Saturday, November 30, 2019

November 30

The next 48 hours (give or take) are what I hustle around so I can enjoy. The random early mornings raking leaves or grocery shopping, the back-to-back-to-back visits to the gym, the food prep that already goes well into next week. I do all of that so that for 2 days, every now and again, I do absolutely nothing. I do not leave the house. I do not have anything to do. I watch TV. I surf the Web. I take a nap. I just relax. I just try to recharge the batteries so that I can make it through 15 days of work until I get almost two weeks off. 

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Friday, November 29, 2019

November 29

I just wrapped my third workout in less than 48 hours. I went to the gym expecting a certain instructor but there was a substitute. He was ridiculous looking. Age? About 60. Rail thin, but wearing too-tight sweatpants and a silly head band that turned his quintessential Jersey Italian hair into something resembling a faux hawk. It is hard to take someone seriously when they look like this guy looked, but to his credit, he worked my ass, hard. It was a full body workout heavy on shoulders and back, using sliders, and non stop motion. I did not leave disappointed, but I am pretty sore. Now, all I have to do is go to the diner tomorrow morning and do my grocery shopping and I am "down" until Monday morning.

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Thursday, November 28, 2019

November 28

Today is Thanksgiving. I am going to the gym in a little while, coming home, making some semi-homemade Kung Pao Chicken, then watching Billions Season 3. When people at work ask me what my plans are, I invariably say something along the lines of "just staying home" and I get that look of pity that annoys me. I sometimes want to lie just to shut them up, but why should I lie to make them feel more comfortable? I don't have a relationship with anyone in my family and I don't have close friends, so what? 

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Wednesday, November 27, 2019

November 27

I bought a new smart phone yesterday. I did not want to buy a new smart phone but the techies who run Apple do their voodoo so that after a few years your perfectly fine iPhone starts glitching, the battery inexplicably drains, and even basic functions stop running and so you find yourself in a Verizon store plunking down hundreds of dollars for a new phone. It's fine, I have the money to do it, it's just annoying that mandated obsolescence is just accepted. 

On the plus side, the transfer was surprisingly easy. The salesperson at the Verizon store plugged a few things into a few other things and voila, within 30 minutes everything on my little old iPhone 5s had been moved to my swanky new iPhone Xr (or is it xR) and I was on my way. 

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Tuesday, November 26, 2019

November 26

It is Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving. I am trying to fly under the radar at work today and tomorrow and ease into a four-day weekend. I then have three weeks of work and am then off for 12 days. 

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Sunday, November 24, 2019

November 24

I went on two dates this weekend and both were PAINFUL. Like, I am not a perfect person or a perfect date or perfect to look at and it is entirely possible that people find me boring when I am out with them; HOWEVER, in these two cases, there would be no way to know. If there was a timekeeper tracking how long I spoke versus how much each of my dates spoke, like at the debates, it would be like 90-10. It was ridiculous. I try to be more of a listener because if I am not careful, I do tend to dominate conversation, so I'm extra careful at first dates to be more passive, but even when I left openings to shift the conversation, no bait was taken. And these were not women I was meeting totally cold, we had exchanged some information via text message or phone (yes, some people actually still talk on the phone!) and in person it was just ... nothing. So frustrating.

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Saturday, November 23, 2019

November 23

My ex-girlfriend did a weird thing. Her birthday was last week, and is I do, I emailed her with good wishes. She responded back by inviting me to her "Friendsgiving." I mean, what am I supposed to do with that? 

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Friday, November 22, 2019

November 22

I took a "mental health" day and blew off work today. I dislike the stigma that we have attached to such things, as if physical illness is acceptable but mental illness is not. I saw a post on Twitter to the effect of saying to a person with depression to just feel happy is like telling someone with asthma to just breathe in all the wonderful clean air. It's not the way it works. 

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Thursday, November 21, 2019

November 21

Really crushed it in court yesterday. I was raised to be humble, and I would never brag outwardly, but I did fucking crush it. The judge was not particularly sympathetic to my client's argument, but we won't lose because of a lack of advocacy. 

