Thinking about badminton rackets

And other weird, random thoughts

Happy New Year, everyone! I’m working against a writing deadline (for a revised paperback of my gender as a choose-your-own-adventure book, so that’s exciting), which means a shorter newsletter this morning, full of random thoughts. Please do subscribe if you haven’t (it’s free) and keep on liking, sharing, commenting. Writing the newsletter every week takes time and effort and I’m happy to be paid in love and appreciation, just a little sign that I’m not writing into the void.

Sports joy and sorrow

Yesterday, my Bengals beat the Chiefs, which for those non-NFL fans among you, is a very big deal. A bit of a David and Goliath story, but I had faith that the Bengals could do it, even if for most of the franchise’s history, we’ve been the poster child for sports failure. And not cool sports failure like the Cubs, but the humiliating, picked-on in junior high sort of failure.

It was a close and exciting game, so if you walked by the house around 4-ish yesterday, you might have heard Jeff and I screaming, “Kick the fucking field goal!” at the top of our lungs, while we jumped up and down in front of the TV. If you’re not a sports fan, this might sound crazy. But it’s exactly what I love about sports. There is joy and there is sorrow but there are almost no consequences. It is cathartic joy and sorrow. A playful joy and sorrow. If the Bengals had lost, I would have been sad, but not Kyle Rittenhouse getting off free sort of sad. Not Roe vs. Wade being overturned kind of sad. Just, crap, the Bengals still suck, kind of sad. In a world so dark, there’s something very satisfying about sports joy and sorrow.

Endemic is a state of mind

My favorite New York Times newsletter was about the pandemic this morning but was titled, “Reason for Hope.” This is probably why the newsletter is my favorite. They lay out some cause for optimism with a handful of charts and predict that next New Year’s will be better because the pandemic will have become endemic.

I’m inclined to believe this because I’ve found myself strangely optimistic throughout the pandemic. Like, really, I’m optimistic? That’s weird. But I guess I would add that endemic is a state of mind. Yes, covid-19 is still scary, especially if you are unvaccinated or are more vulnerable due to age or medical conditions. Yes, people still die. But this winter is not the same as last winter. We do have vaccines and they do make a difference. They were never going to keep us from getting sick at all, because that’s not how most vaccines work. We also have antiviral pills that work for covid, including against omicron. We are in better shape now than we were a year ago.

But during the pandemic (and I would argue even before, during those four nightmare years of the Trump presidency) panic, fear and anxiety became habits for us. So did doom-scrolling. And expecting the worst. Anger and outrage and a feeling of helplessness, mixed with this weird certainty that bothers the hell out of me. Those all became habits. For the pandemic to really become endemic, we’ll have to break those habits. We’ll have to start believing that most of us can go about living our lives even in the face of covid still existing. It will become an acceptable risk, like driving your car, which is a fairly dangerous thing most of us do on a daily basis.

Habits are hard to break. It takes conscious effort. I don’t know what it’s going to take for a lot of us to break these fear habits, but here’s hoping 2022 is the year we get it done.

Finding peace

Here’s a new habit I’ll be trying to form in 2022—peace. No, not the global kind. Just everyday inner peace. For me that means refusing to let all the outside bullshit (that’s a big category that includes the news, but also work bullshit, family bullshit, politics bullshit, etc.) disturb my inner landscape. It means staying in my lane, doing less comparing myself to others. It’s also worrying less about people’s judgements of me (and not judging other people). Peace is working on the home that is my body, mind and spirit. That’s all very abstract, but what it looks like right now is picturing a small, feisty child inside my head, armed with a badminton racket, who tirelessly bats away all the thoughts that disturb my inner peace.

What’s your guiding word for 2022?

Great fun was had at the second winter writing workshop last Tuesday. Check out this story from WKMNews, which includes footage of our improv fun. The next workshop is coming up faster than you think, on Tuesday, January 25. We’ll be working on, appropriately enough, writing habits, focusing on how to make writing or creativity a habit in 2022. Check it out and get your tickets here.

Thanks as always for reading and subscribing and liking and commenting and sharing!