Sunday 12/20/20
I will watch Rudolph any time it is on, as it was last night. This version that aired did not have some of the cuts that are in the version CBS airs. I need to meet someone like Clarice, only not a fictional reindeer. Also, it amuses me how Santa goes from attenuated to morbidly obese in the space of a song. I also watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Karloff gives a fine performance--he really throws himself into it. The Grinch himself has the dad bod going, and he's also pretty awesome at sewing. For real--note how well the Grinch sews in that special.
Today is 1645 days without a drink of alcohol, or 235 weeks.
This is entry #900 in this journal, which began two and a half years ago, in June 2018. Seventy-five entries is about the length of a book--not a short book. That means that these collected journals now comprise what would be twelve books. The journals that Thoreau wrote between 1837 and 1861 total fourteen books.
I walked eleven miles today and ran the Boston College stairs ten times. That's 2600 stairs. I did a great deal of work in my head. Important work on "Eede Upstairs." Also the Scrooge book. I came up with two new op-ed ideas, and wrote ten letters in my head that I will formally type out and send to people who will ignore them.
When you embark upon epic walks in frigid temps and procure a hot coffee, you will also end up drinking an iced coffee, so you had better like both. The BC stairs had a snow/ice component today, but I was careful. I had on five tops layers, which makes the runs harder, I learned.
Got Christmas cards for my two nieces, my nephew, my sister and brother-in-law, and my mom.
I am pleased with how pleased Cartman is when he has authority.
Told my sister about the standard, completely predictable terror, insecurity, panic, I produce in these women I meet who come to this site, citing the latest example of a few days ago. She said, "You'll find someone but it probably won't be on a dating site, and they'll be a one-in-a-million type person and you'll know as soon as you meet her." I hope she's right. I've always felt that this person, allowing that she's out there, will be someone I meet through my work. Who reaches out to me because of it, for instance. Or whom I meet later--hopefully not too far on in the future--when I'm out of this hell and have the life, the recognition, the financial compensation, that my work merits, and when I am having an affect on the world, changing it, truly.
Today I was reading at Caffe Vittoria. There were two meatheads there at the table next to me. I know meatheads. They were each about twenty-seven, twenty-eight. They were talking about their jobs. One was in sales. And they both looked in their forties. Guts, double chins. One was saying he had six beers last night--"maybe"; which means eleven--and they were doing shots and having beers at the cafe, talking about where they didn't want to be at forty-five, how to get rich, etc. And I thought--because I'm competitive--"right, I'll outlive you two fuckers." A typical line was: "I don't like shit that's bullshit." Ah. A useful clarification.
Put the Patriots' season out of its misery. I told everyone when they signed him that Newton was awful. He can't throw. When I checked the game times today I cared more about the Chiefs and Saints contest, because with Mahomes you're watching something special that you won't often see over however many years you watch sports. He's not Gretzky, Ruth, Jordan, Brady. Brady's last great moment--what I believe will be his last great moment--was the duel with Mahomes in the 2018 AFC Championship Game. He was still better than him then. For that game. It's so similar to the 1983 Islanders taking out the Oilers, and then their time was over, and that young, stud-laden Edmonton team had their time. Mahomes isn't in that above group of four, but he might be in a group with Mario Lemieux and Lou Gehrig, regular season Pedro Martinez for a few years, Kobe Bryant. I'm probably doing Gehrig a disservice--he's one of the top ten players in baseball history--and Lemieux as well--who is top four in hockey--but Mahomes can be top two, three, four, five in football if he stays healthy for a long time and at this level or close to it and wins a lot. Will he? Probably not. He might be 1984-86 Dan Marino. But he does things on the football field I've never seen anyone do. I've never seen anyone try them.
Notre Dame does not deserve to be in the playoff. Neither does OSU. Won't matter. Lambs to the slaughter. But imagine another Notre Dame/Clemson match-up? Three times in one season? Has that happened before? It probably has. But I don't know when. Then again, you need to be in the same conference, play in a conference championship game, then the postseason. Which wouldn't be an ordinary bowl game, it'd have to be a playoff format or some random thing eighty years ago.
And speaking of Thoreau, he wrote this in his journal, on Christmas, 1856: "Take long walks in stormy weather or through deep snows in the fields and woods, if you would keep your spirits up. Be cold and hungry and weary.”