So, where was I?

Did I mention that I hate computers? Did I cover that? Because I really, really do.

I haven't had decent, functional internet access at home since before Christmas. The company I use for access changed the phone number. Just changed it. YOINK! Didn't warn me. Didn't send an e-mail. Just gone. Once I got the new number, it wouldn't connect. I was instead treated to this twenty minute extended version of the eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee symphony that the modem composes just for me.

I thought I was gonna wait it out, too. "I'm just gonna sit here and let you cry," I said to my modem. "I will sit here, and you can scream as much as you want, but I'm not disconnecting until I see my home page load, until I download some movie listings, or until that GODAWFUL SCREECHING DRIVES ME UP A F***ING WALL AAAAAGH!" click click click cancel cancel cancel

Why would it do that?
Why the hell would it do that?
The only setting I changed on the modem is the f***ing phone number.
It's a working number.
Nobody else at work is having a problem.
The modem connects to other numbers just fine.
But I can't conduct myself online via AOL! My AOL mailbox is for hate mail and "fan" letters (quotes added with heavy, heavy self-deprecation) only.

TECH SUPPORT: Technical support, how can I help you?

ME: Hi. I've got a weird problem for ya. Ever since you guys switched phone numbers-- thanks for the heads up on that one, by the way-- my modem hasn't been connecting. Nobody else I know is having this problem, and my modem works fine with other stuff.

TECH SUPPORT: Oookay, well. Go into your Control Panel and then into Network... Are you there yet?

ME: No. I'm not at my computer.

TECH SUPPORT: Huh?

ME: I'm, uh.. I'm at work. I just thought this might be one of those questions you'd have an easy answer to.

TECH SUPPORT: Oh.

ME: You know, one of those 'we get these all the time' questions.

TECH SUPPORT: No. Call us back with your computer question when you are, you know, at your computer.

ME: Oh God! I'm that guy!! I'm the idiot client! That's me now! My transformation into that which I despise is now complete!

TECH SUPPORT: Yes, I am mailing this to the "Stupid Moron Tech Support Questions Home Page" as soon as we get off the phone.

ME: I'll call back when I get home, pretending to be someone else. Probably using a heavy Australian accent. What are your hours?

TECH SUPPORT: We're here until five.

ME: But... I'm at work until five. How will I ever get this problem solved?

TECH SUPPORT: No idea. Bye! CLICK

I'd drive over there with a baseball bat, but it's my work account, and therefore free. I have nothing to legitimately complain about here.

And so, I haven't been posting updates to my site. At least, that's the excuse I'm using. I think about things I want to put in these pages every day, but I have been keeping busy since the Christmas season.

Christmas felt like what I always suspected the Typical Adult Christmas was. The buzzword for Xmas '99 in my family was Bland. The same incredibly frustrating thing I've been resisting for the last few years finally happened in full force. The family logic seems to be that Fun is a resource of which there is a finite quantity; there is only so much Fun. Christmas is supposed to be the holiday when kids have Fun. Therefore, we give them the Fun, and we give each other sweaters, and we play cards and drink lite beer and wait a week for State Sanctioned Drunk Driving Eve, when we send them to bed and take the Fun back by commando force. I just felt this year like Fun is a pie, and I don't get to have a piece anymore.

Maybe it'd be different if I had kids. Or if the kids weren't total sons of b*****s from the fiery sulfurous pits of Hell. But I've told that tale one time too many.

I mean, we had our annual visit from my uncle dressed as Santa, but fully half the adults didn't even go downstairs to see it. Not even to take pictures. And it was a good time; I was happy to be there. It was just… eh.

Christmas day was a pivotal one for my attitude. It set the tone for 2000. Because, you see, around November, my mom usually starts to pester me for a Christmas list, a materialistic inventory that saves everyone in the family the trouble of having to get to know me. Me making out a Christmas list seemed a lot more reasonable at age 8; as an adult, it just seems weird. And more than that, I'm not sure I should have to clue my parents in to what my interests are at this stage. They should at least have the genres down. Gizmos, movie stuff, computer stuff. They know I've had a DVD player for six months and barely have three DVDs. Stuff like that. At the very least, they know that every single year for the last quarter century I have answered the question, "What do you want for Christmas?" by shouting "NO CLOTHES!" at the top of my lungs, followed by a quieter "please." Surely, after all this time, they should have an inkling. Surely.