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Tuesday, November 19, 2019

November 19

Tomorrow is not going to be a fun day. I have to go to court, which I rarely do anymore, and when I do, I get VERY anxious. It is a hard thing to explain to people who do not suffer from anxiety, but basically I have been obsessing over this court appearance for the last week and mentally preparing myself for everything to go wrong, to lose my train of thought in front of the judge, to do something, well, stupid, and that is not even getting into all the things that I am anxious about - getting to the court, the traffic, the trip, etc etc. It's awful.

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Monday, November 18, 2019

November 18

My one post-divorce ex-girlfriend did a shitty thing that I do not even know if she realized was shitty. To wit, she "shadow" checked out my Twitter account and noticed I posted about Pumpkin's anniversary yesterday. How do I know this? Because she sent me an email "congratulating" us (Pumpkin and me) on our "anniversary." 

I legitimately do not think she realizes how much it hurts me. I think she thinks, to the extent she ever does, that we dated briefly years ago and both moved on with our lives, remaining "friends" and nothing more. For her, that is probably the case. For me, I never really moved on. 

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Sunday, November 17, 2019

Tavi Gevinson Is Mad Instagram Gave Her A Career

There is an old saying that an addict and a dealer never have an honest conversation. I thought about that a lot while reading Tavi Gevinson’s cover story in the September 16th New York magazine, What Instagram Did to Me: Confessions from Inside the Algorithm. I do no use Instagram and I am obviously not the demographic for Gevinson’s tale, but I do use social media, and I certainly understand how it can pervert your sense of self. The thing is, I don’t spend thousands of words in a prominent magazine complaining about it. I went from eye roll to revulsion to pity in the span of her tale, which follows Gevinson from precocious pre-teen catching lightning in a bottle with an online fashion blog to Instagram ~ influencer ~ complete with a paid-for apartment in Brooklyn and a coveted seat next to that icon of fashion herself, Anna Wintour. 

Viewed in a more charitable light, Gevinson’s is a cautionary tale of what happens when the line is erased between the image you portray on social media and who you are in real life. The absence of personal space in the service of promoting your ~ brand ~ online may seem like a new concept, but the dirty little secret buried in Gevinson’s cri de couer is as old as advertising itself. Don Draper told us in the first episode of Mad Men that advertising is based on a simple concept - happiness. And how did Gevinson monetize herself? By becoming a walking billboard for the time-honored belief that more materialism, more consumerism, and the accumulation of more stuff, will make you happy. The reproduced Instagram photos that accompany her story say it all - designer labels hash tagged against curated backdrops to fill you with that toxic mix of envy and desire; that what will make you happy is that hand bag; that designer dress; admission behind the velvet rope. Gevinson was happy to avail herself of all of it in an industry defined by its vacuousness and veneer.

That Gevinson realized, to quote Fiona Apple, “it’s all bullshit,” is unsurprising, but there is something particularly tone deaf about celebrities complaining about the trappings of their lifestyle. You might excuse all of this carping as the product of naivete or youth but Gevinson is no babe in the woods. It is clear that she sought celebrity from a young age, beginning her first fashion blog at the age of 11. That morphed into an online magazine entitled Rookie, that garnered the attention of names like Ira Glass and Jane Pratt and landed Gevinson in TIME magazine and Forbes before she was 15. She has leveraged that into (apparently?) acting gigs, a book deal, and movie roles. And of course, New York magazine handed its front cover and plenty of journalistic real estate for her to vent her spleen about the tradeoffs celebrity forced her to make. I do not buy it. Gevinson wants all the benefits that attend celebrity without any of the downside. I would like to be able to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Coffee Heath Bar Crunch ice cream without gaining any weight, but few things in life can be done without tradeoffs being made. 

