spent the day watching ESPN and the ensuing coverage of manny ramirez' baseball suspension for using a banned substance. turns out he was taking HCG, a woman hormone. it's not even the good kind, the one you take if you want to get a sex change operation, which would've been a million times more interesting than probably the real reason why he took the drug, which was as a booster to increase his testosterone level due to prolonged anabolic steroid usage. the fact that manny decided to take the suspension instead of appealing the decision makes me wonder what else he could be hiding. will he sue the doctor that prescribed the HCG for medical negligence? not if it's one of those florida feel good steroid doctors, who might have receipts of other past transactions. a part of me takes delight in seeing manny brought down in a steroid scandal, since he didn't leave boston on very good terms; but a part of me is also afraid of the extent of the allegation, that he might've been juicing while playing for the red sox and that our two world series win (2004, 2007) might be forever asterisked now.

a non-productive day, downing a tall glass of tea every 30 minutes, going to the bathroom just as often. left the house briefly to drop off something at the mailbox and came up against this wall of humidity. it wasn't even that warm today, but it did rain all last night. my mother dropped by in the late afternoon with another blanket delivery for sophia. when my roommate came back home from work, she went out to get some groceries from market basket. she told me more traveling stories and gave me a gift of chilean merquén spice (pronounced "merkin").

for lunch i had a egg and prosciutto muffin sandwich while for dinner i had some goat pilaf mixed with some hot chili peppers.