So I didn't make up any lists this year. "Let's just see how this goes," I thought. And in the end, it was very educational. Life-changing, even. Because I confirmed, once and for all, in a way that makes me laugh out loud even now at my keyboard, that my mom does not get it. More importantly, she just does not give a s***.

You shoulda seen her. All day on Christmas Eve, she kept looking at me and smiling and saying, "Oh, you are gonna kill me when you see what I got you!" and laughing. And for a while, I reacted in my usual exasperated, hair-tearing fashion.

"I'm going to kill you…? I'm… hate my gifts… you know already… and yet you bought… Christmas ruined… on purpose? Funny somehow?… If you know, then why…??! I mean… AAAAGH! Is this a POW camp? Are you trying to break my spirit? That box with the bow on it has bamboo shoots in it, doesn't it?"

So, it came to be gift exchange time. And my dad opened his gift, the out-of-print video that I'd been tracking down for so long that it had originally been intended as his birthday gift because he'd mentioned six months ago that he couldn't find it anywhere and I made it my mission in life.

And my mom opened her gift, a game of video pinball with over 50 pinball tables that I had torn apart three counties for because she had been reminiscing about the pinball of her childhood and lamenting the lack of good pinball computer substitutes.

Then it was my turn, and I opened up four boxes, containing four sweatshirts that were identical in every way except their shade of blue.

I will look back on those moments for years. Because as the blue sweatshirt became two blue sweatshirts, then three blue sweatshirts, then four in my slightly twitching clutches, as I looked and saw that there was nothing else under the tree, and as I could feel flakes of enamel from my grinding teeth float down my throat and the hot blood eagerly making its way to the veins in my temples, I had a choice. A real Grinch-overlooking-Whoville moment. It was time to decide what kind of person I was. I could be the human mine field again, and this could be another whiny chapter in the life of the guy whose nickname at work was Mr. Furious. Or I could look right into the eyes of this impossibly lame Christmas and give it a great big hug, maybe even honk its nose.

And my Headvoice said, Do you want to be annoyed? Do you enjoy that? See, personally, I enjoy actual enjoyment. Maybe that's just me. Being in a bad mood is not what most kids would call "fun." So take whatever you want out of today, you little pissant. Take away "I got everybody some really excellent gifts and made them extremely happy, and we all sat together around the kitchen table and had a real family bonding day," or take away "I didn't get stuff boo hoo hoo." Flip a coin. And I remembered a gift I'd gotten in college as a gag, a self-help book entitled Happiness is a Choice. The thought of the little rainbow under the title on the cover made me laugh, and I saw a few things very differently.

Why do I get myself all worked into a frenzy about everything? I mean, fer Chrissakes, I didn't even ask for anything!

My mom just has a different idea of what thoughtful is. I'm always running out of postage stamps, constantly, so the fact that my Christmas stocking contained like $40 worth of postage stamps is not, in fact, ridiculous (even if I reacted to her postal generosity initially by saying, "Wha?!") Are postage stamps fun? No. Will my mom ever understand that I want fun for Christmas, if I keep on telling her every single year? No. Never gonna happen. Have I used $5 worth of the stamps already? Yes I have. Would I have had them otherwise? No, I'd have had to drive over to the gas company and throw my payment through their window tied to a brick again. It was a good gift. Like one of those Magic Eye 3D images, I stared at the glass long and hard, and it suddenly became half full, and it's stayed that way ever since.

She's afraid to get me the wrong DVD, the wrong gizmo, and so she just buys me four of the exact same g**d***ed sweatshirt she sees me wearing when I come over. She doesn't want to disappoint me by trying and failing, so she does a complete 180. In my life, that almost passes for being touching. And so I chose to be touched. And I had the most excellent sweatshirt-dominated Christmas I ever would have thought possible.

Of course, after I committed to enjoying myself, they took me out to the garage and showed me the new entertainment center they got me for my living room. That would have made even a half-empty glass easier to drink down.

(Although even with such a great and quote-unquote needed gift like the entertainment center, a gift that finally makes my living room look a little like a grownup lives here, my joy in telling people about it later still exposed the bland taste this year's Christmas had. "All right!!! Yeah! I got this really cool box of… varnished wooden planks!… and screws of varying lengths, and a… really… kick-ass electric screwdriver to join the planks together with! Woo!")

***

New Year's Eve was wonderful. Amazing really.

My first weekend of 2000 was exactly the way I want my life to be. On paper, it doesn't look like much, but the weekend was like a good stew. The right elements brought together in the right proportions, simmering together for just the right amount of time.

