Mark@marktrble.com
Pandemic
Journal August 7, 2020
Tommy
West on this week. My husband, Logan Matthews, will be back next week. He’s out
of town testifying for some state legislature. Actually, he’s with one of the
league’s lawyers who’s testifying before some state legislature. Logan’s the legal
errand boy, looking up stuff and finding answers for the lawyer.
They’re
in either Michigan or New York, or maybe New Jersey. One of the states that
voted for emergency authorities for the state’s governors. So, the governors
make up the rules as they go and there’s nothing for the legislatures to do.
They get bored, and hold hearings. Sometimes they run out of ideas for what to
investigate, so they’ll make shit up. This one was about racial bias in the NBA
against Asians. No joke. Asians are under-represented in the league, but not by
much. People forget that Indians and Koreans are Asian, they’re only looking
for Japanese and Chinese. Anyway, it’s going well, and so several other state
legislatures are holding hearings on the same topic. Logan’s going to be out of
town a lot this summer.
Hockey,
Basketball, Women’s Basketball all playing this week, but everybody is still
locked down because of this pandemic. Frankly, I don’t see it. I read the
papers about hospitalization, complications and death rates, and if you’re
under 50 you’re almost guaranteed not to get real sick or even need to go to
the hospital with it. If you’re over 70, you’re almost guaranteed to have a problem. There are exceptions, but you’ve really just got to go with
the numbers.
I’ve
started a new hobby – whittling. You’d think while I was living in the middle
of nowhere, with fallen branches and twigs all around me, I’d have started
then, not after moving into a high-rise in a big city. Well, you’d be wrong.
Hagenbush – Greg Hagenbush – was a new addition, and had begun teaching us to
whittle. He was a country boy, unsophisticated, didn’t ever play ball. I figured
him for some VIP’s idiot nephew who’d been given a job in the front office
counting paperclips.
I was
only half right. The General Manager’s son had spent the last several months in
Arkansas, on a sort of domestic Peace Corps assignment, teaching locals to
read. Hagenbush was one of his students, 25 years old; the son was 24. They
spent a lot of time together, became close, and the son noticed something strange
about his new friend. He could look at complex movements involving a group,
whether a basketball team, a football team, a flock of chickens, a huge flock
of birds, or a herd of cattle, and describe what they were going to do next. He
also did math in his head. Like multiplying two six-digit numbers, or saying
what day of the week a date would be a thousand years from now. Scary.
Anyway,
Hagenbush worked in the front office as a statistician. Not a usual one – I know
enough to do most of the basics – but one who could instantly develop complex
algorithms involving a level of calculus I’d never achieve, and just knowing
the answer. He spends eight hours a day reviewing game tapes. Logan watched
some tapes with him, and said that Hagenbush did what he did on the court to
call plays, just better. He had moved into the second bedroom in Deeann’s apartment.
Antoine was teaching him how basketball worked, so he could describe things in
basketball terms.
So, we’re
learning to whittle. The GM’s son, who I think is named Avery or something,
brought in a bunch of wood – sticks, branches, whatever. The first thing we
were supposed to make was a fish hook. I took a small piece of wood and a
pocket knife and just stared at them. Hagenbush told us to cut away all the
parts that didn’t look like a fish hook. Not real helpful. Then he showed us
how to use a squared piece of wood to start with the end of the hook in the
corner. I did that, and was able to get something that looked like a Goth
piercing. Close enough. Then we were supposed to finish almost closing the
circle, leaving enough room for a fish to get its lips around the hook (don’t
ask about fish lips; Deeann did, and it got pretty ugly). We did that. I was
sitting between Avery and Deeann and kept looking at theirs to see if I was
doing it right. We had three different shapes going there at one time.
By the
end of an hour, Hagenbush had made five fish hooks; Avery had made a ring;
Deeann had made a unicorn horn, just without the unicorn; I had made something
that vaguely resembled a fish hook; and Becca won first place with a perfectly
shaped small penis. She spent the rest of the evening sliding it in and out of
her mouth while teasing Ralph. Next week we’re supposed to do an animal. I can’t
decide between a worm and a clam.
