Rocket Science, Brain Surgery and Hockey?

Statistics conquer the NHL. The Geeks win the Stanley Calcuator

I know this far off any topic I've ever written on, but I'm a hockey fan, a long-suffering Blues fan. My addiction to the game goes back to when the St. Louis Blues entered the NHL in the 1960s, when the league doubled in size. The Blues went to the Stanley Cup Finals three years in a row. Remarkable for an expansion team, right? Not really. 

That Indelible Feeling

I felt depressed last night. My mind kept replaying a past I wanted to forget. I couldn't get to sleep. Then I finally got to sleep, and I couldn't get up. Then I could get up, but stayed in bed anyway. I just didn't want to face the world. I'm lonely, my novel is still dragging on, and I'm damn tired of winter.

But my mind kept replaying a past I wanted to forget. That got me out of bed. It was 10:30, that's late for me these days. My plans dashed, I decided to do nothing else but write today. Fiction, mostly. Turns out to be a good day to cancel everything. It snowed. Looks to be a good three inches out there.

I guess the death in the family was part of it. Tomorrow's also my late mother's birthday. It brings up regrets: her mental illness, and the impossible reconciliation. The main bad memory last night was of my mother giving me a surprise gift, a Red Skelton Show collection because when I was eight, I liked the Red Skelton. However, my attitude had changed. Unprepared, I physically cringed at it. And I mean, it was a surprise, and my response was so overt, immediate and surprising to me that I couldn't hide it. It was like I became a Seinfeld character. And there was no way to recover from it.

I wanted to tell her I'm not that eight-year old anymore and can never be him again, even long enough to get through a single Red Skelton monologue. But I didn't say that. I just let my rudeness stand. I feel like such a louse. 

But how could I have explained it to her? The problem was, the eight-year old she thought she had then wasn't that child either. She saw me sitting enthralled in TV shows like Red Skelton. And I would talk about them because I had nothing else to talk about. I would pretend they were funny, I would try to enjoy them, yet I couldn't understand a lot of the humor. When I did, it wasn't funny.

I wasn't watching it because I thought it funny. What was going on around the TV with Red Skelton playing was actual so awful that the only thing I could do  was stare at something superficial and detach my mind. So, it wasn't Red Skelton exactly, it was environment around it I'm reminded of with the show. However, it does make his outdated comedy, never first-rate at the time, just twice as bad.  

She was a large part of that environment, being mentally ill and abusive. I live in fear of her. I'm certain she didn't want to go there; she never did, and I didn't either. So, rather than going near a topic both of us would find land-mined, I let my severe insult stand.  

And the moment feels indelible.

Hazy Shades

Yesterday I was informed of a death in my family, a first cousin on my Mom's side. I'm waiting for information on the funeral and visitation. My aunt and uncle already lost their oldest son. The grief for them must be infinite. It's not a cousin I was well-acquainted with, but I hate to say most of those cousins have passed away.

I remember when the millennium turned thinking that 21st century was going to suck, if only because my family had been very fortunate up until then. We had a big, fairly-close, extended family who used to get together four times a year, and we didn't have many deaths, other than among grandparents, which were bad enough, but which were pretty much expected. We were so lucky.

But luck always runs out. I'm surprised we had such a long run of it. Deaths began to occur immediately when the millennium turned, first among uncles, two within a month. Then not two months after that, a cousin died. His was a long struggle. He had a congenital heart condition, got a transplant, but the immune-suppressors caused Hodgkins' Disease. He beat that, but died from a complication of the chemo-therapy. His was the only one that was prolonged. Then my oldest nephew passed away from suicide, a hard death for me to face. Then three male cousins, all first born in their families, died off. One was a total surprise, another fell ill but nobody thought it was life-threatening, one from a drunk driver. The latter was the only one who had children, on my father's side of the family and he had seven.

The first-born in my extended family are not faring well at all. They have the "Pharaoh's curse." I happen to be the first-born in my family.

But I know that's all luck. Still, I think my family has had it really rough since 2000 in terms of casualties of my generation, who are just in their fifties.

It's not only for that reason that the millennium has sucked. Politically the nation began to look very bleak in 2001, and you what I'm talking about there. Besides GWB, the political crazies stopped being just crazy and started to be a burden, or even a threat to the nation. We've had war without end, a terrible economy, and the prospects for the nation and world, with Global Warming, do not look good.

I never thought at the time that I'd think of the '70s and '90s as the good ol' days, but both personally and worldwide, they were. During the '70s I had too many personal problems to enjoy, but I did enjoy some times in the '90s.

If only we were better informed, and not by a medium committed to something other than selling us something (I'm talking about TV.) My generation without a doubt is the most fortunate in the whole history of the Earth, up until 2000. That's called "regression to the mean," and it's not only mean, it's a bitch.

Basement Unlocked. Bicycle Stolen

The problem with getting in to the basement was resolved with a few twists and turns. For all last week I didn't hear from the neighbor (I'll call him G) whose guest was responsible. I was using tepid water because I couldn't turn up my heater. I went to buy a lock, knowing we had to have something on the door after we cut that one off. I found they were too expensive, at least the ones I found at the hardware store. I'm sure I could have found another cheap one at target. I went back to G. Follow the jump for the rest of the story.