Up until New Year's Eve, or Christmas at least, I found myself in increasingly dour spirits about my social life. I've been spending time with Chris, my friend in law school, and group of really nice young women, one of whom Chris is seeing. And like I said, they seem like really great people. I just can't seem to get to know any of them. I mean, I've just accepted the fact that sitting in bars is part of my life now, but since we started hanging out with these girls, there has been a whole new element of clubbing and dancing to s***ty music added. And while the bars are nothing new, the drinking has seemed a little less passive than in the past. Probably just because of the holidays, but still, I haven't been handling it well. And so, as with the brief swing dance flirtation of a year ago, I'm put into these situations where I'm around people I'd really like to get to know in settings that make it completely impossible to get to know them.

The company is enjoyable.
They all seem like fun, attractive people.
But who are they?
What do they dream about?
Where do they want to be in ten years?
What were they like in high school? Or pre-school, for that matter?
What do they regret most?
What do they believe in? Has it ever been tested?
What does the world look like to them?

I miss having people around who would call me at 3 a.m. because they needed somebody to talk to. People who would cry in front of me, people who would come over for the sole purpose of crying in front of me and maybe getting a hug. People telling me childhood secrets they would never, ever want anyone else to hear about. People who want the same things from me.
You know, friends. I think they're called.

But for a while it seemed like all I was getting instead was the Electric Slide and some secondhand smoke. I sometimes feel like I've gone to the best bakery in town with my jaw wired shut.

So, right before New Year's Eve, I got exasperated and wrote a rambling e-mail that said,

We are...
...eventually...
...going to do something else.
Right?
Maybe go to a local bookstore and join a discussion group?
Maybe attend one of the more interesting lecture series at the history museum?
Go to a play (remember plays?), get some coffee afterwards and talk about it?
Do the things I did in high school and college, before my brain was starving to death?

drink.
dance.
go to drink, then go to dance.
drink while dancing.
go to eat while drinking, then go dance.
go to drink, then go to another place to drink.

when I awoke
I smelled like smoke
a bitter joke
that made me choke
with stifled rage,
a kind of cage.
still at this stage?
a man my age?

We are eventually going to do something else.
something where there is no dancing at all.
something where there is no drinking at all.
not at the beginning of the night.
not at the end of the night.
not at some point during the night.
Right?
Right?...

You know I'm on edge when I break out into bad verse in the middle of a message. I mean, where the hell did that come from? I still don't know. If you're conducive to poetry, things have gotten bad between us.

So, I talked to Chris about all this, and we talked about how no two people are gonna have everything in common. And while that certainly made sense, the whole conversation seemed kinda… off somehow. Because we started talking about compromise, like we were a married couple or Siamese twins or something. "That means sometimes we'll do things you don't enjoy, like go to bars and nightclubs constantly, and sometimes we'll do things we don't enjoy, like inviting you along."

(Nobody said that. I just heard it.)

I said, "I'm puzzled, though. Tell me again when we did the stuff I enjoyed? That the other people didn't?"

"You like going out to dinner, for instance. Some of the people in question really don't like going to dinner."

"What? I don't understand. Is it the eating? Are there photosynthetic people in this bunch? I knew I didn't know them, but I had totally missed the leaves and potting soil. I feel like an ass."

After talking to Chris, I felt like we left things better than they had been. But my internal barometer was still spinning like me at a circular buffet. Then, just like at Christmas, something bizarre happened.

My inner monologue started to make sense. Instead of beating myself up, I began to ask myself logical questions.

Why are you trying so hard to spend time with people who love what you hate?

"What?"

When you answer the question, "What do you hate doing more than anything?" and they answer the question, "What do you do for fun?", you give the same answers. So what are you trying to do? Is it that you like being tortured? Is that it? Because I saw some ads in the personals the other day….

"I'm trying to get to know these people better."

What the hell else do you need to know about each other? "Hi, nice to meet ya. My name is Jim, and my hobbies include reading, epicuria, and befriending incompatible people." Take the stuff you're always whining about never getting to do, go do it, and meet the other people who are there doing it. Keep hanging out with Chris Winkelmann and Joe and Mary Catherine and John Lee. Spend time with this new crowd when they're DOING THINGS YOU ENJOY. And while you're at it, take a little time out of each day to shut your stinkin' trap. While you're sleeping, I swear I'm going to tattoo "DUH" on your f***ing forehead.

