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I fail, part one
I thought 2020 would be a good year for me but I must have misread the tea leaves – maybe it’s my eyesight that will improve? And I felt this way before the pandemics started.
Whatever, my first failure was my new year’s resolution (yup, I finally made one) to read five books a month. Well, on February 22 I read the last words in What If?, my 16th book of the year, so uh, so that one’s not looking too good.
And if you are wondering where all the reading reviews have gone, see above, please! I’m too busy reading to write reading reviews… I’ll catch up soon, I promise.
A question for writers
Why are all authors photographed with surly, unsmiling looks on their faces? Is having a book published such a disgusting feeling? When I get a book on the shelves the whole word is going to see each and every one of my twenty-odd yellowing chompers.
Full admission, I didn’t bother to count… yet
The other day I heard someone mention that national division was becoming so alarming that we should start seriously considering the possibility of a civil war. In other words, the political silly season is upon us! More on that in my discussion of Senate races later.
Mention of a possible civil war reminded me of The Civil War, and how I’d recently chatted with a friend about all the ways public schools fail when they teach history to our young ones. The Civil War is an example. It’s often cited as the bloodiest war in our history, with over 600,000 deaths and 1.5 million casualties. Those are facts, and that’s fine.
But maybe we should mention those that died in slavery, a number I tried to look up before giving up after seeing that the estimate for those who died in transport exceed 1.5 million. For those with the Memento problem, that's the same number cited above regarding the Civil War. And how many more 'lost' their lives by being held in bondage for their entire lives?
Why am I suddenly talking about this number? Our history books fairly justify the great cost of WWII by putting it in the context of the atrocities that necessitated the conflict – type 'six million' into Google and you immediately get Holocaust information. Perhaps the next step forward for our history curriculum is to put a number to America's greatest atrocity.
Betting recommendation
One of my favorite Onion headlines is ‘Washington Redskins Change Their Name To The DC Redskins'. Well, speaking of those tastelessly named lads from the capital, I say bet on them to win the NFC East as +1000 underdogs. They just hired Ron Rivera, a coach best described as ‘an adult’ who was immensely popular with his team in Carolina. Sometimes all a struggling organization needs is a leader who keeps things simple and gets everyone back to the basics. His first action in charge was to get rid of the ping pong tables – you are here to work! I’ve only worked in one organization that had ping pong tables, and… never mind.
Anyway, given how rubbish the rest of the division is, I like Rivera’s common sense style to push the DC Skins to the top of the NFC East in 2020. Place your bets now, and consider your winnings compensation for consuming my steady stream of TOA BS.
Failure, part two
I slowly adjusted my eating routine over the course of August to February, getting away from the behaviors I shared with the buzzword-laden intermittent fasting crowd to become a more deliberate eater, balancing hunger and foresight to make better decisions as they related to nutrition, timing, and portion size. It sounded good on paper, at least, and at times I was on the right path, but at the end of February I did an honest assessment of my progress and concluded that I was not meeting my overall goals.
Regression sometimes means revisiting old methods. I returned to eating one full meal between 6PM and noon and I’m once again regularly going twelve to sixteen hours without eating. I don’t consider intermittent fasting a fad but I do see it as another intermediate technology, a step along the path toward the optimal diet, and in this moment I recognize that I remain a few credits shy of graduation to my imagined future.
Political silly season
Making fun of Trump for his ongoing misspellings, naming errors, and general inability to correctly use the English language was great sport for much of his first term in office. Apparently these standards don’t apply to challenger Joe Biden, who earlier in his campaign for a third Obama term called Iowa ‘Ohio’ (but it's OK, he does it a lot). Play the hits Joe, just a couple of weeks ago he reminded voters that he was running for Senate. I guess he’s Presidential like Trump? I’m so proud he won the Massachusetts primary, honestly, we’re so Advanced here we can accept that when the times change, we vote accordingly. Who knows, maybe he's the right guy to send Uncle Bernie back to New Hampshire.
While on the topic, the more I listen to Uncle Bernie the more I realize I’m basically a younger, Asian, and possibly more deluded version of the guy. This doesn’t mean if I were in office I would have the same agenda as the
I came up with a fake Onion headline
‘Republicans interfere with 2020 election, vote for Trump’
One last politics thought
So what does a Senator do in terms of his or her real job while running for office? If I apply for a promotion, does that mean I spend forty hours a week not doing my current job while I campaign for my raise? This hypothetical isn't as invented as it looks, so wish me luck.
Pod alert
I heard Biden’s ‘Senate’ quip on a podcast but it doesn't make my highlight reel - my only recommendation from 2020 thus far is this February 22 episode of More Or Less that explains A.I., sort of.
Anything else?
I know I'm supposed to make some sort of remark about that virus, you know, because I'm getting messages about it from everything. The banks are even emailing me updates! But there is no reason that someone with no knowledge - like me - should talk about something so serious, so important. My opinion simply doesn't matter.
So, here goes - listen to the experts, obey clear orders, and focus on repeatedly doing the right things within your control. It's scary advice but we here at TOA HQ think it's the best non-NFC East bet during this chaotic time.
If you need some extra motivation, here's what did it for me.
In the meantime, we'll do our best to keep things up here, and hope to provide the useless respite that TOA is for its most loyal readers. Thank you all for reading, and please keep an eye on each other.
In the next season... of True On Average:
1. The return of 'Tales of Two Cities'!
2. The return of reading reviews!
3. The return of two truths and a lie!
