My first weekend in Brooklyn, Ryan and I spent a good chunk of Saturday's wee hours dancing to Jamaican dancehall at Toro, an Asian fusion restaurant and bar. It's about a block from the edge of the East River in quant, quiet Brooklyn Heights, so when we left at 4 a.m., hungry hungry, we figured we were destined for a big bag of chips.  

Then we found the Park Plaza Restaurant, a glorified diner on the Cadman Park corner of Pineapple Walk. On Fridays and Saturdays, the place goes all-hours; it was like striking gold, if you could eat gold and it were made out of griddle cakes or buffalo chicken. Since then, the diner has been like a lucky, greasy talisman: It's also where I was leaving the night I learned about the pick-up soccer league in BH.  

It's mystical, like sweaty, sweaty clockwork, how everyone arrives at the park across the street at the same time almost every night. That's what a guy on the sidelines told me (more or less) when I asked, at least, so tonight, I went there, too. And it was GREAT. Great. Greatgreatgreatgreatgreat. 

Everyone was super duper nice, supportive, fun. And I hadn't played outside in a loooong time - probably not since I lived at home last summer - so it was like unfolding my legs/myself, or something. It's also the reason I didn't bother to pace myself - at all - and could only play for about an hour and fifteen minutes. Luckily, the teams were getting bigger throughout the game, so I didn't feel bad when I took off early. 

I'll be back, anyway - tomorrow, the next day, the day after that, etc.