Gevinson lost me long before the most telling part of her story. She shares a vignette from 2017, when, at a crossroads, she had an important decision to make. Her workload, combined with the pressure she felt from social media had her at a crossroads. Things were not working. Did she jettison her life in New York in her “spon con” apartment in Brooklyn? Give up rubbing shoulders with the celebrities she had met? Ditch Rookie or at least hand the editorial reins to someone else? No. She just outsourced her IG to a personal assistant and went along merrily with the stuff she wanted to keep - the book deal, the movie deal, the residual influence she wields on social media as proven by the invitation Instagram extends for her to visit their NYC office after Gevinson posts some snarky videos that garner attention. In other words, she put a human privacy filter between herself and the social media world that had handed her fame instead of ditching it all and starting from scratch. 

But by receding from public view, she simply created a new problem for herself - no longer being “seen.” She laments a drop in her follower count (not to mention a demographic shift from teens to <gasp> middle-aged women!) but claims she does not care. She rhapsodizes about the power of not constantly being on, of not extending her brand, but what is a front cover story like this other than an effort to extend her brand? It’s maddening. And, in a final bit of irony, when she visits Instagram’s office, Gevinson learns that the algorithm knows her better than she knows herself. Having become a multi-billion dollar company based on people curating a fake reality, the social media site is pivoting to encourage authenticity via hashtags like “no makeup,” “no filter,” and “mental health.” Gevinson, either pleased or horrified, notes that her essay has checked all their boxes. 


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Saturday, November 16, 2019

November 16

My day started at exactly 3:47 am when I was awakened by a familiar sound - Ghost aggressively grooming Pumpkin and her hissing at him when she got tired of him doing it. The rest of the situation played out as it always does - I roll over, growl "GUYS" to get them to stop going after each other, followed by Pumpkin jumping off the bed and me rolling over, trying to fall back asleep.

This morning, my efforts were only partly successful. I nodded off but just past 5, the alarm went off and away I went. I was at the diner (New Jersey's one redeeming quality, its diners and the wait staff that knows your "usual" without even having to look at a menu) by 5:30, back home by 6. Showered, back out the door, and at the grocery store by 7:30. A quick detour to the office to print out a reply brief that was filed late last night, and home by 9. A stop at the bank and the library also happened before 10 am and then it was taking stock of the newly refurbished sun room, cleaning what I could, trimming back some bushes in the back yard and back in the shower before noon.

Yes, all of this happened before 12:00 today. On the one hand, it feels great to be so productive, but on the other, it reminds of the saying that you should not confuse motion for progress. A lot of this is simply maintenance, wheel spinning in service of just keeping my little "non profit" that I call my life afloat for another day. 

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Friday, November 15, 2019

November 15

Well, it has been an expensive week. $6800 for the sun room (plus $300 in tips for the three guys who totally earned it by busting their ASSES), another $300 for a fence post that needed to be fixed, the monthly cable bill, and money for groceries. I also pay cash for everything. I sincerely believe that 10 years from now paper money will not exist, it will all be on cards and phones, and I will still be fishing dollar bills out of my wallet. It is one of the things that make me feel old. I remember making fun of my then-mother-in-law because she did not know how to use an ATM and would go to a bank teller to withdraw money, but I am getting to that point too. I know how to use an ATM, but I don't use a debit card, I do not have apps on my phone to pay for things, I still write checks to pay bills. It is like being frozen in time. 

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Thursday, November 14, 2019

November 14

I gave some additional thought to that "decade is almost over what have you done" meme. The reality is, I had an ok decade. If I look at the financial side, I earn 50% more than I did in 2010; my mortgage, which was $310,000 when the decade started is now just over $136,000 and I will probably pay it off before I retire. Speaking of retiring, if I continue on the path I am on, I will probably be able to hang it up at age 60 and still live comfortably for the rest of my life. I live (alone) in a four-bedroom house in a nice suburb. I am ~ comfortable ~ 

In the 2010s there was one day that I would include in a top 5 list of the best days of my life (of course, there are 2, maybe 3 I would include in the *worst* days of my life too ...) I achieved a great deal and yet I feel largely unfulfilled. I deny myself things or put off other things all the time. I want more of a social life; I *really* want to have someone in my life who cares about and supports me (and vice versa) and plus, I'm not a braggart, humility is my jam, so I do not go around beating my chest at how great I am. 

