Field Reports, Writing

Base Report: Sitting Edition

The day began with watching D2: The Mighty Ducks while lying on the couch icing my back which hurts from sitting. (The irony is great.)

In D2, the big enemy is Iceland. That’s refreshing. They don’t even bother trying to have accents. They just dress in black and have a menacing leit motif. I appreciate the absence of Russia as much as I appreciate the presence of “Whoomp There It Is.”

My back began feeling better so I felt able to progress to the first chair of the day. I went with the brown one so I could check my completely fake universe fantasy baseball team. The Huckleberry Row Jackrabbits are having their worst season this week. As I write this, they are 24-49. So it’s not all that fun to look at or play with. But I tinker anyway, ignoring everything I know about small sample sizes. Perhaps that’s why some teams make such dumb decisions. Maybe their primary decision maker has a partially collapsed lung and is bored.

From there I moved onto my puzzle. I started doing a puzzle. I hate puzzles. I will do math brain teasers and logic puzzles and word finds until the end of time. But jigsaw puzzles are not a favorite hobby. Some might say it’s a lack of patience. I don’t know what it is. All I know is that I’m now doing one. I sit on my piano bench for this. I do it until Colonel brings me a bowl of Werther’s Originals and my compression stockings.

General Shirley wanted to “do” something for me. I suggested she bring Mabe’s pizza and do a drop on the doorstep. She signed up for that mission immediately.

In the meantime, I received word that I am negative for COVID which is reassuring from a systematic/societal perspective. It does not reinflate my lung but at least I’m not contagious.

I tried to clean up the house a bit. I shaved my other leg. [Yesterday, I shaved my right leg which was about how long I could stay upright in the shower. If you’ve never tried shaving only one leg, I’d highly suggest it as a strange 24-hour sensation.] I organized my new minor league hats. [I have a mustached Lexington Legends hat. And the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. Their hat has only a strip of BACON on it. BACON!]

I returned to the family room and sat in the glider rocker and read for a bit. Mostly, I had to sit because organizing my hats was too much exertion. I keep making fun of myself, like I’m just that fat or out of shape. It’s unnerving, though, running out of breath that quickly. [It is also unnerving that I can’t sleep very well because my body is only exerting itself to breathe. My muscles aren’t tired. I miss working.]

The Generals arrived and we had a lovely socially distanced conversation. Colonel hadn’t seen them since Christmas. I hadn’t seen them since March 5. It is amazing to realize how much I miss people that I really didn’t see all that often. They brought pizza and homemade cookies and our spirits were lifted. Also the dogs have never acted happier to see any human beings than the way they responded to The Generals’ arrival.

They left so I went back to my puzzle and turned on Back to the Future which helped me concentrate. Then I maneuvered into the front room to read some more. That one is a green chair. Exciting.

I put on Back to the Future II and I wondered for the first time if Doc Brown ever considered just killing Marty since Marty can’t do even the basic things like “stay by the car so Old Biff doesn’t time travel” and “don’t let Jennifer see her older self.”

Then it occurred to me that the alternate 1985 looked a little more like the current 2020. Everyone had guns. Everyone was angry. Scientists were being committed instead of listened to. And the only person with power was a narcissistic sociopath (with a bunch of white goons defending him) who built an ugly eyesore of a casino, had terrible hair, was openly cheating on his wife in a hot tub while the wife was nearby, and did not come by his money honestly.

Hello, 1985? Is this you?

I’m watching Back to the Future III from the orange chair. It’s important to have different perspectives, y’know?

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