My favorite building in town

Today I shout it out to the Landmark Center in Boston, which I am officially designating my favorite building in town. As you can see at right, it stands tall and unbending, hints of art deco against a sun-streaked sky.

It sure is pretty now, but I think I liked it even more 10 years ago, before a major rehab that brought a Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Blue Cross.

Why is it that I liked that building better when it was battered and broken -- windows with no glass, a flagpole with no flag -- I can't say why. Maybe because I like potential over practice. Or maybe because at that time, I didn't realize how horrible its parking garage is.

Wait -- we just got here

Maybe it's because I got my season's ski pass in the mail on Friday, or perhaps that I cleaned out the hall closet and found my sweet brown leather gloves.

Whatever the reason I am ready for the three weeks of brilliance that is the autumn in Boston -- an ephemeral window where the leaves color the city in brilliant orange and the cold morning air stings your chest but burns off in time for lunch in the Public Gardens.

If spring is when young men's thoughts turn lightly to thoughts of love, fall is when they turn indelicately to football, the baseball playoffs, and the sweet nectar of the season, Sam Octoberfest.

But whither summer? It just got here, really. What happened to all the promised golf outings, the BBQs, the Tuesday night baseball games with friends?

So be it. I'll gladly trade what might've been then for what might be in the future of the fall -- even if I know the end game is another six months of winter.

Thursday in Boston

It's one of those days that makes you glad to live in the Godless northeast, where you finally understand what John Updike was saying when he wrote in 1975:

Pistachio George sits high. July beds bloom./The Ritz's doorman sports his worn maroon./Above us like a nearer sky great Pei's/ glass sheet, cerulean, clasps clouds to its chest.

Summer warrior

We danced about the squared circle that is my kitchen like two prizefighters. Sizing one another up. Parrying. Trading taunts. Then, in a flash, it was on. I unleashed a vicious backhand-backhand combo. I was sure it was enough to bring him down, and for a moment I thought I did, until the buzzing returned.

Like a cellphone ring that only a child can hear, he told me: "Not so fast."

A jab, a miss. Another jab, another miss. Finally, the death blow -- or so I thought. There was no body. Was this fly the insect equivalent of Blackbeard, or maybe D.B. Cooper? No. It was only later, in search of chips, I found him in the pantry -- and he'd brought reinforcements. It was a two-on-one. A dirty fight, but I was ready.

I choked up on my weapon of choice (City & Region), trading my power for pinpoint precision. Pow pow! And suddenly it was NaturalBlog 1, Flies 0.

My remaining opponent -- afraid? stunned? hoping maybe I hadn't noticed him? -- sulked along the side of the window frame. I opened up my stance, fired my first forehand of the afternoon, and ended the fight then and there.

The battle was over, but I know the war continues. They're like the terrorists, those flies. I have to get them every time; they only have to get me once.

Waxing poetic on Rivalry Saturday

NaturalBlog's alma mater has no football team, so you'll have to forgive me for living vicariously through your college on Rivalry Saturday.

It had everything. Resurgence for Joe Paterno and Penn State, who lock up their first Big 10 championship in 11 years and get into a BCS bowl. A last-minute come from behind win for The Ohio State University over Michigan. A tie after regulation, one overtime, two overtimes in the The Game, until Harvard could finally push past Yale, after trailing 21-3 in the third quarter. And what list would be complete without taking joy in the pain of others: No meaningful Big 12 games (thanks to Texas's week off), and a big fat choke by my least favorite of all: Miami.

And all of it narrated by the sweet tones of our Saturday preachers Brent Musburger and Keith Jackson. So wonderful it was almost enough to make you forget that the stubborn call of the dollar means there's still a chance we'll go one more year without a legitimate national champion.