I don't know. Again, does any of this really matter? Does an arbitrary calendar date serve as a meaningful benchmark for where you are in life? 

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Wednesday, November 13, 2019

November 13

There is a tweet getting a lot of attention these days. It says, (paraphrasing) that with a month left in the decade, what have you done? I never respond to them, I assume tweets like this are just thirst traps by a different name or, data mining operations, but it is an interesting question to ponder. For people like me who are hard on themselves, who reject compliments or recognition, it is easy to dwell on all the things *you did not* do - I mean, I live my life like a virtual hermit, never travel, am stalled professionally, have only a few friends, and rarely date - and think, total failure. I wasted an entire DECADE getting to this point. GREAT JOB. More reasoned analysis would point to the promotions I received, the cases in which I prevailed, the generosity of spirit I have shown, my rock star turn as a cat dad and maybe say on balance, "good job." 

It all seems arbitrary anyway. Will the world look especially different on January 1, 2020 than it did on December 31, 2019? I get the idea of using new years as convenient points at which to pick up good habits, after all, I quit smoking on December 31, 1999, but I do not need a decade's end to do a self-polish on my personal (or professional) CV.

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Tuesday, November 12, 2019

November 12

Today, I did something very uncharacteristic. I work in a big office and there are people I run into from time to time. I don't necessarily know their names, but we exchange a quick wave or hello. One woman I see (but whose name I do not know) looks like the journalist Caitlin Huey-Burns (CHB)(I know, you need to be a deep-in-the-weeds political junkie to see someone and think "oh, she looks like a political reporter I see on TV). Anyway, I saw the CHB-look alike today and then went to see one of my friends who is a bit of an office busy body, like, she pretty much knows everyone. I pulled up a picture of CHB and asked if she knew the woman in our office who looks like her and whether she was single and/or into older Jewish men. My friend kinda knows her, but knows people who do, so wheels are in motion?

I don't know. Part of me feels a little creepy or weird about it, but to even express any interest in someone and make this kind of ask is *very* unlike me. Feels kind of pathetic and it took all of my energy just to broach the topic. It will probably not amount to anything, but that I did it is the important part.

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Monday, November 11, 2019

November 11

I got stood up (again). There must be something about me that makes other people look at me and think "yes, this is the kind of person I can just ignore and then cancel on at the last minute because he will keep trying to go out with me." And you know, what? Those people are right. I am a sap. I allow people to treat me like shit and come back for more. It's that awful combination of loneliness and desperation with a heavy dose of low self-esteem that must be like a bat signal for every woman within 50 miles of Princeton who wants someone to walk all over. Great, just fucking great.

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Sunday, November 10, 2019

November 10

If you had told me at the beginning of this year that I would do an on-the-fly remodel of my sunroom, pay cash for a new car, spend additional money on regrading and landscaping my backyard, and also lop 40 percent of the principle off my mortgage and still have a penny to my name, much less a healthy cushion of it, I would ask if New Jersey had legalized marijuana without my knowledge. Added together, it is more than one hundred thousand dollars. It is a sum of money I still struggle to get my head around, but here we are. I had good fortune shine down on me in this respect - an inheritance I did not expect and did not deserve - and yet, I feel not one bit happier; not one bit more content; not one bit better than before these things happened. I do not know that it is because money does not buy happiness or something deeper. Now that I am so ~ comfortable ~ maybe I should just scrap the normal dating and be a sugar daddy (that's a joke).