"I'm just trying to branch out."

Yeah, you're trying really hard. When was the last time you picked up a phone, Boy Genius? Here's your social life: people call and ask you to do stuff, you say yes or no. You never come up with the stuff to do. It's never your idea. You never make the invitation. Why would people even think you wanted them around? Yeesh. Let me know when you're finished creating unnecessary obstacles; maybe we can go roll over 'em with your reinvented wheel.

And I realized, "That's the real reason I'm losing my mind. It's tired of me ignoring it."

So that was the spirit with which I tackled New Year's. My friend Greg flew in from Minnesota at 8:30 that night to spend the weekend. The airport was like something from a horror film on 12/31/99; I went up to the ticket counters to see which gate the flight was arriving at, and no one was working at the ticket counters. Any of them. The entire floor was deserted. When I found Greg's flight, I saw that it was the only flight scheduled to arrive. One departure was scheduled. I was tempted to run to his gate, screaming, "The Bible Code was right! It's the Rapture! AAAAAGH!"

Sadly, it was not the Rapture, and Greg arrived on time.

(How disappointed would you have been if the world actually ended? I mean, really? Because personally, between you and me, it wouldn't have bothered me that much. Maybe it's just because I'm so directionless, but I have been known to occasionally glance skyward and mutter, "Work marriage kids retirement death, yeahyeahyeah. Look, I'm not trying to tell you how to run your universe or anything, but could we wrap this up already?" It's not really depression; I'm just hard to impress.)

Greg and I spent the end of 1999 in my apartment with our old neighbor, Jay. We ordered a pizza which arrived very promptly under the circumstances. We watched some of the festivities on television and talked about what morons the people in Times Square were. We had—gasp!— a conversation. How much fun it was really defies description.

The only downside to the evening was a phone message I got from one of the parties we didn't go to. It was a girl I didn't know particularly well calling to invite us over with the tantalizing revelation, "Chris and your old roommate Brian are over here, and Brian's so drunk he's about ready to pass out! Ha ha!" For no rational reason, the idea of one of my best friends passed out drunk is so upsetting to me that, at the thought of it, I would cheerfully staple my penis to the Mars Orbiter just to get as far away from this f***ing planet as possible. Although I imagine Chris knows that, he has brought up how sloppy drunk Brian was at least ten times since that night, so he either doesn't know me that well or doesn't care. Either way, I am deliriously happy that I fought the urge to take Greg over there. They'd have been talking me down from a ledge by midnight, and we had more than our share of laughs at my place.

On the 1st, Greg and I went to lunch with essentially everyone I hung out with those first few years of college. Through some unprecedented nexus, Greg and Brian and Joan and Andy and Lynn and Holly were in town and around one table at one time. I am amazed at how enjoyable something so simple can be. It was just such an effortlessly good time. Nobody had to bend; everybody was being themselves, and every self interlocked with the other selves like pieces of a puzzle. As I nibbled on my bread, I drank it all in and thought, "This! This is what it's supposed to be like! God, how I've missed this!" It filled me up like a big warm bowl of soup.

Of course, when I talked about it a few days later, someone remarked, "Well, of course it was a good time. No one was in town long enough to get under one another's skin."

That really bothered me for a minute, but after a while I realized, "F*** that. When we were all in college, we fought like cats and dogs, but it was only because we were always talking to one another about stuff that was important to us. I mean, when did I reach a point in my life where that became an alien notion? I would rather spend an hour listening to Joan make fun of Greg for eating his ribs with a knife and fork than spend ten minutes blandly getting along with strangers. We went back and forth all the time, but none of us ever gave in because none of us ever had to. In the end, we all knew we loved one another." And I'm jonesing for that big and bad.

As a result, I've pursued the new year with a really different outlook. I've been a lot happier as a result; the sun has been shining on me. I've been treating the things that are important to me as if they're important to me. What a mind-blower. This bodes well for the 21st century.

***

Two things that came up on New Year's Eve, things I've been pondering on and off for a while:

-Times Square, NYC, New Year's Eve. Long reputed to be THE way to spend the holiday, the epitome of annual festivities.

Why?

As I see it, let's say you want to get there nice and early to get a good spot. Cuz, ya know, you need a good spot for doing whatever it is you do. So, you leave your apartment or dorm room or hotel at like 5:00, 5:30. You get in the cab and get up to about 50th and Broadway, you get out, and you go as far down Times Square as you can until the crowd gets too dense. Okay. You've got your spot.

