Content-type: text/html Ray Manning

Wednesday, January 17, 2001 3:06 PM

Just Things


On Tuesday, because I have two ice hockey games, I do not go to the Frat House for the show that Sabrina has arranged to direct. I know that I will face her wrath on Friday.

The trip to Burma, Laos, Thailand, and Bangladesh does not happen for me. The situation not being able to be resolved regarding travel arrangements. But National League for Democracy leader Suu Kyi is released from house arrest and now things are on their way. I am happy. (But I would have been happier if I was in Burma for the event as well as others to follow.)

Hearing that the rain will not arrive until late Wednesday, I hop on the motorcycle and ride to work. At 3pm the rain has started. At 4pm the rain is coming down in buckets. At 5pm the rain has subsided but is still coming down. I leave at 5:30pm. By the time that I have traveled the one mile to the 405 freeway my legs and feet are soaked. When I get home my upper body is dry (thanks to a waterproof jacket) but my legs and feet are soaked and freezing. It is a cold rain! I take off my clothes in the entryway and take a hot shower to warm up. And, as a precaution, I go shopping at Vons for chewable Vitamin C. And I have opened the bottle and chewed a number of the tablets before I get to the checkout counter.

Thursday my ice hockey team gets to play at the Staples Center after the Kings/Sabres game. We end up winning the game, 5-4, and I contribute two assists to the cause. But only after I get absolutely drilled by an opposing player. I end up lying on my back after my head hits the ice, my helmet flies off, my neck hurts, and there is blood drawn. The opposing player gets a 2 minute penalty. I get a 1 minute rest and then I go play the rest of the game.

When I get home, I take many Alleve caplets to help relieve the pain in the neck and the soreness which will be coming.

On Friday, having taken the day off from TRW, I go for a morning run and then go visit the chiropractor. It takes an adjustment, electro-stimulation therapy, and ultrasound, but the neck feels better.

There is only a moderate crowd at the Frat House on Friday night, but it seems as if they are all of the people that I know. ChiChi is there and we have a nice, but distant, conversation. Sabrina asks why I missed her Tuesday show and after telling her why, I promise her that I will be there this coming Tuesday. There is a strange little four way incident that happens between Brandon (my friend with the stuffed dog cell phone holder), his friend (Chuck), Chuck's Thai friend, and me. It seems there is a circular type of attraction among the four people. Brandon and I end up discussing the incident as I hold my head buried in my hands. Some of my other friends keep asking what's wrong and I can only mutter "How do I get myself into these things?"

Brandon responds with "Well, if you're not going to dance with me...I go dance with drag queen." And he goes off and dances with one of the drag queens present.

And I spend an hour a day for the next three days in telephone conversations with Brandon (and another friend Joe) about the situation.

Saturday, a beautiful and glorious day, finds me riding the Los Angeles river trail on my bicycle. But, because it has recently rained, I have had to hop a fence and lift the bicycle over the fence in order to get onto the trail and off. Coincidentally as I am lifting the bicycle over the fence to leave the trail and am ready to hop the fence, a police car drives by. The police officer looks over at me, slows down, then continues on.

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I visit my friend, Dan, who was in the hospital. Because he is working on a PhD in biomechanics at USC, we have great discussions on running gait, jumping, musculo-skeletal joint control, and overuse injuries. He has baked brownies for me because I visited him in the hospital a couple of times and tried to cheer him up. Before accepting the brownies, I ask if there are any special Thai ingredients in the brownies. (Because Dan is from Thailand.) He looks confused for a few seconds and then realizes what I mean. He says that there are no special ingredients in the brownies and I accept them. They are fantastic, double chocolate brownies!