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Saturday, November 9, 2019

November 9

I was so burnt out from the ocean of work I did last week, I fell asleep on the couch last night at 7:30 PM. This morning, I was up bright and early because I needed to clean out my sun room. Today, a new ceiling is being put on, so all the furniture in it had to be taken out. I also took the liberty of raking more leaves, which I'm sure my neighbors were *thrilled* I was doing at like 6:30 AM. Fuck 'em. That sun room is more an annoyance than anything else. I rarely use it and it is like a mini money pit. I had to replace the roof a few years ago and now the ceiling. The prior owners of the house did not do a great job with it, so it has always had a leak, which I now also have to fix, plus the carpet is all messed up. When all is said and done, roof, ceiling, and (next spring) new carpet, it will probably be about $6,000 to tidy up a part of the house I almost never use. I may let P and G back out to it though. When they were indoor/outdoor, they used to chill out a lot in there, but it is so dingy now, I do not let them use it (plus, I do not want them getting any ideas about prowling outside).

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Thursday, November 7, 2019

November 7

I am getting *fat (* = over 150 lbs.) I have not been eating well lately (lots of junk food) and have been less than diligent with my work outs. It is the cruelty of aging - it gets harder and harder to maintain your fitness because your body cannot do the things it did when you were younger. I am still trying to avoid full dad bod, but man is it tough ...

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Wednesday, November 6, 2019

November 6

On my hustle today. Worked a long day, drafting a brief for a case I am working on. Days like this do fly by, but by the end of them, I am totally spent. Like, practically catatonic and incapable of basic thought or communication with other humans. 

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Tuesday, November 5, 2019

November 5

I made my yearly charitable donations today. I give money to animal shelters and soup kitchens, but honestly, it does not bring me any joy or sense of fulfillment. I believe in animal rescue. I believe in helping the less fortunate. But I also like the tax deduction. Does that make me a bad person? Are my motives impure? When I have talked to people I know about this, they suggest I volunteer instead. That the act of giving is more meaningful than simply writing a check. They might be right, but is it awful to say I value my time and I do not want to spend it volunteering? Why isn't money enough?

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Monday, November 4, 2019

November 4

I spent most of yesterday afternoon re-watching all the Nationals-related content I had recorded on my DVR. I re-watched Game 7 with a far greater appreciation for how brutal it was to watch AJ Hinch's one decision (replacing Greinke) snowball as he walked out to the mound over and over to replace his relievers while Gerrit Cole sat unmoving in the bullpen, Howie Kendrick golfing that low cutter out of the park and realizing he hit game-winning home runs in Game 5 versus the Dodgers and Game 7 versus the Astros, and the sweet relief when Hudson recorded that last out. It was also amusing to listen to the quick shift in tone of Joe Buck (the worst) and John Smoltz as the Nats took the lead in the seventh inning as well as the air being sucked out of the stadium. All of it.

I watched the MLB Network post-game with great amusement and a few tears in my eyes. The guys, cleared buzzed, coming out for interviews, the love they showed for each other, the consistent responses about being one of twenty-five, of yes, staying in the fight, all of the things that teamwork stand for. I watched the three-hour parade that happened on Saturday. It was broadcast on MLB but the coverage was local, which was nice. It made me feel a little part of home, the local businesses, the familiar landmarks, the thousands of fans bedecked in Curly Ws. There were clips from the playoffs, interviews with players, and all the rest. It was really lovely. I do love my team. 


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Sunday, November 3, 2019

The Washington Nationals Won The World Series

The first time I wrote about the Washington Nationals was back in 2012. The team was generating some buzz in spring training, but was thought to be a year away from contending. The Nats were young, a little brash, and ended up overachieving, posting 98 wins and the best record in the National League. They  entered a five-game divisional series against the St. Louis Cardinals expecting to make a deep run, maybe even to the World Series. The series was hard fought, and not without controversy, as the team had shut down Stephen Strasburg, still recovering from Tommy John surgery and on an innings limit. 