It's 6:00.

What now?

I mean, look at that mob. You can barely lift your arms. What, do you just stand there? You've got six hours! Do you drink? Where do you buy the booze? Are you even allowed? What does that leave? Standing? Hooray! Good look with that whole bathroom thing!

Follow-up: it's 12:30. You're surrounded by two million people. Time to catch a cab.

- While watching TV, Greg, Jay and I saw a report from some objective, unbiased, opinion-free journalist about how Slobodan Milosevic is objectively evil while also being the twelfth Next Hitler to come along since I was in junior high. While pondering the alarming increase in Hitlers and whether calling a mass murderer "evil" on the news violates the concept of so-called objectivity, we came to a subject that has on my mind lately.

Have you ever seen a news report on something you knew a lot about? It happened several times to me this year; whether the story was about the administration screwing over the students at my old alma mater or internet businesses or something as simple as Star Wars toy collecting, there were a handful of news stories this year that I was either relatively or intimately familiar with. And in just about every case, the report made it clear that the journalists, right down to the last one of them, had no idea what they were talking about. Every time I saw one of these stories, I was sputtering at the TV, "That's not how it--! What are you--!? Did you even interview anyone who--!? Oh, to hell with this!"

So, given that, what makes you think they know what they're talking about the rest of the time?

***

Are mix tapes something you only make as a kid? Does that become gauche?

Because I can't remember the last time anybody made me one. I make 'em all the time, and everybody's always glad to get one, but I don't think I've gotten one in years. Not even from my last girlfriend, and we dated forever. You'd think I could at least get a little 60 minute number with some sappy Whitney Houston on it or something in all that time. I guess it should have been a warning sign, eh?

I almost sought some kind of medical attention this week.

I've already mentioned that I have recently been in a very prolonged good mood. I haven't had any stress, I've been going out more and liking it, and nothing has really been able to upset me for several weeks. I have been happy, and as you know, this kind of radical personality change is usually symptomatic of a brain tumor of some kind. And even that thought didn't bother me. What really had me concerned, though, were these delusions I started having a couple of weeks ago. They were the weirdest, creepiest hallucinations. I kept waking up and walking around with the persistent belief that the Rams were going to the Super Bowl.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "The St. Louis Rams? Were you feverish? Didn't the St. Louis Rams lose 19 games in a 16-game season last year? Didn't the Rams get beaten six years running by a local Webelo troop? Referees allow the Rams to have extra players on the field just out of pity, don't they?" Yes, gentle reader, the Rams did take all of my city tax money and then repay me by sucking for many, many, many years. They sucked so hard that not even light could escape them. People were constantly being swallowed up in their midst; that's why no one goes downtown near the stadium any more. And yes, many of the local scouting troops have annually earned Charity merit badges by agreeing to play the Rams. That's why I was so confused. But while I did not receive any actual medical attention, I did consult some friends of mine who watch a lot of cosmetic surgeries on the Discovery Channel, and they assured me that I was not ill. The Rams were, in fact, going to the Super Bowl. And in a lot of ways, that was worse than being sick. I daresay it made me more insane than I thought I was originally.

If you've got the time, follow my descent into madness:

God help me, I know it makes me a communist subversive, please hold your fire, but I just don't like sports. All right? I just don't like 'em. The competition wearing a mask of "teamwork," the lionization of the physical over the mental, the way grown men can tell you batting averages and RBIs but have to be shackled to a radiator in order to read an entire short story, the way one of the Rams was driving drunk and utterly killed a mother of two but is not currently being made to serve his jail time because he still has football games to play… I just do not like them. Personally. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm not saying we should burn down the stadium. I'm not saying they're a waste of human potential. (I'm thinking it, but I'm not saying it. What, do you think I wanna get lynched?) I'm not saying any of those things. Hell, there's not a lot in this world to enjoy. If you enjoy sports, by all means, suck the marrow.

Not literally.

But live and let live. You know. I'm all for people getting excited about something in this cynical, post-everything age.

At least, at first.

At first, it was actually rather nice. I mean, when you live in a town that loses everything all the time, it starts to seep into your eyes. Color begins to leave things. People begin to moan at the changing of the seasons. "Oh, Lord have mercy on us all. Here comes hockey now. Will that asteroid never hit?" Sports "highlights" are read on television, and everyone at the news desk morphs into Eeyore. It's depressing. So even I get a little enthusiastic when a McGwire event hits town. Yay for the Bizarro Rams, I said weeks ago. Yay for them, and yay for the city that supports them.

