(This blog was written on October 9th but I forgot to post it.)

 

I did something yesterday that I haven’t done in years…I spent the whole day watching tv. 

I awoke in a funk, a leftover dream perhaps, an unsettled feeling, like a slight nausea wafting around the kitchen. Lori was getting ready to drive to Banff to spend a few days with her daughter. I got coffee and settled in to CBS Sunday Morning; it was 6:00 am. 

Sunday Morning is an arts and letters show and not at all a bad thing for a man in a funk…but it only lasts for ninety minutes…and then comes what is usually my single weekly indulgence in news saturation…my thigh-slapping, tooth-gnashing rehash of the weeks best trump antics…or trumpantics.  

(trum pan' tix): noun:  bizarre, or unintelligible behaviour by an American president. 

Yesterday morning, however, the screen was full of images of screaming people running for cover, of guns scattered on a hotel room floor, of talking heads describing what happened or opining on what would or would not be done re the Las Vegas horror of the previous weekend. 

Aagggh…not great for a guy in a funk...but habits die hard. 

Lori was leaving so I helped her load out, kissed her goodbye and continued to consume the grim rehash without even a handful of trumpantics for levity.

As per my habit, I hung in to the bitter end wrapping up my Sunday news-fest with Fareed Zakaria on CNN…still in funk…an even funkier funk than the before funk, thanks to my greedy intake of pain and suffering. 

I had planned to spend part of the day writing this blog but couldn’t even think about it…couldn’t get myself going at all. 

'So fuck it!' I say, 'I’m just going to have a toke and watch football! '

So I did…all day. 

I grazed from game to game looking for the close ones and marvelling at the magnificent physical specimens so enthusiastically pulverizing each other for the edification of the eighty-thousand or so cheering football freaks present in each and every gigantic American stadium…and the millions of other me’s lounging in front of tv screens all over the continent. Even when I moved away from the tv to get some lunch the sound of Sunday Afternoon Football filled the house...a comforting sound...carefree...an autumn sound on a gorgeous autumn day. 

Sometime around mid-afternoon I went outside, took a big lungful of crisp, fresh air, looked out over the lake and realized that I was at ease...the funk had flown somewhere in the middle of the second half of game one. All this lead me to conclude that watching football is much better for ones mental health than watching the news. Well goody goody! So I got a glass of wine, a tray of cheese and crackers and settled in to game two. There was an hour break after that one which I filled with '60 Minutes' and then returned to the Sunday Night game. Whew! That's a lot of punts, passes and penalties...not to mention a dozen or so car commercials and a stream of grim warnings about obnoxious viruses that might be lurking in my aging bloodstream. 

But football wasn’t the end of it. I was feeling somewhat punchy but had a hankering for some popcorn so I made some and put on a movie which I struggled to stay awake for (but I do have a vague recollection of an unsatisfactory ending). 

And that wrapped it…my marathon tv day. 

I had made it…I had done it…I had watched at least fifteen solid hours of tv. 

Whew! 

Men do such weird things when left home alone all day.

I’ll have to tell Lori... 

or maybe not.