I still remember watching Game 5, or at least enough of it to hit "record" on the DVR and go to bed while the game was still going on, safe in the 6-1 lead we held and thinking I would just watch the inevitable victory the following morning. That ... did not happen. In fact, the Cardinals' comeback was the first of a succession of playoff failures that turned a deep and talented group into a jittery mess that would find new and inventive ways to throw up on themselves when the lights were brightest. In 2014, it was Jordan Zimmermann being pulled in the 9th inning of Game 1 against the Giants. In 2016, it was Clayton Kershew shutting down the Nats in relief in the deciding game. In 2017, it was Max Scherzer blowing up against the Cubs. Four division titles resulted in precisely zero trips to the NLCS, much less the World Series. 

Interspersed with those failures were the more pedestrian ones that happened in the off years. The Nats were always a World Series favorite, but in 2013 and 2015 they did not even make the playoffs, barely scratching out a .500 record while watching embarrassing episodes like reliever Jonathan Papelbon choking star right fielder Bryce Harper and a revolving door at manager, the skipper being replaced every couple of years in hopes of cracking the code to playoff success while lesser teams like the Kansas City Royals somehow figured out a way to win it all.

Speaking of Harper, his final season in D.C. was another example of the team’s well-earned reputation for underachieving. Handed a two-time defending division winner that had won 97 and 95 regular season games in the prior years, new manager Dave Martinez guided the team to a .500 record and they missed the playoffs. Harper alit for division foe Philadelphia and most baseball experts wrote off the Nats in favor of the deep and young Atlanta Braves or the Philly team that had just swiped DC's brightest star. The team's awful start (19-31) reinforced the belief that the team’s time had passed, that the proverbial window had closed on a team that had never reached its potential.

But then a funny thing happened. The team started to click. In fact that if you ignore that wobbly 50 game start, the Nats were the best team in baseball. Most observers cite the signing of Gerardo Parra (who had been cut by the San Francisco Giants) as the turning point for the season and there is no question the clubhouse dancing, the joy for the game, the Stras-sandwich (Parra and Anibal Sanchez swallowing the big right-hander in a group embrace), all of it was much different than prior years, when the team had a more stoic, business-like approach to the game. But there was more. The star turn of 20-year-old Juan Soto, the MVP-caliber play of third baseman Anthony Rendon, the solid core of veterans like Kurt Suzuki, Brian Dozier, and Matt Adams all played a part in the team’s resurgence. 

But here is the thing. Even as the team’s odds to make the playoffs skyrocketed to “mortal lock” level, I expected the other shoe to drop because it always did. I carried two incompatible thoughts in my head - that the Nats were a great regular season team that would break my heart in the playoffs. I lowered my expectations. I resisted the Trea Turner "I Love My Team" tweets, the Baby Shark fad, all of it. Which meant this playoff run was more torture than celebration. Even after the late game comeback against the Brewers. Even after the back-to-back home runs by Soto and Rendon in Game 5 against Kershaw and the Kendrick grand slam that  (finally) sent the team to an NLCS. Even after Sanchez's gem against the Cardinals and the sweep that happened a few days later. Up 2-0 against the Astros, I reevaluated my skepticism just in time to watch the Astros win all three games in D.C. "A HA. THERE IT IS." I thought. Finally, *there* was the team that would break my heart. Again, I turned to rationalization. Making the World Series was good enough. Winning two games against a 107-win team was nothing to be ashamed of, but my heart ignored what my eyes had seen all of October - a team that refused to quit.  

There was a glimmer of hope. I suspected Strasburg would deal in Game 6 because I remember an even more iconic game that is unfortunately forgotten to Nats history - his elimination game performance against the Cubs in 2017. There, on a rainy and windy 50 degree day in Chicago, Strasburg threw 7 innings of three-hit, shut out ball to force a deciding Game 5. And while he got off to a bumpy start against the Astros in Game 6, the Cardiac Nats came through again. 

Writers better than me have already waxed philosophical about the stunning Game 7, the unlikeliest of outcomes had actually happened. A team that never advanced out of a divisional series had come back, time and again, late and behind against the best teams in all of baseball, and conquered them all. When I think back on the Nats’ title run, that is what amazes me. The gut punches the Nats always seemed to take, they turned around and inflicted on their foes. Whereas in prior years, a wonky call, like the one against Trea Turner in Game 6, would cascade into defeat, this year, the team brushed it off. 