Over time, though? Over time, it gets to be a little much. Because, see, when you're as non-sporty as I am… I'm not sure I can explain it, except to say that in a small microcosmic way I think I understand what my Jewish friends go through at Christmas. (And Easter. And any time a presidential candidate talks about religion and leaves out 80% of the planet. And, okay, all the time in America. But that's beside the point.) Because in November, they're still smiling politely when somebody says "Merry Christmas" every ten minutes. When you say, "Hey, did you catch 'A Very Brady Christmas' for the 750th time last night?" and they say, "Yeah, I don't celebrate Christmas myself, but I 'caught' the Bradys for the 750th time last night, even though I was really, really looking forward to watching 'Law and Order,'" they're still kinda smiling about it. But by the time, oh, December 20th rolls around, and your favorite radio station is on its fifteenth daily playing of the haunting carol, "Everyone on Earth is a Christian But You," and you have fat men in red ringing bells at you every time you want to buy a loaf of bread, you can't really be blamed for turning to the next five-year-old who says "merry Christmas" and shouting "HOW WOULD YOU LIKE ME TO SHOVE SOME @%#$ING HOLLY IN YOUR @^#$%$& PIE-HOLE?!?!"

I totally get that.

Because, like I said, there's not a lot in this world to enjoy. You've got to relish those things that give you a small measure of happiness. And some of the things that give me a small measure of happiness are 'The Simpsons,' 'The Practice,' and 'Star Trek.' And so, on Sundays, I pop some popcorn, I get all bundled up in anticipation on the couch, and I turn on the Simpsons.

But the Simpsons…? Where are the Simpsons? They're nowhere. They're gone. They are absent. Football is on.

So I take a deep breath, I read something, and eventually, the Simpsons arrive. If I'm really lucky, the Simpsons don't overlap with 'The Practice.' I get over it.

The next night, I stop what I'm doing, I get ready for bed, I bundle up on the couch, and I get ready for Star Trek. But… where is Star Trek? It should be… oh, there's a Vulcan! Oh. No. That's Ted Koppel. Ted Koppel…? Oh! Monday Night Football ran long. They're just now showing Nightline. Huh. Oh well, (deep breath) I'll just wait for Nightline to be over, and then they'll show… Judge Judy?! What the hell is this cra… they're just gonna skip Star Trek entirely?! Of course! Can't skip Judge Judy! She still has all those loose ends to tie up from last night's episode!

So, two nights in a row are ruined. But still, hey, to each his own, right? No biggie. So I get screwed two nights. In a row.*

But I shake it off and go to work the next day. The guys from upstairs hang out and talk about all the football games. After a few minutes, knowing I didn't watch, one of them asks me what I thought of the game. I say, "I thought everyone on the team played as a unit and did an excellent job of keeping me from watching the Simpsons." He makes a jibe about how I employ women who know more about football than I do. This jibe, which compares me unfavorably to a woman because women are apparently bad in some way I'm not aware of, is payback for the time I called him a sport-obsessed neanderthal.

Oh wait. I never did that.

This goes on for fifteen additional weeks.
In a row.
Like a faucet that won't stop dripping when all you want to do is sleep.

But hey, no big deal! Live and let live, right?! It's only four months out of the twelve! People seem to be really enjoying it, especially as the team starts to win, and it's not like anyone's forcing football into your life. Just during two of your favorite nights of the week. And when they wear football clothes and plastic tiaras that say "RAMS" to do mundane things like go to the grocery store, where boxes of quarterback Kurt Warner's Crunch Time Cereal are on sale for $3.99. And put dainty little football flags on their cars that flap like caffeinated lemurs as they drive down the highway and totally freak you out when you're trying to drive and catch one out of the corner of your eye. And when Rams coverage gets so exciting that the news starts to run extra Rams coverage and the news goes fifteen minutes long every single night of the week even though they haven't even played a game in three @%#$ing days and nothing has even happened to them since the previous night!!!

… right?
Live and let live.

