You know, I’ve often wondered if you could quantify the feeling of pure joy. Now, is joy a continuum? Is there just a zero-to-ten joy ranking that is applied to every moment of your life, and where you rank on it at the moment is the definite level of joy that you’re feeling? Or is it more of an Einstein-style relativity deal? Can you feel what you then perceive to be the highest level of joy (pegging the ol’ joy meter, if you will) over something as trivial as a mid-summer baseball game, watched only through the clouded mists of the internet as you continually click “refresh” on the Yahoo!!11! Sports live box score, and not feel guilty knowing that you may have just been as happy as you were, for instance, on your wedding day? In this purely hypothetical situation, would it further be possible to suggest that the reason for your perceived (i.e., “relative”) joy was because you were, theoretically, in the middle of some theoretical paperwork for your hypothetical job, which you hypothetically hate with a theoretical passion, and, theoretically, were ready to stab yourself in the hypothetical eye with a theoretical Bic ballpoint pen just to make the pain, such pain, like a white hot nova behind your retina, end? That the rush of joy, the flood of endorphins, was simply a result of the emotional whiplash that you were subjected to? That the high seemed higher only relative to what you’d been experiencing up to that point?
If that’s the case, then when the Cubs win the 7th game of the World Series this year, I hope I’m being audited by the IRS.
It is thus that I begin this, The Week That Was. As Follows:
Movers and Shakers
Again! With the no trading! You people are killing me!
TOP PERFORMERS
I believe this:
and this:
Say enough.
TOP PERFORMERS: AT SUCKING
Have you ever been in this situation? Just, see if this sounds familiar. You’re in the store and there are 15 or 30 different brands of a product, let’s say, I don’t know, maybe stool softener. You don’t know which one is the best, you only know that you’ve put on 18 lbs in the past week and haven’t had a decent BM since before Fake Steve was relevant.
This is all theoretical, mind you.
Anyway, you don’t know what’s best, so you grab 3 or 4 of them and head home, shoving the bottles or boxes of stool softener deep into the hidden pockets of your shoplifting trench coat.
Time passes. Yet another breakfast of crustless white bread and raw cheese is eaten. Nothing happens.
So you head back to the Land That Walton Built, your trusty “shopping cart” on your shoulders, and pick another couple brands off the shelf, figuring that you must have just picked the wrong brands, or combination of brands, and that this time your selection would be smack on.
Time passes. The bologna and sour cream bisque sits cold in your dinner bowl.
You find yourself again at Wal-Mart, this time on your lunchbreak from work. Again wearing a trenchcoat in the middle of summer, again with the horrible distention of your midsection. You grab another half-dozen boxes, this time not even bothering to hide the fact that you’re stealing them, so eager are you for relief. You rush back to work, gnawing at the packaging while you’re still in the car, not wanting to waste even a second.
Time passes. You fear the worst, as again nothing seems to happen. But then, there is a horrible gnawing at your intestines. A veritable tsunami is brewing, one that will threaten to engulf any and every living thing in its path. You gather the strength to rise from your desk, shoving your lunch of pudding and boiled eggs aside, and make your way to the bathroom, but the the cramps in your stomach, and the realization that if you were to unclench your butt cheeks you would possibly kill a man, makes you walk with a hunched limp, as though Igor was suffering from gout. You semi-successfully make it to the men’s room, thinking abstractly about the tensile strength of tighty whitey underwear, and into a stall. “Take that,” you scream in triumph, your voice a high-pitched, ragged thing, like the sound of a soul dying. You’re overcome with joy, your heart is full of song, and you literally burst forth with music.
Well, that’s kind of what it’s like in the 1/2 season league right now. Mr. Berry is desperately trying to make a move, but regardless of what he pulls off the shelf, seems lodged where he is. Keep it up, Pat. Before you know it, you’ll be greasing your way to the top.
BASEBALL, RAY
The Cubs are a .500 team. You have no idea how excited I am to say that. Winners of 8 of their last 9, they just took 2 of 3 from the hated and doomed to failure Milwaukee Brewers to trim a full game off the league lead. More importantly, they’ve moved up several games in the wildcard standings, and are now a mere 5 back from the Dodgers. Exciting times, folks, exciting times. Frankly, I haven’t followed any other team. I’ve been too excited.
FIN
And that…was The Week That Was.