The World Series title was also validation for Mike Rizzo’s work. The team he assembled, the high priced free agents (Scherzer, Corbin), the home grown talent (Zimmerman, Strasburg, Soto, Robles, Rendon), the players we practically stole from other teams (Turner), and the spare parts that no one else wanted (Kendrick, Parra) all came together. Due credit to Dave Martinez, whose head I and many others wanted on a spike outside Nats Park, and proved us all wrong; whatever mojo he had cooking worked. 

The Nats have always been an easy team to root for. When they were a team of misfit toys like Elijah Dukes and Lastings Miledge, of John Patterson and Nick Johnson, it was enough that baseball had returned to our hometown. As the team grew more competitive, bulldogs like Jordan Zimmermann and Wilson Ramos were character guys you could not help but like. Free agents breezed through (a fwaaaa shout out to Daniel Murphy) and unlike a certain owner of another Washington sports team, the Lerners usually fell on the right line of signing the checks as opposed to meddling in personnel decisions (we will just pretend the Rafael Soriano signing that crushed Drew Storen’s spirit never happened). 

I think a lot about the Nats. From the hot stove, through spring training, and the six months of the season, the team is never far from my mind. I still have a clipping from the team’s first game at RFK, Livan Hernandez in mid wind-up, those gaudy, gold-trimmed uniforms not yet making way to the cleaner red-white-and-blue and Curly W combination. The cursed words I have muttered and the joy I have experienced watching something as trivial as a well-turned double play or a slider that drops off the table. I can still tell you where I was when Strasburg debuted on June 8, 2010 against the Pirates and when he tore his UCL a few months later. I’ve read more rose-tinted Boswell columns than I can remember and spent most of this year listening to Kornheiser’s kvelling at the never-quite-right bullpen. 

I think about Ryan Zimmerman a lot too. He was the team’s first pick in 2005, an accomplished third baseman 75 miles away at the University of Virginia - practically a home town boy. Zim came of age with the Nats. As a slick fielding third baseman with a flair for the dramatic walk off home run he played the game the right way, a professional on and off the field. I watched his fortunes fall as injuries and a bad case of the throwing yips relegated him to a part-time role as first baseman. He was with the team when it was a 100-loss basement dweller and a near-100 win regular season juggernaut. Zimmerman was the first Nat to hold the NL trophy after they clinched the pennant and he was on the field when the final swing and miss of the World Series delivered D.C. it’s first baseball championship in 95 years. I was thrilled for him more than anyone else. 

I cried a lot watching the Nats this post season. I know that also sounds stupid, but there is a bond between a team and its fans that can cause that type of reaction. Mostly, they were tears of joy. Watching clubhouse celebrations, trophies being lofted above heads, hugs all around. I yelled and screamed and did all the stuff you do when there is something irrationally important to you that is impossible to explain to someone not similarly invested. My team won. Finally.


Follow me on Twitter - @scarylawyerguy 

Saturday, November 2, 2019

November 2

Apropos of a post I put up a few days ago .... I was supposed to get together last night with, oh, let's call her Rachel, who I had been out with twice in the last week or so. Around 5:30, she texted to tell me she could not make it because her dog had fallen ill and she had to take care of him. No, if I "default to trust," I should just accept this at face value, and not assume this was some last-minute alibi because she is, in fact, not interested in going out with me. But ... in the dating world of the 2010s, these types of 11th hour cancellations are almost *always* the latter and not the former. So what do I do? Do I ignore that fact, reschedule, or just watch as the ghosting spectre rears its head and move on to the next potential partner? This is (one of the reasons) I hate dating.

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Friday, November 1, 2019

November 1

The Nats won the World Series. The Nats won the World Series. I have a lot more to say about this, but I am so freaking busy it will need to wait until this weekend. For now, I am quite pleased.

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