Forgive me, but I just have to post this.

That's 24-year-old golfer Cristie Kerr kissing the trophy she received for winning the Longs Drugs Challenge today. And that's all I have to say about that.

It cost me about a dollar a minute to be on Staten Island Saturday. Leaving Casey's and heading to work, I came to a crawl when traffic over Newark Bay was forced to merge from three lanes to one. So I exited into Bayonne, planning to take 440 north along the bay and pick up Routes 1&9 and cross over to Newark to pick up the Turnpike again. But there were power lines down and useless cops blocking off roads and not directing traffic. Three lanes came to a barrier at a stop light, with a cop on the other side just sitting in his cart. The three lanes had to turn right and squeeze through the barrier and the curb while the light continued to change and cars from the other side of 440 continued to come onto the cross street, causing further congestion. Ahead at a light, another police car prevented cars from going toward 440, but he just stood outside his vehicle enjoying the overtime pay.

Rather than try to continue north and pick up 1&9 elsewhere, I went south again (the direction I really wanted to go anyway), pulled over to consult a map, and took 440 south across the Bayonne Bridge onto Staten Island. Approaching the bridge, I drove past the old Military Ocean Terminal in Bayonne, where Men of Honor with Cuba Gooding Jr. was set (though not filmed) and various movies and shows (including Oz) are filmed.

Across the bridge on Staten Island, I cruise through the $6 toll with EZ Pass and pick up I-278 and cross over the Goethals Bridge back into New Jersey. It took no more than 10 minutes, and if it was closer to six, well, then, that's a dollar a minute to be in Staten Island.

Later at work, I called Will to discuss a fantasy baseball matter and get his voice mail. A minute later, Jaime calls me on his phone. We talk and she asks if I'm coming up to the party at his apartment after work. I call Casey and we decide on it. We're going, arriving extra-fashionably late around 1:30 a.m. I leave work at 11:33 and pick up Casey and Kerry in Jersey City an hour later. We cruise through Hoboken's busy Washington Ave. listening to the soundtrack for Dude, Where's My Car?. We drive along River Road past my apartment in Edgewater and arrive at the George Washington Bridge, where EZ Pass takes another $6. Why are all the one-way tolls needed to leave New Jersey? At the Outerbridge and Goethals Bridge to Staten Island; at the Delaware Memorial Bridge at the southern end of the Turnpike; at I-80 across the Delaware in the northwest part of the state; at the GW; at the Lincoln Tunnel; at the Holland Tunnel, all the tolls are for cars leaving New Jersey. Come back into the state, from the other side, and you just cruise on through. Maybe we're just so inviting and welcoming here in the Garden State.

Once in New York, we hop on the West Side Highway to 96th Street and cross over to Broadway and go north to 102nd, where Will's apartment is. After a few minutes of criss-crossing the side streets, we find parking on 104th and walk to the building. The music coming from the fifth-floor windows is loud down on 102nd and Amsterdam.

Upstairs, Jaime has a large, drunk guy attached to her and asks if it's because she has "Available" or "I'm easy" written across her forehead. I tell her it says "EZ Ass." We mix vodka drinks and take Yuengling from the fridge. Casey and Kerry do a tequilla shot and time flies and we're not tired. I imagine we're like Kerouac and the Beats, driving into New York late at night for a party at an apartment, for kicks, staying up late. We talk about Jack and friends and Casey confuses Paris' Jack-bashing from a recent Gilmore Girls episode with a real conversation. "Who was it who was bashing Jack the other day," Casey asks. Kerry wonders too, until I say, "That wasn't us, that was Paris on Gilmore Girls!" and we all laugh. Ha ha!

One of Will's roommates, Brian (whom Casey and Kerry are convinced is gay, and I can see that, but I don't know for sure and there's just no way I can see to ask Will now that I've known Brian for eight years) and another Boston College friend disappear into a bedroom for a time and I'm reminded of Dean and Carlo's late-night discussions in Denver from Part I of On The Road. Casey asks which character I'd be if I were one of the Beats, and I have to say Jack but I'm chided for doing so. "Everyone says they're him," she says. But for me, he's the only option. First of all, I wouldn't be one of the Beats if it were me back then. I don't have that personality. But if I were asked to choose one, he'd be it because in many ways he was the observer, and, of course, the writer.

I find a poetry magnet on the floor and pick it up. It says "moan" and I show it to Casey and Kerry and say it's from the Real World from the other week when Cara drops her pants in the bathroom with her ex. We move to the fridge to play with the words and come up with the following:

It started with "luscious breasts" and it went haywire from there.

Sometime maybe around 4 a.m. we all claim our places for the night. Kerry takes the leather couch, Casey and I squeeze onto the air mattress after fighting off Big Drunk Eric, who said he was just "messing around." I realize only in the morning how lucky we were that he didn't get onto the mattress, because we wouldn't have been able to move him once he passed out.

At one point I get up to go to the bathroom during the night, struggling to get up off the soft, bouncy air mattress, and walk back to bed looking out the window at daybreak over New York City. Such a pretty sight.

Jaime is up and out the door at 9 a.m. to get a train back to the Shore, where her car is, so she can get back to Philadelphia. The rest of us wake up at 11 a.m. and decide we must have Krispy Kreme doughnuts. The closest one is on 72nd, so we drive down Columbus and I drop Casey and Kerry off and, because we'd come from the wrong side, have to turn around to get to West End Ave. for the drive to the Lincoln Tunnel. I head toward Central Park on 72nd and, sitting there at the light and Central Park West, realize I'm right next to John Lennon's apartment building and I think that's cool.

Finally back in Jersey City we have lunch and sleep and enjoy a quiet afternoon after our busy night.

And for a weekend that started out as just any other, it was quite a fun and enjoyable one.