How strange that you, of all of us, would prove to be the most hopeful.

I am in authorized possession of an authentic Florida absentee ballot. Two thoughts on this:

1) Bidding is open.

2) I’m struggling to strike a balance between sending it in too late to be counted by nonlawyers, and sending it in early and risking that something would happen to change my mind in the interim. I worry more about the latter. What if, late in the game, one of the candidates is revealed to have a seven-figure gambling habit, or keep a travelling orgy, or to have once killed a man barehanded outside a bar, or some other such scandalous behavior? Something awesome like that would definitely sway me strongly — I, in the manner of Cal Naughton Jr., like my President to party — and I don’t want to have an October Surprise make me feel like I wasted my vote on some tedious careerist chump.

bondgirl, via the Request Line: “I would like a series of brief reviews of the movies that would be made if producers deferred to your opinion on such matters.”

Movies would change thusly:

* More comedies in which the intended humor is more based on bizarre reactions to entertaining situations and jokes delivered verbally; fewer comedies based on stupid people behaving stupidly and farting.

* Less messages in genres that should be message-free. More anti-heroes.

* An end to plot points and characters obviously inserted by Marketing.

* Also, a return to jokes of the type currently being softened and/or deleted by Legal.

* Hardcore pornography featuring Reese Witherspoon and Ali Larter. Separately is fine.

* More movies with talking dogs. Luna loves talking dogs.

* Better villains. I don’t care what CAIR or NAIF says, corporate polluters and rogue CIA agents just don’t get it done. I need mobsters and Russians and Libyans.

Much more importantly, the moviegoing experience will change thusly:

* There will be entire theater facilities designated NC-17. No one under 18 is allowed within 100 yards of one of these.

* There will be two published times for movies. The start of the previews, and the start of the sound-check immediately preceding the Feature Presentation. No one, including uniformed emergency personnel, may enter the theater for any reason after the latter time has passed.

* Putting your feet on the seat in front of you is always permitted, presuming the seat was empty when you chose your seat.

* Previews for movies about girl angst may only be shown before movies about girl angst.

* Movies of greater than ninety minutes will feature either an intermission or an in-theater restroom with the movie’s audiotrack audible.

* Movie popcorn is buttered only with butter. Not with popcorn-scented oil, which gets in the air, makes every inhalation weigh three pounds, and leaves your sneezes tasting like popcorn for two days.

* My power will be magnified into a field that destroys cellphones and PDAs if they are brought into the theater, on or off.

Back in the Annual Report, I committed to, among the other resolutions, “do something memorable on my birthday”.

Thursday, May 22

In lieu of sleeping in, I get up and get dressed to go eat breakfast with Luna, my dad, and my brother’s family. (My dad called my older younger brother the previous night to invite the four of them to go to breakfast with us. They agree after moving our mealtime up two hours and changing the restaurant. Ah, parents of young children. I will have thoughts on the Baby Exemption in the near future.)

We all arrive at the Original Pancake House for breakfast. I have weighed my progress in Project Famine against today being my birthday, and decided to allow myself steak and eggs. (Minus toast and potatoes. I figure for ten or fifteen years I ate like every day was my birthday, so I can sacrifice a few of the real ones.) The Original Pancake House does not have steak and eggs. I have a truly horrible veggie omelet, no cheese, no pancakes, the ordering of which launches a long familial inquisition on the dietary limitations of Project Famine, my least favorite topic of conversation ever. The omelet arrives, accompanied by pancakes. The conversation ranges from outrages committed by preschool staffers to my father’s upcoming hip replacement to expressions of surprise that I would not return to high school if given the choice. Blessedly, no one sings “Happy Birthday” in the restaurant.

My mother gave me a gift certificate to take a Segway tour of Chicago. This was more fun, not least because Luna was incapable of riding the Segway without making a face that looked like Queen Elizabeth trying not to laugh after Charles farts in a kilt. Segways are pretty cool. We sorta watched a safety video, then put on our helmets and bright green reflecto-vests and went out to Grant Park to learn how to ride. It’s very, very strange. Riding a Segway is what I always thought riding a skateboard would be like. Not the handle — the smooth acceleration and the intuitive turns. My Segway was okay. The tourist models have a governor on them that top them out at 6mph. But I got to try the tour guide’s model, which is a normal Segway. It goes 12mph, and suddenly the idea Kamen had, that cities would someday be built around this thing, didn’t seem so bizarrely grandiose. We went from the Art Institute to Soldier Field to the Bean and back to the Art Institute and I am going to start saving immediately.

Next we met my Mom for a cup of coffee. We started out planning to go have an hour to sit and hang and would up — vintage Mom — running four other errands she’d been meaning to get to for a while. Still, she hooked us up with the Segway tour. And she did leave work at 330. And I got a latte out of it. (Actually, I got three lattes — I went to get the coffees while Mom & Luna went to the bead shop and some sort of glass-art shop.)

We came home, ate some Mexican-flavored Purina human chow I had made a large batch of earlier that week, and headed off to see the new Indiana Jones movie, which I liked very much. Not as much as I liked Rocky Balboa, but certainly above average for my usual level of movie enjoyment. I am developing a theory. Things have not gone well for the heroes of my youngest days. Walter Payton died, abruptly and young. Hulk Hogan walks like he’s ninety-five years old, and seems like he might be kind of a dick, too. Mike Tyson went bad crazy, then scary crazy, then sad crazy, and is now old and weird. I don’t care if they’re fictional — I just want a noble sendoff for somebody.

Next year my birthday’s on a Friday, and I will be 35. That might warrant a weekend-long party.

One more day. Two things:

First: I have realized that the story below appeared here on April 1. The article is a couple of months old. Not a joke.

Second: The principessa just turned three. We bought her a toy car. Trouble is, she can’t read, and the instructions are cooler than the car.

I would, literally, have had an easier time putting the thing together if the instructions had been in regular untranslated Mandarin.

“Oh, people will come, Ray.

They’ll come to the website for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll register not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll click that “OK” as innocent as children.

“Of course, we won’t mind if you look around,” you’ll say, “it’s only $25 (or $250) per team.”

They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and something to obsess over for ten hours a week that they lack. And they’ll walk to their computer chair; sit indoors in underpants on a perfect Saturday night. They’ll find they have reserved seats smack in front of the screen, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the statlines and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been imaginary baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But imaginary baseball has marked the time. This imaginary field, this frustrating imaginary game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh…people will come Ray.

People will most definitely come. ”

***

Pitchers and catchers, both real and imaginary, have reported.