Sitting at Gilbert's, eating a reuben and fries and drinking a Coke. I hope the Coke will keep the indigestion at bay so I won't need to go running for the Pepcid again tonight. God, I'm getting old.

It's nice out -- a bit of a nip in the air, the smell of autumn and all that -- but I passed on the outdoor table. It hasn't rained in forever, and all that scent of autumn stuff is really the stench of ragweed and leaf mold. My allergies are finally under control and I want them to stay that way.

I also don't feel like being bumped around. It's way too busy tonight -- people coming home from work, going to dinner, hauling all the little Brads and Madisons to soccer, yakking on cell phones as they hurry down the sidewalk. And, in little groups of three and four, students all dressed up and headed in the same direction. For a moment I wondered if it was some kind of rush thing, but then I remembered: I'm watching football alone tonight. It's the first night of Rosh Hashanah, another sign of autumn. I stir the ice in my Coke.

Everyone likes fall. What's not to like? Pretty leaves, pumpkin pie -- that restaurant I went to when I was a resident had pumpkin pancakes that were off the chain -- football, bonfires, hockey, lacrosse, field hockey, girls in plaid skirts with great legs....

How quickly it all passes, faster than I ever thought it would.

The infarction happened in the fall.

The last run I ever took -- the falling leaves damp and shiny after an afternoon's rain, the air smelling so clean, so good... I was running alone; Wilson was still catching up after the High Holy Days. I took the stairs up to the condo, ran them two at a time. It wasn't until later that evening that my leg started to hurt.

Watching football from my hospital bed. Watching hockey and the World Series from my rehab bed. Eating Halloween candy at home, turning down beer because getting to the bathroom on crutches was such a struggle.

I saw Eileen again that fall. And Stacey....

When Eileen came, I was so surprised to see her. James told me once that at Rosh Hashanah you eat apples dipped in honey, for the wish for a sweet new year. That's what Eileen's visit was to me that fall: sweetly familiar, yet new again.

If Eileen's return was sweet as an apple dipped in honey, Stacey's was the glycemic load of a funnel cake dipped in corn syrup, rolled in cotton candy, and drizzled in caramel, chocolate syrup and Kahlua, with whipped cream and a cherry on top: probably not kosher, but you get the idea.

And from that strange autumn, ripe with hope and despair all at the same time.... what's left? Eileen? I'll never see her again. Stacey is lost to me yet I have to see her every day, and it's just torment.

I look out the window again. A jogger's going by.

I pick up my cane from where it's hooked over the table edge and bounce it on the floor. I'll always have that.

"The tongue is not stupid," the Russians say: once you've tasted something good, you want more of it. I've tasted apples and honey, and had a couple of plates of funnel cake, and I'll never get so much as a whiff again. What's worse? Not tasting? Or getting a taste, only to hunger forever?

Wishing, hoping... it's so stupid. Life is crappy enough without setting yourself up for being disappointed on top of it all. Why taste the honey? It only makes the inevitable vinegar that much worse.

So L'shanah tovah to Wilson, Cuddy, and everyone else who's using kicking off 5766 as an excuse to go home early. The same old year's good enough for me.