When we were Younger. Like My Banker's Collar out of the V-Neck?So you read about my Saturday night. Now the week begins in earnest. I urge you to go to your local newsstand later this week and find the latest issue of the American Conservative. Therein you'll find a review I wrote of James Sullivan's Jeans: A Cultural History of an American Icon.

I've been paid for hard work, I've worked hard until ten at night this week. I'm getting ready. Tonight my ladyfriend returns from Australia. She is not even allowed to take her face cleaning stuff on the marathon flight back.  I cannot believe fate has me staying here in Northern Virginia for nearly 40 hours after her return to the home of the brave. Does she realize she is just in time to see the Mets in the playoffs?

Greg of Faith and Fear in Flushing, a truly amazing blog dedicated to the Mets, captures my feelings exactly.

I will be devastated. And that will be if Jose Reyes doesn't lead off Game One with a triple on the first pitch (and if he does, I'll be disappointed that he didn't come all the way around on the throw). Every strike against us will be the end of the world, every inning when we don't score will augur doom. I will try to keep this tendency in check. Good luck. 

[snip]

I will be careful. Did I write anything that the gods will forward to the Dodger clubhouse? Oh crap, I have to go back and scrub my copy. Um, Grady Little is a genius, J.D. Drew is whatever the opposite of annoying is and Rafael Furcal is the salt of the earth. - Greg from Faith and Fear in Flushing

Yes.  Exactly. Only all of this will be heightened due to her arrival. Tomorrow I will start to sweat and get the sugar high OCD shakes of a fourth grader while I sit at my work desk. My leg moving back and forth in jaggedly precise motions. Will my boss let me listen to the game? Of course she will. Could she deny me water to drink, air to breathe? Could she? No, seriously.

Thursday night. I will leaving right from work to return to New York, to see the ladyfriend. Will the reception be adequate in the car? Will I get home before or after the game is finished. Will God spare me the awful choice that would be pulling up to her home in one of the last two innings. Will the game be tied? Will Paul Lo Duca be down in the count with Jose Reyes on second? Will Billy Wagner be in a tough spot trying to get the last out of the 8th with the bases juiced? Will my ladyfriend (assuming the worst) kill me if I pull up exactly five minutes after the last out is recorded? What if that's when I really arrive home?

Either way, I'm already getting jittery. My grandfather, a New Yorker, was a Giants fan. My grandmother, from Brooklyn, was a Dodgers fan. But those teams left for California. The jealousy of the Yankees stayed and when the Mets sputtered out of the gates in the early 1960's my grandparents were united in their baseball life, as well as in the eyes of Holy Mother Church. I remember watching those late 1980's teams with my grandmother. She'd read the day's paper. Or knit. Or be up and down to make cookies in the kitchen. I'd stomp around in footie pajamas while Doc Gooden fell short of re-capturing his 1985 magic. She'd serve me a bowl of ice cream. And if it looked like the game would end soon, I could stay up and watch the whole thing. I remember cutting Gary Carter cards out of the side of the milk carton.

And now I'm ready to stomp around again and shout for joy, and collapse in despair. And my ladyfriend will be there to laugh at me - to pull me back to the couch after a couple of scoreless innings. She'll yell 'Cmon Wright!" from my arms. She'll complain about pitch calls on Billy Wagner and to repeat in wonder the radar gun readings on his pitches. She'll be right there with me. Even after work draws me back to Northern Virginia, she'll listen to me talk about the games.

For a month I've been dreaming of the following. Reyes and Wright versus Jeter and A-Rod. Delgado versus Abreu. Randy Johnson versus Tom Glavine. Mariano Rivera versus Billy Wagner. The world does not want a subway series. Met's fans want vengeance for 2000. However, there is a problem. My grandfather loved the Giants. My grandmother, the Dodgers. I love the Mets. My ladyfriend's house is Yankee territory.