But, see, though, (wipes froth from mouth) then as the Super Bowl approaches, people start getting crazy in the streets. You go to the store to buy some milk, and you pay the checkout clerk, and she says, "Here is your receipt, sir. GO RAMS!" and just as you're recovering from that, the guy behind you hears her and shouts, "GO RAMS!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!" at 90 decibels in the middle of the @#%$ing grocery store, and your milk is all over the floor and you've soiled yourself from the jolt of terror. So now, you can either stand there with milky shoes and a damp crotch and turn to these people and say, "Actually, I don't celebrate Super Bowl, but thanks all the same," or you can raise your fist and say, "Hey, go Rams, there," even though the only place you want the Rams to go at this point is the eternal flame of hell.

And Kurt Warner's Crunch Time Cereal begins to sell for $20 a box on eBay.
And people begin signing their e-mails to you, "GO RAMS!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!", going so far as to write out the "WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"
And the extra Rams coverage gets extended to half an hour nightly.
And that doesn't even do the trick. That last week, literally all of the local news stations literally talk about nothing but the Rams and the weather, particularly as the weather applies to the Big Game being played by the Rams. One night, somebody gets shot at a place where you go all the time, right next door to your friend's house, but you cannot find out anything about the crime because neither the victim nor the killer was a St. Louis Ram.

And then, finally, blessedly, the Super Bowl arrives. And at last, it is all over. And 'The Simpsons' is a rerun, because no one is watching the Simpsons, because clearly everyone on earth watches the @%#$ing Super Bowl, but you don't even care because it is all… finally… over. Everyone has had their fun, everyone has lived and let live, and the Super Bowl spirit is alive in us all for one magical day. You are rapturous, because ABC is taking advantage of the high audience to show a special episode of 'The Practice' after the game. A fringe benefit. A treat for being so good all season.

Nine o'clock comes. You turn on 'The Practice.'

The mother @%#$@%# game of @%#$&$ing football is STILL ON. After FOUR MOTHER @$#%ING HOURS. Ask somebody to sit through the unabridged Hamlet, oh Jesus Christ above us! Torment! But the Super Bowl?! Ya sure four hours is gonna be enough?! Ya sure you don't want us to sit here for nine?!? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

So, you have one deep breath left. You take it. You read something. You wait through the game's fifth hour. They win. It is amazing. Everyone is overjoyed. Good for them. Joy is good. We all like joy. Wonderful. 'The Practice' brings me joy. You may show it to me now.

But they don't. They just will not give up the airwaves. The players and the announcers and the owners and the fans and the ushers and the advertisers and the vendors jump and prance and frolic in the din of the field and hug and shout "WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!", and they do it for ANOTHER CHICKEN-HUMPING HOUR. And the announcer interviews the players. And the players talk to the coach. And the coach interviews the announcer. And they thank God for giving them their victory (the losers are presumably in the locker room destroying the false idol they had been praying to.) And they thank their moms. And they thank the announcers, who are now interviewing the vendors.

And you want to take a deep breath and read, but words are hard to read when the book is shaking uncontrollably in your hands. You begin to doubt 'The Practice' was even filmed.

FINALLY, it is finished. The credits roll.

Finally.

"Next on local news!: The Rams win the Super Bowl! People were watching the game in bars, and our live team coverage will take you inside every single solitary one of them, no matter how long it takes! We have fifteen crews scattered around the city so that every drunk has a chance to shout, 'Holy @%#%! We won!' into a microphone at least once, except of course for the drunks who were actually on the team. All this plus weather and sports coming up."

At the sound of the words, "plus weather and sports," you cackle aloud until you can no longer breathe.

'The Practice' is on at midnight. This keeps everyone alive until the next day.

Then the parade starts.
At noon, people start asking you to give them the afternoon off. You block it out of your mind. After the third time someone sends you an instant message about the live webcam coverage, you don't even shriek. You just do your work, you do your work and you go home. You go home to watch an hour of 'The Simpsons.'

You turn on the TV.

The parade is

STILL
ON.

You turn off the TV. You clear your throat. You go to your window, and open it calmly. You lean out, and you say,

@$#% the Rams! @$#% them! Rectally, with moose antlers! WOOOOOOOOOOO!!!**

You close the window, and happily continue to live and let live.

* My boss got upset with me—sincerely upset—when I mentioned this recently. "How can you say that? They do it every year. You should know by now." To me, that's like saying, "What are you crying about? So you got some teeth knocked out. Wrong, shmong. You knew the bully was at school. If you want food for yourself, just bring more lunch money next time, moron."

** I just quietly relished the thought of people reading this at work, and people looking over their shoulders at the huge block letters that are easily legible from the other side of the room. I make my own fun.