I watched a friend perform some jazz standards last night. For the first 5 minutes it was just me in there, sitting alone at a side table in the near dark. I had a book with me, but it was too dark to really look at it.

“Drink sir?”

No thanks, I’m here to see my friend sing.

Besides, I need to be searingly, brutally clean in the blood for the weekend’s merriment.

“OK but would you mind having something, there’s a drink-per-set expectation.”

That was probably the friendliest plea I’d heard in a performance bar. I’ll take a lime club soda, thanks.

My friend and her band emerged after quite some time and soon the place had 10-12 patrons, mostly dressed for the occasion, which was different than me, sitting in ripped jeans and flip flops. At least I had a collar shirt on.

The set was killer. Both of those guys I’ve known for many years, since about 2002. They’re both German, both products of the Berklee jazz program in Boston. She’s the ex girlfriend of a good friend from high school who’s now a hard rocker on tour on the west coast. When I used to hang out with them all, and particularly over one summer, we’d consume dangerous levels of hard alcohol and hit the streets, bars and music venues of Boston. We’d be out until sunrise and cure ourselves with bloody mary’s the next day. I’d crash at their place on those days, and I quickly started a relationship with their third roommate, a jazz pianist who’s father was a professor of jazz piano at Berklee. It was great while it lasted, but hard to explain my work at the time. I was frequently not there, for months at a time. I think we were pretty much together for that one summer, and after that I feel like I was everywhere but there. I saw her one other time on a visit home about two years later.

Every time I see my friend sing, I get flooded with memories of that time. A perfect time– and the perfect duration. A single summer of sunrise bliss, and then on to real life for me, and I enjoy that choice, still.

Uh Oh.

Very bad timing for a cold.

The problem with any illness leading up to a sporting event is that the athlete is essentially prohibited from medicating. Advil, Uprin and Motrin will give you a false positive. Ibuprofin can get you a false positive for marijuana. Any of the nasal sprays– Dristan, Vicks, Sudafed. Nyquil will get you a positive for Methodrone for 2-3 days afterwards.

Anyway. I’m not bad, just coughing and congested, maybe from running in the rain  a few days ago. NYC street filth makes it tough. Running in the rain in the woods is one of the purest, healthiest things a person can do. But here, you end up breathing the vapor of whatever’s been tossed, hocked, shat, smeared, dropped, flung or leaked.

I’ll sleep for 12 hours tonight and hope for the best.

Right now I’m coughing about every 10 minutes.