts�

� Jack Kerouac, "Tristessa"